by Toby Frost
‘Rhianna,’ he called. ‘Can you sense anything?’
Rhianna stopped pedalling and closed her eyes, and by the time she spoke, Carveth had almost spun their boat round in a circle.
‘Nothing –’ she said.
‘Well, that’s a relief.’
‘Except death,’ Rhianna added.
The tiny island was only a few yards away. Smith looked down and tried to see through the murky water. He thought that they were travelling over a shelf of flat grey rock, but it was hard to tell.
The end of the little boat bumped against the island. Smith climbed out and Suruk heaved the boat onto the ground. The air was warm and still, the sky empty. The shore seemed a long way off.
The second boat stopped and Rhianna emerged, holding her skirt up as she waded ashore. She helped Carveth out, and the four of them stood beside the fallen parasol while Suruk took Volgath’s photograph out of his pocket.
‘This is it,’ the M’Lak said.
Carveth turned around slowly, staring across the water. ‘So what now, Robinson Crusoe?’
Smith said, ‘We dig.’
‘What with?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe if we broke the parasol up, we could improvise a sort of shovel.’
Rhianna crouched down and pressed her hands to the ground. ‘Why don’t we all reach out and touch the earth? Maybe if we show proper respect to nature, the earth itself will show us the way.’
Carveth scowled. ‘And I thought she was getting better.’
‘Come on, Polly. What about you, Isambard? You respect nature. We call upon mother nature to open the way to our goal –’ Rhianna said, and she shot forward, suddenly on her front, her arms disappearing up to the shoulders. ‘It’s dirt,’ she cried. ‘I’ve found dirt!’
‘Yay, dirt,’ Carveth replied. ‘I know you love that stuff, but –’
Rhianna shook her head. ‘Wait. I’ve found something else. I think it’s a door.’
* * *
General Wikwot stomped into the main entrance of Mothkarak with a cigarette still smouldering in the corner of his muzzle, his honour guard holding the flag of parley. He looked around. The first thing that struck him, apart from the sheer size of the place, was the odd smell: a mixture of dust and that unnatural absence-of-fur that characterised the other sentient races. Disgusting.
Statues of great humans stood in niches in the wall, twice Wikwot’s size. The nearest one was, according to a brass plaque, Oliver Cromwell. He looked soft. Wikwot spat his cigarette out and advanced.
Puny soldiers stood around with large knives and guns. For a moment he felt a twinge of sympathy towards them: it must be terrible, he reflected, to grow up knowing that you would never be a rodent. Timid, mangy, devoid of lemming spirit – no wonder they looked so angry as they looked at him.
General Young waited in a side room. She sat across a large table, her staff seated around her. A small dish in the centre contained some sort of human food.
To show he meant business, Wikwot thrust his paw into the dish, took out a large scoop, put the stuff in his mouth and spat it onto the floor. ‘Offworlder food is dirty and contemptible!’ he announced.
‘That was the pot pourri,’ said Florence Young. ‘Please, take a seat.’
‘I shall take a seat,’ Wikwot replied, ‘and soon I shall take everything else!’ A ripple of polite laughter came from his minions. He yanked out a chair and dropped into it. ‘Now, unrodents, we shall discuss your surrender. No doubt you have heard entirely untrue stories that we Yull are a horde of genocidal lunatics. These are lies, and anyone repeating them will be skinned alive! It’s well known that we Yull are lovely and would not hurt a flea.’
‘Fly,’ one of General Young’s people said. His name-plate stated that he was Colonel Butt.
‘Do you doubt me?’ Wikwot felt the familiar urge to bash someone in the face. ‘Where I come from, it is flea!’
‘Figures,’ said Colonel Butt.
‘Stupid fat people,’ Wikwot said, ‘I have great respect for your empire. You have conquered vast tracts of space, made many planets your own. But, sometimes, a great warlord becomes… old. His grip on his axe weakens. He swings it less often. He gets soft.’
‘Meaning?’
The android butler appeared, carrying tea. He set the tray down and retreated out of sight.
‘That it is time for him to let the axe go. To pass the duty to care for his cattle to younger, more able hands. Because, believe me, we Yull know how to take care of those we rule.’
Florence Young raised an eyebrow. ‘And the old warrior in your analogy? What happens to him?’
‘Oh, we hack his head off.’ Wikwot yawned. ‘Trust me, offworlders, once you have been welcomed to the Greater Galactic Happiness and Friendship Collective you will be treated with all the kindness and respect that you deserve. Now then, my minions have the paperwork –’
‘General Wikwot,’ said General Young, as the android butler began to pour the tea.
‘Hwot?’
‘I’m afraid that every scrap of evidence points towards you wanting to conquer this planet, torture and massacre its inhabitants, and do exactly the same to every other planet you can find. No?’ she said, quite mildly. ‘I’m afraid I won’t let that happen.’
For a moment, Wikwot was completely still. Then he let out a little snort. ‘Humans, I was made to rule. I was born into a noble family. As soon as I could lick my own fur, I was schooled in the way of combat. I slept for half an hour a day. When I smiled, I was beaten. When I failed, I was beaten. When I succeeded, I was beaten even harder so I would remember the moment of victory. At the age of twelve, I had a psychotic breakdown and murdered eight serfs with a propelling pencil. Only then was I found worthy of an army commission. I, and those I lead, are proud members of that warrior tradition. We Yull are committed to our cause – more than lazy Earth people could ever understand.’
General Young frowned. She spoke carefully. ‘I see. When I came here, General,’ she replied, ‘people asked me how you could fight an enemy devoid of sanity, mercy or any sense of self-preservation.’
Wikwot nodded, but his jaw was clenched. ‘A sensible question.’
‘The answer is hard, General Wikwot. One fights somebody like that very, very hard. Which, by a happy coincidence, is exactly what my soldiers are. This has gone far enough, Wikwot. Your rampage across space is over. Those of your army who choose to surrender will be treated decently. Those who fight will be killed.’
A low growl came from Wikwot, like a machine powering up.
Lorvoth the Bloody-Handed leaned across the table, opened his mandibles and smiled horribly. ‘The buck stops here, Wikwot. Or the doe – whichever you happen to be.’
Wikwot leaped to his feet. His chair clattered behind him. ‘You!’ he cried. He threw out his arm accusingly and glowered across the table, like a bad actor playing Banquo’s ghost. ‘You stupid, mangy, unrodent, flat-faced monkey-pigs are all the same! Racists, the lot of you! You only hate us because we are furry and superior!’ He glared at the tabletop, decided against jumping over it, and paused, breathing heavily, the same low panting growl coming from his open mouth.
‘You will all die,’ he said. ‘All weak things will suffer and die. You will beg for mercy, and then for death, but there will be no mercy for cowards like you. Great Popacapinyo has decreed that this world will fall to the Divine Migration. And you, General,’ he added, glaring at Florence Young, ‘will be the last to die, so that you may see what your arrogance has cost your men.’
He turned and strode to the door. General Wikwot looked back. ‘When the Yull rule,’ he said, ‘this place will burn.’
‘I very much doubt it,’ General Young replied. ‘For one thing, it’s made of stone. Now,’ she added, glancing towards the door, ‘if you don’t mind, I’ve got an army to lead.’
* * *
They hauled the dirt out by the handful. At the bottom of the hole, they found a circular hatch.
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‘Wow,’ Rhianna said. ‘I wonder where it goes?’
‘The sewer?’ Carveth suggested. ‘I know a manhole when I see one.’ She sighed. ‘Well, it won’t be the first time I’ve been dropped right in the crap.’
‘This is no sewer,’ Suruk said. ‘Look! There are M’Lak characters on the edge. He climbed into the hole and crouched down. ‘Let me see what I can find.’
He traced the symbols with his finger. ‘The sign for caution. And this one means an entrance or opening. Strange,’ he added. ‘This is the symbol for “innards”.’
‘Caution, opens innards?’ Smith said. ‘What the devil does that mean?’
The hatch fell open. Suruk roared and dropped out of view. For a moment they stood in silence, and then a set of percussive noises indicated that something solid had stopped Suruk’s fall.
‘My mistake!’ he called up from below. ‘It said “inwards”, not “innards”. Oh, and there is a ladder here too. I wish I had known about that three seconds ago. I am beginning to see why you humans evolved buttocks.’
They climbed down, feet clanging on metal rungs. The air was still and old. The ground felt like rubber. There was a slight chemical smell.
As Carveth reached the bottom, lights blossomed in the floor. They stood in a corridor. Signs on the walls displayed the M’Lak symbol for Exit.
This is it, Smith thought. It must be!
‘Follow me,’ he said.
They walked on.
‘It’s like a huge tube,’ Rhianna observed.
‘Reminds me of a picture I once saw,’ Smith said, his voice echoing against the metal walls. ‘Hundreds of years ago, the French dug a tunnel to Britain.’
‘Why?’
‘I’m not sure. It came up under London. I think they were trying to steal Nelson’s Column.’ He scratched his head. There was a large part of history that didn’t interest him very much, in between Britain losing control of the world and gaining control of the galaxy.
Suruk pointed. ‘An airlock.’
At the end of the tunnel, a dozen curved plates had interlocked like a contracted iris. M’Lak symbols ringed the door. White markings on the plates had closed together to form a skull.
‘I don’t know,’ Carveth said. ‘It’s got a skull on.’
Suruk sighed. ‘Piglet,’ he replied, ‘I think you are going to have to get used to that.’
He hit the control pad. The door hissed. Steam blasted into the roof. The sections slid back into the walls with a greasy scraping sound, and the iris-lock opened. Lights boomed behind it, and they saw what lay beyond.
Shelves filled the walls. On them, rows of skulls of half a dozen sorts. A thing like a typewriter, or perhaps a cash machine, stood on a plinth. Spears protruded from a bucket like bamboo sticks. On the walls, there hung pictures of a M’Lak warrior riding a huge mechanical beast.
‘Whoa,’ Rhianna said, and for once, Smith could see what she meant.
They walked inside, the lights swelling around them.
‘So,’ Smith said. ‘The resting-place of Grimdall the Rebel.’
Suruk pointed to one of the pictures, in which a M’Lak hero grappled with a human who was probably meant to be Genghis Khan.
Rhianna stared at the picture. ‘This is amazing, Suruk,’ she said. ‘It’s so… vibrant.’
‘Vibrant?’ Carveth pulled a face. ‘Everything in it’s dead. Look at those skulls.’
‘I shall scout ahead,’ Suruk said.
Carveth looked at the shelves. The objects along the walls were set out for display, perhaps even to be picked up, but she had no idea what they did. Along one wall, she found a rank of little holographic pictures. Carveth stood on tiptoe and blew the dust off the display. One picture showed a narrow pass through rocks in what could have been Greece; another seemed to be of a Viking longhouse; a third had a carving of a large person in a mask knocking the heads off several other people, which seemed like the kind of stuff Aztecs would enjoy.
Smith found a rail, from which hung rows of fishnet shirts and heraldic banners. Perhaps it was Grimdall’s spare wardrobe. He pulled out one of the banners and peered at the alien symbols.
‘My comrades travelled to the relics of Grimdall,’ he read, ‘and all I acquired was this puny banner.’
‘Guys,’ Rhianna said, ‘these skulls are plastic.’
Smith stepped over and lifted down one of the skulls. It was very white, and hollow. ‘Good God,’ he said, ‘you’re right.’ He looked at Rhianna, and a thought passed between them.
‘What if...’ she said. ‘No... But what if...’
‘The relics are just a load of old tat?’
Carveth sighed. ‘Well, I’m not impressed. A fake skull and a bunch of holo-postcards. Not much of a hall of relics if you ask me.’
Suruk spoke from the far side of the room. ‘That,’ he said, ‘is because this is not the hall of relics.’
Smith lowered the plastic skull. ‘What is it, then?’
‘The gift shop.’
Carveth stared at him. ‘This Grimdall bloke had his own gift shop? Bloody hell, Suruk. I take it all back about you being vain. That’s on a new level entirely.’
‘Come,’ Suruk said. ‘The reliquary awaits.’
He led the way. An airlock hissed open, and they entered a narrow passage. M’Lak weapons lined the walls.
‘Now,’ the warrior said, ‘this is what we seek.’
He pressed his hand against the panel. A light flickered: M’Lak characters appeared in the door lock. It reminded Smith of a broken digital watch.
‘What does it say?’ Rhianna asked.
Suruk said, ‘One who wishes to enter must answer a question. The question is: “What is best in life?”’
‘Tea, obviously,’ Smith replied. ‘And cricket. Curry. Weekends. Model kits.’
‘Booze,’ Carveth said. ‘Chocolate? Sleeping? A bit of the other? Suruk, it’s broken.’
‘Peace, love and harmony between the peoples of the galaxy,’ Rhianna said.
Suruk opened his mandibles and made a soft croaking noise. ‘What is best in life?’ He smiled. ‘To crush the lemming men. To see them driven before you and to hear the squeaky lamentation of their does!’
The door slid open.
‘Lucky guess,’ Suruk said, and he shrugged and stepped inside.
Lights boomed far above him. A soft yellow glow rose behind the high walls. The skeleton of a dragon hung over their heads.
‘That’s a Cassopean skywyrm,’ Rhianna whispered. ‘Aren’t they a protected species?’
‘By fangs and armour,’ Suruk replied. ‘A worthy foe.’
‘I meant protected by law. So you can’t kill them all.’
‘Of course,’ Suruk replied. ‘He who slays must replenish, lest there are no good enemies left to fight. The M’Lak leave planets fallow and raise up great forests for beasts to live. Like any brave, I served my time with the artificial insemination teams. Truly, the skull is not the hardest part of a skywyrm to get your hands on.’ He sighed and gazed at the ceiling. ‘Once, I was halfway through the ritual of bucketing when the beast took flight. Six miles I travelled, gripping its undercarriage like one who has shut his tie in the door of a jumbo jet.’
‘Yes, Suruk,’ Smith began ‘I’m sure the ladies don’t want to know –’
‘How big was its todger?’ Carveth demanded.
Suruk was not listening. ‘Over plains and forests we soared. I wished greatly to release my vice-like grip, and I suspect that it felt the same. The skywyrm looked down, and was most perturbed. Its anger swelled, and other parts... did not. As the beast’s interest in romance fell off, so did I. Rarely have I been happier to plummet from the sky.’
‘Let’s move on, shall we?’ Smith said.
They entered a long, shadowed hall. Spotlights lit up the trophy racks.
On the right, half a dozen fanged, bulbous skulls had been mounted on the wall. They were Procturan black rippers, their heads bulging like
evil cucumbers. Above them hung a huge, crested skull, with an extra set of teeth making up for its lack of eyes: a Procturan Matriarch. ‘Blimey,’ said Smith.
Void sharks, Caldathrian Beetle People, Croatoans, Yothians, Aresians, even a small Death Otter – hundreds of the galaxy’s fiercest beings had fallen before Grimdall’s blade.
‘What’s that?’ Rhianna said, peering at a huge biomechanical head. ‘It looks almost fossilised. It’s got a kind of trunk.’ She looked closer. ‘Oh, it’s only a helmet. Hey, that’s lame.’
On the opposite wall, a strange tangle of bones had been erected, twisted as if frozen in the process of taking another form. Two skulls seemed to be merging, or splitting apart. Smith looked at the display card, recognising the M’Lak characters for ‘weird’ and ‘pissed off’.
Suruk pointed down the hall. ‘This way. Looking at dead aliens must get boring for you humans.’
The lights blossomed around him. They walked into a sea of bone.
‘Much more familiar.’ Suruk turned, grinning. ‘Dead humans!’
The room was full of human skulls, hundreds upon hundreds of them. Suits of armour stood on frames at the edges of the room: human weapons lay in glass cases.
A shelving unit was crammed with skulls in bronze helmets with plumes and square cheek-plates, leaving only a T-shape for the eyes and mouth. On the end of the row, a yellowed parchment hung in a glass frame.
‘Ancient Greek,’ Smith said. ‘Oh Xerxes, Emperor of Persia, behold my invoice for services rendered at the pass of the hot springs. Please find enclosed: Spartan helmet x 300...’
Carveth said. ‘Look, Vikings!’
An exhibit showed a mock-up of a Viking longboat – for all Smith knew, it could have been the real thing. After all, the Vikings were in no state to object. Their axes hung from hooks in the wall, their horned helmets below them.
‘I picked these up at Heriot mead-hall.’ Suruk read. ‘I was disappointed to learn that the horns were only part of the helmets and not the Vikings themselves. They refused my request for a refund. Still, I had an entertaining time, once my arm had grown back.’
They walked on. Swords, javelins, battleaxes, assegais, katanas, kukris, even a flintlock pistol: the weapons of a dozen cultures pointed towards the end of the room. A photograph showed four bearded men in Renaissance dress in conversation with four M’Lak warriors. The aliens wore traditional tortoiseshell breastplates.