series 01 06 Dark Side of Luna

by J. T. Wilson

  Annabelle had been amused by her uncle’s story, even enthralled, but as Grant told it, he realised that the ten-year-old, like so many people to whom he had given the same speech, would think that it could be little more than a fairy tale. A member of her family jetting off to the stars, or landing on the moon: it was unfathomable. As for the city of light and science that her uncle rhapsodised about, it was no more likely than a flying carpet.

  Yet everything was possible. It was not so long ago that space travel seemed an impossibility. A city of light and science? There was every chance that such a thing would be created in Grant’s lifetime. Perhaps Annabelle would, one day, be able to see it.

  2.

  BEDFORD STEPPED between Booth and the Selenites. He did not holster his revolver but kept it down at his side, just in case. He faced a creature boasting a quartet of great arms, and the familiar oversized head, and quivering mandibles. The carapace of this one was smooth and pale of hue, unlike the red Selenites they encountered earlier, which had been partially covered with short coarse black bristles. Bedford’s strictures notwithstanding, Booth must have as cool a head on his shoulders as any young officer Bedford had ever know to keep from just opening fire on these creatures, especially after the fight they’d gone through earlier. Bedford looked closer; to his surprise, he found the Selenite familiar.

  “K’ovib?” he asked in amazement.

  K’ovib was a high-ranking retainer of knowledge, for the Esitonina, the subjects of Queen Q’theletockus.

  “Yes, friend Bedford. It is K’ovib. You have come back.” He held out his right forelimb, a gesture learned from the British earlier, and Bedford shook it.

  “Yes. We’ve come for the gooddoctor Grant, but he is missing and we were attacked by Selenites—red with bristles all over them. We followed them this way. Do you know of them?”

  “Sssss! Yes. Saltators. Very bad.”

  “Saltators! That is what the red Selenites are called?”

  “Saltators are one tribe of the Hairy Ones. Saltators come from the Up-The-River and across the Great Gorge. How Saltators crossed the gorge not known, but was a mighty feat.”

  “Yes, either that or they had help from other Earth men. We think the Russians helped them.”

  “Sssss! Roozans help Saltators? Very bad. Roozans bring metal eggs, hide them close to the English-place-that-was-the-Russian-place.”

  “Near Otterbein station? Metal eggs—what the deuce? Wish I could take a look at those. You say they hid them somewhere?”

  “Hid, but K’ovib’s scout sees. The eggs are bad?”

  “I can’t know without examining them, but I suspect they are. Why else would the Russians sneak around with them? You say you have a scout who knows where they are. Can he show us?”

  “K’ovib shows.”

  3.

  THE SUBMERSIBLE had already reached its destination. Without landmarks or understanding of the technology, it was difficult to gauge exactly how far they had travelled in the two or three hours of the voyage

  Nathanial had little doubt, from the sounds of stomping boots overhead, that the submersible’s crew were preparing to disembark. Presently a detail of Drobates filed into the cell and applied further chains to the captives, then gestured for them to leave the cell. Stevenson, who the Drobates brought back to sudden consciousness by means of some mysterious injection, seemed hardly more refreshed for his sleep than he had been before.

  With all men accounted for and apparently, on inspection, meeting the satisfaction of the Drobates, the group were marched out of the brig and onto land, flanked at either side by Drobate guards. Folkard lead the group, Phillips and Burroughs following, with Nathanial, supporting Stevenson, trailing at the rear. As the group exited the submersible, they as one felt the need to avert their eyes. Having been held prisoner in a succession of dingy cells offering very little in the way of light, it was an unpleasant shock to the system to become suddenly reacquainted with the blazing luminescence of the fungi, possibly even brighter here than in other caverns. Dazzled as they were by the radiance of the light, they stared in wonderment at the city that gazed down upon them.

  They had reached the fabled City of Light and Science.

  The city was a complex of buildings reaching to vertiginous heights and stretching on as far as the eye could see. In their design and in their complex translucent glow they most closely resembled a mass of crystals yet to be cut. The reflective surfaces magnified the brilliance of the fungi, giving the city a radiant glow. It gave the impression of a paradise; however, it was clear from the chains and the menacing glares that, for the humans and Selenites, the Drobates intended it to be hell. As if to emphasize the point, the Drobates pulled at the chain joining the men and set them to marching towards the city.

  While the city had appeared from a distance as Paradise, a closer view produced a more mundane, even worn, impression. Bits of wreckage and discarded worn-out ship fittings cluttered the beach, along with stinking dead fish and an odd sort of red kelp. The sounds of many feet walking, heavy machinery humming, and groaning pulleys lifting heavy cargo, filled the air of the harbour, although the lack of voices imposed an air of unreality on the bustling activity. A thousand voices raised in the most alien and outlandish language Nathanial’s imagination could conjure would have seemed ordinary next to this preternatural silence amidst bedlam.

  The prisoners passed through a large open gate into the city proper. Tall gun towers flanked the gate and each mounted what appeared to be a field gun, but of highly exotic pattern, so much so that Nathanial wondered if the coils of gleaming metal which encased the gun barrels were some sort of baroque and impractical decorative motif, or if they bespoke a dramatically different principle of design from human artillery. The city walls to either side of the towers, however, were little more than tumbled down heaps of rubble with the occasional standing wall section leaning precariously, as if tired and anxious to join its reclining brethren below.

  They marched through a low-income residential area and both the bustle and squalor in which the inhabitants lived was not so different from the back streets of London, or perhaps even Manchester. The chained prisoners travelled further into the city along widening boulevards and past spacious governance buildings and what appeared to be a number of laboratories boasting glass of a curious tint, sure evidence they had entered the more prosperous part of the city. Trash still cluttered the streets, however, mainly sodden paper and tattered discarded robes, but also assorted mechanical pieces, the use for which could only be guessed at. Some Drobates went about their business with a sense of purpose, while others in ragged robes sprawled prostate across rusting benches, clinging to bottles of liquid of a bluish hue.

  Most Drobates moved by foot, Nathanial estimated, but he also saw several examples of a singular vehicle, entirely circular in design and resembling a gyroscope, which glided across the rubbish-strewn roads soundlessly, its movements matching its owners for grace. In several spots, the burnt-out and rusted wreckage of one or more of these vehicles could be seen, having presumably collided with another of its sort, and had simply been pushed to the side and left. Above the heads of the men were a number of intercrossing wires, possibly used for communication of some variety akin to the telephone, although a number of wires appeared frayed and a few were broken and hanging down to the street.

  Given the decay of the city and the evident neglect of its inhabitants, Nathanial fully expected to see broken windows, cracked paving slabs with weeds growing up, and unhinged lopsided doors. Curiously, however, none of these things were in evidence. Indeed, the perfection of the buildings and of the boulevards was entirely at odds with the filthy living conditions. Such buildings and roads, in fact, could have been built the day before Folkard’s party reached the city and they would have scarcely looked more immaculate than they did that day. Clearly the city itself was built from a material significantly different from the crumbled city walls through which they had passed. Only th
e absence, in some cases, of doors altogether suggested anything untoward about the outward appearance of the buildings. Of the insides, however, Nathanial dreaded to think.

  “Can you tell us anything about their intentions?” he whispered to Stevenson.

  “They mean to take us firstly to the dungeons, I think,” Stevenson hissed back. “The dungeons themselves are beneath the administration centre of whichever monsters govern the Drobates. What a government they are!” he added ironically. “From there, as far as I can gather they mean to put us to work.”

  “Why detain you for as long as they have, yet take us to work the moment we are captured? It makes no sense.”

  “They wanted to examine the extent of our physical and mental ability, it seems. You hardly need to be psychic to realise that the rigorous physical and psychological tests that they put us through were an attempt at gauging our potential. After they had reached the limits of what they could gather from these exercises, it was merely a case of waiting until they had the right numbers. On your arrival, they finally attained their quota. They are very superstitious about specific numbers and I am half surprised that the death of McKittrick did not cause them to reconsider. Unfortunately, it did not.”

  They passed a curious but splendidly garish building; the golden icons at the gate pillars and doorway uniquely appeared to be of scientific artefacts and mechanical tools rather than of gods or fetishes. They were forced to avert their eyes briefly as they passed, not as a result of any religious deference but because a golden cog on a pillar reflected light directly into their faces.

  “Until they had the right numbers?” Nathanial repeated. “Whatever for?”

  “They mean us to repair the wall surrounding the city for—I believe the word they’re using is protection,” Stevenson replied, to the bafflement of Nathanial.

  “Protection for the Drobates? From what monstrous enemy would they need protection?”

  “Possibly from us. You surely do not forget what formidable entities humans can be?”

  “I am aware that they can possess powers that are frightening to think about, and that they can inspire emotions like no other species.” At this, their eyes met briefly.

  4.

  METAL EGGS indeed! Bedford could see why the Selenites would describe the tapered, polished cylinders as such. He wished Folkard was here; he at least could read the Russian inscriptions, but the general pattern was familiar enough.

  “Nasty business, this,” Larkins ventured, displaying a gift for understatement. The two of them knelt by the shining, deadly eggs.

  “You are more familiar with field gun ammunition, Larkins, but I would make this a three-inch shell. Hard to tell if it is common shell or shrapnel, but I doubt it’s simple shot.”

  “No, you’re right there,” Larkins replied. “Shot projectiles are solid steel. These have fuse apertures in the nose, so it’s some sort of exploding shell. If they have a three-inch field gun that can bear on Otterbein station, I don’t know that it matters much what sort of shells they start tossing that direction.”

  No, it would not matter a bit. A dozen or so exploding shells, against which the research station had no means of reply, and there would be little alternative to surrender. Of course without ammunition a field gun was no good, but was this the only ammunition cache the Russians had planted? And where was the Russian gun itself? They had held the cavern long before the British and Selenites drove them out and they undoubtedly knew its nooks and crannies far better than did the British. For that matter, he doubted that Colonel Harrison had made much of an effort to search for such places. The complacent fool sat in the middle of the cavern with his company of Sikh infantry arrayed around him and counted himself secure.

  K’ovib had brought them to this ammunition cache, where two dozen complete rounds lay neatly stacked for quick access, each steel projectile nestled in its brass cartridge case. A short tunnel to their left led to the great cavern containing Otterbein Base and its reservoir, but a large outcropping blocked view of the tunnel entrance from the main cavern floor. You would have to literally stumble upon it if you did not know exactly where it was.

  “How many rounds do you suppose a red Selenite could carry, Larkins?” Bedford asked.

  The Marine major picked up a round and hefted it before answering. “I’d make the complete round at about four pounds here in this low gravity, say twenty-five pounds back on Earth. The red buggers look a bit more robust of leg than your pale friends over there. Rig a proper harness for their back and I’d wager one of them could carry four rounds without any difficulty. You’re thinking one trip by a half-dozen of the red devils could have brought this whole lot.”

  “Yes, and we’ve already seen a deal more than that. No telling how many trips they’ve made, or how much ordnance they’ve sequestered here and there. Colonel Harrison has to be made to understand the danger, and he has to scour these cavern walls for hiding places. He has the manpower to do it; we do not.”

  Larkins carefully put the shell down and stood up, dusting off his hands. “So it’s back to Otterbein Base?”

  “For you it is,” Bedford answered, standing himself. “I’d send Booth but Harrison won’t listen to a lowly lieutenant and he surely won’t listen to a navy man, but he might listen to you. Take one of the sections with you; there may be more of those Saltators out there.”

  “What about you, Bedford? You aren’t coming?”

  Bedford took off his cork pith helmet, scratched his scalp, looked at the stacked field gun rounds again before answering. “No, I’ll stay here with Booth and the other section—and K’ovib, of course. We need to learn more. We’ll see what other caches we can find nearby. Perhaps we’ll even stumble upon the gun itself, but we can hardly rely on that sort of luck. Our best chance will be to ambush a carrying party, capture one of these things alive and see if we can get any information from it, or at least see what it’s carrying. Have your men leave their rations here with us. No telling how long we’ll stay out here and you can re-supply at the base. But the main thing, the critical thing, is to persuade Harrison of the danger, and to get him to act on it.”

  “Harrison’s a fool,” Larkins observed.

  “He’s a damned fool, but he’s the garrison commander and there’s no getting around that. Do your best, Larkins. I believe a great deal is riding on your success. Blasted if I know exactly what, but I intend to find that out as well.”

  Larkins offered his hand and Bedford shook it. “I’ll take One Section,” Larkins said. “A couple of them seem a bit windy. A stretch back among friends should settle them down. You keep Corporal Johnson’s lot; he’s steady enough—not very bright, but there are advantages to that. Private Jones in his section is the best shot in the detachment: ‘Jones the Marksman’ they call him—Welsh, you know. I’ll leave Colour Sergeant Moore with you; he’ll keep the lads on their toes. Take care of yourself, Bedford. You’re not half the fool I’d expect a naval lieutenant to be.”

  5.

  THE PROCESSION of prisoners and wardens halted outside the largest building in the inner city Nathanial could see. It teemed with life and activity: Drobates attired in the modest tunics of their lower caste took orders from those dressed in iridescent materials and all of those visible appeared to be in a terrible hurry. All of them gave a wide berth to the prisoners, however, and indeed to their guards. The guards seemed to be describing or cataloguing the prisoners to a number of their species who, in addition to the iridescent tunics that demarcated their status, wore absurdly ornate and elaborate jewellery about their heads and necks, presumably to indicate their higher status among their kind. This gaggle of bejewelled Drobates, while as mute as their prison wardens, gave every appearance, through vigorous gestures and rapidly changing facial expressions, of being engaged in animated discussion. They pointedly ignored the prisoners, however, save for some furtive glances at Nathanial and at Phillips which, Nathanial fancied, seemed to be tempered by something approaching
fear.

  Whatever the cause for their occasional looks in his direction, Nathanial could tell that the Drobates felt no immediate sense of alarm. They no doubt believed, and rightly so, that the humans were unlikely to raise an insurrection in light of both their shackles and their limited energies following captivity. Somewhere in the distance he heard a repetitive thumping, the source of which could not be clearly ascertained and was clearly of no interest to the Drobates engaged in the discussion.

  The British took advantage of their captors’ sudden lack of interest in them to gather in a tight group. Their arms being handcuffed behind them, it was impossible to form a circle of any sort, so they were forced to do the best they could under the circumstances.

  “I can tell they’re having a conversation because I feel as though I am getting a headache,” Phillips opened. “Perhaps someone might be able to decipher?”

  Stevenson, evidently waning as a result of the energy expended, spoke with barely-disguised difficulty. He repeated the information he had previously given to Nathanial, and added, “they’re debating our future. Some of the party feel that it would be wise to conduct further experiments on us. Some of the others…”

  “Feel there has been quite enough experimentation already and the time has come for action?” finished Folkard. At this, Nathanial wore a look of surprise which was matched by the rest of the group. “It seems my ability to decipher the communications between these moon men is growing the more I am exposed to them. I must assure you, men, the ability is hardly one of which you should be envious.”