The Mammoth Book of Kaiju

by Sean Wallace

  Pete sighed. “All right. Even if there is a giant squid, it’s not doing anyone any harm down there, is it? Now, I want you to let the doc have a look at you. Take the afternoon off, have a rest.”

  Will did go see the doctor, but not until he had taken the rock over to Maura’s lab. “Have a look at this. Any idea what might have made those ridges?”

  Maura ran a finger over the surface, then held the rock up to the light. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Where did you get this?”

  “From a cave under the lake.” Will didn’t tell her any more; he didn’t want to prejudice her judgment. More than that, he didn’t want Maura to accuse him of seeing things the way Pete had.

  When he walked into the mess hall at dinnertime, everyone there turned to look at him.

  “Are you all right?” Maura motioned him over. “I hear you had a pretty close encounter down there.” Her words expressed concern, but Will heard laughter in her voice.

  Pete sat across from her, smirking. “You mean he didn’t tell you about Cephalogon, monster of the deep? Will, sit down and tell Maura all about how it nearly ate you for lunch.”

  Will made a detour past the serving hatch, where Vern handed him a plate heaped with the usual rice substitute. Tonight, to Will’s relief, no tentacles stuck out. A scatter of protein flakes decorated the top of the rice instead. Will sat and picked up his chopsticks. Then, the rice moved. The surface of the lump cracked.

  “Look out,” Pete said. “Ricequake.”

  Maura snorted.

  A tentacle shot out of the top of the lump. Will slid his chair back so fast he nearly fell over again.

  Pete burst out laughing. Will looked around. Everyone in the mess hall was laughing at him, even Maura. The squid made a break for the edge of the plate.

  “Watch out.” Pete pointed at the squid. “Cephalogon’s sent its minions after you.”

  Will tried to poke the squid back with his chopsticks. It wrapped its tentacles around them and hung on. He lifted it up from the plate and carried it dangling over to the serving hatch.

  “Vern? You’ve got an escapee.” He lifted the chopsticks and waved the squid at the cook.

  After dinner, Maura invited Will over to her lab.

  “Watch out for Cephalogon,” Pete called out as they left.

  Maura grinned. “Might as well get used to it.”

  “I know. I’ll never hear the end of it.”

  “Seriously though, how big was this thing?”

  “The tentacle that grabbed me must have been at least ten meters long. Maybe longer; I never saw what it was attached to.”

  “Then it might not actually have been a squid?”

  “It had tentacles. What else would it have been?”

  Maura opened the door to her lab. She looked up at him, her gray eyes wide. Under the bright strip-lighting, she looked both serious and apprehensive. “A Martian,” she whispered.

  “Not Cepahalogon again.” Will turned away. He would have gone, but Maura grabbed his arm and dragged him inside.

  “Call it whatever you like.” She picked up his rock sample and brandished it at him. “Something made these markings. They don’t appear to be biological in origin, and they’re perfectly regular in height. I think they were made deliberately. By something intelligent. And I think the patterns have some meaning, I just can’t figure out what.” She looked at him defiantly.

  “I think so, too. I found something else down there.” Will told her about the crystal room.

  “So you do believe there is intelligent life on Mars.”

  “Was. I believe there was. Whatever made those carvings is long gone. Maura, those caves are old. Ancient. And now we’ve created an enormous mutant that’s made its home in them. Who knows what damage it may do?”

  Will sat in the mess hall slurping algal porridge and wishing for eggs when Short drove up outside, shouting at the top of his voice. Gladly abandoning his breakfast, Will went out to see what the yelling was about.

  “Some kind of monster attacked the base. We felt the ground shaking last night, and this morning, we found all of our hangars wrecked. Completely flattened to the ground.”

  “Probably an aftershock,” Will said, though he hadn’t felt anything in their compound.

  “Aftershocks don’t leave footprints.”

  “We’d better bring Maura this time.”

  Short drove them out past the lake, skirting the old shoreline.

  “Stop.” Maura pointed out the window. “I want a look at those.”

  Red dust rose around them as Short braked. As it settled, rows of three-pronged depressions in the ground faded into view, already dust-blurred at the edges. Will got out and followed Maura as she walked along beside the prints.

  “These things must be a meter across.” Maura looked off into the distance, shading her eyes with one hand.

  Will noticed which direction Maura faced. “They come from the lake.” His stomach felt suddenly hollow. “That squid must be bigger than I thought.”

  Maura turned to give him a look. “Squid can’t function on land. They’ve nothing to hold their bodies up with—no skeleton or exoskeleton for support. And they’d suffocate.”

  “Maybe it’s mutated enough to be able to? I must have seen something, the footprints prove that.”

  “Cephalogon.” Maura grinned at him. “I told you. It’s a Martian.”

  “Cephalogon? Martians?” Short looked from Maura to Will. “You two are off your rockers. Come on, you’re supposed to be taking a look at the hangars.”

  Maura paid no attention to Short. She stared out at the footprints, counting under her breath.

  “What is it?” Will asked.

  “The footprints. I can’t make out the gait.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, look at our steps.” Maura pointed back towards the buggy where Short now waited. Rows of shallow depressions in the dust marked their progress out, overlaid by Short’s returning steps. “You can see there are three of us, right? Three rows of pairs of steps.”

  “With you so far.”

  “And if you saw the tracks of a horse, you’d see sets of four, all in a repeated pattern, and you could tell if it had been walking or galloping by the pattern.”

  “All right. So what’s the problem with these?”

  “Well, you can see they come out and go back. That’s clear from the way the claws point. But no matter how many times I count, I keep getting twenty-five legs.”

  “But no animal has an odd number of legs. That’s impossible.”

  “No animal on Earth.”

  “It’s not quake damage.” Will stood at the top of a small rise that was as close to the wrecked hangars as Short would let him get. He looked out over a scene of complete devastation. Every building had been systematically flattened. And all around them, imprinted on corrugated metal roofing sheets and crushed aircraft, circling and crossing the ground, Will saw three-toed footprints.

  “Don’t you see what this means?” Maura grabbed Will’s arm, practically bouncing up and down with excitement. “It proves Cephalogon is intelligent. He knows what caused the Marsquake. He’s attempting to stop them causing another.”

  “There’s still no proof our tests caused the last one,” Short said.

  “That still doesn’t prove it’s an ancient Martian,” Will said.

  “It is. It has to be. Nothing could mutate that much, that fast.”

  “So how did it survive all this time? You think it’s been waiting down there since Mars cooled off?”

  “Must have been.”

  “I don’t care how long it’s been down there,” Short interrupted. “That thing killed two of our men last night. Not to mention destroying every single one of our planes. What we need now is a plan for getting rid of it.”

  Maura stared at him. “That’s what you brought us out here for? To help you figure out how to kill it? Don’t you understand? This is a chance to study something tr
uly unique. A totally new species. Not just life, but intelligent life.”

  “Dangerous life. For all you know, it intends to flatten your compound tonight.”

  Maura turned to Will.

  “It’s not a Martian.” How could it be? Whatever built the pillar room and the infinity chamber had possessed enormous intelligence and a highly developed sense of aesthetics. They had been beings of great spiritual wisdom. Not squid-creatures. “It’s some kind of heavily mutated squid. Probably caused by the weapons you’ve been testing.” Will turned to Short. “So it’s only right that you should be the ones to deal with it.”

  “At least, let’s try to capture him alive.” Maura sounded so desperate that Will felt a sudden pang of guilt. This was a big opportunity for her, after all. And as long as it got the thing out of his caves . . .

  “It’s an extremely valuable specimen,” Maura said to Short.

  Something rose, out in the center of the lake. The dim moonlight of Phobos gleamed on a dark, rounded surface. Ripples spread as the ominous dome moved towards the shore. As it drew closer, it rose up out of the water.

  “He has an exoskeleton,” Maura whispered in Will’s ear.

  It tickled. Will held a finger to his lips, hushing her. Beside them, Short’s troops silently checked their weapons. Will scanned the shore, trying to make out the hastily dug pits there which concealed the net crews. The net itself lay along the ground, looking like part of the layer of dried algae and dead squid which covered the lake-bed. Flakes of algae swirled overhead on the frigid night breeze.

  Short had insisted on placing riflemen close to the old shoreline, in case the nets failed to hold the creature. Will supposed the row of vehicles behind him, armored and mounted with cannon, were there in case the riflemen failed. Unlike Maura, he felt relieved to have them. But then, Cephalogon hadn’t tried to eat Maura for lunch. Will heard a splash, and turned his attention back to the lake.

  The dome rose further, exposing a fringe of long, pale tentacles around its lower edge. Cephalogon had no discernible division between head and body, just the tentacle-fringed dome above, supported on a multitude of jointed legs below. By the time the creature stepped out onto dry land, it loomed thirty meters tall, at least.

  Searchlights hummed into life, sweeping the monster with their beams. In the light, its carapace was smoky, translucent. Will could see the throb of organs underneath. He swallowed against a sudden surge of nausea, reliving the terror he had felt in the caves. He made himself concentrate on the creature, fighting off the memory. It was on their territory now, vulnerable.

  Cephalogon stepped forward, not seeming weak on land at all. It moved steadily ahead on a forest of legs that shone with a chitinous orange covering. Behind it, the net men rose from concealment, hoisting rocket launchers to their shoulders. Hastily assembled that afternoon, the net had been Maura’s idea. Will could already tell it wasn’t big enough.

  Rockets shot hissing into the night, carrying the leading edge of the net up and over the domed carapace. The creature stopped in its tracks. Men rushed forward to encircle it, jumping up and grabbing hold of the edges of the net to tie it down. For a moment, Will thought it had worked.

  Then Cephalogon took another step forward. Anchoring ropes pulled free faster than the troops could stake them into the ground. Men still hung from the edges of the net as the creature took another step.

  The net began to slip, still held by ropes behind. In front, men holding on to the net dangled ten meters from the ground. Some let go, falling and rolling away. One man stayed where he had fallen, clutching his ankle. A three-toed foot came down on him. There was a squelching sound, and a short, agonized scream.

  The scream galvanized the riflemen into action. All around Will, the night erupted in a cacophony of rifle fire. Men yelled as they dropped from the net, some bleeding from bullet wounds.

  “Come on!” Maura shouted in his ear. She pulled at his arm, trying to drag him away from the protection of the rifles.

  Will pulled back. “You can’t save it now,” he shouted.

  “Run!” she screamed at him. “Do you want to be trampled?”

  Will felt the ground tremble, as the creature gathered speed. He remembered the crushed buildings and planes. He ran as fast as he could, with Maura right beside him. Behind them, the shooting intensified. He swerved around the nearest buggy, then crouched behind it to look back. Cephalogon had reached the riflemen, and was trampling them with all—if Maura was right—twenty-five feet.

  “Pull back! Clear the field!” someone shouted over a loudspeaker.

  The buggy rocked as the cannon on top of it fired with a resounding boom. Too late, Will put his hands over his ears. He peered over the buggy’s hood, and saw more missiles streaking towards the creature as the other cannon fired. He watched as the missiles impacted the curving side of the dome. His hands dropped again, the noise forgotten, as he saw the missiles bounce off the shining surface without leaving so much as a scratch.

  A few of them exploded on impact, but when the smoke and debris cleared, the shell gleamed whole and unbroken in the searchlights. Most simply ricocheted off, to land among those riflemen not yet trampled.

  Will didn’t need to see any more. He turned to Maura. She nodded, and they both ran for it. Light came up behind them, throwing their shadows long and thin over the old lake-bed. At first, Will thought for some reason the searchlights were following them. Then a buggy pulled up beside them in a cloud of stirred-up algae particles. Short was driving.

  They followed Cephalogon out into the desert. It quickly outdistanced them, but they followed its trail, catching the occasional glimpse of it in the distance as they reached the top of a ridge. It led them through part of the Conglomerated Armories testing range, unimproved land that still bore the marks of old meteor hits, the craters softened into dips and ridges by a heavy layer of dust. Their progress slowed, as Short steered carefully around new pits left by recent testing.

  “What about those experimental bombs of yours?” Will asked. “Would they work on it?”

  “They might, if we had a plane left to drop one with.”

  “Ah.”

  “There is something else we can try. It’s only a prototype, but as far as I can see, we’ve got no other option.” Short sounded eager.

  “Except leaving it alone,” Maura said.

  “That thing killed at least twenty men tonight. Who knows how many it will kill tomorrow?”

  “It only killed your men because they shot at it.”

  Will could feel her shaking with fury. Reluctantly, he thought about how he had felt in the cavern when the creature tried to pull him in. Trapped, ready to do anything to try to get away. Perhaps their attack had felt exactly the same way to Cephalogon. It had only begun trampling the men in its own defense, desperate to escape. “She’s right. Before they fired, it wasn’t coming anywhere near them.”

  “I thought you were on my side,” Short said. “It tried to eat you, didn’t it? Isn’t that proof of hostile intent?”

  “I don’t know if it was trying to eat me or not.” Though Will hated to admit it, he had panicked back there in the caverns. He might have misinterpreted the situation. “I just assumed it was. It could have been attempting to communicate.”

  “What about our hangars? It crushed every single one of our planes. That was no ‘attempt to communicate.’ ”

  “Maybe it was,” Maura said. “Maybe it didn’t like you bombing its planet.”

  Short opened his mouth to reply as the buggy crested another ridge. His mouth stayed open. There, at the bottom of a kilometers-wide crater, stood the creature. Short killed the headlights instantly, letting the buggy roll back down the ridge.

  Will held his breath, watching for the reflected moonlight which would show them the creature’s dome rising above the crater edge ahead.

  “I don’t think he saw us,” Maura whispered.

  Beside him, Will heard Short muttering into the buggy�
��s radio. “Out.” Short turned to them. “We’ve already tried to capture it once. You saw how well that worked. Now, we do things my way.”

  Will and Maura got out of the buggy and crept up to lie just under the top of the ridge, peering over at the creature. Cephalogon wandered back and forth over the crater floor, the movements of its legs so slight it seemed almost to float like the huge bubble it resembled.

  “What’s it doing?” Will whispered.

  “I don’t know. Dancing?”

  Maura shivered. The Martian nights were cold, but Will knew it was more than that. He put his arm around her shoulders.

  “We have to try to warn him,” Maura said.

  “How? Go down there and wave our arms at it? Shoo it away? Even if you’re right, even if it is intelligent, how would it understand?”

  “I don’t know. But we have to try.”

  “What if you’re wrong?” Will persisted. “What if it really did try to eat me? What if it thinks we’re more soldiers? You can’t go down there Maura. It’s suicide.”

  For a moment, Will feared Maura would get up and run down into the crater anyway. He tightened his arm around her, but she merely lay where she was, watching the creature drift to and fro across the crater floor. After a while, he heard a vehicle drive up.

  Will turned and saw a buggy mounted with a bizarre object he could only assume was a weapon. It consisted of three spheres that gleamed with a glassy sheen in the moonlight, linked in a straight line by metal tubing. At one end, perforated metal flanges spread out to form a half-meter-wide dish, like a flower at the end of a glass-and-metal stalk.

  “You two. Put these on.” Short crawled up and handed them dark goggles, donning a pair himself. “You’re about to see something top secret.”

  With the goggles on, Cephalogon became merely a shadow among shadows on the crater floor. Then a line of light, searingly bright even through the goggles, came into being above them. The beam transfixed the creature’s dome, lighting it from within.

  “Is that radioactive?” Will glanced at the strange gun. The glass orbs glowed now, though not as brightly as the beam coming from the metal dish. The weapon hummed at a frequency so high Will could only just hear it.