by C. W Tickner
They were carried across the room, bouncing in the clasp of death. The noise of machinery rumbled in the distance and Harl glimpsed circular gaps in the walls on both sides of the room. Bundles of fresh plant matter were being hurled in from one side, forming a small hill in the centre. An Aylen on the opposite side hauled chunks out and tossed them through holes on the other side of the room. They were shuttered open like the doors to a forge where the rumbling noise came from. Judging by the splatter of green that was being thrown out Harl guessed it was the same as the machine that had been clearing the organics outside Vorock’s home, but on an epic scale.
The Aylen raised them high above the nearest table and looking down there was an open topped tank that was backed against a wall. It was nowhere near as big as the one Harl had grown up in but the size matched roughly what the old town had been. He glimpsed a yellow floor and tents inside then glanced away as the second hand holding the shell casing was upended and shaken, spilling Kane and Damen down into the tank.
‘No!’ Harl cried as their bodies flopped on to a large heap in the center of the tank. If they hadn’t been killed then their legs would definitely be broken from so high a drop.
People were beneath them rushing around and skipping across the surface as they brandished white spears and daggers at Damen and Kane. A white stick soared up at Harl embedding itself in the Aylen’s hand. The fingers splayed apart like a flower as it struck and the Aylen roared. The hand under Harl tilted and they both tried to hold on to the fingers until his feet slipped and he fell into Dana. They both tumbled in the air as the ground raced up to meet them.
Chapter 21
Life! Although I saw the green on our way down it’s not the same as actually being down here.
First soil sample results are astounding. It is the most fertile organic compound I have ever seen. As long as we keep our agriculture beneath the airdomes we should have no problems growing crops.
Harl hit a soft furry mound and rolled off into a layer of chunky wood shavings.
The first thing he felt was his legs sinking into the shavings, then a wet stickiness on his feet, seeping over the top of leather boots. A putrid smell attacked his nostrils. It reminded him of the rear of a butchers shop mixed with the smell of old decaying meat. He struggled out and heard Dana do the same as a fat bulky man stepped over him. He was wrapped in raw animal skins and stared down at him along a deadly looking bone dagger. The man waved the blade between them. ‘Give me your clothes,’ he said. Flicking the crude knife from hand to hand his gaze roved over the newcomers. ‘Quick,’ he said glancing around as others approached.
Dana hissed, sprung from the shavings, pulling her own dagger out and stood between Harl and the blubbery man. The man saw the knife, gasped and stumbled backwards on the loose shavings. Others were gathering around them now, all dressed in animal skin and rough stitched furs.
‘Metal weapons,’ one said, stepping closer.
‘Look at her leg,’ another said, pointing to the selection of knives neatly sheathed around Dana’s thigh.
Harl thought if they get any closer, he’d need to make a grab for one but Dana stared them down, easing out a second blade with her free hand.
Damen and Kane were miraculously alive and clung to what was clearly a giant rat carcass in the middle of the tank. They worked their way around the dead beast towards them using the matted fur to hold themselves out of the loose wood chip.
‘Oi,’ Damen said, stumbling through the wood shavings, waving his short sword. ‘Back off.’
A few stopped their advance at the big man’s words but none backed off.
It was a shame they’d left the rifles back in the bag, Harl thought. In the commotion he’d had left without any weapon at all and now they were about to be swamped by obese men and women holding bone carved knives and spears.
‘Stop this,’ a booming voice called as a fit-looking grey bearded man pushed his way through the crowd. ‘Going to stick me are you, Targ?’ he said, rounding on the young man who’d mentioned the weapons. Targ cast his eyes down and lowered his bone spear.
‘I am sorry for this,’ the old man said, easily navigating the largest shavings. He stood studying them. ‘This is very…’ he looked at their weapons, ‘unusual.’ his eyes shot up as if remembering something. He pointed at four of the dozen or so around them, ‘you lot, cover them quick. If the big ones see they still have weapons, no one will benefit.’ Two men and women raced off towards a huge collection of low lying tent structures that surrounded the carcass.
‘I’m Pale,’ the old man said, ‘no need to be afraid, we’ll not hurt you.’
Dana laughed and Pale frowned. Harl noted the fur on his hide clothing was the same as the giant rat decaying beside them. No one around them was dressed in anything other than fur and skin.
‘They take our clothes and weapons,’ Pale said seeing Harl look around. ‘That’s why you’re unusual, where did you come from? Which delivery?’
‘We were picked up from the floor,’ Harl said.
‘Must have been a mistake,’ Pale said, scratching his short grey beard.
The four returned from the huts, skins piled high in their arms. A shadow spread over the land as an Aylen crossed the room.
‘Quick,’ Pale hissed and the four of them were draped in pelts and stinking leather. The Aylen loomed above and they were ushered towards the huts. The sea of tents were made solely from bone supports and sewn together portions of animal pelt. The largest tent was barely high enough to stand in so the four of them crouched as they entered. Inside, Pale was peeking out holding open a flap and watching the Aylen above.
‘It’s moving away,’ he said.
‘What is going on here?’ Harl asked, watching a group carving hunks of meat away from the dead creature they had fallen onto.
‘Nothing but the person is allowed inside,’ Pale said. ‘You have your weapons and clothes which has not happened before.’
‘And the rat?’ Damen asked looking out across the sawdust floor at the carcass, as the group began peeling skin away using bone spears.
‘It’s all we’re allowed,’ Pale said, ‘everything we have come from the dead things that are put inside to feed us. The bones are used for weapons or building and the skins for clothing and anything else we can think of.’
‘Where do you cook the meat?’ Kane asked, ‘and not set fire to the shavings.’
‘There are plates in the four corners of this hell hole,’ Pale said. ‘Did you bring any food?’
A strange question, Harl thought looking at the rat outside, butchered open. No one they had met looked starved
‘No,’ he said. ‘Why? Are you not eating the rat?’
‘It is poison,’ Pale spat. ‘The big one has put something in it, turning us into that.’ He nodded at a blubbery man waiting outside with a hunk of meat in one hand, gnawing at it. ‘It makes us gain weight for their purpose and the processor.’
‘It might increase the potential energy,’ Kane said.
‘It traps us,’ Pale said. ‘If you eat even once a day you become fat and they take you.’
Pale was incredibly thin compared to the others. ‘How do you stay slim?’ Harl asked.
Pale laughed, ‘I have trained myself to function only on a meal every few days. It leaves me weak but we’ll leave soon enough.’
‘Leave how?’ Damen asked picking up a plate of meat and taking a bite. He spat it on to the thin shavings in the hut.
‘We have a way over the top. We leave in two sleeps.’
‘We’ve come to find our friends who have been brought here,’ Harl said. ‘Then we’ll leave with you. How will you do it?’
‘I can’t say just yet,’ Pale said, ‘it’s too risky right now. Who are these people you have come to find and how did you get here?’
Harl explained about Tess and Troy being carried away, meeting Vorock and their attempt to save the Alphas. Pale listened, nodding and asking Harl to repeat anything
he was unsure of.
‘There are many in here,’ Pale said. ‘You say there are forty individuals and these two but we’ve not had so many placed inside recently. There have been smaller groups though I do not know them. I’m afraid I cannot help you. But you may join us when we leave, your weapons will be useful in the journey.’
‘We can help you to get away,’ Harl said, unwilling to let the trail go cold. ‘We know where an exit can be found but it will mean climbing. If we can get through the hole we came in by then Vorock has promised to get us away. He will need information about his people though.’
‘How can we trust the big one?’ Pale asked swigging a skin of water hanging from his belt.
‘I can’t promise,’ Harl said, ‘but he has done us no harm.’
Pale shrugged ‘Show me the hole,’ he said, stepping out under the skin flap of the tent. He led Harl to a wide structure higher than the others but only by an arms length. It was made solely of rickety bones tied together with cords of sinew. A set of flat cartilage stairs led to the top that it was ringed with a bone rail. The tank was different to the others he had seen. Instead of a black barrier on three sides they were only blacked out halfway to the open top. The two of them took the steps and Harl pointed through the glass towards the hole set high in the wall that the bullet had come through.
‘If we make it out of this box and on to the table then how do we get up there?’ Pale asked.
‘I don’t want to say yet,’ Harl said, hoping to delay the answer. In truth he had not the faintest idea how to scale a hundred paces up a sheer wall, but he wasn’t going to admit it to Pale. ‘Will you help us find our friends and these Alphas?’
‘Finding your friends is not our priority,’ Pale said, ‘but I’ll do all I can.’
Damen had been listening to them from the ground while Kane and Dana had gone in search of Tess, Troy and the Alphas.
‘If we don’t bring the Alphas out,’ Damen said ‘I can’t see Vorock giving a damn.’
Pale frowned at Damen. ‘Everyone will get out,’ Pale said, ‘whether or not this big one will help.’
‘I hope it doesn’t involve exercise,’ Damen said, his head turning to track a large woman as she lumbered passed, a hunk of meat dangling from one pudgy hand.
Pale sighed, ‘What can I do young man? If I tell them not to eat they will have no energy to get out. We must take the risks, those who are fittest will go first.’
Harl wondered how many people there were in the tank. It occurred to Harl that Pale’s plan put the old man neatly at the forefront of those who’d leave first. ‘How many of us are there in here?’
‘The figure usually sits around three hundred but I stopped counting a long time ago.’
‘Where did you all come from?’ Harl asked.
‘You’ll find a hundred different answers in here and for that you will have to ask them yourself. As for me, I’ve been here a long time but before that I was in a bank for the big ones.
‘A bank?’ Harl said remembering Kane’s talk about people as currency.
‘There was a lot of us in the vault,’ Pale went on, ‘dozens of tanks. I was selected and brought to this…’ he trailed off and spat over the rail to the shavings, ‘rotten pit. The first thing I did was dig to the bottom. As foolish as it was disgusting. All I found was a lake of blood and gore that drips down through a fine mesh. We believe it drips onto the conveyor. He pointed out the tank to the far end of the table where it dropped off to a black strip in constant motion, carrying objects towards the distant mouth of the processor. The whirring sound of the machine was faintly audible through the transparent barrier. Far off an Aylen was shovelling organic matter into the ever-hungry processor.
‘We all end up there eventually,’ Pale said, fear lodged in his raspy voice.
‘What about cutting through this mesh?’ Damen said.
‘Not a chance,’ Pale said, I don’t know what its made from but even your metal weapons will break against it.
Harl wished again he’d kept his sword.
‘Once we are on the other side we must avoid any contact with the big ones,’ Pale said.
‘It doesn’t have to be that way,’ Harl said, ‘there must be more like Vorock, working with humanity.’
‘I have heard such things before,’ Pale said, ‘but I have also heard of the terrible actions of other big ones.’
‘Like buying and selling?’
Pale laughed, cold and chilling. ‘The wealthiest giants eat us, while others are trained for bloody battles. Buying and selling is just part of the process.’
‘Battles?’ Damen asked, all ears.
‘Great battles between men.’ Pale said.
‘For territory?’ Harl asked imagining the struggle of two human tribes as they sought after land.
‘There are no humans where the big ones do not want us,’ Pale said. ‘I’m talking of pitched battles, organised for their pleasure while they preside over it like gods in the sky above. As costly as eating us but more...fun.’
Harl felt sick, and not from the constant smell of rotting meat. He’d seen the evidence himself of people made to fight creatures to toughen them up. ‘How do you know this?’
‘I heard many stories when I lived in the vaults. All of those permanently maimed in battle were left to those of us inside the tanks to heal. Makes no sense to me, I expected the big ones to heal us, keeping their precious energy safe but who can guess the motives of such things.’
‘You said there are no humans outside unless the Aylen want us there?’
‘There might be some,’ Pale said. ‘Like those you found when you left the shop but other than a few, we are always under the control of the big ones. The ones I have heard of that live beyond tanks are only those needed to bulk the fields.’ He must have seen their blank looks. ‘All the plants and animals they put in the processor make their energy, right?’
Harl and Damen nodded.
‘If the big ones put humans in with it they get more energy output, a better yield.’
Kane and Dana came meandering through the camp towards the lookout platform, Kane stopped people to question them as they passed and Dana keeping a wary eye on anyone closer than ten paces.
‘Now imagine,’ Pale said drawing Harl’s attention back to him. ‘The costs involved with keeping humans are not cheap, or so I believe. The lighting, heat and food all mount up for those keeping a tank.’
Kane stepped up on the platform, shook his head to Harl and stood listening to Pale.
‘So instead of keeping us like that the fields are sown with small human communities that are collected at harvest. They fend for themselves as the crops grow which lowers the cost of production. When they harvest-’ He pulled a piece of dried meat from a stitched pocket and took a ravenous bite. ‘It gives them an extremely high yield of energy.’
‘And the death strips?’ Kane asked. ‘If they can grow crops again why is the planet dying?’
‘Greed,’ Pale said simply. ‘I imagine the death strips are much more profitable.’
Harl was overwhelmed by so much new information, people forced to fight each other, fields sown with humans. It was almost to barbaric to accept.
Kane had been staring at the processor in the distance, making use of the vantage point offered by the platform. ‘Why is this so low?’ he asked, stubbing a toe against the racks of bones tied with hide strips that formed the floor.
‘They knock it down,’ Pale said. We go any higher and the big one crushes it as an example. So we keep to one height for all the structures. The only thing higher is the animal.’ He turned to face the hideous corpse in the center.
Even from here the rancid odour polluted the air.
‘Not that things stay like this,’ Pale said. ‘Every so often the hand comes in and prises apart the structures seeking the largest people. Sometimes that is not enough, twice I have seen a grand clearing, where all were taken leaving a bare tank behind.’
‘
If every one was killed,’ Kane said suspiciously, ‘then why are you still here?’
‘I have my methods,’ Pale said, not meeting Kane’s look of suspicion.
Harl hopped down from the platform as Kane began questioning Pale on Aylen physiology.
‘Any luck?’ Harl asked Dana who’d been silently watching the world around them. An idea struck him.
‘Dana,’ Harl said, looking at her arm,’ can you use that bracelet’s power to bring the drone to us so we can get out of the bullet hole?’
She shook her head. ‘I broke the flyer turning the cylinder.’ Her eyes widened as a shadow fell over them all.
Someone screamed and Harl was kicked backwards by Dana as an Aylen hand slammed into the lookout post where he’d been standing, smashing it aside and scooping a fistful of sawdust and bones. Harl shook his head to clear his vision and saw Dana being hoisted upwards, a split bone snagging on her cloak. He jumped and grabbed an ankle, yanking down hard. The cloak tore away, freeing her from the grip. They tumbled down as the hand dropped again and scooped the ground from under Harl, stealing him upwards.
The fingers closed as he tried to squeeze between the fleshy cracks and drop but they were too small and he was caught. He spotted people racing around underneath, casting spears up at the hand. He was being moved over the tents below and away from the center where he watched Damen snatch a spear from a huge man and cast it upwards. Harl could hear it stick deep into the flesh. The muscles in the hand loosened and a crack appeared between the fingers. Harl didn’t hesitate. He slipped through the grasp into thin air, even though he knew the fall would kill him.
Chapter 22
We have been attacked! What I can only describe as a giant centipede, five metres long, ambushed us as we neared a nest hole. Of course the creature is not a species of earth evolved Chilopoda but I have a theory that certain life forms across the galaxy will pass similar evolutionary stages.