by Ronan Frost
"Not these guys. They were similar to the others, but not quite the same."
"I will have to get the location of this village from you," said Gron.
"I committed the numbers to memory, although I managed to blank out all records on the ship's log. After all, I was on leave without permission and thought it a good idea to save the hassle."
"This village is good?"
"Of course! The primitives are different - the wildness of the surrounds and the sense of freedom. Besides, the jungle burns really well if you want to take out a couple of thorts."
As Irfide spoke a tiny metallic chip in his wrist silently recorded his words, as it had been for the many years of the mechanic's life. This time these words got Avatar's immediate attention.
As the machinists settled into work on the craft the huge network of intelligence that was Avatar pivoted in their direction.
* * *
Irfide stood as erect as he was able, his limbs weakened with adrenalin and his palms sweaty. He reached a sealed door and activated the switch.
Admiral Karthorn looked up as the mechanic entered the cabin. The huge black video monitor behind the Admiral flickered into sudden life, and instantly the face of Avatar dominated the room. The digitised image remained impassive; facial expressions, voice and other gestures under complete control. Its eyes shifted very smoothly from hazel to a deep shade of red as it spoke.
"Enter, Crewman 04921."
Irfide stepped into the plush cabin and stood to attention before the Admiral and Avatar.
"I haven't done anything wrong," stammered Irfide.
The Admiral moved smoothly and sunk into a padded reclining chair. He peered at the mechanic over steepled fingers.
"We don't mean to intimidate you, 04921, but it seems that you know something we don't."
Irfide hesitated. "I was given authorisation for shore leave-"
"Silence!"
Avatar's voice cut the air in two. It spoke through many deep bass speakers mounted all about the cabin, giving its voice an omnipresent quality.
"We are not interested in your mistakes," continued Admiral Karthorn. "Avatar wants to know something of what you discovered."
The supercomputer took its cue. "You have discovered a band of natives that need to be extensively researched, possibly exterminated. From all reports it seems you have stumbled across a large settlement of them."
"You know nothing of these creatures?" Irfide's mind was whirling, stunned that his sideline adventure had landed him into such a state. He had often communicated with portions of Avatar, but this time it was different. This time, all of Avatar wanted him.
"These primitives are different to the mainstream culture already examined. They have already caused the discontinuation of two exploratory teams operating in the deep jungle. It seems that their psyche is contrary to the files already obtained."
"Surely you know something of them?" asked Irfide humbly.
"Detailed analysis is unavailable without a Scope craft."
Irfide was silent for a minute. Curiosity rose within and he mounted enough courage to speak.
"Can't we just nuke the planet when we have finished? Who cares about these backward aborigines?"
"Let me remind you who is the mechanic and who is the commander. I have determined the course of action - do you have a problem with that?"
Admiral Karthorn had been watching the proceedings impassively. He abruptly rose.
"Wait, Avatar, the mechanic has a point. According the Royal Fleet procedures extensive reconnaissance is only carried out if the natives are a potentially powerful race. From what I have seen these savages won't be in space for a millennium."
The face of Avatar seemed to expand, its voice deep. "I have determined all risks shall be removed. It is crucial every settlement be destroyed."
Karthorn nodded slightly. "As you wish, Avatar. I have no desire to question your advice."
Avatar turned its attention back to Irfide.
"All I ask of you is the location of the settlement, and I will overlook your unauthorised departure from your scheduled shore leave."
The rising feeling of dread suddenly drained away in Irfide's stomach - he was all too happy to give the coordinates and take the load of guilt off his shoulders, and hopefully break away from Avatar's scrutiny.
"Sector F-231," he breathed. Reciting the memorised numbers came easily. "X four six eleven point zero, Y twelve two two point six."
The digitised Sunlord face on the monitor relaxed. "Thank you. I am glad we didn't have to resort to removing your wrist-chip to dig the information out of it. After all, we want to avoid as many deaths as possible."
With this macabre note Avatar dismissed the mechanic. Irfide backed through the door and made his exit from the padded steel room. He didn't waste any time getting back to his quarters, shaken and awed after his encounter with the master computer.
Admiral Karthorn watched the door close behind the retreating back of the mechanic. He wandered over to his desk and casually filled a canister with a red liquid.
"Can you tell me why this interest in the natives?" he asked, swirling the wine about in his six fingered hand. "Does it have something to do with the Gamma scale landing?"
Avatar's face metamorphosed subtly to become smaller, more distant.
"I am sorry, Admiral, that information is confidential. The Royal Fleet will advise me when the time is suitable for you to know. Unfortunately at this point I must direct the activities."
Karthorn tipped the canister back and swallowed the wine in a single gulp. "Very well. For the moment I have other concerns. Get me Commander Rashner - I want a status report on the installation."
* * *
Shaun awoke slowly, drifting slowly back into consciousness. The first sensation to strike him was the sound of distant voices. He started and struggled impulsively against the blackness and fogginess in his mind. Memories that had begun as a trickle suddenly came back in a sudden rush, his dream ridden mind blurring the distinction between past and present.
He had made it to safety, he remembered, to the docking bays via the live power cables. Hounded like a fox he scrambled through small openings and alien surroundings. He remembered more vividly than anything else his panting breath and heaving lungs as he forced his body through gruelling terrain. The actual events were a blur in his mind, although he recalled there had been several occasions where capture seemed almost inevitable.
Memories became reality in the uncharted space of his feverish mind as he relived his footsteps...
He looked up, face smeared with grease and prison helicasuit torn in several places. He was contained in a narrow tube, moving in what he hoped was the right direction towards the docking bays.
He paused his ascent as a deep almost inaudible rumbling reached his ears. Realisation struck, and he scrambled faster toward the lip of the tube and away from the source of the noise. Barely had he thrown himself into a horizontal vent shaft had yellow fire blown past his boots, scorching them. The blasting searing heat lasted for a few excruciating seconds as the Sunlords tried to blast their quarry from the hole.
Shaun buried his face in the crook of his arm until the fire passed. Sweating profusely he once again made off, glad that his helicasuit had taken most of the heat. The suit was not perfect, of course, for he was only a prisoner. It only provided the bare minimum of protection and was designed to be as encumbering as it was useful. Fortunately with the few modifications he had made to it he was able to move without excessive constriction.
He pulled himself over an air conditioning tube and came face to face with a solid grill. Shaun paused for only an instant as his small screwdriver worked the fastenings loose. Seconds later the heavy grate fell and he scrambled over the top of it.
A sudden high pitched wail erupted and Shaun whipped about, his head colliding with the top of the tube. A blurred black shadow grew, approaching down the tube towards his feet.
Shaun th
rust the screwdriver out, small defence against the unknown foe. His arm jolted and joints almost buckled as something heavy hit the point of the screwdriver. Shaun scrambled backwards, the screwdriver forgotten, trying to get clear of the shadow.
Just then light from an above pipe revealed the dark attacker to be a Lectar, its black insect-like exoskeleton almost invisible in the gloom. The screwdriver projected from the flesh between its two spiderlike eyes, blood oozing from the fatal wound. The creature had charged straight into the extended point, its own strength and speed making the collision calamitous. Its six legs were a tangle curled about its midsection.
Shaun realised that the Sunlords must be sending the Lectar's into the tubes in the hope of rooting him out, the black creatures speedy and agile in the confines of the ducts. Shaun knew that his chances of survival were becoming very slim.
Another wail reached his ears, echoing down the myriad of tubes and tunnels. Shaun took off again, trying to reach some cover before the next Lectar reached him. He was sure next time he would not be so lucky.
He scrambled around a corner and found another grating blocking his way. Looking through it he saw a corridor, the steel walls and mesh floor seemingly cavernous compared to the ducts he had been travelling in. He was reluctant to leave the safety of the tubes, but a wail from the darkness behind set his mind. Without his screwdriver Shaun was forced to try and loosen the grating with his fingernails.
His efforts seemed futile and the screws refused to budge. Shaun put increased effort into turning the thread as the scream of the Lectar sounded again, louder this time. It had caught his scent and was closing in for the kill.
His face beaded with sweat and brows knitted with concentration Shaun at last managed to free one of the four screws. It fell through the grating of the corridor's floor with a tinkle.
Shaun moved onto the next screw, his thumb nail battered and torn as he applied pressure to it once again. A small part of his mind heard the pattering of many soft insect feet growing louder as the Lectar bolted into a run. Once it turned the corner it would be upon him.
The second and third screws fell from the grill. Shaun knew he didn't have time to work the final fastening loose. He curled into a ball, gripped the sides of the tube, and thrust his feet forward with all the might he could muster. A cry of effort broke his lips as his feet met with the surface of the grill, buckling it slightly outwards, pivoting on the remaining screw.
Shaun drew back for another kick just as the Lectar rounded the corner and was in sight of its prey. It flashed at an incredible speed down the small narrow horizontal tube, jaws wide as it rapidly approached Shaun's back.
Shaun's boots met with the grill again and this time the metal gave. With a clatter and snap of metal Shaun's way was open.
The Lectar's jaws closed on thin air as its prey ducked out of the tube. Momentarily bewildered, the Lectar skidded to a stop.
Shaun slammed the grill back into place, jamming it in as best as he was able. He stood vulnerable in the wide metal corridor that, fortunately, was deserted for the moment. Shaun ran down the corridor towards the docking bays, and over his shoulder saw the bulk of the Lectar slam into the grill.
Seconds later it had burst through and was once again on Shaun's tail.
Memories blurred and the next few minutes seemed to be smudged into a smudge of images. He ran down endless corridors and evaded Sunlord guards as they tried to intercept him. The next thing he knew was that he was in the docking bays and hurriedly fitting himself into a suit and breathing mask. He fitted the thick red material vacuum helicasuit and tightened the metal straps as fast as he was able. The suit was designed for the Sunlord form and thus did not fit Shaun's humanoid figure but he wasn't out to win any fashion competitions. The airlock hissed closed behind him and suddenly the vacuum surrounded him. He stumbled across the steel deck towards the small craft laying in wait for him upon the rails, breathing a sigh of relief to see his command to ready the craft was successful. Shaun bounded in the half gravity, taking huge leaps that sprang him over three metres at a time. He further saw that his attempts in the computer room had been a complete success when he spotted the craft's door was open, ready to receive him.
He dove into the door, rolled, then crashed against the bulkhead, bruising his ribs and driving the air from his lungs. Laser fire lanced through the open door as the Sunlord guards caught up with him, their handguns blazing.
Avatar had also cottoned onto his route of escape. Slowly but surely the huge outer doors of the airlock began to close to seal off Shaun's exit.
Shaun was into the couch and punched the activate button. The small pod craft rolled forward ponderously on its tracks and towards the closing main airlock doors, but Shaun was not waiting for correct alignment as he punched the main thrusters. He arced from the deck, deftly wrenching upon the control stick and squeezed through the gates more by luck than skill. With a bare millimetre to spare the craft slipped through the airlock was ejected into space.
Hull cannons mounted on the exterior of the Urisa must have hit the escaping pod, Shaun thought in retrospect, for his craft had blossomed into flame upon planetfall. Searing heat dominated his mind as he recalled this terrible period. Still, somehow he had avoided his captors and safely made a crash landing in dense forest in the northern hemisphere of the planet L/Cn-41a.
He had crawled away from the smoking ruins of the pod incase Avatar should find it. In fact, he knew Avatar would find it and within hours, maybe minutes, the area would be crawling with troopers. He was badly injured and his pace slow but this knowledge drove him on with steely endurance.
Then something had found him. Its silhouette stood above him, the full moon directly behind it. A black metal rod was poised to strike...
Shaun remembered nothing more.
He struggled back into reality as he emerged from the emptiness of his slumber. The memories had come in a split second, yet in that strange landscape of dream they had seemed to last into infinity.
He coughed weakly and lifted his leaden eyelids, amazed he was still alive.
"Where am I?" he gasped, trying to bring the smudge of colour he saw into something recognisable.
He was surprised when he was answered.
"You must rest. You are badly hurt."
Shaun was confused. A feeling of vulnerability invaded his mind, like a hare pinned down outside the safety of its burrow he didn't know where to turn. He reached up and felt the Sunlord translator earphone was still in place, explaining why he had understood the words of the speaker.
A cool, damp rag was placed upon his forehead. Through half blind eyes Shaun saw a humanoid shadow lean over.
"You are lucky to be alive."
Shaun's mind raced, analysing the words he heard in an attempt to find out where he was, and in whose company. The accent was unmistakable; it belonged to one of the native inhabitants of the planet. Even the translator could not hide the trill, birdlike whistling dialect. But the native beings lived only in the cities, thought Shaun, and he was in deep forest. Some other intelligent life?
"Who are you?" he croaked more demandingly. He could not rest until he knew.
"We call ourselves Eloprin," returned Myshia. "I see you star people know little of us, just as we know little of you."
"I am different to them." Shaun opened his eyes with great effort and the shadows resolved themselves into small, delicate forms clothed in animal furs and hides, jet black hair tangled and unruly. Shaun was anxious to establish a friendship.
"I too am hunted by your enemy."
"That I can see," came a response as another native stepped into his field of vision. Capac stood tall and imperialistic over the prone form of the human. "You are very strange, very different," he continued, musing over the truth of his last words.
Capac held his rifle by his side just in case the alien should move quickly or try to attack. Ashian had insisted that they help the thing, and reluctantly Myshia had treated its wo
unds with natural resins. For hours the creature was unconscious, Myshia's usually nimble hand hesitant as it tried to patch up an anatomy totally different to that which she was used to.
They had eventually decided trying to arresting the blood flow and to soothe its welting burns that ran
along its back.
And now it had awoken Capac felt a new surge of fear that almost made him swing his rifle in what would have been a fatal blow.
Ashian stepped in smoothly and spoke.
"You are a machine, like them, aren't you?" he asked, using a stick to gesture at the translator box at Shaun's throat. His curiosity was aroused and he prodded like a child that stood just out of reach of the
tusks of an elephant.
"I...use the machines, yes. But I do not plug my soul into them like my enemy." Shaun stopped as a wave of coughing overcame him. When all had subsided he continued, each word agony as he breathed in with bruised ribs. "I use the machines, I am not used by them."
"I have so much to ask of you, but I see your pain. You must rest."
Shaun nodded absently. Already his head was spinning and he felt dizzy with exhaustion. He lay back down upon the reed bed, reeling with pain borne dreams and apportions that half imposed his mind.
He somehow knew that he was safe, for the moment at least, and the floodgate of sleep was released. He no longer fought off the enveloping blackness.
Ashian's brows gathered as he drew back and counselled with his fellows. They all glanced nervously at the pink fleshed creature that lay before them, its glinting clothing making it seem ethereal in the afternoon sun.
"I say we kill it," muttered Capac. His mind was balanced upon a knife edge; the thing looked too much like their sworn enemy. "How do we trust it? For all we know it could be leading the Sunlords right to us."
"No, Capac, look at it." Myshia's voice was low, sensible. "I don't know how much blood these things can afford to lose, but I'd say he has come dangerously close. If we hadn't come across him would have been dead with the setting of the sun."