Kaluchek and the others came up behind it, staring past the bulk of the giant. In the tiny cell, a rat was bound to a chair. It was clearly dead, the victim of torture. Its lungs had been pulled through the smashed ribs on either side of its spine. Its muzzle gaped, frozen horribly in a silent scream.
Jacob moaned and looked away. The giant alien touched the dead rat once, on the head, with a gesture that, from a hand so massive, was at once touching and absurd.
Then it turned and squeezed from the cell, beckoning the others to follow. Her heart racing, Kaluchek gripped Joe by the hand and ran after the giant through the tumbled ruins of the jail towards a source of grey light in the distance.
The closer they came to the outer wall of the jail, the greater the opposition they encountered. The giant had evidently blasted its way through numerous rooms and corridors on its way to the cells; the ruins of the jail provided a network of partially standing walls behind which the militia concealed themselves and fired at will.
Kaluchek ducked as bullets whined around her. The giant returned fire with its blaster turning piles of debris to blazing slag and accounting for dozens of screaming rats with each shot. To her right, Olembe dodged the bullets; Kaluchek found herself willing him not to get hit, amazed that in the heat of the moment thoughts of revenge were still uppermost.
Joe staggered along beside her, breathing hard and struggling to keep up. She slowed her pace, held him all the tighter.
The spectacular escape was all very well, she thought, but she hoped that the alien had thought through what they might do when they’d fled the jail. They would still be in a hostile city, surrounded by aliens after their blood, and the even greater barrier of the encircling mountains.
Seconds later the giant staggered as a bullet ripped into its shoulder, a gobbet of meat the size of a fist exploding from its back, narrowly missing Kaluchek. Amazingly the giant continued running, firing its blaster with its free hand while its left arm hung useless on tattered shreds of muscle.
The firing ceased, suddenly, and an eerie silence prevailed. A cold wind blew into the ruins, eddying a heavy fall of snow around their running forms. Kaluchek was shaking, whether from cold or fear she had no idea.
The giant came to a high, buttressed wall through which a ragged gap had been blasted. It pressed itself against the masonry, holding the remains of its left arm to its side with its right hand and grimacing in pain. It peered around the corner, into a cobbled courtyard, and said something to itself in a language quite different to that of the rats.
Kaluchek followed its gaze and saw, standing in the centre of the courtyard, the squat teardrop shape of a small golden spaceship.
She looked at Joe, who was staring at the ship and grinning like an idiot. They embraced, Kaluchek tremulous with hope.
The giant shouted a command, gestured with its uninjured arm and led the way at a sprint across the cobbles to the ship. Kaluchek heard the whine of gunshot as they fled. She ducked reflexively, dreading the thought of failing so close to their goal. Shots rang off the carapace of the ship, scoring silver streaks across its golden livery.
The giant came to a hatch and touched a panel, and the entrance eased open with painful precision. The giant turned and laid down a barrage of fire while the others sped inside one by one, first Jacob and its mate, followed by Olembe and Carrelli. Kaluchek and Joe dived aboard, then the giant alien.
The hatch eased shut and Kaluchek found herself weeping with relief.
The alien pushed its way past them without ceremony and strode down a short corridor to what was clearly the control room. Unlike the flight-deck of the Lovelock,which had been brightly illuminated and finished with clean, bright surfaces, the interior of this ship was matte black, its contours of markedly alien design, with strangely rounded surfaces that put Kaluchek in mind of the chitin of a giant beetle.
The alien dropped into one of two horizontal couches and hauled from the ceiling an arrangement of jet black rods and spars which reminded her of nothing so much as the antlers of a moose. It gripped the frame with its good arm, then turned and yelled something to Jacob.
As they watched, the rat scrambled between the control couches and hauled open a storage unit, emerging seconds later with a square of black material which it passed to the giant.
On closer inspection, Kaluchek saw the full extent of the alien’s injury. It appeared that the whole of its shoulder had been blown away, severing arteries, which pumped black blood like engine oil across the surface of its silver suit.
The alien took the material and applied it to its injured shoulder.
Carrelli barked at Jacob. The rat looked up at her and replied.
“What?” Olembe asked.
Carrelli said, smiling, “Jacob calls it a magic healer.”
“Those two know each other?”
Carrelli shook her head. “They’ve met. I don’t know the full story.”
Kaluchek was about to ask her how she knew the language of the rat people, but at that second the ship powered up and rose, wobbling precariously from side to side. They hung on, swaying. Jacob’s mate whined in fear and clung to it, eyes wide in fear. Jacob spoke to it, in tones Kaluchek took to be reassuring.
Through the triangular forward viewscreen, she saw the remains of the jail fall away, to be replaced by the snow-filled grey of the sky. The giant was grimacing with pain as it handled the frame.
Carrelli crouched beside the couch and spoke to the alien in urgent tones.
The giant snapped a reply.
Carrelli said, “It came here on a mission, to destroy some weapon. I’m not sure what. However, for some reason it was unable to locate the weapon.”
“Where’s it taking us?” Olembe said.
Carrelli spoke to the alien as the ship tilted nose-down and accelerated away from the ruined jail, low buildings flashing by on either side. The giant concentrated on its controls, then replied.
Carrelli turned to them. “It’s returning home, to the world adjacent to this one.”
“They have the technology to help us find a habitable world,” Kaluchek said. “Could you ask it—”
Carrelli looked at her. “The only problem is, it’s not sure it will survive long enough to complete the journey.”
“Jesus!” Olembe cried. Kaluchek glanced at the giant’s shoulder, where viscous blood seeped from under the edge of the so-called magic healer.
Carrelli spoke to the alien, and it gestured with its head to the second couch. She slid into it, barking questions. The alien replied. The Italian nodded and pulled a second frame from the ceiling, fingering control studs and gripping the frame with both hands.
Beside Kaluchek, Joe slid to the floor and sat with his back against the bulkhead, watching what was happening in a daze. She lowered herself down beside him.
The rats huddled together between the couches, looking from the giant to Carrelli and back again.
Carrelli frowned as she wrestled with the controls, barking at the giant in its own language. The ship wobbled as it sped over the city. She cursed in Italian as they missed clipping an airship by a matter of metres. They were climbing now, the city mansions falling away on either side and the dark mountains looming ahead. The scene through the forward viewscreen was dotted with colourful airships, which seemed to be accelerating in order to avoid collision.
Carrelli screamed at the alien, who was slow to reply. Kaluchek glanced at it. Blood was pumping steadily now from beneath the healer, spreading in a syrupy slick across its chest and over the couch. The alien’s face appeared slack, its great flat eyes distant.
She felt a sudden overwhelming fear. To have come so far, only to die in a crashed alien spaceship...
Carrelli yelped at the giant again, then cursed in Italian. The giant turned its head, gazed across at her with dimming eyes. It spoke quietly, then glanced between the couches at Jacob, and addressed the rat.
Jacob flung its head back, opening its muzzle in a howl of anguish.
On the first control couch, the giant’s right arm slackened, losing its grip on the frame which bobbed back on hydraulics and resumed its original position flush with the ceiling.
Kaluchek could see, from the opacity of the giant’s eyes, that it was dead.
Jacob rushed forward, clutched the giant’s arm and keened.
Olembe said, “You can fly this thing, Carrelli?”
She stared through the screen, her features set with concentration as she moved the frame minimally, thumbing controls and reading numerals from a tiny console that bobbed on an umbilical before her.
“I’m doing my very best, Friday.”
They were screaming towards the foothills, the city receding in their wake. Ahead, the serried steel-grey ramparts of the encircling mountains seemed to rush at them with alarming speed. Carrelli eased the ship into a steady climb, following the incline of the mountains towards their peaks. Kaluchek and the others tipped, clinging to handholds to stop themselves rolling.
Joe closed his eyes, tipped his head back and laughed.
“What?” Kaluchek said.
“Fifteen years ago, on Mars, I was aboard the shuttle that narrowly missed clipping the observatory on the top of Olympus Mons. This brings it all back, Sis.”
“A thousand and fifteen years ago,” she reminded him, taking his arm.
They were screaming up the side of the summit, the snow-capped peaks rushing by in a blinding avalanche.
Olembe called out, “Hope silver suit told you where its homeworld was, Carrelli?”
She didn’t spare him a glance, just concentrated on the controls and replied, “There was no time for that, Friday. Anyway, that doesn’t matter now.”
She turned and looked at them. “The ship isn’t functioning at maximum efficiency. I can’t work out what is wrong. But it might just be capable of getting us to the next tier.”
Kaluchek felt something tighten around her heart, a quick throb of hope followed by fear that they might not make it all the way.
“Look,” Carrelli said, indicating the forward viewscreen.
They looked. They were flying almost vertically now, and ahead of the ship the grey cloud cover was shredding, giving way to a deep blue.
The rat Carrelli had named Jacob rushed to the screen and stared out, gripping a handhold and chattering to its mate. It pointed, and Kaluchek saw the reason for its excitement. Directly ahead of the ship, spiralling through space with an immensity that took the breath away, Kaluchek made out the next tier—the third from bottom, she calculated— and the one above that, and, in the distance, the faint curl of the tier above the central sun. As she stared, the great primary burned with an actinic glare, the brightest object they had seen for what seemed like a long, long time.
The sight provoked a strange reaction from Jacob’s friend, or perhaps not so strange. It rushed into the corridor, hiding its eyes behind its paws and gibbering to itself in fear. Jacob, conversely, was drawn to the sight of the celestial wonder, pressing its snout up against the viewscreen and staring out in silence.
The ship punched through the last of the cloud cover, emerging into space between the tiers, and sunlight flooded the flight-deck with blinding illumination.
Kaluchek laughed. “It’s like the summer sun back home,” she said to Joe, “after a long hard winter...”
Olembe turned to Carrelli and said. “Now, you intend to tell us how you know their lingo?”
She stared at the controls, gave a minimal nod. “ESO implanted the original maintenance team with neuro-smartware.”
“You’re joking—it was still in its experimental stages years ago when the plug was pulled.”
She went on, “ESO kept working on it, perfecting it, or getting it as damned near perfect as possible. One of the subroutines was a decoder.” She touched her right temple with long fingers. “I also have various logic systems that help me process possibilities, integrated smartware slaved to my cortex.”
“Jesus Christ,” Olembe said. “You’re a cyborg.”
“I wouldn’t say that, Friday. I’m implanted. Augmented, if you like.”
Kaluchek said, “So that’s why...” She shook her head. “I don’t know. You knew things. Worked them out so fast it seemed unnatural.” She realised something. “The symbol on the ziggurat’s door—”
“It was nothing unnatural,” Carrelli said, “just very powerful, parallel processing.”
“What else have you got in there?” Olembe asked with suspicion.
Before Carrelli could reply, Kaluchek said, “Christ, Olembe. What’s your problem? We should be thankful Gina’s augmented, for fucksake!”
He smiled. “Hey, I’m just curious, is all. Just want to know what other surprises to expect.”
Kaluchek felt a flare of anger. “You asshole, Olembe.”
Carrelli cut in, “That is all, a decoder, a logic subroutine, improved hearing and vision, limited telemetry systems.” She smiled. “Don’t worry. I’m still human.”
“We aren’t worried,” Kaluchek reassured her. “It’s just that some people,” she looked across at Olembe, “can’t take being second best.”
“Shut it, Kaluchek,” Olembe began.
“Look,” Joe said, pointing through the forward viewscreen.
The command had the effect of silencing them. They all looked.
They were approaching the third tier, a string of beaded worlds, green and blue and ochre, with between each separate landmass a band of lapis lazuli shimmering in the sunlight—the dividing seas.
Carrelli said, “I’m not going to risk trying to make it to the fourth tier. We’re lucky to have got so far. I’ll try to get us down in one piece, and maybe then we can work out what the problem is, okay?”
Joe said, “That sounds fine to me.”
“Okay, hold on tight.” Carrelli repeated the command in rat for the benefit of Jacob and its mate. “This might be a bumpy landing.”
They held on as the spaceship slipped into orbit around the third tier. A minute later Kaluchek made out—an impressionistic blur through the sidescreen—a wide swathe of brilliant green vegetation shot through with the vast, serpentine coils of a river.
She gripped Joe’s arm and closed her eyes.
* * * *
5
Elder Velkor Cannak was a pious man, and he believed that anyone who opposed the Church— that is, opposed the word of God—was by definition evil.
This made the suppression of dissent, the imprisonment, torture and execution of dissidents, the logical consequence of a state run by the Church for the greater glory of God. For the good of the people, who for thousands of years had enjoyed unparalleled prosperity under the rule of the Church, severe measures from time to time had to be imposed. Anarchy ruled before the Church came to power, with innocent citizens the victims of the unscrupulous and the power-hungry. The Church had stopped all that, imposed its rule, and Agstarn had reaped the benefits.
Unfortunately, there were still anarchists and heretics like Kahran Shollay and Ehrin Telsa who denied the existence of God and the right of the Church to rule.
The torture and death of Shollay brought Cannak no personal pleasure; in fact, he found the entire episode somewhat distasteful. More frustrating was Shollay’s reluctance to admit the truth, that he and Telsa were in league with the alien invaders.
When he confronted the aliens with Telsa, he was alarmed to learn that the pink ones spoke their language. This suggested a conspiracy long in the making, and that the arrival on Agstarn of the pink ones was no accident but the vanguard of a well-planned and orchestrated invasion.
The alien spokesman had even attempted a clever ploy when addressing Telsa. It had said that they came in peace, and wished the Agstarnians no harm. Telsa, for his part, had been disingenuous with his display of amazement.
The truth, Cannak knew, was that Telsa and Shollay had been instrumental in bringing the vanguard of the alien invasion to Agstarn, that night out on the we
stern plains, and no degree of deception would conceal the fact from an Elder as dedicated as Cannak.
And then the arrival of the black alien had added confusion to his neat hypothesis; what part did this giant play in the invasion, with its destruction of the penitentiary and its rescue of Telsa and the pink ones?
Cannak himself was fortunate indeed to have survived the penitentiary’s demolition. He’d managed to slip from the corridor as the gunfight began, but found himself pinned down by cross-fire as the aliens made their escape. A stray blast from the giant’s weapon had brought masonry tumbling down around his head, though by the grace of God he had suffered merely superficial cuts and bruises. As the pink ones led by the giant made their escape, Cannak had followed at a distance, his robe of office stained with dust and his own dark blood.
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