by Eric Brown
Something turned in his stomach. He gestured towards the book. ‘Do you believe that?’ he said.
She stared at him with her green and vital eyes. ‘I’m intrigued by the extinct aliens,’ she replied. ‘I was always interested in xeno-archaeology. I want to help the Abbot find the temple.’
He felt betrayed. ‘You act as his eyes?’
She nodded, then reached out and took his hand. ‘I love you, Hans. I always have and always will. This . . . this is something I must experience. Please, don’t obstruct me.’
The Abbot called that a meal was prepared.
The sun was dipping below the horizon, presaging the nightly show of tattered flames and flares like shredded banners. They sat in the shade of the jungle - Cramer relieved when Francesca chose to sit next to him - and ate from a platter of meat, cheese and bread. He recalled her words, her avowal of love, but they did nothing to banish his jealousy.
The Abbot poured wine and spoke of his religion, his belief that only through physical, mortification would his God be appeased and the sun cease its swelling. Cramer listened with mounting incredulity. From time to time he glanced at Francesca. The girl he knew of old would have piped up with some pithy remark along the lines that the holy man’s fellow believers had been sawing bits off themselves for centuries, and still the sun was unstable. But she said nothing. She seemed hypnotised by the Abbot’s words.
Cramer was drunk with the wine, or he would have held his tongue. ‘A lot your mortification has achieved so far,’ he slurred, indicating the burning heavens.
‘Once we locate the temple of the Slarque,’ said the Abbot, ‘our efforts will be rewarded. Be glad and rejoice, for the Lord will do great things.’ According to his holy book, he said, strange feats and miracles were to be expected in the alien ruins - but by this time Cramer had heard enough, and concentrated on his drinking.
He shared Francesca’s tent that night. He sat cross-legged, a bottle of wine half-full in his lap. Francesca lay on her back, staring up at the sloping fabric.
He processed his thoughts and carefully ordered his words. ‘How . . . how can you be sure that you’ll find the temple before the sun—?’
‘The Abbot and his minions have searched most of the jungle - there is only this sector to go. We will find the shrine.’
‘You sound in little doubt.’
She turned her head and stared at him. ‘I am in no doubt,’ she said.
He determined, then, that he would not let her go. He would restrain her somehow, drag her back to Baudelaire and then to Earth.
‘When do you set out on this . . . this expedition?’ he asked.
‘Tomorrow, or maybe the day after.’ There was defiance in her tone.
‘Then you’ll return . . . ?’ He could not bring himself to say, ‘to me?’ Instead he said, ‘You’ll rejoin the Fleet?’
She glanced at him, seemed to be searching for the words with which to explain herself. ‘Hans ... I joined the Fleet believing that through science we might do something to stabilise these novae. Over the years, I’ve come to realise that nothing can be done.’ She frowned. ‘I can’t go back, rejoin the Fleet.’ She hesitated, seemed to want to go on, but instead just shook her head in frustration.
She turned her back on him and slept.
Her words echoing in his head, Cramer drank himself unconscious.
He was awoken by a sound, perhaps hours later. He oriented himself and reached out for Francesca, but she was gone. He gathered his wits, peered from the tent. Across the clearing he made out Francesca’s short figure next to the tall form of the Abbot. They were shouldering their packs, their movements careful so as not to wake him. Cramer felt the smouldering pain of betrayal in his gut. From his pack he drew his laser and slipped from the tent. As he moved around the clearing, keeping to the shadows, he was formulating a plan. He would stun both Francesca and the Abbot, then flee with her back to the port and take the first ship home. The girl was not in her right mind, could not be held responsible for her actions.
Francesca saw him coming. She stared at him, wide-eyed.
Dry of throat, Cramer said, ‘You were leaving me!’
‘Do not try to stop us,’ the Abbot warned.
Francesca cried, ‘I must go! If you love me, if you trust me, then you’ll let me go!’
‘What have you done to her!’ he yelled at the Abbot.
‘You cannot stop us,’ the holy fool said. ‘The way of the pious will not be impeded by those of scant faith!’
Cramer raised his laser, clicked off the safety catch.
Francesca was shaking her head. ‘No . . .’
His vision swam. A combination of the heat, the drink, the emotional consequences of what was happening conspired to addle his wits.
Francesca made to turn and go.
He reached out, caught her arm. The sudden feel of her, the hot flesh above her elbow, reminded Cramer of what he was losing. He pulled her to him. ‘Francesca . . .’
Her eyes communicated an anger close to hatred. She struggled. She was small, but the determination with which she fought was testament to her desire to be free. He was incensed. He roared like a maniac and dragged her across the clearing towards the tent. She screamed and broke free.
Then Cramer raised his laser and fired, hitting her in the chest and knocking her off her feet, the large-eyed expression of disbelief at what he’d done still on her face as she hit the ground.
The Abbot was on his knees beside her, his fingers fumbling for her pulse. He stared blindly in Cramer’s direction. ‘You’ve killed her! My God, you’ve killed her!’
‘No . . .’ He collapsed and held the loose bundle of Francesca in his arms. There was no movement, no heartbeat. Her head lolled. He cried into her hair that he had not meant to . . .
The Abbot began a doleful prayer for Cramer’s soul. Cramer wanted to hate him then, revile the holy man for infecting Francesca with his insane belief, but in his grief and guilt he could only weep and beg forgiveness.
At the Abbot’s suggestion Cramer buried Francesca in the rank jungle soil, while the night sky pulsed and flared with all the colours of Hell.
When it was done, and they stood above the fresh mound of earth, Cramer asked, ‘And you?’
‘I will continue on my quest.’
‘Without eyes?’
‘We walk by faith, not by sight,’ the Abbot said. ‘If God wishes me to find the shrine, that is his will.’
Cramer remained kneeling by the grave for hours, not quite sane. As the sun rose he set off on the long trek south, the Abbot’s dolorous chant following him into the jungle. He caught one of the many ferries bound for Baudelaire, and the following day bought passage aboard a slowboat to Earth.
He lost himself in Venezuela’s vast interior, relived his time with Francesca, wallowed in grief and guilt and cursed himself for her death.
Then, just short of four months later, the Abbot came to Earth with news from Tartarus Major.
* * * *
Cramer was sitting on the porch of his jungle retreat, the abandoned timber villa of some long-dead oil prospector. It was not yet noon and already his senses were numbed by alcohol. The encroaching jungle, the variation of greens and the odd splash of colour from bird or flower, reminded him of Tartarus - though the sky, what little of it could be seen through the tree-tops, was innocent of the baleful eye of the supernova.
The rattle of loose boards sounded through the humid air. His first visitor in four months approached along the walkway from the riverbank.
He sat up, fearful of trouble. He checked the pistol beneath the cushion at his side.
The walkway rose from the river in an erratic series of zigzags, and only when the caller negotiated the final turn could Cramer make him out. With his long sable habit and peaked hood he looked the very image of Death itself.
The boards were loose and treacherous. The Abbot had to tread with care, but not once did he reach for the side-rails - and only when
he arrived at the verandah did Cramer realise why. The Abbot had had his arms removed since their last encounter.
To each his own mortification, Cramer thought. He hoisted his bottle in greeting.
‘What the hell brings you here?’ he asked. ‘You’ve finally abandoned your damn-fool quest?’
The holy man sat cross-legged before Cramer, a feat of some achievement considering the absence of his arms. He tipped his head back, and his cowl slipped from his bald pate to reveal his face ravaged by the depredations of his piety.
Cramer noted that his dried eyeballs were now fastened about his left ankle, bolas-like.
‘In two days I return to Tartarus,’ he said in his high, rasping voice. His stitched-shut eye-sockets faced Cramer’s approximate direction. ‘My quest is almost over.’
Cramer raised his drink. ‘You don’t know how pleased I am,’ he sneered. ‘But I thought no one knew the whereabouts of your precious shrine?’
‘Once, that was true,’ the Abbot said, unperturbed by Cramer’s rancour. ‘Explorers claimed they’d stumbled upon the alien temple, and then just as conveniently stumbled away again, unable to recall its precise location. But then two weeks ago a miracle occurred.’
Cramer took a long pull from the bottle and offered his guest a shot. The Abbot refused.
‘There is a pouch on a cord around my waist,’ he said. ‘Take it. Retrieve the items within.’
Cramer made out the small leather pouch, its neck puckered by a drawstring. He could not reach the Abbot from his seat. He was forced to kneel, coming into contact with the holy man’s peculiar body odour - part the stench of septic flesh, part the chemical reek of the analgesics that seeped from his every pore.
He opened the pouch and reached inside.
Three spherical objects met his fingertips, and he knew immediately what they were. One by one he withdrew the image apples. He did not immediately look into their depths. It was as if some precognition granted him the knowledge of what he was about to see. Only after long seconds did he raise the first apple to his eyes.
He gave an involuntary sob.
Image apples were not a fruit at all, but the exudations of an amber-like substance, clear as dew, from tropical palms native to Tartarus. Through a bizarre and unique process, the apples imprinted within themselves, at a certain stage in their growth, the image of their surroundings.
Bracing himself, Cramer looked into the first apple again, then the second and the third. Each crystal-clear orb contained a perfect representation of Francesca as she strode through the jungle, past the trees where the apples had grown.
The first apple had captured her full-length, a short, slim, childlike figure striding out, arms swinging - all radiation silvers and massed midnight hair. In the second apple she was closer; just her head and shoulders showed. Cramer stared at her elfin face, her high cheekbones and jade green eyes. Then the third apple: she was striding away from the tree, only her narrow back and fall of hair visible. Tears coursed down his cheeks.
He held the apples in cupped hands and shook his head. He was hardly able to find the words to thank the Abbot. Just the other day he had been bewailing the fact that he had but half a dozen pix of Francesca. That the holy man had come all the way to Earth to give him these . . .
‘I . . . Thank you. I don’t know what to say.’
Then Cramer stopped. Perhaps the whisky had clouded his senses. He stared at the Abbot.
‘How did you find these?’ he asked.
‘When you left,’ said the Abbot. ‘I continued north. At the time, if you recall, I was following directions given to me by a boatman on the river St Augustine. They proved fallacious, as ever, and rather than continue further north and risk losing my way, I retraced my steps, returned to the plateau where we had camped.’ He was silent for a time. Cramer was back on Tartarus Major, so graphically did the Abbot’s words conjure up the scene, so painful were his memories of the events upon the plateau.
‘When I reached the clearing, it occurred to me to pray for Francesca. I fell to my knees and felt for the totem I had planted to mark her resting place, only to find that it was not there. Moreover, I discovered that the piled earth of the grave had been disturbed, that the grave was indeed empty.’
Cramer tried to cry out loud, but no sound came.
‘In consternation I stumbled back to my tent. She was waiting for me.’
‘No!’
‘Yes. Francesca. She spoke to me, “Abbot, do not fear. Something wondrous has happened”.’
Cramer was shaking his head. ‘No, she was dead. Dead. I buried her with my own hands.’
‘Francesca lives,’ the Abbot insisted. ‘She told me that she knew the whereabouts of the holy temple. She would show me, if I did as she bid.’
‘Which was?’
He smiled, and the approximation of such a cheerful expression upon a face so devastated was ghastly to behold. ‘She wanted me to come to Earth and fetch you back to Tartarus. She gave me the image apples as proof.’
Cramer could only shake his head like something clockwork. ‘I don’t ... I can’t believe it.’
‘Look upon the images,’ he ordered.
Cramer held the baubles high. ‘But surely these are images of Francesca before I arrived on Tartarus,before her death?’
‘Look closely, man! See, she carries your laser, the one you left in your flight from the clearing.’
He stared again, disbelieving. He had overlooked it in the apples before, so slight a side-arm it was. But sure enough - strapped to Francesca’s thigh was the silver length of his personal pulse laser.
‘She wants you,’ the Abbot said in a whisper.
Cramer wept and raged. He hurled his empty whisky bottle through the air and into the jungle, which accepted it with hardly a pause in the cacophonous medley of insects, toads and birds.
‘But the sun might blow at any time,’ he cried.
‘Some experts say a month or two.’ The Abbot paused. ‘But vain and rapacious men still pilot illegal boats to Tartarus, to raid the treasures that remain. I leave the day after tomorrow. You will accompany me, I take it?’
Sobbing, unable to control himself, wracked with guilt and a fear he had no hope of understanding, Cramer said that he would indeed accompany the Abbot. How could he refuse?
And so began his return to Tartarus Major. He cursed the twisted machinations of fate. A little under four months ago he had set out on his first voyage to the planet, in a bid to find a Francesca he feared was surely dead - and, now, he left with the Abbot aboard a ramshackle sailship, its crew a gallery of rogues, to be reunited with a Francesca he knew for sure to be dead, but somehow miraculously risen . . .
He chose to spend the voyage under sedation.
* * * *
The first he knew of the landing was when the Abbot coaxed him awake with his croaking, cracking voice. Cramer emerged reluctantly from his slumber, recalling vague, nightmare visions of Francesca’s death - only to be confronted by another nightmare vision: the Abbot’s mutilated visage, staring down at him.
‘To your feet. Tartarus awaits.’
He gathered his scant belongings - six flasks of whisky, the image apples - and stumbled from the ship.
As he emerged into the terrible daylight, the assault of Tartarus upon his every sense seemed to sober him. He stared about like a man awakening from a dream, taking in the panorama of ancient wooden buildings around the port, their facades and steep, tiled roofs seeming warped by the intense heat.
Theirs was the only ship in sight, its silver superstructure an arrogant splash of colour against a sun-leached dun and ochre city. A searing wind soughed across the port, blowing hot grit into Cramer’s face. He gazed at the magnesium-bright sun that filled half the sky. The very atmosphere of the planet seemed to be on fire. The air was heavy with the stench of brimstone, and every breath was a labour.
The leader of the thieves stood beneath the nose-cone of the ship. ‘We set sail for Earth
in two days,’ he said. ‘If you want passage back, be here at dawn. We’ll not be waiting.’
Cramer calculated how long it might take to reach the jungle plateau, and return - certainly longer than any two days. He trusted there would be other pirate boats to take him back to civilisation.
Already the Abbot was hurrying across the port, his armless gait made fastidious with concentration. His dried eyeballs scuffed around his ankles as he went, striking random patterns in the dust. Cramer shouldered his bag and followed.
Unerringly, the holy man led the way down narrow alleys between the tall timber buildings of the city’s ancient quarter. Just four months ago these byways had been thronged with citizens streaming to the port, eager to flee the impending catastrophe. Now they were deserted. The only sound was that of their footsteps, and the dry rasp of the Abbot’s eyeballs on the cobbles. Between the over-reaching eaves, the sky dazzled like superheated platinum. All was still, lifeless.