Blighted Star

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  The surface of the lake rippled gently in a soft breeze which soughed through the grass, then it settled again to reflect the swirl of stars in the night sky. There was a moment of profound peace. Then the surface was once again disturbed by several black domes like the backs of swimming turtles. These headed towards the shore. As they did so they rose from the water, revealing first the foreheads, then the empty eye sockets, then the broken, ruptured faces of the dead. The cadavers rose dripping from the lake and walked as one towards the settlement, towards the glowing beacons of life which drew them. The last to rise were the walking corpses of the dead children. Deep in the ooze behind them the ragged skeleton of Gunnar Olafson made one or two feeble movements, but the organism had devoured too much muscle tissue, and the last rotting strands gave way. The corpse was still at last.

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  Jim Chan looked at the picture for the hundredth time in the last couple of days. It was an old fashioned studio digital print he’d had done of them all. Him, Amy and Helena back on a trip they’d done to old Mars and the solar system. From Mars you could actually see Earth with the naked eye, and take a really good look with a Graviton telescope, even seeing some of the drowned cities beneath the hot seas. The sight had made him feel sad, as it did most people. To think of all the waste…

  Helena had joined him at the viewing port and they had stood together in companionable silence. Amy had been fast asleep in her mother’s arms, and wasn’t even a year old at the time.

  One of the special features of the voyage had been a low orbit slingshot flyby of Earth a few days later, and that had been incredible in its own way; knowing that you were just a few hundred miles from the surface your ancestors had walked upon. Close to the air your ancestors had breathed (while it was still breathable), but Jim still felt that the moment up on Mars was when he had been closest to the Cradle of Mankind.

  In the photograph, Helena and he had been dressed as “Old Mars” Miners; there had even been a tiny spacesuit for Amy complete with miniature sonic pick. They had all, even the baby, been laughing at the antics of the tiny robot the photographer had with him. Jim sighed. It was only a year after the photo was taken that Helena had been killed in a traffic accident. At first he had been unable to even look at the picture, and had enrolled on the mission to Saunder’s World partly to get away from the memories. Some instinct had led him not to put the photo into storage with the rest of the stuff, and at the last moment he had put it into a pocket. He was glad he had. He must have looked at the image a couple of thousand times by now. He put it away again and, rubbing his hands, wondered when Grad would be back. The chessboard was waiting!

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  Dr Clark drummed his fingers on the side of the medical scanner he held. Below him, on the examining couch, Lana felt so sick that she almost didn’t care what the diagnosis was; she just wanted to pass out.

  The flight back from the Amish settlement in the dark had been a nightmare. Every little buffet of wind, or gentle dip as she flew through softer air pockets had left her wracked with dry heaves, and the final approach had been done with eyes streaming with tears and teeth clenched. She had had to be helped from the Skyak by Jackson and Sergeant Raoul, and had thought that she might actually be going to die.

  “Hmm, yes, as I said. You’ve been poisoned, quite badly. You say that there was a particularly bad smell? And it was soon after this that you started to feel unwell? That is consistent with what I’m finding here. You have got significant lung damage, but don’t worry, your nanos are already dealing with the problem, for a while they were nearly overwhelmed, but they’re catching up now. You should feel better in a few hours and completely right by tomorrow evening. Just take things easy.”

  “What about the baby?” Lana searched the Doctor’s face.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry, I should have said. The baby is completely unaffected. Please, excuse me for one moment.” The Doctor left the room, and Lana lay back in relief, closing her eyes.

  Outside, Athena and Jackson waited in the corridor.

  “How is she Doctor?” Athena was looking stricken.

  “She is going to be fine.” Clarke’s tone changed to one of anger “Now suppose you tell me what’s going on.”

  “Doctor, we honestly don’t know. Lana was paying a courtesy call on the Amish over a straying horse. She found their site deserted.”

  “And that’s it? You don’t know any more? I have a job to do and I need to be in possession of all the facts in order to do that job.” He glared at them both.

  “Really Doctor, nothing is being kept from you. We’re in the same position as you. In fact, we’re hoping you can tell us what made her ill.”

  Clarke softened slightly. “Listen to me then. Lana inhaled a poisonous gas composed in part of methane, ammonia and sulphur. This gas was organic in origin.”

  “Organic? What does that mean?” Jackson leaned in anxiously.

  “There’s no way of knowing at this stage, I’ll need to take a look at the site, which should be quarantined immediately. And I’ll need to take samples and so on.”

  “Of course, Dr Clarke. We’ll assemble a team the moment the shuttle’s finished. It should be ready tomorrow. Will Lana be well enough then?”

  “You bet I will.” Lana stood in the doorway, swaying slightly and looking green, but defiant.

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  Gerard took his stroll around the town’s deserted streets. It had been a long day and the inhabitants had only finally dispersed a little while ago. Gerard was, as was his custom, the last to go to bed. Unlike most of the settlers he had a penchant for strong coffee, a substance banned on many worlds, and of which he had had to bring his own supply in the form of a very small, very specialised vat which produced nothing but coffee grains. The coffee maker had cost half a year’s pay, but he didn’t regret the cost at all.

  Being a careful guy he had started of late to stockpile grains against a future emergency, filling every airtight container he could lay his hands on. The unit was guaranteed for ten years against failure with a manufacturer – busting guarantee, but what would that be worth out here? Since the current troubles he had gone into pretty much full time production, and wasn’t far off a lifetime’s worth, stashed away in a lockable cupboard in his house.

  Every evening, when the others retired, Gerard would brew some coffee, drink it, and while the caffeine still thrummed in his veins, he would go out for a walk in the cooling air until he began to yawn. Only then would he know that he would be able to sleep. Tonight he turned the corner and there was the horse, still on its feet like him. It was sniffing the black surface of the road, as if wondering where the grass had gone.

  During the day, Gerard had affected indifference to the horse, but now that they were alone he felt a little differently. They were the same, him, and the horse; both a little out of place here at the end of the galaxy. He moved towards the horse and it let him come, ears moving but keeping otherwise still. It was a magnificent beast, standing taller than he was at the shoulder, and its breath was coming out in twin wisps from the cavernous nostrils into the cold night air.

  He drew close and the horse placidly lifted its head. He reached out and touched its neck, then ran his hand over its nose as he had seen the others do earlier. The soft warm muzzle felt delightful. The horse suddenly whipped forth its long tongue and licked his palm, and Gerard, startled, laughed.

  “Ah, my friend, we are a couple of night – owls are we not? I would invite you back to my home but I fear you would find it too small. Eh bien, I must wish you good night.” He patted the horse’s neck, but its attention was elsewhere. Its head reared up, and its eyes rolled in its head. It leapt round, knocking Gerard sprawling on the ground, and raced away down the street, hooves skittering on the newly formed hard carbon surface.

  “Bastard!” Gerard got to his feet, staring venomously down the road after the now distant hoof beats. Then he too began to sniff the air. The smell wa
s faint but quite disgusting.

  Chapter 10

  On the Saunder’s World of five hundred thousand years before, the same flat plains studded with lakes spread under the same swirl of stars tumbling through vast tracts of time towards the hungry maw of the Skagorack. The plains teemed with herds of herbivores of many species, stalked by carnivores hunting in packs or as solitary killers. Amongst the plant eaters were a species of large semi aquatic crabs whose foes were rare but who had lately become prey to an evolving malady which had bred from the mud and silt in the ponds and lakes where they sought refuge from the sun. Tonight the weather was mild and a small pod of crablike beings were grazing without care under the watchful eye of their spawnmother, a colossal version of themselves. Above them the stars shone brightly from the calm sky as they worked their way through the soft mud at the edge of the lake, scooping up clods with their fore claws and chewing them with their horizontally opposed mandibles, before ejecting the filtered sludge out in squirts the size and consistency of cowpats. They were unaware that around them on the plain a hunting party was closing in; beings outwardly like themselves, but whose soft inner parts were infected and decaying. Whose dead minds were corrupted and reorganised into new patterns of aggression and lust to kill. The possessed closed in, surrounding their prey with an instinct to cut off any means of escape. Among them walked an undead version of the spawn – mother, whose dead nervous system propelled her on with one purpose; to find new meat. Other creatures on the plain had proved far too fleet for the infected crabs, which were constructed for strength and resilience rather than speed.

  The infected closed in, encircling their healthy victims, moving silently through the grass on long legs tipped with sharp bony points which left deep circles bored into the soft ground. With one accord they rushed in to the herd of peaceful grazers, each diseased crab selecting its own target, shouldering it over onto its back, and thrusting, stabbing with their sharp limbs at the bellies of their victims.

  Though their bodies were encased in a strong shell, The crabs had little immune resistance and were destined to be among the first species to fall, and tonight’s battle was typical of many which were taking place across the world every night.

  The spawnmother squealed in outrage at the attack on her brood, and thundered down the hill to the rescue. Bursting into the middle of the fight she cast about her with her broad limbs, throwing the attackers off with much splintering of shell and crushing of body. The enemy backed off and she stood in the middle of her dead children, hissing.

  All around her the brood reanimated, and thus reinforced, the possessed horde attacked the mother, several of them clinging to each limb, many clambering across her ridged back until by sheer weight they bore her to the ground. The possessed mother approached, and began to thrust with its dead limbs at the body of the struggling prey. It stabbed at her tough shell, seeking the weak points. Underneath her carapace it found the opening it needed; her cloacae. The large sphincter was guarded by two strong flaps, but these were wrenched apart, she lurched away from the burning agony, but already it was too late; a spiky forelimb had been thrust into the tender opening and had been broken off by a spasm of muscle. The black pus which exuded from the broken tip had carried the contagion and already the putrescence was coursing through the mother’s body, causing her to lurch and flail with the pain.

  Now though, the battle was done, and the attackers leapt aside, knowing that inside her body the final defences were being breached. The spawn – mother collapsed with a tremendous thud into the grass. Her legs folded underneath her, sprang out in a last spasm, and then dropped to the ground like so many dead branches.

  After a few minutes, she rose again, and with gathering coordination in her many limbs, moved away to the south, where the burning beacons of a large herd of bipedal grazers were gathered in the inner curve of a long crescent of water. Moving with one will the organism directed the enlarged herd to break into two forces, and approach the lake from two different directions. It now had enough elements to hunt more effectively, using one force based around the bulky and highly visible spawn – mothers to panic the herd into the waiting ambush of the more nimble units.

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  Athena and Jackson walked in silence into the Marine’s Utility room. Around them were the gun racks full of weaponry and combat suits the platoon had brought with them and which had been in storage until very recently. The hardware gave off a clean smell, and was still all but unused. However, its mere presence gave their gathering troubles a more immediate feel, as if making concrete the situation they were now in. The equipment made Athena feel uncomfortable, as if events were slipping beyond her control and into this military domain about which she knew practically nothing. In contrast, Jackson seemed braced by the hardware, as if its uncompromising solidity replaced the nebulousness of peacetime civilian affairs. Athena spoke first.

  “Well, Lieutenant, it seems you had a point.”

  Jackson looked at her for a few long seconds. “About Olafson? Yes, I do think we should have followed that one up, but we had other priorities.”

  “And now those people are dead.”

  “We don’t yet know that for sure. Perhaps they’ve run away, or even been taken hostage. Either way, we have to find them, and find them fast. We need to know what we’re dealing with. Have you got his file?” They both called Gunnar’s file to their internal comms, and stood in silence for a while, reading it through. Athena finished first and watched as the more methodical Jackson read closely, appearing to stare into the middle distance as people always did when they were reading head – ups. His eye came back into focus and he shook his head a little.

  “There’s nothing there. You were right, he seemed harmless.”

  “Yes, well, the Psyches got that one wrong, and badly so.” Athena held her pursed lips for a moment “What are we going to do? We have to get a warning out to the settlements, particularly Heart Lake. He could still be dangerous.”

  “I agree, but let’s plan it out properly first; we can’t just wake everyone up and throw them into a panic. Take ten minutes now; it’ll save hours of confusion later.” He looked at her closely, seeing obvious signs of tiredness in her face “You all right? You up to this?” He glanced at his internal clock “It’s late, do you need a few hours of rest first?”

  “No, we need to get on with this.”

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  The group of possessed corpses approached the town from the east, slowly and haltingly but with a terrible intentness of purpose. The dog’s smaller frame had not supported the large amount of energy needed to fuel the long night’s trek, and it, like the children, was nearly consumed. Just scraps of muscle tissue tugging at the fraying ligaments kept them mobile. No matter, their journey was at an end. Only a little further was a wealth of new hosts. Above them a tissue of thin cloud obscured the stars, making the night pitch black, and the lights of the settlement burned all the brighter in contrast. The organism, however, responded to a deeper sense in which the life in the flesh ahead stood out as a series of pale beacons.

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  At the outskirts of town the organism paused for a moment to marshal its forces, for the hosts were controlled as one by an ancient instinct to trap and capture; to expand. Two went one way. Two others went another. The dead children and the carcass of the dog remained in place at the head of the short road east. Nearby, a farmbot tilled the land heedlessly, steadily moving to and fro across the field, creating rows in the soft damp soil.

  The night stars silently crossed the sky, and then at some unseen prompt, the corpses moved forward into the sleeping town.

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  The fabric over the doorway was only ever intended to keep out the night air, and gave easily to the push of the rotting hand. Inside, the air was heavy with the breath of the sleeping family. The corpse shuffled into the parents’ bedroom and reached out to the sleeping faces. The mother and the father died without becoming fully awake, convulsin
g quietly. Then, they rose and joined their killer on the way to the children’s room. Across the town the scene was repeated until from door after door more contaminated hosts appeared.

  Then, someone awoke and the night was filled with the despairing shrieks of the dying. Living people spilled out into the main street to do battle with the dead, armed with whatever implements they could put their hands to, but all was futile, one touch from their attackers was enough. They died in agony, and then rose after a few moments to join the ranks of their killers.

  A mother ran, clutching her twitching, dying child in her arms until it reached up a blistered hand and caressed her face. Her headlong dash stumbled to a halt and she fell.

  A youth ran the length of the main street, dodging from side to side to avoid the surging crowd of the dead, only to find his way blocked by the dog and the Amish children’s cadavers. He turned back in despair and was engulfed.