Amidst Dark Satanic Mills (Folkestone & Hand Interplanetary Steampunk Adventures Book 2)

by Ralph E. Vaughan

  “They are of MEDUSA design,” the Baron explained to their puzzled expressions. “Like any other gun, you simply aim and pull the trigger. The difference is the discharge is not a bullet or a needle, but a burst of energy, the same energy gathered by the Mills, but on a much smaller scale.”

  “Baron, what are the Mills?” Folkestone asked.

  “Their purpose is to gather the energy of creation, to store it until it can be processed and focused,” Bellaseus answered. “Some of the energy comes from forces within the Sun, but most seems to come from a universe beyond our own, outside the dimensions with which we are familiar. We do not totally understand that which we have tapped into, but our best estimation is that it is the same energy which formed the planets and the stars, perhaps life itself.”

  “The power which is God’s alone,” Folkestone murmured.

  “You disappoint me, Captain,” the Baron sighed. “I thought you might have a superior mind, despite your pedestrian occupation, but you are just another superstitious sheep.”

  “Where are the guards?” Folkestone asked.

  “Sent away on other errands,” the Baron replied, surprised by Folkestone’s lack of response. “I cannot trust all of them, so I trust none of them. We need to release my guards.”

  “Not those Nagas!” Hand exclaimed.

  “He’s right,” Folkestone agreed. “Even a ‘god’ cannot control a nest of angry vipers.”

  “My two bodyguards then.”

  Folkestone nodded.

  “What about that woman?” Hand asked.

  The Baron scowled. “Come. I know where the two are held.”

  * * *

  “What have you done?” Lord Khallimar breathed.

  Martin looked up at the doorway opened as a long shadow fell across him. At one time, he had respected Lord Khallimar, esteemed him fully as much as he feared Baron Bellaseus, but that moment in his life passed. They both amused him now. What had seemed bigger than life had become insignificant.

  “The energy equations are accurate, now,” Martin said. “There were three errors, but I corrected them.”

  Khallimar stepped over Ahriman’s body and took the sheaf of papers offered by Martin. He was careful not to tread in the pool of dark blood.

  Martin smiled. “He made it difficult for me to concentrate, for me to keep out the voices.”

  “The voices?”

  “So I silenced him.”

  Papers in hand, Khallimar backed away. Ahriman had never been bested in any fight, not by even the most vicious or brutal foe, but this wisp of a lad had killed him. After the review, it had been Khallimar’s plan to confront the clerk about the rumors and reports he had heard, but now decided against it.

  “You’re going to fail, you know,” Martin said in a thin voice.

  “I think not.”

  “The voices say you are,” Martin added.

  “What voices?” Khallimar demanded.

  “The Lords of Hell,” Martin replied. “The worms that writhe in the fire and die not. They have the angels I sent them from Earth.”

  “You’re mad!” Khallimar backed to the door and clung to the jamb. “You stark barking mad!”

  “Me Mum took me to a doctor once and he said that,” Martin said. “Of course, he never had a chance to tell anyone but me.”

  Khallimar stepped into the corridor. Although Martin had not moved from behind his desk, Khallimar felt vulnerable. The station guards could no longer be trusted. He had planned on waiting till Ahriman brought the equations to him, but the sudden arrival of the Baron, the perceived schism among the staff, and the intrusion of the three British agents forced him to move early.

  With Ahriman dead he was alone.

  His only hope lay in integrating Martin’s corrections into the Babbage Machine monitoring the Mills, which coalesced and targeted the destructive energy of the other dimension. With that power at his control, he could destroy all enemies and traitors.

  “The Lords of Hell whisper your name,” Martin said.

  “You are a lunatic!”

  “Welcome to Hell, Lord Khallimar.”

  Khallimar fled the madman, peels of laughter echoing down the corridor after him.

  * * *

  They draw life from us…

  The Cold Ones bring death…

  The Cold Ones take away our breath…

  You are not of the Drassa…

  You are of the cold…

  Lady Cynthia Barrington-Welles in her time had had tea with various crowned heads of Europe, tossed back raw segir with sailors in the waterfront taverns of Venus, and shared dinosaur meat with savage warlords in the lands of the Hollow Earth, but nothing that quite compared with being in an artificial cavern with fiery worm-like creatures who siphoned molten matter from glowing pools and communicated via telepathy.

  “You must understand that we are not all the same,” she said. She had tried to think-speak after the fashion of the Drassa but it gave her a migraine. “The people…the ‘Cold Ones,’ as you call us, are our enemies. They pose just as much a threat to us as they do to you. Do you understand?”

  We comprehend…

  You are different…

  …than the Cold Ones…

  …and the one who dwells in night…

  You are different than he who screams…

  “I am very sorry, but I do not understand.” She paused. “Are you in communication with one of the people in that facility?”

  Yes…

  He screams in darkness…

  His mind is shrouded in shadows…

  He brings pain to all…

  “And that is how you can understand me?” she asked. “You learned my language from your…from this person?”

  She sensed a gentle ripple in her mind which she interpreted as acknowledgement. The Drassa were much more alien than she had thought at first sight. They possessed no limbs, no faces, nothing to differentiate one from another. They were smooth and fiery. When they moved it was with a writhing, curling motion, but at times they almost seemed to glide in defiance of gravity.

  “The trouble you have with these people, is it because of what they have done upon the plain?” she asked. “Is it because of the black monoliths they erected?”

  She waited as they examined her words, sifted through her thoughts, drew meanings they could understand in their own way. She knew she only had about six hours of oxygen remaining, but there was no way to hurry them. They had odd conceptions of time and space—they gave up trying to explain them—and to fathom the idea of urgency seemed beyond them.

  The Dark Satanic Mills…

  He screams about them…

  He echoes our thoughts…

  The answers were slow. They communicated in a fashion that Lady Cynthia would have, in different circumstances, termed a Greek Chorus. But her comprehension of the answers was slower still, and not without discomfort and frustration. Still, she felt it was of paramount importance to understand the concerns and needs of these alien beings who dwelt under the eternal Sun. If she could understand them, then there was hope for a union between them and the Empire. More than that, though, she might find a way to help herself and those she sought within the MEDUSA facility.

  The Cold Ones (as the Drassa called beings like herself) had come from out the void in aetherships. At first, they existed in the twilight lands, keeping to themselves. Whenever the Drassa came near, the invaders used weapons against them. Then they built the facility, causing much damage through the use of explosives and sonic blasters. Afterwards came the Mills, which were apparently energy collectors. Lady Cynthia thought they drew some unknown force from the Sun, but the Drassa were adamant that the energy, which they called the ‘Breath of Life’ was drawn from another place, from a realm outside normal space.

  It is where the colors of music dance…

  The Great Light opens the way…

  …Great Light that never dies…

  Through the Portal it flows…
/>
  …the Breath of Life that sustains us…

  She never fully understood what the Drassa were trying to say, but she knew that the drawing of the energy distressed them, harmed their world, and evoked passions that were more alien to them than they were to her—she well knew the cries of the oppressed, the fears and hatreds aroused by cruelty and injustice. She had seen it often enough in the lands and planets settled by the other nations of Earth. When faced with elder races or cultures that had developed technical prowess after the Alexandrian Dispersion, empires like Germany or Japan rarely hesitated to run roughshod over them, taking them as possessions or colonies, rather than building alliances as did the British. She had, unfortunately, seen on other worlds the same scenario being played out on this closest of the Sun’s children, only this time the villain of the piece was a lawless organization rather than a king who considered himself above the laws of civilization and civility.

  The Cold Ones rip gouges…

  …machines that scream…

  The Mills shatter the Portal…

  He dreams darkly of death…

  The Drassa were an extraordinarily homogenous race, hardly surprising since they seemed to share a hive mind while at the same time possessing an awareness of individuality. Lady Cynthia had a devil of a time convincing them she was any different than the MEDUSA thugs who had caused so much harm, or that the British Empire was anything but the harbinger of more harm.

  However, she had an advantage in that she knew of the Drassa and opened her thoughts to them. In the end, with only two hours of oxygen remaining, they finally agreed to help her and thereby to perhaps help themselves.

  We will…

  …assist you…

  …for now…

  * * *

  “Baron Bellaseus, what are you doing here?” Lord Khallimar demanded. “Why are the prisoners free?”

  “Move away from those controls,” Bellaseus ordered.

  “Traitor!”

  “Move away,” the Baron repeated. “I’d rather not shoot you when you are so close to the controls, but you know I will. Neither of us are known for making idle threats.”

  Khallimar stepped back from the panel. The other people in the room, the technicians, scientists and security guards looked back and forth between the two men. All faces showed confusion. They knew Lord Khallimar from his many visits to the facility; likewise, they all knew Baron Bellaseus and his position in MEDUSA, not so much from personal contact as from a fear of it. All of them had taken the oath of fealty to MEDUSA and its goals, though many worked simply for material gain. They had sworn to lift the Solar System from chaos, to give it a single ordered rule, but now chaos manifested itself in the midst of them.

  “Ecce qui incredulus est infideliter!” Khallimar cried. “Behold the traitor among us! Kill them!”

  Two overly eager and devoutly loyal guards grabbed for their weapons but they were dispatched before they could fire, one by Hand, the other by the Baron. Several near Folkestone made as if to answer Khallimar’s call to action, but reassessed their life choices after seeing what had happened to the comrades.

  “Hand, collect their weapons,” Folkestone instructed.

  The Martian gathered the weapons from the security guards.

  Folkestone aimed his weapon at the Baron’s head. “Baron, give your gun to Sergeant Hand, please.”

  “So, this is what the word of an officer and a gentleman is worth,” Bellaseus sneered. “Where is your sense of honor?”

  “Fully intact, I assure you, Baron,” Folkestone replied as Hand stood to one side and took the Baron’s energy gun. “We still have our agreement, but I will not have you armed.”

  Baron Bellaseus allowed himself to be disarmed by Hand. His gaze upon Folkestone was as that of a predator who realized he had underestimated his prey, sly and calculating and patient.

  “The table turns on the traitor,” Khallimar murmured.

  “You are the one who has perverted the goals of MEDUSA!” the Baron accused. “We all swore to lift the Solar System out of chaos, to wrest it from human and alien governments, to unite it under one strong rule. But you have chosen to remake everything in your own image. You are mad, chaotic of mind, unfit to lead.”

  “Is that your rationalization for siding with our enemies?”

  “You are the enemy of MEDUSA.”

  “Captain,” Hand said softly, gesturing toward the observation port overlooking the Mills.

  Folkestone saw the expanding nimbus and the increasing energy discharges.

  “Shut down the device, Baron!” Folkestone ordered.

  Bellaseus pushed past the glaring Khallimar and approached the controls. He pushed a series of buttons, pulled a number of levers, but the display above the Mills did not abate. He looked at Folkestone with a stricken look.

  “What is it?” Folkestone asked.

  “He has locked the controls,” Bellaseus reported. “I do not know how to stop the energy collation and targeting.” He grabbed a frightened technician, but the man was also unable to stop the action of the Mills.

  Khallimar laughed venomously. “No one can stop me! None can undo what I have done. You can kill me, but you cannot stop the destruction of London.”

  “Crikey!” Hand blurted, aiming at Khallimar. “I suggest you turn it off before I fry your brain.”

  Lord Khallimar smirked haughtily.

  “Why can’t you shut it down?” Folkestone demanded.

  “Lord Khallimar used new equations,” the terrified technician explained. “No one else understands what was done.”

  “Only I can stop it,” Khallimar said. “And I will not.”

  “Equations?” Bellaseus murmured. He started out of the control room. “I think I know who can help us.”

  “Go with him, Hand,” Folkestone said.

  “Aye, sir,” Hand acknowledged.

  As the men exited, the facility shook as if in the grasp of a giant fist. Most were knocked to the deck by the violence, but Folkestone remained on his feet, held onto a rail with one hand, keeping his weapon trained on the MEDUSA operatives with the other.

  “My God!” exclaimed one of the technicians near the viewing port. “Those odd energy formations are back, but…”

  “What are they?” Folkestone asked peering at the bright worm-like objects writing among the Mills, snaking toward the facility.

  “Some kind of natural phenomena,” the technician said. “They appear mostly when the Mills are activated, but since they did not interfere with our work we paid them little attention.”

  “Just stray energy forms,” Laplace, the supervisor, said dismissively. “They are of no importance.”

  “Could they be alive?” Folkestone asked. “Could they be the native life forms of this planet?”

  The MEDUSA workers looked at each other as if the idea had never before occurred to them.

  “We don’t know,” a technician admitted. “They have never made a move toward us.”

  On the plain, a Mill toppled, pushed by two of the Drassa, and again the facility shook even more violently. The MEDUSA staff cried in alarm, panic building among them.

  “They are making a move now,” Folkestone commented.

  * * *

  Lady Cynthia Barrington-Welles made her way through the shadows of the foothills, approaching the MEDUSA base while the Drassa attacked the Mills and came at the base from the other side. One of the Mills already lay shattered upon the ground and another was in danger of falling. The facility shook and shuddered under the Drassa attack. The creatures channeled the energy waves that were an integral part of their being.

  It was odd, she thought, that they should have remained so pacific during the MEDUSA invasion and occupation when they had the means to resist, to push back. Odd, but not surprising, she reminded herself. In many lands, conquerors thought the conquered naught but sheep, till revolution was lit by a single spark.

  Lady Cynthia moved quickly. Though she had explained tha
t some friends of hers might be prisoners of MEDUSA, trapped in the facility, she did not know if the Drassa would be able to control themselves now that they had been roused to action. While the creatures of this sphere were alien in form and thought, the feelings of rage she now felt were not at all alien to her.

  She came upon an entry hatch beside which were maintenance structures. No workers or guards were in sight. Obviously they had been lured away by the distraction provided by the Drassa. She opened the hatchway and entered the airlock beyond. When she activated the inner portal, she stepped into another chamber, her gun drawn, but, again, there was no sign of resistance.

  The structure lurched suddenly. It was all she could do to keep her footing. Moving quickly down a corridor, she went in search of Folkestone and Hand.

  * * *

  “Martin!” the Baron shouted. “Martin! Do you not recognize me? Do you not know who I am?”

  “The Keeper of Secrets,” Martin murmured. “The tall man, the man who came in the night.”

  “Yes, that is…” Bellaseus’ voice trailed away as he saw the body of Ahriman in the room behind, surrounded by a large pool of dark blood. He almost released Martin in his surprise, but tightened his grip as the facility shook. “Come with me! You must shut down the new conversion equations.”

  Martin looked puzzled. “Why would I want to do that?”

  “The Mills are being destroyed by…”

  “The dark Satanic Mills are falling down,” Martin said in a high sing-song voice. “Falling down…falling down…”

  “This is the bloke who’s going to save us?” Hand demanded.

  “The angels of Hell are awakening.”

  “The feedback will destroy the station even if the creatures do not.” He shook Martin vigorously. “Do you not understand what is happening, you fool?”

  A wide grin slowly split Martin’s face. His eyes widened until the pupils nearly vanished into the whites. A low mirthless laugh welled up from his throat, as measured as a metronome.

  “I alone know exactly what is happening,” Martin growled.