It was about eight thirty in the morning, according to the colony’s many clocks, and his stomach was telling him it was time to find some lunch. Most of the people currently living on the colony had adjusted fairly easily to the new time schedule already. Charles had decided to wait until it was officially lunch time before he sought something to eat, but his stomach didn’t seem to be in agreement.
He backtracked for several corridors until he reached a junction that he didn’t remember too well; all the corridors looked pretty much the same at this point. He followed the next few corridors totally randomly, not recognizing anything and certain he had taken a wrong turning quite a way before.
Then he could hear voices a little way off; maybe the owners of these voices would be able to help him find his way back to his own quarters. As he got closer so that the owners of the voices could only be in the next corridor, what they were saying began to form into some sort of sense.
‘This is your fault, you know; if you hadn’t talked me into coming here…’ The owner was female, and though her words sounded angry, they weren’t spoken with any malice behind them.
‘I know, I’m sorry.’ The owner of this voice was also female and sounded subservient to the first. The first voice could probably claim anything of the second and she would agree.
‘I suppose I’m partially to blame,’ the first added almost reluctantly. ‘If I hadn’t insisted that we look beyond that room, then we would still have a path home. I couldn’t believe that door could be locked when we tried to reopen it.’
‘Must’ve been D.N.A. coded or something,’ the second replied. ‘I didn’t see anything else.’
‘Maybe,’ the first agreed.
Charles approached the junction slowly and waited just out of sight from the owners of the voices.
The voices had actually stopped for a few seconds, but then the second one commented, ‘So what are we doing?’
‘We need to find the…’ the first voice started and then paused, finishing with ‘shuttle bay,’ almost as an afterthought.
‘What is it?’ The second voice seemed quite concerned.
‘Catch that scent,’ the first voice commented, seeming a little hesitant. ‘There’s a herd nearby, and he’s hunting us. Quickly, let’s head back this way.’
Charles turned the corner to see the two women running away from where he had been standing. From the back they looked human to him, but even if he couldn’t see through their disguises at this distance, they had referred to him as herd, and they had turned to run as soon as they knew of his presence.
‘Halt or I fire,’ Charles yelled at the fleeing figures. He didn’t even remember picking up his sidearm this morning and must have done so automatically, because now it was in his hand. If the two should keep running, there was no turning they could take for at least another fifty feet; there was no way that Charles couldn’t shoot them both before they reached safety.
One of the two figures stopped running and raised her hands above her head, turning slowly to face him. She was a young girl with a sweet and very innocent looking face. There was a bulge along one of the legs in the jeans she was wearing that just didn’t belong there.
The other woman kept on running. She looked over her shoulder, noticing the first had stopped, and called to her frantically, ‘Don’t surrender! He’s herd; he’ll gun you down anyway.’
‘Halt,’ Charles yelled again. He gave the one with her hands raised a gentle smile as if to let her know that he wasn’t about to shoot her down in cold blood. Not that he could give any guarantee that someone else wouldn’t do so once they had finished questioning her.
The woman kept running. She had almost reached the next junction, and so with a sigh he raised his weapon and fired. Perhaps he would have done her a favor if he had fired to kill. He could have saved her from all those interrogations that he imagined she would be subjected to. Instead he fired just short of where she was and then sought her with the beam. A mere second later he had clipped her foot with it, and she hit the floor at a fair pace and was lying on the floor just short of the junction she had been trying to reach. Even now she was defiant as she tried to crawl to the perceived safety.
The one with her hands raised had been watching as her friend fell. Frantically she yelled out, ‘February!’ and then she turned her attention back to the man with the weapon.
Charles felt that invoking the name of a month was a weird thing for her to do, but he approached the one with her hands raised at a walking pace. Then, as he got nearer, her eyes seemed to widen more and more.
‘You’re Slim Dorris,’ she commented when he was next to her, ‘the Great Cat Killer!’
‘Not so great,’ Charles responded. ‘Now turn around; I need to search you for weapons.’
‘I have no weapons,’ she told him, but she turned anyway.
‘I need to search anyway, for my own protection.’ Charles searched as best he could. Had she been human he would probably have called for a female colleague to perform this search for him, but cats were considered little more than animals and he would be expected to carry out a full search himself.
‘Any other time I might have asked for your autograph,’ she told him as she waited for him to do what he must.
‘I’m honored,’ Charles told her. ‘Okay, you can put your hands down and lead the way. Normally I’d fit you with manacles, but I didn’t bring any with me today so I’m going to have to trust you not to try and do anything stupid. Now lead the way down the corridor to your friend, and let’s see if she’s all right.’
‘Are you going to kill us?’ There was definite worry in her voice, as if the mere voicing of the words would make it so.
‘I’m not planning to,’ Charles told her. ‘It’s not my style to kill anyone when they can’t defend themselves. I’m afraid that doesn’t mean that someone else won’t, though.’
The cat he had shot was still trying to get away when they reached her. By the look of her foot, it would probably have to be amputated, assuming it was decided to let her live long enough, but most of her leg could probably be saved.
Charles was sure that like the other, this one would be unarmed. She was the sort of adversary that would have opened fire on him rather than turn and run if she had had the choice; nevertheless, he checked her for weapons anyway.
‘Did you enjoy that?’ She looked at him as if he was some sort of pervert.
‘Not a lot,’ Charles replied honestly. He then took his mobile link from his pocket and contacted his headquarters. He didn’t really want to admit that he was lost. He didn’t really want them to have to come and find him using the signal from his link to locate him, but there was no way he was going to put the injured prisoner through that sort of pain as he explored in the blind hope of finding the way back.
Day Ten
Epilogues
40
Aftermath
It was nearly two o’ clock in the morning and Doctor Elias Benjamin had been asleep for a good few hours when the computer woke him to notify him of an incoming call.
It took him a moment or two to realize where he was, and then he groaned with irritation at having been woken at such an unbelievably early hour. It was an effort to even move. He rolled off the bed to his feet and, throwing a nightgown about him, walked groggily over to the computer monitor.
‘Okay, put it through,’ he told it sleepily.
‘Please confirm,’ the computer requested.
‘Confirmed,’ the doctor replied. ‘Come on, it might be important.’
The face that appeared wasn’t the one he was expecting. If anyone called him here he would have thought it would be the man who had sent him there in the first place, Lieutenant Colonel Norton. This man appeared to be a full Colonel in a very new-looking purple uniform of the Cattery Guard. When the man spoke, he did so in a level monotone as if scared that he might give too much of his character away by talking in his normal voice. As it was, his voice seemed to ooze wi
th authority. ‘Doctor Benjamin, I presume. I am Colonel Davis of the Elite Guard.’
‘Yes sir,’ Doctor Benjamin replied. He tried to rub the sleep out of his eyes so that the image on the screen would look a little less blurry.
‘I’m afraid Colonel Norton was killed two days ago in a terrorist action. As a result I have inherited all of his papers until a permanent replacement is selected. I was interested in many of the things he has been getting up to, especially when I learned about a venture to transport a certain very dangerous cat to Mars.’
‘Yes sir?’ Doctor Benjamin commented. He felt petrified; he didn’t know this Colonel, and his demeanor was definitely not one to make him feel relaxed.
‘Your name came up,’ the Colonel commented. ‘Do you know how long I’ve been trying to find out where on Mars you were staying? I’ve probably woken up half the admin block to get your number.’
‘Colonel Norton should have had it, sir,’ Doctor Benjamin replied quickly.
‘Perhaps he did, perhaps he did. But I couldn’t find it! The number he did have for you got me through to your home in London,’ the Colonel replied. ‘Anyway, down to business. I want you to go to the laboratory where this…’ Here there was a pause while the Colonel checked the name, a name which he then butchered as he spoke, ‘…Mi-agyes Conjob is being held and give him the fatal injection that he is overdue for.’
‘Sir,’ Doctor Benjamin commented, ‘the transportation to Mars of and the experimentation on the prisoner have all been ratified by the ministry.’
‘I don’t care, Doctor,’ the Colonel insisted. ‘You cannot see the big picture. Colonel Norton was a very careful man. He had cameras hidden everywhere, including in his own office. Whoever killed him was looking for this My-argies, and chances are they made their way to Mars shortly after for whatever reason. I want you to get to Migyes first and dispose of him quickly. When this is done I want you to catch the first shuttle back to Earth that you can. I will see you in Colonel Norton’s old office no later than three o’clock this afternoon. Do I make myself clear?’
‘Yes sir,’ the Doctor responded.
‘Don’t worry, Doctor,’ the Colonel said, ‘so long as you send Mi-guag to his Goddess before you see me, you will not be in hot water.’
‘I’ll do it,’ Doctor Benjamin replied. ‘Of course I’ll do it. But Doctor Foster was promised a week or so with the prisoner before he was destroyed. He won’t be happy.’
‘I don’t care what Doctor Foster thinks.’ The Colonel slipped out of his monotone calm for just a second, and in a reasonably gentle and yet somehow angry voice said, ‘Just make sure it’s done!’
Doctor Benjamin yawned and thought longingly of his bed. ‘Can it wait until morning at least?’
‘Go now,’ the Colonel insisted. ‘Time is of the essence.’ The Colonel seemed more angry that he had slipped out from behind his monotone mask than because the Doctor was asking questions. ‘And get back here by three this afternoon or, well, let’s just say you won’t like the alternative.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Doctor Benjamin responded. He even found himself saluting because it somehow seemed to be the thing to do as the screen went dead.
The Doctor chastised himself for saluting. It was true that he was a member of the Elite Guard, but for him it was more of an honorary title. He hadn’t had to complete any of the normal tests because he had specialist skills, skills which he considered were being badly misused in this current climate.
Ideally to help wake him up he would be diving into the shower. However, here on Mars the personal showers were all of the sonic kind, and though they might help to get him clean, he wouldn’t feel all that revitalized by the experience.
He felt very tired; he was yawning almost constantly, and the lure of his bed was almost too much. Would the Colonel know if he slept for a couple of hours before going? Unfortunately he couldn’t take the chance.
Doctor Benjamin dressed quickly, grabbed the bag containing all his drugs, and got out the door. Just walking was helping to wake him up, but he was still yawning like a mad thing as he made his way along the corridors.
The first thing that caught his eye as he approached the laboratory wasn’t the small pile of dust or the half a boot that was lying in front of the door. It was the fact that the door itself seemed to have a gaping hole in it big enough to reach an arm through at the point where the door would have been held by a lock.
Not daring to believe what his eyes were telling him, he ran the short distance to the door. Then he saw the pile of dust and the half an army boot—no, not a standard army boot; only the Elite Guard were issue this sort of footwear.
His mind put two and two together for him. Guardsman Hillington had been disintegrated, except for half a boot, half a boot which he feared to turn over in case he saw what he expected to see therein, namely half a foot. Whatever weapon had been used was too powerful for anything the Elite had. Who could have done this? The obvious answer was the one Colonel Davis had mentioned. He also noticed that the Guardsman’s weapon was missing. Had her killers taken that with them or had it been destroyed by the same weapon that had reduced her to no more than a pile of dust?
He didn’t really want to investigate further, but he had to see if Myajes was still in there. He couldn’t go back to this new Colonel only to report that he had turned around at the door.
What he saw beyond the door was enough to make even a hardened Doctor like him feel sick. Doctor Foster and every one of his staff were lying about the laboratory, killed by what appeared to be the same weapon that had reduced Guardsman Hillington to a pile of dust. Two of the doctors had been trying to hide behind desks when the killer had struck. Doctor Sutcliff seemed to be missing the top two-thirds or so of her head, and what remained of her corpse had been stripped to its underwear, while Doctor Murray-Phillips was lying face down with a hole through the center of his chest as if shot at close range. There was no sign of Doctor Foster or Doctor Jones, but there were two more piles of dust lying about the room, and they had been scattered about as if someone had walked through them, possibly more than once.
Indeed, many of the desks had been knocked over, and pieces of them were missing. There were computer monitors on the floor smashed into many pieces, documents and glass everywhere. The place looked as if a cyclone had hit it.
He wasn’t sure he wanted to believe what had happened as he made his way over to the panel that controlled the cell’s camera. He was pretty sure of what he would see when he flicked the switch, but did so anyway. There was no feeling of surprise when he saw that the cell was empty.
He half sat, half collapsed in a nearby chair and pondered his situation; he ought to contact the authorities. Warn them that there were cats loose on Mars and that they were very dangerous. He wished the new Colonel had given him a number to call him back on because he should probably report this as soon as possible. He had a nasty feeling he might miss that three o’clock appointment. At least Doctor Foster had gotten the address of the Matriarch’s house first, he thought to himself.
41
Back To Earth
It was a lovely house, a beautiful pink painted bungalow, right on the bend in the middle of millionaire’s row. Everything about the house had been designed to make it look normal whilst trying to hide anything that actually happened there. There was no real gate to block passage into the driveway, but an eight foot hedge surrounded the border of the rest of the front of the property, and a camera set back a little from the front of the driveway kept a constant eye on any and all traffic that crossed the threshold.
Myajes knew that there were also a number of other cameras located around the grounds. They were carefully positioned to cover every square inch of the property without making it look as if the owners of the house were paranoid. Most of the houses along this stretch of the road had cameras, and if anything this house actually had fewer than many of the neighbors.
Every window had bars protecting them from any
outside incursion as well as electronic intruder force fields that would give a nasty shock to anyone who tried to gain ingress that way. Protection of this sort wasn’t really needed for what was effectively the headquarters of the entire Herbaht race, but they made the house look more like the ones next to it, and it stopped passersby wondering why the house had nothing to protect it from possible Herbaht assault.
The rest of the grounds were pretty normal. The back garden was well landscaped and very well looked after, with tall prickly hedges protecting the land as well as the strategically placed cameras. There was also a line of topiary hedges cut into various farmland creatures: a duck, a sheep, a chicken, and so on, and these lined the edge of the lawn nearest the house, separated from the house by no more than a narrow concrete path. Also at the very bottom of the garden, as far as it could be from the house, was a lovely arbor, with concrete slabs looking like stepping stones leading to it across the lawn from the house. All this work and this beauty had been the work of his brother, Jamick.
Most of the Matriarch’s bodyguards also had secondary jobs about the house. They seemed to prefer siblings, believing that they would work better as a cohesive group if the situation should become tenuous. Jamick, his brother, was the gardener and a very good one. Hamdrill, his half-sister, was the cook. And though she had no actual relation to him, Mickie was related to Hamdrill through her father. Mickie doubled as the nanny for the Matriarch’s youngest children. It had been a while since a nanny had actually been needed about the house, but the position was still maintained because who knew what the future might bring? Myajes himself had always acted as chauffeur and butler for the pair because that gave him the excuse to remain close to his wards.
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