by Various
The old woman left a bowl of fried potatoes for Malkus to pick at as he worked, and took another bowl to Everlyne in the cage.
Malkus worked at the screen until his eyes were heavy with tiredness; then the old woman led him back to the cage, and brought Everlyne out to take her brother’s place. Everlyne was also surprised by how she was able to work at the screen. Everlyne continued working where her brother had left off, and as she progressed she began to see the purpose of what they were doing – the metal star was broken, and she and Malkus were repairing it with their work at the screen. Once the work was done, the old woman would return to the stars and the children would be free.
Except Everlyne did not believe the woman would set them free. Perhaps it was the way she watched Everlyne hungrily when she thought that Everlyne was not looking. Perhaps it was Everlyne’s growing understanding of the creature they were dealing with – for she was now certain that the old woman and the bat creature were one and the same being. Perhaps it was simply instinct that warned Everlyne that, when their work was done, the woman would kill the children as easily as she seemed to lift the heavy barrels of oil to refill the fryer.
Talking quietly that night, as they lay beneath their thin blankets inside the cage, both Malkus and Everlyne agreed that, as well as not being as weak as she appeared, the old woman was not an old woman at all.
‘It’s like how the house made of gingerbread turned out to actually be this cage,’ Malkus said. ‘She can make things look like something else – even herself.’
They talked long into the night, discussing how they might escape from the old woman who was not an old woman.
‘It’s the potatoes,’ Malkus said. ‘Or rather the oil she fries them in. That’s what has made us clever enough to solve the problems on the screens and repair the metal star.’
‘And it’s also made us clever enough to escape,’ Everlyne said. ‘Clever enough to wonder why she needs us at all. If the oil and the potatoes have given us the ability to mend the star, why didn’t she just eat the potatoes and get clever enough to make the repairs herself? Why bother to set her gingerbread trap and hope someone would come along?’
‘Perhaps she can’t eat the oil,’ Malkus said. He told his sister how he had noticed the old woman was wary of the spitting hot oil. Everlyne told her brother how careful she had seen the old woman was when pouring the oil from the barrels into the fryer.
‘She is scared of the oil,’ Everlyne decided.
‘And not just of eating it,’ Malkus agreed. ‘She has to avoid even touching it.’
Together, huddled under their blankets on the cold, hard metal floor of the cage, they made their plan.
The next morning, when the old woman took Malkus to the metal star to begin his work, he asked if he could have some fried potatoes before he started. ‘I don’t know why,’ he lied, ‘but having just eaten makes me work faster and harder.’
The old woman nodded, as if this was understandable, and made her way over to the fryer. Rather than sit at the screen, as he usually did while she fried the potatoes, Malkus followed her. As the old woman took her position in front of the hot oil, Markus wandered over to the stack of barrels and began unscrewing one, as if he was going to help the old woman add more oil to the fryer.
‘You are very unobservant,’ the old woman said, walking over to where Malkus stood. ‘We will not need any more oil for a while yet.’
‘Oh, we will need it,’ Malkus told her. ‘For this!’
And as he spoke he threw himself at the old woman, shoving her in the shoulder with all his strength. The old woman let out a piercing shriek as she fell to the ground. A look of pure fury crossed her monstrous, ancient face.
But Malkus did not see this. As soon as he had barged into the woman, he grabbed the barrel next to him, fumbling frantically to finish unscrewing the cap. Malkus pushed the barrel over in the direction of the old woman and thick oil began to pour out of it.
Still sprawled on the ground, the old woman saw the pool of oil running rapidly across the floor towards her. She shrieked as the first trickle came into contact with her skin – where it touched her, the old woman’s flesh steamed and sparked like damp logs on a winter fire.
Her shrieks became a high-pitched scream and, in an instant, the old woman was gone. There was a blur of movement and the huge bat appeared in her place. Its wings unfurled, beating at the air.
But it was too late. Before the bat could get off the ground, the oil had puddled over its gnarled, bony feet. The bat let out a final piercing shriek, and then the whole place was lit up in a sudden flare. Malkus ducked away as the creature exploded into smoke and flame. When he looked back, the bat creature was gone and only a smoky puddle of sticky, dark oil remained. Flames licked across its surface, growing ever larger and fiercer as the fire took hold.
The bars of the cage slid away when Malkus pressed the small button set into its outside wall. Everlyne threw herself at her brother and wrapped him in a warm embrace. Together they stood at the end of the charred path the metal star had left when it had fallen from the sky. Together they watched it twist and melt and burn as the fire engulfed it.
Then, hand in hand, brother and sister turned and began their long walk home.
On the outer edge of the expanding human empire, Space Station Hamlyn stood guard against invasion. It was located in the Consodine Rift, through which any force would have to strike if it intended to attack the empire. In the early years of the Third Cyberwar, it was Space Station Hamlyn that stood between the frail humans and the advancing armies of the Cybermen.
The station was equipped with the latest X-ray laser weapons, and could withstand almost any assault.
The Cybermen, for their part, were well aware that Hamlyn’s X-ray lasers would penetrate the hulls of even their most advanced battleships, so they kept their distance, biding their time in a nearby asteroid belt. They knew that the only way they could launch a successful attack on Space Station Hamlyn was if the X-ray lasers were first put out of action – and, to do that, the Cybermen would have to somehow infiltrate the station.
Of all the weapons in their own impressive arsenal, the Cybermen had one that was ideally suited to this task: the Cybermats. Converted from small animals – just as the Cybermen themselves were converted from human beings – the Cybermats were small cybernetic creatures, each about the size and shape of a large rat. They could be programmed to complete a specific task, and could home in on human brainwaves, targeting their victims and then destroying them.
The Cybermen hidden in the asteroid belt had access to hundreds of Cybermats, all of which they flew to the edge of the Consodine Rift. Too small to register on any detectors, the Cybermats slipped past the space station’s weapons systems. They latched on to the outside hull of the station, and burned their way inside. Then, the instant they were inside the station, they resealed the hull behind them – a momentary drop in air pressure was the only clue that anything was amiss.
A single drop in pressure might ordinarily have been dismissed as a false reading on the station’s instruments, or some sort of glitch in the atmosphere pumps. Dozens of them so close together, however, soon attracted the attention of the station’s security chief. He ordered a search of the sections near the outer hull where the pressure drops had been recorded.
But the Cybermats were adept at hiding themselves; their mission depended on stealth and concealment. They intended to get to the weapons systems and destroy the X-ray lasers before the humans even realised they were there. If they were detected, the Cybermats could fight their way through but, like their masters, they preferred to keep to the shadows and strike in secret.
So, when the security chief’s guards searched the outer hull, they did not find a single Cybermat. What they did find, however, was a large blue box that had mysteriously appeared in one of the loading bays.
As the guards stared in surprise, wondering what exactly the box was and just how it had got there, a
door at the front swung open. A scruffy man in a dark, baggy jacket and checked trousers stepped out. He wore an interested expression that soon turned to a frown of concern when he saw the guards approaching him with their weapons raised.
He turned and called back into the box, ‘I think perhaps you two had better stay in here for now.’ It was unclear who he could possibly be talking to, however, for it did not look as though there was much room for anyone else inside. Then he pulled the door shut behind him, and raised his hands in surrender. Two guards promptly stepped forward, took him by each arm and marched him to the chief, who was busy examining the station’s security systems.
The chief was not quite sure what to make of this scruffy man. He appeared to be a complete fool, and yet somehow he had got past the most efficient security screening in the nine nebulae. What’s more, he claimed to have no idea where he was but, as soon as the chief told him, he clapped his hands together and made comments that suggested he knew exactly where Space Station Hamlyn was located – and a good deal about its construction, much of which was confidential. His eyes gleamed when he caught sight of the station’s main security systems.
‘Tell us who you are,’ the chief said to the scruffy man, who had now made his way over the security systems panel. ‘Where have you come from, and why are you here?’
‘These drops in air pressure, do they occur often?’ the scruffy man asked, completely ignoring the question that the chief had just put to him.
The chief was not used to being ignored, but he was as baffled by the pressure drops as he was by the strange man, so he decided he might as well answer. ‘It’s not something we’ve noticed before today,’ the chief admitted. ‘But, as you can see from the display, there have been dozens in a very short space of time.’
The man nodded thoughtfully. ‘I wonder …’ he said. ‘Do you mind?’
And, without waiting for an answer, the man adjusted several of the controls on the panel, bringing up streams of information. One of the read-outs he pulled up, the chief noticed, required the chief’s own personal password to access it – a password which the man could not have known and had not even entered. Whoever he was, this man obviously knew what he was doing. In the chief’s mind, that made him a possible threat; for the moment, though, the chief let the man examine the data.
‘And your men were trying to discover what caused these drops in pressure when they found me, were they?’ the man asked at last.
The chief nodded. ‘I thought there might be some problem with the outer hull, perhaps causing short leaks of air from the station.’
The man nodded, smiling. ‘But they didn’t find anything, did they? Apart from me, of course.’
The chief was forced to admit that they had not. ‘They tested the hull, and it seems secure and intact,’ he added defensively.
The scruffy man pressed his index finger into the corner of his mouth as he considered the situation. ‘I’ve seen something like this before,’ he said quietly. ‘What about scratches?’
‘Scratches?’ asked the chief.
The scruffy man nodded. ‘Scratches, yes – on the metal surfaces close to the hull. As if something hard, made of metal, had been dragged across it. Any sign of anything like that?’
The chief turned to the two guards who had brought in the scruffy man. ‘Well?’ he asked them.
The guards shook their heads. ‘We weren’t looking for scratches,’ one of them said.
The scruffy man raised an eyebrow. ‘Then I suggest you go and look now,’ he said. The guards turned to the chief.
‘You think this is important?’ the chief demanded of the man, who blinked in surprise.
‘Important?’ the man replied. ‘Well, I suppose that rather depends on whether or not you want your station to be left defenceless when the Cybermen attack.’
Now it was the chief’s turn to look surprised. Only he and the most senior staff knew that, just an hour or so ago, Cyberships had been detected in the asteroid belt. Since they had the X-ray lasers to protect the station, there seemed no point in worrying the rest of the crew with the news.
‘Go back through the whole area,’ the chief told the guards now. ‘And check for scratches.’
The scruffy man jumped to his feet and clapped his hands together. ‘Splendid!’ he announced. ‘I’ll come with you.’
The guards led the way to the access corridor that ran round the inside of the main hull – this was where the systems had recorded the drops in air pressure. The scruffy man fell to his knees and produced a magnifying glass from one of his pockets.
‘Ah yes,’ he said quietly, nodding. He straightened and stood up, then handed the magnifying glass to the chief and gestured for him to take a look. Sure enough, when the chief peered through the glass, he could see scratches quite clearly on the metal floor.
‘And what does this tell us?’ the chief asked.
‘It tells us we’re in trouble,’ said the scruffy man.
One of the guards piped up. ‘So what do we do, sir?’
It was the scruffy man who answered. He put away his magnifying glass, then dusted his hands together. ‘We follow the scratches,’ he said. ‘Very, very carefully.’ He dropped to his knees again and proceeded to crawl along the corridor, staring intently at the metal floor.
The chief and the two guards followed closely behind. After a few minutes, the chief began to wonder how long he should let this strange man crawl around the station before accepting that he was in fact quite mad and locking him up.
The man came abruptly to a stop. He turned to look up at the chief, indicating with his finger to his lips that everyone be quiet. Then he pointed to a maintenance duct in the wall just ahead of them. It was close to the floor, and the chief could see that the grille which covered the duct had been cut away. The man got to his feet, and stepped gingerly towards the broken grille, but the chief moved forward and put a hand on his shoulder to stop him. He gestured for the two guards to approach the duct first instead.
Closer to the duct now, the chief thought he could see something in the shadows behind the grille. There was a faint red glow. One of the guards bent down to peer inside the duct. As the chief watched, the red glow grew a little brighter, and resolved itself into two points of light. Points like eyes, staring out from the darkness.
Suddenly there was a blur of silver as something leaped from inside the duct and landed on the floor right in front of the guards. The chief stared in disbelief at the silver creature that had appeared, its eyes glowing red. Small antennae protruded from its head, and below the luminous eyes was a mouth filled with sharp metal teeth. A segmented silver tail swung slowly back and forth as if the creature was deciding what to do next.
‘I think we should all back away very slowly,’ the scruffy man said.
Before either of the guards could move, the metal creature’s eyes glowed a brighter, more fiery red. One of the guards cried out in pain, clutching his hands to his head. His gun clattered to the floor. Moments later, the guard fell down beside his gun.
The second guard immediately raised his own weapon and opened fire. A laser blast caught the metal creature full on. One of its antennae was shorn off. Its tail convulsed, and the creature flipped on to its side. The guard stepped forward, taking aim again, but the scruffy man darted forward and caught his sleeve.
‘Don’t destroy it!’ he said urgently. ‘We need to examine it.’ He stepped closer to the metal creature, which continued to spasm and twitch. ‘I don’t think it’s dangerous any more.’ As he spoke, the creature gave a final shudder, and was still.
The chief was already calling for medical assistance for the injured guard. The scruffy man quickly inspected the guard and sighed. ‘He needs immediate attention, but he should be all right.’
‘What is that thing?’ the chief demanded as the man carefully lifted the metal creature up and examined it.
‘It’s a Cybermat,’ the man told him. ‘One of the drops in pressure you noti
ced was this little fellow cutting its way through the hull and then sealing the hole up behind it.’
‘One of the drops?’ the chief said. ‘But there were dozens.’
The man nodded grimly. ‘Which means the Cybermen have sent dozens of Cybermats. I imagine they are programmed to locate and destroy your defences. They’re operating in stealth mode at the moment, and only become hostile if they are discovered. Unless we act quickly, they will disable your X-ray lasers and then attack the crew – and the Cybermen will follow.’
‘So what can we do?’ The chief’s face was now set in steely determination.
‘We can examine this little creature and see what it tells us.’ The scruffy little man broke into a sudden smile. ‘Now, I wonder if you have a laboratory handy?’
In spite of the scruffy man’s apparent knowledge and enthusiasm, the chief still did not entirely trust him. He stayed in the laboratory, along with the station’s most senior scientist, as the man examined the damaged Cybermat.
‘They home in on human brainwaves,’ the man explained as he worked. ‘Luckily, they can only latch on to one set of brainwaves at a time – although the Cybermen will overcome that particular limitation in a few decades.’
In light of the urgency of the situation they now found themselves in, the chief chose to overlook this last odd statement. He was starting to get used to the scruffy man’s strange way of speaking.
‘We need to find these Cybermats and destroy them,’ said the chief. ‘Guards, follow the scratch marks and let’s hunt these pests down one by one.’
‘You could do that,’ the scruffy man said without looking up from his work probing the inside of the metal creature’s head. ‘However, I doubt you have time, or enough men – and you’ll probably lose quite a few in the process. No,’ he continued, looking up at last. ‘My way is better.’
The chief looked stunned. He was not used to being told what to do. ‘Your way?’ he echoed. ‘Are you telling me you know a better way to destroy these Cybermats?’