Mundus Cerialis

by Sharon Bidwell

  “I’m innocent. Listen to me, oui? I didn’t kill…”

  The distance whittled down from twenty feet to ten, then half that distance again. Arnaud prepared to swing…and jerked back startled by the appearance of something large and lumbering coming at him from the side. He had time to take in the muscular shape of a man with dark brown leathery skin, dark eyes, black wet snout, tusks protruding over both upper and lower lips. Horns, long and curved projected from the sides of the head, and he could see markings on both horn and flesh. Then…the beast blew out a breath that flared the nostrils and gave Arnaud the impression of a bull charging. Time slowed so that he saw that breath frost out on the cooler air, and the ears twitched. Then the creature turned, the movement sure and swift, limber, graceful—the kind of move one would expect a dancer to make. Or a trained warrior.

  Shock registered in Cadogan’s eyes, even before a large hand closed about his throat. Arnaud took a step, not knowing what he could do when the creature lifted Cadogan off his feet. Body dangling, the miner made a vain attempt to pry the fingers from his throat, even as his eyes began to roll back to show the whites, gurgling noises spilling from his mouth. One squeeze and snap. Arnaud winced, at once grateful still to be alive, sorry for the man, afraid of what might happen next.

  Then something hit him in the back of the head and knocked him flat on his face. The strange sand puffed up around him, getting into his eyes, his nose, his mouth, clogging his airways, making him cough and blink. While he fought to gather his wits, he heard shouts, cries, much snorting. By the time he could see again the only thing to fill his vision was a cloven hoof. A moment later, and he got his wish—the white went away, and everything turned dark.

  6.

  WHAT WAS THAT noise? Arnaud shifted in his sleep. Much pounding in his head—far more severe than earlier—made him huddle down and for a short while the world went away again.

  His peace was broken by the sound of a shout, something snapping, a scream… Some urgency stirred Arnaud to movement, but pain made him reject the idea. He recalled…peril, but for now the thought remained vague as did everything around him. He knew he lay upon a hard surface—possibly the ground—but he could not feel it as much as he ought. It was as if a smothering layer existed between him and…everything. The most he managed after a few minutes was to move one hand enough to touch the side of his head from where the pain seemed to originate. He flinched, or attempted to, when he felt the size of the bump. The pain of the surrounding bruise flared but he felt it at a distance. He heard…

  “The Frenchie’s alive then.” The voice was male, quite light.

  Another, deeper voice replied, “Good. At least he’ll face the same.”

  The first spoke again. “But what if he’s…”

  “What?”

  “You know. Innocent?”

  Arnaud waited for the answer—the topic was important; he just couldn’t recall why—but none came. He waited, or thought he did, but realised he had gone away again. The question was how long. This time, memory returned with awareness. The chase. The ice jungle. The lake. Beasts.

  Arnaud bolted upright…or imagined so. Instead, when he finally managed to pry one eyelid open, it was to discover he lay in some type of cave. Enough light filtered in through holes in the ceiling and the opening to see by.

  Had the men captured him, dragged him back to the tunnel? How long had he been out for? What of the beasts he had seen?

  All good questions, and he had another one. What was that sound?

  With one hand braced against the ground, he managed to lift his head enough to gaze around.

  The first thing he saw was a row of spears against one wall. In front of them one of the bull-type creatures stood, arms folded. He recalled the appearance of the skin in the light—thick like hide. Muscles bulged and on a man, Arnaud might have been able to admire the effect. A narrow strip encircled the waist from which two flaps of—fabric? Skin?—hung providing modesty both front and back. More strips covered the forearms and calves. His first thought was minotaur, but the markings—what appeared to be tattoos and even purposely imposed scars—looked tribal.

  That sound again, thick and…wet. Compelled to look but with some instinct telling him he wasn’t going to like what he saw, Arnaud slowly turned his head.

  The sight refused to unveil itself. He saw but his mind refused to see the picture as complete. There was blood, and bone, and flesh, and hair, and entrails…but these things alone refused to coalesce to form men.

  He had lain down again, but he couldn’t remember when. Bile burned the back of his throat but he had not the energy to be sick. He couldn’t move—too weak—and even if he made it to the cave entrance he had less chance escaping these creatures than he had the men.

  He hoped, when they came for him, it would be quick. Unable to change the events happening around him and determined not to die with nothing but terror in mind, he tried to conjure up a pleasant image. He was only a little surprised when the face of Nathanial popped into mind. What would the beasts would think when they came for him and found him smiling?

  Chapter Three

  “Icy Reception”

  1.

  AFTER ALMOST FOUR weeks of seeing nothing outside but the star-spangled blackness of space, Annabelle found herself looking at the off-white surface of Ceres with anticipation. Very few travelled this far out, mostly because the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter was as far as a solar boiler could take them. Even now, barely an hour away from Ceres, she could feel Esmeralda protesting around her, the pressure level in the boiler was as low as it had ever been. It was sufficient for flight, but the Esmeralda 2 was moving at a sluggish pace. For most aether travellers there was nothing of interest beyond Mars, unless mining was something they enjoyed. The asteroid belt was a rich source of minerals, and scientific research. She remembered many stories her uncle had told her of the mysteries surrounding the lost planet of Vulcan, which was now survived by the thousands of asteroids that made up the belt.

  Personally she had little interest in the asteroid belt. Mining had never been an interest of hers; even as a child her father’s stories of the gold mines had held little fascination. Stories of Red Indians had appealed to her much more—until they had turned horribly real. But she knew they needed Arnaud’s experience, which meant a trip to Ceres was necessary. Folkard was still not entirely convinced, but she had regaled him with tales of Arnaud’s bravery on Mercury, and his role in solving the mystery of Hermes. She wasn’t certain it had helped convince the captain, but he had grumbled less about it in the past two weeks. Which was something at least.

  The tension on the flyer was fraught enough as it was.

  Nathanial was as far away from Annabelle as he could be—both literally and figuratively. He was in the engine room with Mister Fenn, assisting in preparations for planet fall… Not that Ceres was classed as a planet any longer, of course, but Annabelle had argued that since it had gravity and an eco-system of some kind, she would consider it a planet whether the astronomers agreed or not—it seemed every conversation with Nathanial ended in debate at the moment, Annabelle reflected. She never went to him with the intention of fighting, but ever since his revelation after leaving Mercury she found she just didn’t know how to speak to him.

  Truth always conveys its own moral to those who are able to receive it. She had read that somewhere, but what was the moral here?

  It hurt her knowing that he had shown no consideration of her during her incarceration in London, yet she knew he had had his own troubles with which to contend. Was she being selfish, expecting her own problems to be of more concern to him than his own? If not more, then they should have least been some concern. After all, despite being locked up in the Tower of London, and then spending some time as a prisoner in Dorset House, she never once forgot about Nathanial and had even sought George’s help in finding out about Nathanial’s wellbeing.

  No, she decided, she was not wrong for feeling
abandoned by him. Nathanial should have made more effort, especially after all they had been through since Peregrine.

  She turned from her position at the heliograph station and looked at Folkard, who was strapped in his seat, one hand on the ratchet-wheel that controlled the aether propeller, the other tapping a lazy tune on the attitude indicator in readiness for entering the Ceren gravity, such as it was. His attention was focussed entirely on the planet; even an hour away it filled the entire window. It was barely a speck, but she was sure she could see Messor Base on the surface, a collection of linked spherical structures. Folkard had told her a little bit about the base; run by a British administration, the base was used as a place for all miners with an interest in the asteroids to use as an ore refining platform, or for the scientifically minded there were the labs. She had been impressed by the generosity of the British, until Folkard had mentioned how it enabled the Empire to keep a close eye on any rivals. Regardless, Annabelle looked forward to setting foot on the planet, despite her lack of interest in mining. There was something almost thrilling about visiting a planet most people wouldn’t even go near.

  “Are we close enough now, Captain?” she asked.

  Folkard glanced back, and smiled through his bearded face. “Yes, Miss Somerset,” he replied.

  He generally used “Miss Annabelle” these days, but she had noticed that when she worked on the control deck with him, he tended to address her more formally. She didn’t mind so much, after all soon she would cease to be Miss Somerset forever.

  “Please announce our intention to land on Messor Base, and to inform Doctor Fontaine of our arrival.”

  Annabelle saluted. “Aye, aye, sir!” she said in her best English accent, and turned back to the heliograph.

  2.

  DYLAN BLAYNEY DOWNED his ale in one go and looked across the table at Craig Callaghan, his ears disbelieving. “Boyo, you need to be telling me this is one of your practical jokes, you do.”

  Callaghan looked around the canteen, a bead of sweat running from beneath his cap to his left eyebrow. “I’m telling you I’m not. There’s a flyer approaching the base right now. I saw it with my own eyes, I did.”

  Blayney knew his men well enough to know if they were lying to him; the boy may have had a silver tongue, but he’d learned to keep to the truth when talking to the base manager.

  Blayney stood up. “Right, then, let’s go and welcome the examiner. Bloody idiot’s here too early!” He looked around the canteen. “Hobbs,” he called, his Welsh baritone booming across the canteen, “go and make sure Budrys and his gang have Occator Six secured fast. Don’t want to have any trouble while the examiner’s here, do we?” Blayney waited until Hobbs had left the canteen before he looked at the rest of his miners. A lot of his most trusted workers were still off Ceres, working the asteroids, which was just as well. They knew how to improvise, and would keep the examiner happy. His problem was making sure the examiner didn’t get suspicious while he was on Messor Base. “The rest of you listen now. Spread the word, let our people know the examiner’s on his way. If we can get through this without any hiccoughs, then he’ll bring no trouble to us. It’s our livelihood that’s at stake here now, so just you all make sure you remember that. Okay, then?” He clapped his hands. “Get to it!”

  Within seconds the canteen was cleared of all but he and Callaghan.

  “What if the examiner asks about Cadogan and the others?”

  Blayney looked at Callaghan sharply. Ferguson had returned with the remains of Pettitt, and Blayney had sent him straight back in there, to back up Cadogan and the rest of his posse who had pursued Fontaine; none had returned. It was unlikely they would now. But that wasn’t Callaghan’s problem, it was Blayney’s. “Don’t you go worrying about that now. I’ll take care of the examiner’s concerns there. Mining the asteroid belt is treacherous work. Accidents happen, don’t they?”

  Callaghan swallowed. “But Cadogan was your friend.”

  “You think I’ve forgotten that, do you, boyo? Ivor and me, we grew up together, and that’s why we made sure the doctor paid for what he did. But if it gets out what happened, we’re all for it. Every single one of us. And don’t you go forgetting that now.” He placed a hand on each of Callaghan’s shoulders. The boy was barely out of his teens, but he had worked as hard as any of the older men, it was just a shame he had a loose tongue. “Now, I want you to go and make sure Doctor Gully is kept occupied while the examiner is here. Archaeologists ask too many questions, they always want to know too much, him more so than others. Make sure he doesn’t learn nothing, right?”

  For a moment he held Callaghan’s eyes in his, before the boy looked down. “You can count on me, boss.”

  “Bloody better. Now, off you go.”

  Once Callaghan had left Blayney alone, his composure slipped a little. He had spent all his life working the mines; trapper, chainrunner, slopeman, underground manager—he’d done it all, both in Llanfairfach and out here on the asteroids. He had worked his way up from the bottom, and he had no intention of losing his grip on Messor Base. Miners from all over the Earth came to work the asteroids, and it was a matter of some pride that he, a miner from a small Welsh colliery town, was now in charge of all mining operations in the asteroid belt. It was he who decided who went were, and it was he who was responsible when things went wrong.

  Responsibility did not bother him; that was his job, and he knew he could talk his way out of most things. The life of a miner was fraught with danger, even more so this far from Earth. But what had happened…

  He didn’t see how he’d be able to talk his way out of that!

  The examiner was not supposed to be due for another month, plenty of time for Blayney to get everything together again. But now?

  “Dylan!”

  Blayney turned around, regaining his composure as he did so, wondering why Emrys Morgan had left the heliograph room. It had to been manned at all times, in case they received an important message from Mars, or one of the serritor teams needed help. He almost laughed at the perplexed look on the small man’s face, and once again wondered why Morgan had even come to Ceres. The man had been far too dainty to be on a mining station, but Blayney couldn’t deny that the higher gravity of Ceres had done wonders for the man’s muscles. One day he’d have to get Morgan down one of the mines back home. No one would have a problem with his strength when they got back to Llanfairfach.

  “What is it? Special orders from the examiner?”

  If it were at possible, Morgan looked even more confused. “Sorry? The examiner’s not due until next month.”

  “Well I know that, don’t I? Nonetheless, his ship is…” Blayney stopped. “Wait. That’s not the examiner’s flyer approaching us?”

  “Well no.” Morgan nodded slowly. “Oh, you thought it was, didn’t you? No, man, it belongs to some scientist chap. But…” At this Morgan paused, looking around the canteen, and lowered his voice. “Apparently they’re here to collect Doctor Fontaine.”

  For a moment Blayney wished it had been the examiner. A French mineralogist would have been of little concern, and he would almost certainly not have questioned the lack of Fontaine on Messor Base, but someone who had come there especially for Fontaine. Blayney frowned. Tricky. “What the bloody hell do they want with him, then?”

  3.

  IT HAD TAKEN Arnaud over three weeks to realise why the thought of a bull didn’t quite fit. The shape of the horns was wrong and far too large. More like water buffalo. This seemed even more accurate when he discovered that they liked the water, and he was grateful to find that there was a nearby source—an off-shoot of the main lake that, sheltered by trees, did not suffer a sheet of ice. Still, he drank from the leaves more often than the stream as he didn’t like to imbibe that in which these creatures wallowed. He washed in the same stream, but sparingly—it was certainly too cold to wash more than one limb at a time—and his curses seemed to amuse them, although they ceased the strange rasping sound he took for
laughter and looked away whenever he looked at them. Fine for them to dive straight in when they could swim and had such thick skins. Arnaud preferred to stay at the edge and could not be persuaded even into the shallows. He hadn’t forgotten the sight of that squid creature that had stopped to look at him.

  Strangely enough, the idea of a water buffalo had come to mind one night while he was sitting with them just as he was doing now. Even that had taken a while. For the first few days they had seemed…more frightened by him than anything, although they outweighed him by several pounds of muscle. Even now they kept their offspring away, and the females—he could identify them by their smaller horns—would get out of his way. The males were more tolerant, but these changes had all taken time. They appeared as curious about him as he was about them, and even tried to hide their amusement or disgust. He’d received both reactions over his choice of food.

  Not a day had gone by before Arnaud had realised he had a very real problem with food. It was take a chance or starve, so noting what the wildlife consumed and avoided, he’d tried some plants, finding many too bitter or too tough, but persevering until he finally located some he could tolerate. Understandably, the Bubalus—as he had named them—found this strange. They were meat-eaters…as he had learned the hard way. One month on, what he still couldn’t figure out was why they hadn’t eaten him.

  He ignored it when one of the Bubalus nudged his foot and held out a piece of meat. While he was fairly certain this was the flesh of an animal, they had preserved and stored some of the men for a good while and he preferred to seek his own sustenance. They’d offered before and often met his refusal with perplexed glances.

  This time a hand encircled one of his ankles and pulled…hard, making Arnaud slide a few inches. If he hadn’t been sitting on one of the fleshy leaves the ground might have scored his backside even through his trousers, even ripped his clothing. He bit back a curse—from the rough handling and because his garments were looking threadbare in enough places as it was. Still, that one should touch him was usually enough that he paid attention.