by Chris Ward
Soon, he would hold a complete monopoly.
He boarded the shuttle and headed for the surface. For a few brief hours they were caught in orbit while a firestorm raged, appearing out of nowhere as they often did, so by the time a break in the impenetrable wall of flame and heat allowed the shuttle through, he was desperate for food, and also for the toilet his shuttle didn’t have.
Landing in Avar, the closest spaceport, he made his way to his private apartment block and called his advisors to gather. As he followed moving conveyor belts threading through thick glass tunnels designed only for off-worlders, while outside the tubes the adapted Abalonis walked freely in the air, he dreamed of the coming day when the useless dirt farmers would be no more, and the ground would open up to release its treasures. Only then could Raylan begin the completion of his true plans.
Scorched, they were, the silver of their metallic bodies quickly blackened by fallout from the firestorms that raged every few days. Even here in Avar, with its giant steel net and sprinkler system, the surface was regularly burned clean. Houses were stumps in the sand, mostly underground, with only a few fire-resistant tower-pyramids reaching defiantly into the sky.
His private apartment suite was in the tallest tower, and was the only area of the building with windows.
Replaced since his last visit, he stared down at the battered spaceport while waiting for his advisors to arrive. In the streets, the Abaloni farmers wandered back and forth, going about their business without fuss, their human faces smiling and laughing, their curved metal bodies preparing to fold in on themselves at a moment’s notice.
A knock announced the arrival of his team.
As always, he had insisted they bring the analysis machinery with them, so he waited impatiently while a group of orderlies carried a bulky analyser into the room and set it up near the window. His advisors, six of the most intelligent but heartless men he had ever known, talked among themselves, preparing what they would each say when he called them to attention.
Finally, the machine was ready.
‘Gentlemen,’ Raylan said. ‘I have the virus.’
He passed the chip to Fardo Galad, his head advisor. The man, a shriveled, over-old human with a few strands of beard hung below an ancient face that was leathery skin pulled tight over skull, smiled, revealing the stumps of a couple of blackened teeth.
‘Let us scan the contents,’ he wheezed, his voice like escaping air passed through a dying animal.
Images appeared on the screen, numbers and letters, connecting lines and fuzz. It meant nothing at all to Raylan, who smiled and nodded as if party to some great conspiracy. Around him, the advisors ahhed with delight.
‘It is complete,’ Fardo said. ‘The upload can be undertaken at once.’
‘Do it,’ Raylan said. ‘Let’s clear out these fiends.’
Two other men attached a cable to the machine, then plugged it into a port on the wall. Fardo pressed a few buttons on the touch screen, then stepped back and nodded.
‘Infiltrating,’ he said. ‘Within a couple of minutes, every charging station in Avar will be infected. We should watch for the effect.’
‘How long before the next storm?’
‘There is one due in a few hours.’
Raylan nodded. ‘Good, good.’
Leaving his advisors to continue their work, he went to take a nap. With the soundproof door neatly closed, he called up the Lady Julienne on intercom and had her pleasure him with words. Then, satisfied, he lay back on the freshly changed sheets, his hands behind his head, and dreamed of the wealth, riches, and power that would soon be his.
He was still dozing when someone knocked a few hours later.
‘Lord, the storm is imminent,’ said Fardo Galad. ‘You might like to see how the virus works.’
They went to a viewing platform overlooking a small market square. Abalonis moved back and forth, going about their business. They looked like slightly stooped humans, as though weighed down by something. Under their plain clothes, though, they were half machine, coated with a form of body armor that over the generations had become part of them, so that now it grew and bred with them, only its computer memory and their need to charge electrically as well as with material sustenance setting them apart from regular bio-organic species.
‘Look, Lord. The sky.’
Blue had turned red, like an imminent sunset. Clouds were rolling in, but they sparked and raged with flickering electricity. On the ground, Abalonis were closing down their shops, pulling thick shutters across storefronts, and steel barriers over doors. They showed no sign of panic, only a kind of bored lethargy, as though this were an often-repeated chore.
Across the square, a large stone rectangle with circular beds of protruding wires—reminding Raylan of a soaked sponge pressed down in the middle—stood beside a sign that said CHARGING STATION in four languages, one inter-planetary, and three regional. Two Abalonis were in the processing of disconnecting, standing up slowly as the wires unplugged from dozens of ports across their backs. It made them look hideous, Raylan thought, the way their backs were an acneous ruin of input docks, but they had generations ago realised that a single charging point for their entire body took too long. Now, each segment and limb was an isolated unit with its own charging point, significantly reducing the required time.
Both Abalonis glanced up at the sky as they moved away. One headed straight into a building, the other wandered across the square to talk to another couple of gapers, seemingly unconcerned.
‘Here it goes,’ Fardo said.
The sky, slowly reddening, turned a sudden crimson, as dark as a demon’s blood. Even through sound-proofed walls, the storm’s roar came as a dull rumble, but outside it was deafening anyone it was not incinerating.
The air began to fill with glittery rain, like the falling remnants of fireworks. When it was thick enough to obscure everything, it began to move sideways, as though the shiny raindrops were attracting each other, and then, with an ear-melting crack, an immense whoosh of fire engulfed the entire town. Raylan shielded his eyes and flinched away.
Despite the glass measuring nearly ten inches thick, it quickly became hot to the touch, and then the view blurred as the outer layer began to melt. With reluctance Raylan stepped back, then waved at a orderly to engage the shield screen.
A black sheet slid down over the window, until only the lights from inside the room remained. Raylan paced back and forth, angry, waiting for the storm to pass.
Finally, Fardo, peering at a list of measurements on a computer screen, lifted his head. ‘The storm has abated,’ he said. ‘You may have the screen raised, Lord.’
When the black screen slid up, Raylan saw small robotic polishers already at work smoothing out the window glass’s outer surface. Even so, the view of the plaza below was somewhat distorted, the glass having warped in the heat.
‘See there,’ Fardo said. ‘Those are uninfected.’
Three metal balls, quite smooth, sat in the middle of the plaza as though left by the storm. With Raylan watching, one rolled a short distance and started shaking, then began to open up, unfolding until a human form stood there. The man looked over his shoulder, nodded to his companions, then walked off, disappearing down a side street between two blackened lines of houses.
A few minutes later, the other two opened up. One started off after the first, but the second waved him back, and pointed to a lump of metal lying in the sand near a blackened water fountain.
It was unrecognizable as anything that had once been human.
‘The virus,’ Fardo said, a wide grin on his sinister face, ‘causes their defense mechanism to invert.’
‘Invert?’
‘They fold outwards instead of in. Even if the folding procedure doesn’t kill them, the firestorm incinerates the human part of their body. It is a most … gruesome death.’
The ten-inch thick window hid the screams from onlookers as other survivors of the firestorm gathered around the body, but
from the way some of the newest arrivals gestured, the victim was not alone.
‘They call it “unhatching”,’ Fardo said. ‘It requires nearly all of an Abaloni’s stored charge power, so many of the more cautious will not know they are infected until too late. The virus is passed through the charging stations. The cities and towns have their own individual grids, but as people travel, the virus will spread.’ Fardo smiled again. ‘Just like a plague.’
Raylan could barely conceal his excitement. His eyes gazed out above the city’s low skyline to the orange-colored hills bordering the spaceport to the north. Beneath each was a billion tons of carbonised trioxyglobin ore, just waiting to be excavated and sold for vast profit.
Or stored for an invasion fleet.
His team estimated it would take less than three Earth-months to decimate Abalon 3’s population, leave the land blighted, production at a standstill, and the economy close to collapse.
Then he would step in, and kindly offer to remove their problems.
An alarm blared. Raylan jumped, spinning around.
‘What’s that?’
Fardo Galad and his other advisers looked at one another, their bitter, spiteful faces filled with dismay.
‘Oh, this isn’t good,’ Fardo said.
‘What isn’t?’
‘That’s an old city system that hasn’t been used in perhaps … forever. It’s mentioned in the city records, but this is the first ever use outside of a drill.’
Raylan stamped his feet. ‘I don’t care about the stupid history. What does it mean?’
‘The city has been placed under quarantine. No one is allowed in or out.’
‘So they have discovered the virus?’
‘Impossible. But the deaths have left them shaken. They will search for it, Lord.’
‘Will they find it?’
‘It is miniscule. Their systems, while complex, are old. That’s what made them such an easy target. It will take years to find. However, they might keep the city in lockdown until they do. There are other spaceports.’
Raylan glowered. ‘Inconvenient, but a mere stepping stone. We will have to arrange for its spread ourselves.’
15
LIA
In the entertainment sector, there was a collective drunken groan as an announcement came over the intercom that docking above Avar, Abalon 3’s main spaceport, was no longer possible. The announcement gave three other alternative sites, but many passengers were outraged, demanding an explanation.
Lia, who had kept her ears close to the ground throughout the trip, immediately knew where she might find information. One passenger she had passed a rather pleasurable time of day with was smuggling information hidden inside an incongruous shipment of off-world foodstuffs: extensive lists of interplanetary contacts through which companies could market. He had a familiarity with people Lia found incredible, seemingly holding a sweeping knowledge of each other passenger and their business.
By the time she found him, he was already talking animatedly in a group of gathered traders about how the spaceport was quarantined due to an outbreak of some disease. A hundred Abalonis had died in the most recent firestorm when their protection systems failed to work as they had for generations, and an investigation was underway.
Lia wanted to scream with frustration. It meant that Raylan had already implemented the virus. She was too late, but at least the quarantine meant the people outside of Avar were safe. It also gave her a good starting point to locate the warlord.
Boxar was a secondary spaceport a couple of thousand Earth-miles from Avar. Much smaller, Lia boarded a surface shuttle with most disembarking passengers and landed in the spaceport a couple of hours later. The shuttle, a rectangular lump that flew with the finesse of a thrown brick, lacked grace, but was reinforced against the firestorms that could come out of nowhere. As a garrulous passenger strapped in beside her explained, movement from place to place on Abalon 3 was severely restricted. Even a weak firestorm could damage a transport and leave it stranded, so only specially reinforced craft operated by native inhabitants had freedom of movement, while interplanetary trips were made only by exclusive permission.
Lia zoned out as the passenger slipped into a dull monologue about the planet’s ecosystem—giant, but long-extinct worms had carved a web of massive tunnels, within which much of the planet’s population now resided, and all of its unadapted off-worlders—but she had the information she needed.
Using it, however, was another problem.
Boxar was as pleasant as a city constantly ravaged by firestorms could be. Despite the sprinkler mesh rising in a dome over the city that spared the streets from the total scorched earth that the countryside beyond received, it was still a bleak place of empty sand streets lined by grey-box buildings with reinforced walls. Tiny robots worked continuously on structural repairs, but where tenants had either run out of money or given up trying to limit the damage, houses were blackened, charred lumps, irregular shapes of grey-black coal protruding from the surface.
Few people walked the streets above ground. As the ship came in to land, Lia watched through a small port window the handfuls of local people walking the streets, conducting business like they would in any other city, defiantly defying the impending cataclysm of the planet’s natural habitat.
Below ground, however, the world was far livelier, with huge spotlights illuminating a subterranean city built in wormholes that were hundreds of metres high. Everything hummed with the life that wasn’t obvious from the surface, although Lia found the vast majority of the populace were off-worlders of all descriptions: humans and various human subspecies, scaly, spine-backed Rue-Tik-Tan, jellified Gorm on their mobile carts, spindly, bony Kathlistini, all of them traders in the subsurface minerals bored out of the tunnel walls by Abaloni natives. Lia, her forged papers allowing her entrance wherever she chose, wandered from place to place, listening for information, searching for some way she might get to Avar and find Raylan before he discovered a way to spread the virus.
The usual form of intercity land transport—ancient trains running on rails through the tunnels—was in total lockdown. Traders, bemoaning the possibility of moving from spaceport to spaceport in search of better prices, drowned their sorrows in the subterranean bars, but, aware that every minute she wasted meant more lives would be lost, Lia headed for the surface.
It was necessary to wear her respirator during passage above ground, but the air—the presence of trioxyglobin aside—was suitable for human lungs. She lowered her respirator’s density until she could barely feel it at all and was breathing the air eighty percent pure.
Above ground, in the aftermath of a firestorm, the air was crisp with static and contained damp warmth from the sprinklers raining down on the city. Few buildings smoked; over the years reinforced fire-resistant layers had been added to most visible surfaces. Only the ground, which was so hot special shoes bought at each exit had to be worn, showed signs of scorching.
Several Abalonis wandered around as though nothing was amiss, their slightly stooped frames shuffling around under the weight of their metal protective casings. Lia exchanged pleasantries with some in the common language, inquiring where she might find something that could fly.
All inquiries pointed her to a junk hangar in the north part of town.
Haverland shook her hand with one of his five remaining arms. Introducing himself as a Karpali off-worlder, he went on to explain that he had lived and traded in Boxar for more than fifty Earth-years. After she found her eyes drawn to the stump of his missing sixth arm one too many times, he laughed and told her it had died and dropped off in his sleep one day, before bemoaning two-armed humans for ignoring the three extra good ones.
‘Your people are fascinated with failure,’ he said. ‘It’s a wonder you got anywhere out in the galaxy, although being naturally combative goes a long way.’
Lia just shrugged. ‘I need to get to Avar,’ she said. ‘I heard you can help me.’
�
��Why? You know it’s quarantined, don’t you?’
Lia nodded. ‘That’s why I need to go there. I have family trapped and I need to get them out.’
‘Family? Abalonis?’
Lia shook her head. ‘No. Human. Traders, like you.’
The Karpali shivered, filling the air immediately around its body with droplets of water. ‘I’m not sure I can help you. I run a reputable business.’
Lia was watching him closely. She had encountered Karpali before, and something about Haverland didn’t seem right. Karpali had a slightly higher body temperature than humans, and if she wasn’t cold, he shouldn’t be.
‘Supply line got cut?’
‘What?’
‘Your fix. I know because I need one from time to time too. What is it? Earth-whisky?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘I’m guessing you were expecting a shipment from Avar any day now, and it hasn’t shown up. Look. I work in the delivery and collection business. I need to get to Avar, preferably before the next storm rolls in. I plan to come back this way when I’m done, so I can bring back whatever it is you need. Find me an unmarked fighter, something that can fly and shoot.’
Haverland turned his head from side to side, bones clicking together. Large muscular ears flexed, and his nose revolved in a slow circle.
‘It’s called Zalamax. It gives me a little pick-me-up, that’s all. What with all these storms, I often feel a little … under the weather.’
‘Give me the name and address of your contact. Don’t write it down; I’ll memorise it.’
‘How can I trust you? You walked in through my door just five minutes ago.’
Lia reached into her pocket and pulled out a tattered leather wallet. She flipped it open to reveal a silver badge, slightly gummed in its angles, but still resplendent.