__________
There are a great many things at which books are superb. As stores of knowledge, they’re unsurpassable. As storytellers, they’re excellent. As jesters to make you laugh when nothing else can, they’re second to none. As table-straighteners, they will happily get the job done. As occasional step-stools, they will grumpily get the job done. Even, in the greatest extremes, if it’s them or you, they’ll lay down their lives and make a really handy fire, though in those circumstances, they will glower at you as the flames rise higher, as if to say ‘Of all the readers in all the world, I had to get you, you ungrateful wretch.’
What they’re really not good at is sprinting. Dramm had the boundless enthusiasm of a puppy and kept bouncing ahead of Jasper, losing his balance and falling over, creasing his pages. But he’d get up and close his covers as tight as he could, still impatient, and have to bounce back to the older spellbook to chivvy him along.
Jasper mumbled in his old gibberish language. His pages were old now, and some of them were dog-eared. He had his reasons for not rushing this journey. He didn’t need to look at the sky anymore to know what was coming, he could feel it all the way down his spine. The end was coming. The end of everything he knew.
Dramm bounced and flapped and fluttered round his binding, and Jasper slumped, leaning for just a moment on the young spellbook’s back to keep him upright. Then he walked on, front cover first, back cover following, to meet his inevitable future.
__________
Alditha held up a hand, and Harper’s Army stopped marching as they came to the leg of the square. Not long before, it would have been guarded by a bio-mech, but now it was empty. Eerie. Alditha narrowed her eyes at it, suspecting a trap.
‘Harper, and young Master Sprat,’ she said, without turning her head either way to address the owl on one shoulder or the pixie who sat on the other, holding tight as she walked, ‘I have an important job for you. I need you please to both get down, and go about the people, quietly telling them to wait here. I don’t like the look of this, and I don’t want them rushing in. Do you think you could do that for me?’
‘Yes, Miss Alditha,’ squeaked Sprat, clambering down her witch’s robe and going off into the crowd immediately.
‘You be careful, all right? I don’t want to lose you again,’ Harper warned her.
‘Nobody dies here today,’ Alditha promised him. ‘Nobody.’
‘I swear when you say stuff like that, Fate rubs its hands,’ muttered Harper, nuzzling his head against her neck. ‘Just look out.’
‘Are you presuming to tell a witch her business, “General” Harper, now you’ve got your army?’ Alditha deadpanned, stroking his claws with one finger. ‘You never did say—why aren’t you already dead?’
‘I’m an owl, I am.’
‘I’d noticed, dear heart.’
‘Skilled in the arts of tracking my prey, sort of thing.’
‘Ah,’ said Alditha. ‘You followed Razor when he scarpered.’
‘Exactly that. Kept a low profile. Thought he’d go skulking back to his horrible master once the coast was clear. He didn’t, he joined up with this lot.’
‘I see. Well-’
‘I don’t know what happened to Gunkin,’ said Harper, looking as guilty as it’s possible for an owl to look. It’s not a look they generally go in for, but he almost managed it.
Alditha chuckled. ‘If I know anything about Gunkin Pimplebutt, there’s no creature in this Garden more able to look after himself. If you found a way to escape the beardless wonder, I’m sure Gunkin’ll turn up in a few days once all the danger’s passed.’
‘That’d be the danger where no-one’s going to die today, would it? That particular, safe as houses kind of danger?’
Alditha smiled a thin smile. ‘Missed you, darling bird. Go on, help me out. Keep this lot occupied.’
With a tiny hoot, Harper flew off her shoulder and began to circle the crowd, whispering as he went.
‘I’m going in,’ said Celeste suddenly. ‘They were supposed to be met by an Astarian ambassador, so I’d better go alone. Alpha, you will accompany me though.’
Alditha grabbed her arm. ‘You surely don’t think you’re going to leave me behind?’ she asked. ‘I know you’re too intelligent to be thinking anything that foolish.’
Celeste sighed. ‘This is a witchy thing, isn’t it?’
‘To be honest, it’s more of a “If you’re going to kill everything in the Garden, then you’ve got to go through me first” thing.’ Alditha considered. ‘So yes, it’s a witchy thing.’
‘All right,’ Celeste agreed. ‘Come on then.’
The three of them walked into the silent square, newly decorated with Astarian pyramids, all standing open. Alditha cast a glance at Stone Hedge. It hadn’t begun to dance yet, but if you watched it hard enough, you could see the ripples of colour pass through it. Most people would tell themselves they must have been imagining it. Witches, however, didn’t do that.
‘Alpha? Where are they all?’ asked Celeste.
Alpha chittered to himself a moment, then announced ‘Five Astarian life signs in subterranean base. Also, six bio-mechs of historical design.’
Celeste breathed out. ‘Are they awake?’
‘Yes.’
‘And together?’
‘Three Astarians clustered in laboratory on west side of complex. One in computer room, north. One on the move, to the south. Bio-mechs as indicated.’ Without warning, a colourful, three-dimensional plan of the complex appeared in front of them, beaming out of Alpha’s eyes.
‘Holographic gelatin,’ muttered Alditha. ‘Handy.’
‘Plotting direct route to clustered Astarians.’
A red line appeared in the map, showing their way in and down.
‘Very handy,’ admitted the witch with a certain grudging respect.
Celeste led the way to one of the pyramids, finding the elevator at the back. Soon, the three were speeding down and down through the earth, till they came to a smooth halt, and the elevator pad went bing, opening doors on both left and right sides.
‘Do you people not believe in stairs?’ gasped Alditha, quickly uncurling the fists her hands had become.
‘No time,’ said Celeste. ‘This was all done in a hurry. Emergency protocols,’ she explained. ‘Originally the pyramids would have been alone down here. The system had to dig its own shaft. Actually,’ she added, realizing it as she said it, ‘it will only have done that since the pyramid went up to the surface. The pyramid itself will have taken up the space we’re about to walk into.’ She looked at Alpha’s map and chose the right-hand path. ‘Come and meet my ancestors.’
__________
‘You have evidence?’
Peridot was taken aback. They’d been a team for so long, she’d expected her testimony to be enough to convince them of Zirca’s plans. Then again, she supposed, he’d been part of the team all that time, too.
‘No,’ she admitted, ‘not beyond what I overheard. But I met this Skoros, briefly, and he did claim to be the King of the Planet...or Garden, as he put it.’
‘But to hack a bio-mech? You’re telling us something that evolved here while we had a power nap is capable of that?’ Mali-Juna was the team’s official biologist, and Peridot could see she hadn’t convinced him. ‘You do know it was only 6.8 thousand years, yes? The life here should be practically the same as it was when we went to sleep. Mosses, trees, worms and insects, nothing in the higher primate range, certainly.’
‘I know what it should be,’ Peridot told him. ‘But I spoke to this Skoros. He’s a fully developed humanoid. Have you even checked the scans yet?’ She traced a line on her headband, and the information appeared in Mali-Juna’s mind. His eyes widened.
‘That’s unbelievable,’ he said. ‘How is that possible? Sentient vegetables?’
‘Told you so.’
‘So there’s sentient life here,’ said Rhodon, the purple-haired climatologist, biting her lip. ‘Do we c
are? Enough to sabotage the mission, I mean?’
‘There’s lots of sentient life here,’ Peridot corrected her. ‘Lots of massively improbable life.’
‘Why d’you think we were looking for an uninhabited planet in the first place, Rho?’ asked Mali-Juna, his pale, opal-coloured eyes still looking a little vacant as he digested the information in his head.
‘Hmm,’ she agreed. ‘What does Quarka think?’
‘Haven’t told him yet,’ admitted Peridot. ‘Probably whatever Zirca tells him to think. That’s why I wanted to get your views first.’
‘This is genuine, is it?’ Mali-Juna was still having trouble coming to terms with the amount of life in the Garden. ‘Still makes no sense.’
‘I didn’t fake the report, Mali-Juna,’ sighed Peridot. ‘D’you think I want to throw away my career in an act of mutiny just after losing my only brother?’
The three of them were silent for a moment, remembering Ven. It was new for all of them not to have him there, being bouncy and sarcastic and laughing at their seriousness. Gardeners were often more free-spirited than the other scientists on exploration teams, and Ven had been a classic example of the breed.
Mali-Juna blinked, shutting off the data stream into his mind. ‘Right then,’ he said finally. ‘Let’s go stop a genocide. For Ven.’
‘And because it’s wrong,’ said Rhodon.
‘That too.’
__________
‘Aye aye,’ said Alditha. ‘They’re on the move.’ She nodded to the map that Alpha was projecting. Sure enough, the three Astarians from the lab were moving.
‘Coming our way,’ Celeste agreed. ‘Should be able to head them off if we go left at the next junction, then right.’
They moved, and the closer they got to the point Celeste had suggested, the more distinctly they heard voices. When they stepped around the right-hand corner, the voices stopped too.
Alditha gave the three Astarians her customary head nod.
‘You’re new,’ said the boy with white hair and opal eyes. ‘How can you be new?’
‘I’m not that new,’ said Alditha.
‘He’s talking to me.’ Celeste stepped forward. ‘Hail, Sleepers. My name is Celeste, I’m the commander of Astarian Scout Ship Gol HuR 87. I’ve come to find you.’
‘You’ve succeeded,’ said Rhodon. ‘Well done. Only took you nearly seven thousand years.’
‘It’s not an easy planet to find,’ said Celeste. ‘We’re sorry for your loss,’ she added, remembering what they’d seen happen to Ven Tao in the Tarot Wheel.
‘Thank you.’ Peridot nodded sadly, assuming that Celeste had merely accessed one of the pyramids’ memory databanks and discovered the events of Venny’s death.
Alditha looked at the green-haired, green-eyed girl in front of her. She looked exactly like she’d done in the Tarot Wheel. Witches often knew what people were thinking, but this felt different. It felt uncomfortable, knowing she’d actually been inside the girl’s thoughts, without Peridot having any idea about it.
‘Who’s your friend?’ asked Mali-Juna.
‘Oh, yes, of course. This is Alditha, she’s a native.’
‘Reeeeeeally?’ said Mali-Juna, almost running in his eagerness to take a look at ‘a native.’ ‘That’s remarkable,’ he said, lifting Alditha’s arm and prodding it with his finger.
‘Er, I really wouldn’t do that if I were you,’ Celeste advised.
‘What’s your name, Mr. White-Head?’ asked Alditha, preparing to raise an eyebrow at him.
‘Mali-Juna,’ said Mali-Juna. ‘How long have you been alive?’
‘Long enough to know I don’t like to be poked and prodded on a first acquaintance,’ Alditha told him, poking him back with every word.
‘Mmm, yes, no of course not,’ he agreed. ‘Apologies, Garden person Alditha. Forgive my manners. Peridot, Rhodon,’ he said, gesturing to his teammates. ‘You’re really not supposed to exist,’ he said, turning his attention back to Alditha almost without a pause for breath, ‘I’m just curious as to how you do.’
‘I do very well, thank you,’ said Alditha. ‘Well rested, are you? Sure you wouldn’t like to go back and have another hundred years or so?’
‘Mmm, no no. Can’t do. The fleet’ll be here any time now.’
‘The fleet?’ yelped Celeste. ‘Here?’
Rhodon nodded. ‘Zirca, our chief chemist and leader contacted them not long after we woke up. I admit we were all surprised, but it turns out they were already in the vicinity. Said something about receiving an earlier signal. I’m guessing that would be from you?’
‘I didn’t send a signal,’ said Celeste. ‘At least, not intentionally. I did lose track of a couple of orbs, but-’
‘There you go then,’ said Mali-Juna. ‘Never, ever lose track of your orbs.’
‘Well I know that now,’ Celeste snapped.
‘They’re just waiting for the dimensions to synchronise, and then-’ Rhodon shrugged.
‘Oh, Harper’ll be thrilled,’ muttered Alditha. ‘More aliens. There’ll be special “I told you so” banners and everything. Look, Mr. Pokey-Boy, this might be a totally ridiculous question, and I really hope it is, but are you lot planning to kill everything on this planet any time soon?’
__________
Zirca slid his hands into the gloves that were part of the sterile, clear plastic cube in which he held his test tubes. He looked along his line of tubes and selected one that held a clear liquid. He shook it and the liquid turned a frothy, creamy white. As he watched, the froth fizzed, seemed to wriggle, to divide, to shape itself into bodies, each with sharp, snapping teeth at one end. The white frothed faster, climbing up the side of the tube. Then the white turned red as the teeth tore, the blood flowed, the bodies gorged. And then, as though nothing had happened, the redness disappeared and the liquid settled to clear again. He shook the tube a second time. Nothing happened. The liquid had become plain water.
Zirca smiled.
He understood the data about the Garden. He understood where its bizarre examples of life had come from, in so short a time, while they had been asleep. He understood why the Garden had trolls, and pixies, and goblins and witches and wizards and even, for its sins, talking potatoes, mushrooms and trees (and, unbeknown to him, intelligent spell books).
The exploration team was made up of experts in their field, of course, but Zirca knew he was the most crucial among them, because all their fields, all their expertise, depended on his. Mali-Juna’s biology came back to chemistry. Quarka’s geology came back to chemistry. Peridot’s hydrography. Rhodon’s climatology. Everything you needed to know about a planet came back to chemistry. That was why Zirca had gone into it in the first place. And chemistry was where the secret of the Garden was hiding.
Ordinarily, if it hadn’t been for Ven Tao, that arrogant irresponsible child, there would have been no sentient life in the Garden even now—none except them. When Ven had caused the ship to vapourise, he had inadvertently turned himself into microscopic, organic particles, which had gradually settled into the ground. And there, chemistry had done its magic trick. Astarian body chemistry was special; their appendixes synthesized a chemical called Melazoidin from the food they ate, and Melazoidin’s job in their bodies was to create sigma energy. Sigma energy was the most suggestible form of energy in the universe—it could be harnessed, directed by concentration in the brain, and it kept Astarian bodies as ‘young’ as the rest of the universe seemed to think them. Melazoidin promoted life, promoted healing, and, when expelled through the lungs or the skin, it formed a field, suspended in the air, that allowed what many races thought of as ‘magic’ to be made. When Ven Tao had vapourised and blended with the soil of the Garden, the Melazoidin from his body had changed the Garden, blade of grass by blade of grass. And then it had changed the things that ate the blades of grass. And the things that ate the things that ate the blades of grass, and so on up a primitive food chain, extending it as it went, making life evolve at
many times its natural rate. Now the air of the Garden was thick with a Melazoidin field breathed out from many species, meaning you never quite knew what was going to spring to life next, and meaning there was magic.
Magic was just chemistry if you understood what you were doing.
Zirca understood what he was doing well.
He took a second test tube of clear liquid and pressed a timer-seal into the top of it. It was an artificial enzyme that simply ate Melazoidin. He had finely tuned its structure so it only targeted large deposits of the chemical—he didn’t want it eating all the grass and gorging itself on the air. It would eat the Melazoidin, and everything containing concentrations of Melazoidin. And then it would eat itself, before harmlessly dissipating, turning into water and washing away.
He pulled his hands out of the gloves, then pressed a button and saw the rack of test tubes slide sideways through a contamination shield. He picked up the tube and smiled. That presumptuous wizard-king would get his just desserts along with all the other products of Ven Tao’s recklessness. He set the timer-seal on the tube and walked out of his private lab, making his way quickly to the elevator that led him to his pyramid. Peeking out, he saw a mob at one end of the street. He turned and walked the other way, a sense of exhilaration pushing him on. At the far end of the square, he found a rock about the size of an orb at the edge of a patch of grass.
Perfect.
He dug a small hole in the grass behind the rock with his hands, hid the test tube with its seal facing down, and covered it back up. Then he stood up and walked nonchalantly back into the square, stopping to look at the mob again, this time with a sense of intense satisfaction.
Aliens In My Garden Page 21