by Andy Remic
And he realised.
There were some things you could not fight.
Some creatures just too powerful...
Keenan laughed a cold laugh, bubbling blood...
And watched the slow blade descend.
Chapter 16
Strange Brotherhood
Mr. Max had killed thousands of people during his life. He had murdered women, children, and animals. He had cut the hearts, spines and souls from a thousand species of alien. He had destroyed families, cities, worlds. Empathy and remorse were not words in his lexicon. Mr. Max was a Seed Hunter... only the Seed mattered... the essence of every living organism on which he fed.
The blade gleamed dull in his fist.
He bent towards Keenan; all else was gone, a blur, dust.
There came a click. Mr. Max’s head snapped left, and inside the holes where his eyes had been clusters of vision globes shrank as a billion neural pathways opened to his brain and...
Understanding rocked him.
The Reason in Madness fired its ignition, engines whined and a sheet of purple flame fifty feet long blasted from exhaust ports. The fire hit Mr. Max from the waist up, instantly vaporising his skin and human flesh and forcing a terrible high shriek that was cut off almost instantly as the jets reached thousands of degrees.
Keenan, on the ground, felt a searing scorch of heat and started to roll away through sheer instinct: pain flooded him and he needed to get away, away from the heat, the fire, the roaring agony. He nudged past Max’s useless legs and rolled and rolled; then Emerald was there, her hands on his smoking WarSuit, which clicked and buzzed in rapid malfunction. Keenan opened his eyes, gazing up into Emerald’s green orbs. He touched her cool hands with their green veins on ebony skin, and something in her eyes made him shiver. It was triumph, a glare of success.
Keenan looked left, where Max—or what remained of him—seemed to dance. The boosters on the Gunship were firing hot, bright white and hard to see, as Pippa, inside the cockpit, increased the fuel throughput, and the whole Gunship vibrated and shook, held in place by stabilising jets, its boosters eating away what was left of Max’s upper body.
Then the fire was gone.
Exhaust ports glowed white-hot; they crackled like breaking ice.
Silence descended; a veil of ash.
Mr. Max was still there, his human legs almost intact below the knees, the rest of his surviving flesh charred. From the waist up he was nothing more than what appeared slick oil bones, not a human skeleton, but narrow lines, a stick-man of greased steel. The spinal column was a single piece, brown, oiled, the skull a tiny sphere. Arms were splinters with serrated points for hands.
Mr. Max sat down, a slow folding, and then slumped sideways to the black desert.
Emerald helped Keenan to his feet; her hands were strong, guiding him up, and he could see Franco across the space occupied by Max’s strange corpse. Franco was playing with his battered nose.
Pippa ran down the ramp.
“Keenan!”
She was in his arms, and he yelped.
“Thank God you’re alive!”
“Well,” he coughed, “I didn’t want to point out what a huge risk you’d just taken, But seeing as you’ve volunteered the guilt—”
“Shut up!” She punched his chest. He wheezed.
Franco arrived, kicking up sand, a Kekra against the head of Betezh. Betezh was staring forlornly at the ground, eyes wide, flesh sickly and pale. He looked terribly shaken.
Franco prodded him.
“Shall I kill him now?”
“No,” said Keenan, leaning heavily on Pippa. Pain shuddered through him. “What was it, Betezh?”
“I... don’t know.” He glanced at the oily brown stick-corpse. “I... I heard he was a Seed Hunter, but does anyone here know what that is? Look at it! It ain’t fucking human, that’s all I can say.”
“I think we should kill Betezh right now!” urged Franco.
“No!” snapped Keenan. “There’s been enough death.”
“But Keenan...”
Ignoring his friend, Keenan moved towards Betezh, and their eyes locked. “You were with him.” His voice was soft; inherent threat tangible. The words did not need to be said. You are both enemies. Mr. Max is gone and dead. Is it your turn?
Betezh shook his head. “This is all wrong, Keenan. I’ve been used, just like you!”
“What?”
“Kill him,” whispered Emerald. She was standing to one side, staring at the sky. Her eyes glowed. She seemed suddenly infused with power, with an energy that bubbled along green veins. Her head dropped. She fixed Keenan with a decisive stare. “Kill Betezh. I have seen it. He will slaughter Combat K in their sleep.”
“No!” snapped Betezh. He made to take a step back, but Franco prodded him with his heavy Kekra. “Listen, Keenan!” There was desperation in his voice. “Don’t trust her! You mustn’t trust her!”
“Why? She’s not the one trying to kill us!” snarled Franco.
“Mr. Max; he wanted her dead, for good reason.” Betezh pointed at Emerald. She smiled a sickly smile. He turned on Keenan. “You’ve got to believe me, man.”
“What a crock of stinking bullshit,” laughed Franco.
“I heard Max talking about her. He was mad, muttering to himself. He may have been a Seed Hunter; he may have been one of the greatest killers in recent history, and I know a streak of insanity when I see it. But Max and Emerald, they go back a long way. Max was trying to protect what we know, trying to maintain our equilibrium.”
“And you’re an innocent party in all of this?” said Keenan.
“No, Keenan. I work for Vitch. But things have got out of hand; we’re not talking about a few people dying here. We’re not just talking about Sinax politics, we’re talking about a bigger game. Something’s going down and none of us understand it. None of us...” he pointed at Emerald, “Except her.”
“Ridiculous,” snapped Emerald. “You came to me,” she said, staring at Keenan. “You rescued me! You sought my help! And then this little man sees his one avenue of escape and tries to turn you against me.” She laughed bitterly. “Kill him, now. Do as I say.”
Franco’s finger tightened on the trigger.
“Wait!”
The voice was familiar, and Keenan’s head came up. A small black PopBot hurtled from the depths of the Interceptor, spinning wildly and with a myriad of glowing colours scattering across its surface. It raced towards the group and slewed in a wide arc.
“Keenan! Keenan! It’s me, Cam!”
Keenan grinned a sly grin. “I wondered what had happened to you, you little bugger.”
There was a metallic sigh. “I was abducted! Kidnapped! Tortured!”
“Damn lucky you,” muttered Franco.
“Don’t be like that,” said Cam, dropping and rising into the air again. His spin seemed agitated.
“It’s been booby-trapped,” said Betezh, meeting Keenan’s steady gaze. “Max filled the little bot full of explosives, and that biowire shit that sneaks up on you when you’re asleep: StrangleTox.”
Keenan nodded, and glanced at Cam. “You dangerous, buddy?”
“I have disabled it internally,” Cam said smugly. “After all, I am a GradeA Security Mechanism with advanced SynthAI and a Machine Intelligence Rating (MIR) of 3150.”
“I remember,” said Keenan. He winced in pain. “How could I ever forget! You sure you disabled that toxic AI shit? I don’t want a nasty surprise in my bed.”
“Yes. Trust me, Keenan!”
“OK then.”
“Come on,” said Pippa. “We need to get you to the Medical Hold.”
“You want me to kill him, then?” repeated Franco, like a dog with a bone. He prodded Betezh hard in the head and produced an ouch.
“No. Not yet. Bring him inside.”
Franco leaned close to Betezh’s ear. “Just like the old times,” he murmured. “We really should stop meeting like this. But let me tell you one thing,
you’re not safe, not even if Keenan wants you to be. Understand, maggot? Me and you, Betezh, well, we’ve got bad history. I’ll never forget your...” he ran his tongue over Betezh’s ear, “little intimations. So let’s just say from now on, my friend, we’re entwined, like lovers. And, like lovers, I’m looking forward to the day when I give you a good hard fucking.”
Great, mused Betezh sourly as he was prodded up the ramp of the Reason in Madness. Just what I need, a leap from the bosom of one madman to the crotch of another. Out of the frying pan? Shit. What did I do to deserve this?
“So what’s the score?” beamed Franco, bounding into the cockpit. His face was smeared with chocolate and... something crumbly and white.
“What is that?” said Pippa.
“Blue stilton,” said Franco smugly.
“What the hell have you been doing to him?”
Franco looked suddenly sly. “Nuffink.”
Emerald spoke, words gentle. They listened, for the members of Combat K knew their lives might depend upon it. “This place, Teller’s World, is not a normal world as you would understand it. It has... I suppose a word in your language, in your understanding, would be layers. You have to enter a meditative state, you have to take your mind somewhere else. Only then can you Shift, only then can you experience the wonder of Teller’s World, of the homeland of Leviathan.”
“What do you mean, Shift?” asked Keenan.
“I cannot explain it in words, only in images. I will do so when we reach the Altar.”
“I’m assuming we can fly there?”
“No. The world—this place—this layer—is dominated by mines; not just those you encountered on our entry, but across the entire surface—billions, buried under the sand and littering the skies. Believe me when I say they are the most effective anti-aircraft measures you will ever encounter, designed with only one concept: the bringing of death.”
“I assume you know a path,” said Keenan.
“Of sorts, although some areas shift, and the patterns change. But I can sense them; each mine is organic, an extension of Leviathan’s legacy. Some once said he was protecting his world for a time when he could awake. Impossible, I am sure.”
“Sounds dangerous,” said Franco grimly.
“That’s why you’re here,” smiled Emerald. “Get me to the Altar, get me to The Factory; there I will regain my lost powers, my abilities, and each of you will be magnificently rewarded. I have not forgotten our bargain, Keenan. I have not forgotten our pact. I will find the information you seek, the name of the killer.”
“You make it sound too easy,” said Pippa; she seemed agitated, on edge. “If it was just a case of navigation through minefields, why would you need us? There’s something else, isn’t there?”
“Yes.”
“Go on,” grunted Franco, wiping stilton from his beard.
“We can fly for maybe three, four hundred kilometres. Then we reach a crack in the crust of the planet, beneath lie the Three Lakes: the Lake of Diamonds, the Lake of Protons, and the Lake of Desecration. We must cross all three. We cannot take a ship there, but the Buggy should manage the journey. After the Lakes come the Woods of Mekkra, and a Shrine—the Altar—where we can perform the Shift. Once in the altered state, we can finally enter The Factory.”
“A factory?” said Keenan. “I thought this was a forbidden zone; I thought there was no life.”
“There is life, Keenan; maybe not as you would understand it, and not the kind of life easily identified by Sinax probes. It is a life based on metal, a life based on machines. The Factory is a bad place; it is not an environment for humans.”
“Are there robots there?” asked Cam, inquisitive.
“Not as such. Not as you would understand the concept. You will see—and understand—soon enough.”
“And all these places, these obstacles, they will offer resistance?”
“Bring guns,” said Emerald, eyes dark. “lots of guns.”
Emerald briefed Combat K for an hour, and then, with packs packed, guns oiled, explosives primed, they were ready. Betezh—
handcuffed—was invited to the cockpit, and, all crammed in together, Pippa fired the ignition.
Rockets roared, engines whined, and the Reason in Madness lifted from the desert surface. Pippa pointed up through the glittering cockpit ceiling. “Look.”
“Stars!” beamed Franco, ever the star gazer.
“Pin Mines,” corrected Emerald. “That’s what we came through; that’s what I guided us between.”
“It’s like a star-field,” said Franco in awe.
“Nothing so glamorous: it’s a weapon, pure and simple, designed to wipe out organic life, designed to protect this planet from the races of the Quad-Gal, maybe for a time, as Emerald said, when Leviathan returns.” Pippa scowled.
“So... is this old goat planning on making an appearance, or what?” Franco grinned. “He’s supposed to be one of the Five Great Creators, a creature of wisdom, honour, love, learning. Not that I believe in contemporary mytholology.”
Pippa slapped his leg. “I’m sure if—when—he does appear, you’ll be first in line for a pat on the back, my dear. After all, it’s not every day a newly awakened God finds himself—itself?—referred to as an ‘old goat’. Trust Franco to worship at the altar of bad insults.”
“Hey, I just tell it as I find it,” said Franco.
Pippa accelerated the Gunship—gently—and beneath them rolled the undulating dunes of the black planet. Occasionally sand rose, crested low hills, then tumbled in sweeping wind-swept curves. Volcanoes glowed in the distance. To Keenan, locked in a mental depression and brooding on his family, it was entirely a vision of hell, or its nearest approximation.
Franco crept close. “Looks bad, don’t it?”
“Yeah,” agreed Keenan, “real bad.”
“You think we’ll get to fight some monsters down there?”
“Have you been drinking, Franco?”
“Just a tipple or two,” he said, sheepish, “to warm my winter cockles.”
“Franco, we’re about to enter a combat situation. The last thing I need is a ginger Hobbit putting ten fucking rounds in the back of my head. Lay off the vodka, OK?”
“OK.” Sulky.
“Look, Kee.” Pippa was pointing.
The black scenery outside was distantly blurred, and as they swept towards the vision, towards the towering dark clouds, Keenan frowned and muttered, “A storm?”
“Snow,” said Emerald.
“Black snow?” said Franco.
“Yeah, freaky, right?”
They watched, fascinated, as they approached the wall of apparently solid darkness, and swept inside. A curious silence enveloped them; swirling velvet swamped the Gunship and they seemed suddenly...
“Buried,” said Pippa. “It’s like being buried.”
“Entombed,” agreed Franco, eyes wide.
They cruised, a few feet above the ground, Pippa flying blind and using bio-scanners for navigation and proximity. Her hands lay spread wide across controls, brow locked in fevered concentration. Emerald was also concentrating; occasionally she would close her eyes, lift her face to the ceiling of the cockpit as if in silent communion, and breathe deeply, veins pulsing with alien blood.
Cam floated in. “You OK, Keenan?”
“Yeah.”
“You seem...”
“Distraught?” He laughed. “I need a cigarette.”
“I’ve been trying to reach Fortune; no signals are leaving Teller’s World. We are trapped in the black hole of a communication deadzone.”
“Are you even remotely surprised?”
Cam spun a little. “I surmise this situation to be instigated by the effective blanketing effects of a number of Pin Mines; their secondary function, it would seem, is to block signals, either that or it is intrinsic to their nature. They have, effectively, isolated us.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” grunted Franco. “We’ve got a history of weev
ils sending us on missions and then severing all ties. Remember the Terminus5 reactor?”
“How could I ever forget,” said Keenan, harnessing a shiver.
They cruised through the silent dark snowstorm for more than an hour, Pippa keeping their speed down and scanning for what Emerald described as localised bouncing mines: metallic spheres that would surge up out of the desert and leap to connect with anything metallic in proximity. She advised they could blow a mile-wide hole in a starship; their detonation load was incredible, like nothing before experienced throughout Quad-Gal.
“Wouldn’t mind getting my hands on one of those beauties,” said Franco, listening intently.
“Why?” asked Pippa.
“Just because,” said Franco.
“What kind of answer is that?”
“Come on Pippa,” said Keenan, “you know Franco has a hard-on for explosives. He’s like a kid with a new toy; this must be the equivalent of a candyfloss dip for our resident detonation psycho.”
“Actually,” said Franco, “I am profoundly interested in all proximity technology.”
“Balls,” said Pippa. “You just like things that go bang!”
Franco winked. “You include yourself in that line-up, baby?”
“Don’t start again.”
“Well you certainly started last night, baby.”
“What?” Her voice was ice.
“All those noises you were making in your SleepCell. Most distraught I was, lying there alone, listening to your wailing and moaning, groaning and thumping; anybody would think you had a man with you.”
He leered at her knowingly.
“I couldn’t possibly understand what bumping and moaning you’re referring to,” said Pippa primly. “Nothing like that happened in my SleepCell last night.”