The Cyber Chronicles - Book I: Queen of Arlin

by T C Southwell

Tassin stood beside the horse and gripped the cold hilt of the sword strapped to the saddle, but the sight of the monster kept her frozen. She became aware of a deep humming, like a throbbing, soundless song that crept into her bones, and tore her eyes from the monster to look at Sabre. The cyber circled away from her, drawing the creature after him, and now faced her. The brow band blazed vivid blue, and brightened as the tone of the strange humming increased, making her dizzy. The horse collapsed with a groan, tucking its head into its flank as if to try to escape the droning.

  Tassin shook her head to dispel the dizziness. The monster stopped, apparently mesmerised by the vibrations. The mind-numbing drone deepened, going well below the range of human hearing, yet still exerting its power. The monster snapped its beak with a clashing of razor-edged horn, not as easily overcome as the horse. Nevertheless, its eyes glazed and it stood immobile. Sabre approached it, and the creature turned its head to follow him, its orange eyes intense.

  Sabre paused, clearly aware of the animal’s continued aggression, and neither moved as the brow band’s hum changed note again, searching for the right frequency to incapacitate the beast. After several moments, it seemed to find it, for the brute’s head sagged and its eyes lost their lustre. It sank to the ground as if exhausted, and Sabre move towards its neck. He prised up several scales, pulling them off to expose the soft hide beneath, then plunged the knife into the beast’s jugular.

  The creature shuddered, its tail twitching. Blue blood pumped out, almost drenching Sabre, who backed away. The beast’s head lowered until it rested on the sand, its limbs trembled, and the blood dwindled to a trickle. When the monster ceased to twitch, Sabre turned to Tassin.

  For a second, the full power of the cyber swept over her, like a pressure beating at her brain. Then the brow band dulled to its usual blackness with red, amber and green sparkles and the pressure vanished, along with an indiscernible something that she had not been aware of until it was gone. Beside her, the horse snorted and clambered to its feet.

  Sabre came over to her, a strange emotion in his eyes. “It’s dead.”

  “What is it, a dragon?” She gazed at the creature.

  He glanced back at the beast. “I suppose you’d call it a dragon. I’d call it a survivor of the indigenous animals that once inhabited this planet, and I regret that I had to kill it.”

  “But it would have killed you.”

  “That’s why I killed it.” He bent to clean the blood-smeared blade in the sand.

  “How did you do that?”

  Sabre straightened and tapped the brow band. “That’s what cybers do. Cyber is short for cybernetics, the science of control and communications in animals and machines. Just as the cyber once controlled me, it’s able to control animals over a limited distance. Unfortunately, it can’t control people, or I’d have used it on you a long time ago.”

  “Why would you want to do that?”

  “Because you never listen to me! I said stay with the horse, but no, you come trotting after me, endangering both of us. When I tell you to do something, I’m not just enjoying the sound of my own damned voice!”

  She lowered her eyes, annoyed and surprised by a twinge of shame. “Maybe you did not have to kill it, for it was very slow. How did it know we were here?”

  He took a water skin from the saddlebag and sipped from it. “It’s a type of reptile, a cold-blooded animal. Doubtless it’s a day hunter and moves a lot faster in the heat. Cold always makes reptiles sluggish. I think it would have followed us, and you aren’t strong enough to run any distance.

  “Being a reptile, it doesn’t have to eat that often, although I can’t imagine what there is to eat here. I haven’t seen another life sign since we left the road. As to how it knew about us, that’s simple. All movement causes vibrations, and that animal was an ambush hunter. It lies in wait until something comes near enough, then grabs it.”

  “But how did you know it was there?”

  “The cyber told me.”

  “That is what you meant when you said you had made a bargain with it? It helps you now?”

  He nodded, gazing at the huge corpse.

  She glanced at it. “Are you going to eat it?”

  “No. According to the cyber, it’s poisonous. Its blood contains a lot of copper, ours contains iron. Too much copper is very bad for a human.”

  “So if it had eaten you it would have died too?”

  He smiled. “Well, it might not have died, but I’d probably have given it indigestion. Then again, with all the barrinium in me, I’d give anything a stomach-ache. There must be another indigenous animal that lives here. That creature’s too alien to live on our type of flesh. Perhaps that’s why the colonists wiped out the indigenous species, because they were useless to them.”

  “I hope we do not meet any more of those.”

  “Next time, I’ll give it a wide berth. I thought it might be something edible, even though the cyber told me it was alien. The scanners couldn’t analyse its body chemistry until I was close to it.”