“Weird-o!” Zeke replied.
“That dust devil’s lasting longer than the others,” Enki remarked. Again they didn’t look.
“That’s your subconscious dealing with the events of the day,” Zeke said.
“I know. It just felt so real.”
“Anymore?”
Pin-mei’s smile faded. “Well, only that I saw you running deeper into the forest. You, not your father. And you were in tears. Like you wanted to get away from something awful.”
“So, definitely a dream. I’d be ecstatic if I’d found my dad.”
“Do they all look like men?” Enki asked. His voice sounded serious.
“What?” Zeke snapped.
He and Pin-mei followed Enki’s line of sight. Sure enough, a particularly large dust devil was heading towards them. The vortex was thicker than usual. At its centre the sand twisted violently in the shape of a man. It glowed.
Zeke’s bones transformed to ice. Pin-mei seized his hand.
The dust devil’s whirling-sand-legs crossed metres with every step. In seconds it had reached the perimeter.
“Ricasso!” Enki shrieked.
The dust devil halted. Zeke gazed into its empty face. Sand. It was nothing but sand and wind. Yet Zeke knew it was so much more.
Ricasso fetched a conventional rifle from the bronto. He ran forward, firing off a round of bullets. They winged through the creature’s torso without any effect. In a millisecond, it sucked Ricasso into its whirlwind. The man flew round in circles, arms and legs flailing frantically. He screamed for help. Instead, Enki dived into the bronto, gibbering with terror. The dust devil hurled Ricasso across the camp. He crashed into a tall boulder, splitting his head open like a watermelon.
Zeke and Pin-mei jumped to their feet. The devil swivelled to face them.
“Mnthanx!” Zeke shouted.
This was the Hesperian word for stop and had worked on the original dust devil. It felt a long time ago now, the night Zeke came face to face with the Dust Devil in a dark school corridor. In desperation he’d found he could communciate with it by speaking Hesperian. But it perished at the Infinity Trap. Where had this one come from?
It cocked its head to one side. Lips formed.
“You speak the old ones’ words,” it replied in the same ancient language.
“Who are you? Are you the one from before?” Zeke asked.
It straightened up. “Don’t remember.” Its voice was deep and rasping.
Zeke’s brain raced. The Hesperian came quickly.
“What can you remember?”
“Awakening. In the strange city. Your city. Escaping. Wandering. Alone.”
It sounded sad.
“But…do you know what you are?”
The devil shuddered. “I am revenge.”
“Revenge? Why? And against who?”
“The child-from-the-third planet. The child who speaks my words.”
Zeke’s blood ran dry. No prizes for guessing who that might be.
“What did he do?”
“He hurt me.”
“How?”
It glided nearer. “Hurt me bad.”
Zeke stepped back, pulling Pin-mei with him.
“Well, if I ever meet this child I’ll let you know.”
A dreadful sound emanated from the devil. Laughter. Alien laughter.
“You are the child from the third planet.”
Before Zeke could move a muscle the devil jumped. It swallowed them in its howling chaos.
Spinning, twisting, flying. Zeke and Pin tumbled like rats in a concrete mixer. Blood rushed to Zeke’s head and he blacked out for a few moments.
He came to and found they were still inside the devil. The brute was moving, Zeke could sense that. But all he could see was a curtain of sand.
The curtain lifted. Zeke flew through the air, losing his grip on Pin-mei. He hit the ground in a cascade of dirt. Something snapped inside his left leg. His head swam as the world somersaulted before his eyes.
He attempted to stand, but a bolt of agony forced him back down. His belly heaved and splattered breakfast in all directions. He focussed on the blurred scene around him. Where on Mars was this? Everything was made of stones. Red stones piling up on top of each other, an avalanche of rocks. He cried out and fainted.
Chapter Nine
A Stranger’s Room
Stars flickered. A hand reached out from the dark. A warm flannel swabbed Zeke’s brow.
“Steady now, son.”
Zeke’s eyes adjusted to the gloom. Not stars but candles. He sat up.
“Where am—ow!”
He fell back onto a pillow. An invisible hammer was pounding his skull.
“That’ll pass. And before you ask, the China girl’s fine.”
The deep baritone came from a man with wild eyes and a long skimpy beard. He wore a white cotton shirt with black baggy trousers. Why is he so old-fashioned? Zeke thought. The room matched. The walls were bare stones piled up on top of each other, while a wardrobe and a chest of drawers graced the corners. But Zeke couldn’t see a single computer, plasma-screen or even an energy point.
“My mouth tastes like curry,” he said.
“That’ll be turmeric, it’s a natural painkiller.”
“Painkiller?—Ahhh!”
Zeke moved his legs. Ripples of pain gushed through his body.
The man chuckled.
“You broke the left’un.”
Zeke lifted the woollen blankets.
“What have you done to me?”
The trousers of his Mariner’s uniform were ripped. His leg, which was puffy and purple, was tied to a plank with bandages.
“Nothing serious, just don’t get it infected,” the man explained. “It’s a simple fracture. The splint will keep it in place till it heals.”
“Heals!” Zeke exclaimed. “What about nanomacs?”
“Oh surely. But you’ll have to wait till you get back to your school. The medics there can inject those little critters.”
Zeke took a deep breath. “Where am I?”
The man’s eyes burned like coals.
“Edenville.”
“Oh! Then…you’re Marmish?”
The man laughed again and nodded. Zeke gulped as he tried to calm himself. He was among savages! A primitive colony famous for turning their back on technology. No technology! Zeke shuddered at the very idea.
“Truth be, son, that’s not our name. Unbelievers call us that. They amalgamated Martian with Amish. We ain’t Amish, never were, though we’d have a lot in common.”
Zeke wriggled up the bed, wincing with the pain.
“Who are you, then?”
“We’re the Church Of The Martian Saints. Founded by Jehoshaphat Miller sixty years ago.”
Zeke felt sick to the core. Trapped with a bunch of religious nuts who didn’t use nanomacs. He could bleed to death and they wouldn’t save him.
“Are you alright? You’re whiter than goose down.”
Zeke feverishly scanned the room for something modern. “You’ve got to get word to my school.”
“Word is on its way,” the man said.
Zeke sat up, gritting his teeth against the pain. “Radio? The Mars-Wide-Web?”
The man looked bemused. “A greater power.”
“Telepathy?” Zeke suggested eagerly.
The man shook his head. “Horse power.”
“What!”
“A rider is galloping to Yuri-Gagarin Freetown. Should be there in a day. Ptolemy Cusp will contact the school.”
Zeke fell back on the pillow. “Horses!”
“A noble beast.”
“No doubt,” Zeke muttered. “I’ve seen one of your horses before.”
“I know,�
� replied the man.
“Actually, it came to my rescue.”
“I know that too.”
“You!” Zeke cried with a sudden realisation.
The man guffawed. “I was beginning to think you’d forgotten me!”
“You’re the man who rescued Trixie and me. At the Beagle Research Station. I saw your horse before I passed out.”
“Touch and go it was. But I saved your life.”
Zeke blushed. “Thanks for that.”
The man stroked his straggly beard. “Thank the Almighty, son. I was merely an instrument of his divine will.”
“Wait a minute. The teachers told me you radioed for help that day. So you do have a radio.”
“Afraid not. That was my travelling companion. I was accompanying someone from outside the Marmish. One bewitched by the ways of the devil, like you. It was his radio.”
“And without it I’d be dead,” Zeke snapped. “How can you say technology is the way of the devil?”
The man raised the palm of his hand. “Calm yourself. Introductions first. Theology later.” He grabbed Zeke’s hand and shook it vigorously.
“Josiah Cain. But call me Josiah. Elder Josiah.”
“Zeke Hailey.”
“Short for Ezekiel?”
Zeke shook his head quickly. “Not at all. I’m plain old Zeke. That’s what it says on my e-cert.”
“Shame, Ezekiel’s a fine name from the good book.”
Zeke sniffed. “Maybe. My dad just liked Zeke.”
“A wise man, no doubt. Are you hungry?”
“I could eat one of your horses.”
Cain gave his deep, easy laugh once more.
“You’ll be needing these.” He reached under the bed and fished out some baggy trousers and a crutch.
Zeke stepped out into a red sunset. The dying rays caught Edenville in their ruddy glow. Houses shaped like stone igloos climbed up the slope. Smoke drifted from squat chimneys and the air reeked of burning logs. Candor’s seven-kilometre-high canyon towered overhead. The houses looked as if they had been hewn from raw basalt. Everything was ochre.
“It’s so alien,” Zeke said in awed whisper.
“Here,” said Elder Josiah.
Two wide-brimmed black hats were hanging on the back of the door. Josiah took one and gave the other to Zeke. “Even at sunset the radiation can burn you.”
Zeke scowled. “And without the Aldrin Dishes halfway between here and Earth, filtering the solar wind, it would be deadly. Technology saves the day again.”
Josiah smiled graciously.
“A keen mind, I see. You must learn to work with providence, not against it.”
What does that mean! Zeke thought angrily.
Josiah inspected Zeke’s clothing. “Cotton trousers. A hat. You’d make a fine Marmish.”
Zeke pushed out his bottom lip. He had no desire to fit in.
They started up the path. Josiah talked about tapping ancient waters in the bedrock, transforming Martian regolith to soil and raising crops. Josiah was clearly very proud of their way of life. Zeke hobbled after him, trying not to wince from the pain.
At the top of the hill stood a larger building.
“The refectory,” Josiah explained.
They walked inside and into a wall of noise. Around forty people crammed around tables, chattering and eating. They all wore the same uniform of black and white cotton. Servers patrolled the aisles, dishing out vegetables from tin bowls. Human servers, not ’macs. The smell of boiled cabbage tickled Zeke’s taste buds.
“Zeke!”
It was Pin-mei, waving across the sea of heads. Zeke gaped. She appeared taller. As if she had grown up over night.
“Go sit with the China girl. I’ll be with my wife, Mary. After supper we’ll fix you out with dorms.”
Zeke didn’t notice the tall, gawky teenager sitting next to Pin-mei until he was sitting down.
“A mighty big howdy to you!”
Zeke gasped. “Justice!”
“Large as life and twice as handsome,” the older boy said, and beamed his big, toothy grin.
Zeke’s heart sank. The way Justice kept bumping into them was annoying.
“What are you doing here?”
Justice smirked. “Eating mash potatoes.”
Zeke frowned.
“You know what I mean. Why aren’t you at that observatory, the Perspicillum?”
Justice flushed. “I had me a little ol’ accident.”
“Poor Justice,” Pin-mei said. “Professor Hiss was horrid to him.”
“What happened?” Zeke asked.
Justice’s cheeks burned deeper. “I was polishing that billion dollar telescope one day, all on my lonesome. And I just thought I’d have a go at steering it.”
“You tampered with the controls?”
“Tamper is a harsh word, Zeke. I tried changing its position, to take a look-see at Earth. Unfortunately it swivelled in the wrong direction and hit the air-conditioner.”
“Oops!”
“Hiss got all hysterical, said it would take weeks to fix.”
“He does take his work very seriously,” Pin-mei remarked.
Justice cussed. “A total overreaction, if you ask me. All that saving humanity hogwash, what was that about anyway?”
Zeke scratched his chin. “Yes, something about hunting for the genesis particle?”
“Lord if I know. Ol’ Hiss kept very secretive about this government research he was doing. Mad as a spring hare, if you ask me.”
“Maybe,” Zeke replied. Hiss struck him as a genius, but one guarding a terrible secret. “Did he ever give you any clues, why it was so important?”
Justice rolled his eyes. “Who cares, I’m more interested in your adventures. Pin-mei’s told me all about it. A madman, a dust devil, a secret city. The fun stuff always happens to you!”
Zeke was about to say it wasn’t fun at all, when Pin-mei nudged Justice. She was gazing at him with puppy eyes. Zeke wondered what she saw in such a reckless redneck.
“Tell Zeke.”
“Right,” Justice replied. “I’m on my way to the Melas Chasma mine. Gotta job there. Digging. I’m good at digging.”
Zeke felt the room go cold.
“You’ve signed up with the mining team?”
“Sure thing, Hubs Incorporated, the ol’ backbone of the Solar System.”
Zeke grabbed Justice’s arm. “It’s dangerous there. You mustn’t go.”
Justice laughed. “I ain’t afeard of something that’s not there. And if it is there, you’ll fix it. You always do.”
“No, please don’t go.”
Justice gave an uncertain laugh. “Zeke! I’m plain unemployed. I need the money.”
The babble of voices drained away.
“You mustn’t go!”
“Well I am, and that’s that.”
Zeke stared at Justice, and for a split second heard screaming. “If you go there, Justice. You’ll die.”
Chapter Ten
Edenville
“Mind the leg!” Zeke cried.
The blacksmith heaved him onto the back of the cart. Zeke grimaced. The man padded back into the smoky interior of the foundry. There air whiffed of coal and molten metal.
“I’ll go with Zeke,” Pin-mei said, and scrambled in behind him.
Josiah nodded. He and his thirteen year old son, Bartholomew, climbed onto the front seat. Josiah flicked the reins and the horse, a beautiful white mare, broke into a trot.
The cart took a rough track out of town. The stone igloos gave way to wilderness. Zeke sat in silence, nursing his leg. Every bump on the road sent a shudder of pain through his calf.
“That was a waste of time,” he said at last.
The blacksmith
had spent an hour tackling the ankle braces. He tried heavy duty saws and metal-cutters. But the braces proved indestructible. Zeke suggested the glowing pokers from the furnace. Melt them off. The blacksmith said the high temperature would burn their flesh. Zeke replied he didn’t care and go for it. The blacksmith refused.
Pin-mei gave him a hug. “Pity, isn’t it. You could have translocated us back to the School.”
“And Doctor Chandrasar’s medicine cabinet.”
“Chin up. It’s only a matter of time before the Mariners fetch us.”
Zeke forced a smile that looked more like gritted teeth. “Did you see Justice?”
Pin-mei shook her head. “No, he was up and out before dawn. His new bosses expect him on time.”
Zeke gazed at the relentless red desert beyond the town. “Hurrying into danger.”
“You can’t know that. The braces are blocking our powers.”
Her beautiful almond eyes were wide with worry.
“You’re right. It was just a feeling, that’s all.”
She relaxed a little.
“Pin, do you…do you have feelings for Justice?”
She giggled. “I do not! I can have friends, can’t I?”
Zeke scrutinized her features for a sign of blushing. Nothing. This relieved him. Zeke was an only child. How he’d yearned for brothers and sisters over the years, but that was one wish that never came true. And now here he was, honorary big brother to a twelve year old. He felt woefully inadequate for the job.
“Well, I guess he’ll be safe enough. Even if Enki finds a way inside the citadel, as long as you’re outside it must be alright.”
“This Particle Beast can’t get out?”
At the sound of that name Zeke’s backbone tingled. “I don’t think so, otherwise it would have escaped already.”
Pin-mei combed her black hair with her fingers. “And the Dust Devil? I thought he was dead. And why did he bring us here?”
“Pass,” Zeke replied.
“Is it the same one?”
Zeke pursed his lips. “Don’t think so, it felt…different. I think dropping us here was random. It seemed confused.”
Pin-mei looked serious. “Sometimes I think we shouldn’t have come to Mars.”
“Why not?”
“The Hesperians. Two billion years since they died and still deadly.”
The Particle Beast Page 5