by Eric Brown
Hunter experienced a strange plummeting sensation deep within him. He whispered, ‘Where is she?’
‘Six months ago, when it was obvious that your resurrection would be successful, she left for Tartarus to do some field-work, investigations and preliminary tracking.’
Hunter closed his eyes. Alvarez had him.
He thought of his child. Surely Sam would not take an infant to Tartarus. ‘Who’s looking after our child while Sam is on Tartarus?’ he asked.
Alvarez shook his head apologetically. ‘I never actually met your wife. Our negotiations were conducted via intermediaries. I know nothing of your wife’s personal arrangements.’
Hunter stood and contemplated the view, the tall trees marching away into the mist, the canopy of rainbows and the star-galleons. It was against everything that Hunter believed in to hunt and trap an animal for captivity. How many lucrative commissions had he turned down in the past?
But there was one obvious difference in this case. If the animal that Alvarez wanted capturing was not tracked and taken from Tartarus, then it faced annihilation come the supernova.
And there was the added incentive that soon he would be reunited with Sam.
‘I seem to have little choice but to agree to your demands.’
Alvarez smiled thinly. ‘Excellent. I knew you would see sense, eventually. We need a man of your calibre in order to track the creature I require as the prize of my collection.’
‘Which is?’ Hunter asked.
Alvarez paused for a second, as if for dramatic emphasis. ‘The Slarque,’ he said.
* * * *
Hunter mouthed the word to himself in disbelief. Millennia ago, long before humankind colonised Tartarus, a sentient alien race known as the Slarque was pre-eminent on the planet. They built cities on every continent, sailed ships across the oceans, and reached a stage of civilisation comparable to that of humanity in the sixteenth century. Then, over the period of a few hundred years, they became extinct - or so some theorists posited. Others, a crank minority, held that the Slarque still existed in some devolved form, sequestered in the mountainous jungle terrain of the southern continent. There had been reports of sightings, dubious ‘eye-witness’ accounts of brief meetings with the fearsome, bipedal creatures, but no actual concrete evidence.
‘Mr Hunter,’ Alvarez was saying, ‘do you have any idea what kind of creature was responsible for your death?’
Hunter gestured. ‘Of course not. It happened so fast. I didn’t have a chance—’ He stopped.
Alvarez crossed the room to a wall-screen. He inserted a small disc, adjusted dials. He turned to Hunter. ‘Your wife was filming at the time of your death. This is what she filmed.’
The screen flared. Hunter took half a dozen paces forward, then stopped, as if transfixed by what he saw. The picture sent memories, emotions, flooding through his mind. He stared at the jungle scene, and he could almost smell the stringent, putrescent reek peculiar to Tartarus, the stench of vegetable matter rotting in the vastly increased heat of the southern climes. He heard the cries and screams of a hundred uncatalogued birds and beasts. He experienced again the mixture of anxiety and exhilaration at being in the unexplored jungle of a planet which at any moment might be ripped apart by its exploding sun.
‘Watch closely, Mr Hunter,’ Alvarez said.
He saw himself, a small figure in the background, centre-screen. This was an establishing shot, which Sam would edit into the documentary she always made about their field-trips.
It was over in five seconds.
One instant he was gesturing at the blood-red sky through a rent in the jungle canopy - and the next something emerged through the undergrowth behind him, leapt upon his back and began tearing him apart.
Hunter peered at the grainy film, trying to make out his assailant. The attack was taking place in the undergrowth, largely obscured from the camera. All that could be seen was the rearing, curving tail of the animal - for all the world like that of a scorpion - flailing and thrashing and coming down again and again on the body of its victim . . .
The film finished there, as Sam fired flares to scare away the animal. The screen blanked.
‘We have reason to believe,’ Alvarez said, ‘that this creature was the female of the last surviving pair of Slarque on Tartarus—’
‘Ridiculous!’ Hunter cried.
‘They are devolved,’ Alvarez went on, ‘and living like wild animals.’ He paused. ‘Do you see what an opportunity this is, Mr Hunter? If we can capture, and save from certain extinction, the very last pair of a sentient alien race?’
Hunter gestured, aware that his hand was trembling. ‘This is hardly proof of its existence,’ he objected.
‘The stinger corresponds to anatomical remains which are known to be of the Slarque. Which other species on Tartarus has such a distinctive feature?’ Alvarez paused. ‘Also, your wife has been working hard on Tartarus. She has come up with some very interesting information.’
From a pocket in his robe, he pulled out what Hunter recognised as an ear-phone. ‘A couple of months ago she dispatched this report of her progress. I’ll leave it with you.’ He placed it on the table top beside the bed. ‘We embark for Tartarus in a little under three days, Mr Hunter. For now, farewell.’
When Alvarez had left the room, Hunter quickly crossed to the bed and took up the ‘phone. His heart leapt at the thought of listening to his wife’s voice. He inserted the ‘phone in his right ear, activated it.
Tears came to his eyes. Her words brought back a slew of poignant memories. He saw her before him, her calm oval face, dark hair drawn back, green eyes staring into space as she spoke into the recorder.
Hunter lay on the bed and closed his eyes.
* * * *
Apollinaire Town. Mary’s day, 33rd St Jerome’s month, 1720 - Tartarean calendar.
By Galactic Standard it’s ... I don’t know. I know I’ve been here for months, but it seems like years. Sometimes I find it hard to believe that anything exists beyond this damned planet. The sun dominates everything. During the day it fills the sky, bloated and festering. Even at night the sky is crimson with its light. It’s strange to think that everything around me, the everyday reality of Tartarus I take for granted, will be incinerated in less than a year. This fact overwhelms life here, affecting everyone. There’s a strange air of apathy and lassitude about the place, as people go about their business, marking time before the wholesale evacuation begins. The crime rate has increased; violence is commonplace. Bizarre cults have sprung up - and I mean even weirder than the official Church of the Ultimate Sacrifice.
Alvarez, I want you to pass this recording on to Hunter when he’s fit and well. I know you want a progress report, and you’ll get one. But I want to talk to my husband, if you don’t mind.
I’m staying at the Halbeck House hotel, Hunter - in the double room overlooking the canal. I’m dictating this on the balcony where we did the editing for the last film. I’m watching the sun set as I speak. It’s unpleasantly hot, but at least there’s a slight breeze starting up. In the trees beside the canal, a flock of nightgulls are gathering. You’ll be able to hear their songs a little later, when night falls. A troupe of Leverfre’s mandrills are watching me from the far balcony rail. I know you never liked the creatures, Hunter - but I find something inexpressibly melancholy in their eyes. Do you think they know their time is almost up?
(Oh, by the way, the hotel still serves the most superb lemon beer in Apollinaire. Mmm.)
Okay, Alvarez, I know - you want to hear how I’m progressing.
Three days ago I got back from a month-long trip into the interior. I’d been getting nowhere in either Apollinaire or Baudelaire. The leads I wanted to follow up all ran out - people were reluctant to talk. A couple of people I wanted to interview - the freelance film-maker who recorded something ten years ago, and the uranium prospector who claimed he’d seen a Slarque . . . well, the film-maker left Tartarus a couple of years back, and the pro
spector is dead. I tried to make an appointment with the Director of the Natural History museum, but he was away and wasn’t due back for a week. I left a message for him, then decided to take a trek into the interior.
Hunter, the ornithopter service no longer runs from Apollinaire. Gabriella’s sold up and left the planet, and the new owner has resited the operation in Baudelaire. It’s understandable, of course. These days there are few naturalists, geologists, or prospectors interested in the southern interior. The only visitors to the area are the members of one of the crackpot cults I mentioned, the so-called Slarquists, who come here on their way to the alien temples down the coast. I don’t know what they do there. There are rumours that they make sacrifices to the all-powerful God of the Slarque. Don’t ask me what kind of sacrifices.
Anyway, with no ornithopters flying, I hired a tracked bison and two armed guards, and set off inland.
It took four days to reach the site of our first camp, Hunter - the rock pool beneath the waterfall, remember? From there it was another two days to the foot of the plateau, to the place where you . . . where the attack happened. It was just how I remembered it - the opening in the smaller salse trees, the taller, surrounding trees providing a high level canopy that blotted out the sun ... I left the guards in the bison and just stood on the edge of the clearing and relived the horror of what happened three years ago.
I can hear you asking why I went back there, why did I torture myself? Well, if you recall, I’d set up a few remote cameras to record some of the more timorous examples of the area’s wildlife while we went trekking. After the attack ... I’d left the cameras and equipment in my haste to get to Baudelaire. It struck me that perhaps if the Slarque - if Slarque they were - had returned, then they might be captured on film.
That night in the clearing I viewed all the considerable footage. Plenty of shots of nocturnal fauna and grazing quadrupeds, but no Slarque.
The following day I took forensic samples from the area where the attack happened - broken undergrowth, disturbed soil, etc, for Alvarez’s people to examine when they get here. Then I set up more cameras, this time fixed to relay images back to my base in Apollinaire.
I decided to make a few exploratory forays into the surrounding jungle. We had food and water for a couple of weeks, and as the guards were being paid by the hour they had no reason to complain. Every other day we made circular treks into the jungle, finishing back at the campsite in the evening. I reckon we covered a good two hundred square kilometres like this. I filmed constantly, took dung samples, samples of hair and bone . . . Needless to say, I didn’t come across the Slarque.
Just short of a month after leaving Apollinaire, we made the journey back. I felt depressed. I’d achieved nothing, not even laid the terror of that terrible day. It’s strange, but I returned to Tartarus on this mission for Alvarez with extreme reluctance - if not for the fact that I was working for him to cover the cost of your treatment, I would have been happy to leave Tartarus well alone and let the Slarque fry when the sun blew. That was then. Now, and even after just a few days on the planet, I wanted to know what had killed you, if it were a Slarque. I wanted to find out more about this strange, devolved race.
I left the interior having found out nothing, and that hurt.
When I got back to Halbeck House, there was a message for me from the Director of the Natural History Museum at Apollinaire. He’d seen and enjoyed a couple of our films and agreed to meet me.
Monsieur Dernier was in his early eighties, so learned and dignified I felt like a kid in his company. I told him about the attack, that I was eager to trace the animal responsible. It happened that he’d heard about the incident on the newscasts - he was happy to help me. Now that it came to it, I was reluctant to broach the subject of the Slarque, in case Dernier thought me a complete crank - one of the many crazy cultists abroad in Apollinaire. I edged around the issue for a time, mentioned at last that some people, on viewing the film, had commented on how the beast did bear a certain superficial resemblance to fossil remains of the Slarque. Of course, I hastened to add, I didn’t believe this myself.
He gave me a strange look, told me that he himself subscribed to the belief, unpopular though it was, that devolved descendants of the Slarque still inhabited the interior of the southern continent.
He’d paused there, then asked me if I’d ever heard of Rogers and Codey? I admitted that I hadn’t.
Dernier told me that they had been starship pilots back in the eighties. Their shuttle had suffered engine failure and come down in the central mountains, crash-landed in a remote snowbound valley and never been discovered. They were given up for dead - until a year later when Rogers staggered into Apollinaire, half-delirious and severely frostbitten. The only survivor of the crash, he’d crossed a high mountain pass and half the continent - it made big news even on Earth, thirty years ago. When he was sufficiently recovered to leave hospital, Rogers had sought out M. Dernier, a well-known advocate of the extant Slarque theory.
Lieutenant Rogers claimed to have had contact with the Slarque in their interior mountain fastness.
Apparently, Rogers had repeated, over and over, that he had seen the Slarque, and that the meeting had been terrible - and he would say no more. Rogers had needed to confess, Dernier felt, but, when he came to do so, the burden of his experience had been too harrowing to relive.
I asked Dernier if he believed Rogers’ story.
He told me that he did. Rogers hadn’t sought to publicise his claim, to gain from it. He had no reason to lie about meeting the creatures. Whatever had happened in the interior had clearly left the lieutenant in a weakened mental state.
I asked him if he knew what had become of Lt Rogers, if he was still on Tartarus.
‘Thirty years ago,’ Dernier said, ‘Lt Rogers converted, became a novice in the Church of the Ultimate Sacrifice. If he’s survived this long in the bloody organisation, then he’ll still be on Tartarus. You might try the monastery at Barabas, along the coast.’
So yesterday I took the barge on the inland waterway, then a pony and trap up to the clifftop Monastery of St Cyprian of Carthage.
I was met inside the ornate main gate by a blind monk. He listened to my explanations in silence. I said that I wished to talk to a certain Anthony Rogers, formerly Lt Rogers of the Tartarean Space Fleet. The monk told me that father Rogers would be pleased to see me. He was taking his last visitors this week. Three days ago he had undergone extensive penitent surgery, preparatory to total withdrawal.
The monk led me through ancient cloisters. I was more than a little apprehensive. I’d seen devotees of the Ultimate Sacrifice only at a distance before. You know how squeamish I am, Hunter.
The monk left me in a beautiful garden overlooking the ocean. I sat on a wooden bench and stared out across the waters. The sky was white hot, the sun huge above the horizon as it made its long fall towards evening.
The monk returned, pushing a ... a bundle in a crude wooden wheelchair. Its occupant, without arms or legs, jogged from side to side as he was trundled down the incline, prevented from falling forwards by a leather strap buckled around his midriff.
The monk positioned the carriage before me and murmured that he’d leave us to talk.
I . . . even now I find it difficult to express what I thought, or rather felt, on meeting Father Rogers in the monastery garden. His physical degradation, the voluntary amputation of his limbs, gave him the unthreatening and pathetic appearance of a swaddled infant - so perhaps the reason I felt threatened was that I could not bring myself to intellectually understand the degree of his commitment in undergoing such mutilation.
Also what troubled me was that I could still see, in his crew-cut, his deep tan and keen blue eyes, the astronaut that he had once been.
We exchanged guarded pleasantries for a time, he suspicious of my motives, myself unsure as to how to begin to broach the subject of his purported meeting with the aliens.
I recorded our conversation. I�
�ve edited it into this report. I’ve cut the section where Fr Rogers rambled - he’s in his nineties now and he seemed much of the time to be elsewhere. From time to time he’d stop talking altogether, stare into the distance, as if reliving the ordeal he’d survived in the mountains. In the following account I’ve included a few of my own comments and explanations.
I began by telling him that, almost three years ago, I lost my husband in what I suspect was a Slarque attack.
Fr Rogers: Slarque? Did you say Slarque?
Sam: I wasn’t one hundred per cent sure. I might be mistaken. I’ve been trying to find someone with first-hand experience of . . .
Fr Rogers: The Slarque . . . Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on their wayward souls. It’s such a long time ago, such a long time. I sometimes wonder . . . No, I know it happened. It can’t have been a dream, a nightmare. It happened. It’s the reason I’m here. If not for what happened out there in the mountains, I might never have seen the light.