The Cyber Chronicles Book III - The Core

by T C Southwell

  "A sun slug," she whispered.

  Sabre nodded. It seemed an apt name for the light giving animal, which went about its business oblivious to their presence. It circled the roof in decreasing circuits until it reached the centre, where it paused before moving down the wall to a clump of bilious yellow-green fungus. The cyber had deemed that variety inedible for humans, so the trendils must grow it for the sun slugs, Sabre guessed. The warm yellow glow made their niche far more exposed to prying eyes, but Sabre settled down to rest a little more.

  The sun slug left three hours later, at which time Sabre rose and woke Tassin. They drank and ate again, and, since his bio status was now forty-nine per cent, he decided it was time to search for the sword. At the door, the scanners showed no trendils close by, although the tunnels limited their effective range. It was logical to assume the sword would end up where they had arrived, so he headed back in that direction, hoping the trendils had not found it. They passed the place where the dead trendil had lain, the soft soil muffling their footsteps. Sabre moved with cat-like stealth, but Tassin had no such ability. After an hour of fruitless searching and two close encounters with passing trendils, Sabre rested against the wall, Tassin close beside him.

  "This isn't working," he muttered. "The sword's gone."

  "So what do we do now?"

  "Well, if I was a skifgar, and I found a strange thing like a sword lying around inside the hive, I'd take it to a higher authority."

  She shivered. "That means going further into the hive."

  "Yeah. You can stay in the garden cave. You'll be safer there."

  "No!"

  Sabre smiled. He had predicted that reply, and did not waste his breath arguing with her. "Okay, then let's see if we can find this place's nerve centre."

  Sabre led the way to a junction, passing under a busy sun slug, and he wondered how large the hive was. If it was as big as he suspected, it could take days to locate the seat of authority. The fastest way to find it would be to allow himself to be captured, but with Tassin in tow that was not an option.

  The tunnel widened, side tunnels joining it periodically, which indicated that they were heading in the right direction, but the increased traffic slowed them. As the tunnel grew wider, however, it developed ridges for strength, which afforded a little cover. At one stop, Sabre picked at the thick layer of hard, tacky resin-like substance that covered the wall. According to the cyber, it was a form of dried mucus, and he refrained from mentioning this to Tassin.

  When they reached an intersection with a main thoroughfare, Sabre hid behind a rib and studied the steady stream of workers that marched along it. Most were in pairs, some in groups of four or six, and only a few alone. A warrior, identical to the one they had encountered in the Death Zone, passed by, and Sabre suspected that trendils, like Purr, were too intelligent for the Core to mutate. The warrior's blade arms were coiled close to its chest, and workers gave it a wide berth, lowering their heads as it passed. There was no way Sabre and Tassin could cross the thoroughfare without being spotted, and he looked around for a side tunnel. Tassin gasped, and he whipped around to clamp a hand over her mouth, following her gaze.

  Two naked, dirty, obese men walked along the thoroughfare, followed by a pair of workers. They stared ahead with a blank-eyed, idiot gaze, drooling a little from slack lips. Their state puzzled Sabre, then realisation dawned and bile stung the back of his throat. He became aware of Tassin trying to pry his hand off her mouth and released her. Taking her arm, he led her back to a dim side tunnel and turned to her, wincing at the excitement in her eyes.

  "There are people here!" she whispered.

  "Those aren't people, they're cattle."

  "But... What do you mean?"

  Sabre tugged her along the tunnel to another garden cave, almost identical to the first one, with a pool at the far end. Tassin joined him beside the water, looking worried.

  "What do you mean, 'they're cattle'?"

  Sabre picked a grey mushroom and tried to think of a way of telling her gently, but found none. "The skifgar eat them."

  She stared at him, covered her mouth and looked sick, then gulped. "How do you know that?"

  Sabre forced himself to eat the fungus despite his queasy stomach. "Just by looking at them. If they were slaves they'd be fit, and those men were idiots. I guess some of the settlers were captured, and that's what happened to them. I thought it odd that skifgar grow and harvest fungi, since they're carnivorous. Now I know why."

  "To feed the people."

  "Yeah."

  "But why are they idiots?"

  Sabre picked another mushroom and brushed dirt from it. "Man's greatest asset is his brain. Take that away, and he's no better than any other animal."

  "How can they do that to people?"

  He shrugged. "They might have bred them that way, or deprived them of stimulation as children."

  "I mean how can they do that to people? We're not cattle!"

  "If there was such a thing as a talking cow, it would ask the same question." He sighed. "They're aliens. They don't care about people. To them, we're just another kind of animal." He paused, thinking. "What I'd like to know is how they became the main, if not the only food source."

  "You don't know that."

  "Skifgar don't strike me as farmers. They're hunters, or they were. They wouldn't be farming people unless they had to."

  "So what are we going to do about it?"

  "Do about it?" His brows shot up.

  "We have to help them."

  "No." He plucked another fungus. "We're going to find the sword and get back to Arlin." He raised a hand when she opened her mouth. "We can't help them. They're mindless. They'd die without care. Do you want to stay here and look after them? Besides, I can't defeat a hive of skifgars."

  Tassin frowned, but after a few minutes of contemplation, she picked a fungus. They rested for a four hours and ate again before they left. Sabre headed down the tunnel, which ran parallel to the thoroughfare and towards the hive centre, he hoped. They passed two more garden caves, and the slime's light grew dimmer. Evidently the tunnel was not used, which suited Sabre. When it became too dark to see, the cyber provided infrared and Tassin clung to his hand.

  In places, the tunnel's roof sagged, and water dripped from it. In others, the resin had given way and earth slides partially blocked it. No others joined it, and he hoped it was not a dead end. When he reached the end, a faint yellow glow shone through a thick layer of resin, and the scanners showed teeming human life forms on the other side of it. Sabre tore a hole in it and peered through.

  The disused tunnel's former entrance afforded a panoramic view of a vast, brightly lighted cavern. Hundreds of fat, mindless people were occupied with basic pursuits such as sleeping, eating, drinking, defecating and rutting. Some sat and stared at the walls, others rocked and grunted, or scratched in a leisurely, ape-like manner. The mature females were in various stages of pregnancy, most nursing as well, some with several children around them.

  Sabre looked for signs of normality amongst the children and found none. They appeared to be as mindless as their parents. Skifgar workers handed out fungus from their panniers, others scraped up excrement and dumped it in a hole at one end of the chamber. Sabre turned away, pondering. There was no way through the chamber without being spotted, so they would have to backtrack and find another tunnel. Tassin stepped towards the hole, and he caught her arm.

  "You don't want to see that."

  "I do."

  "You won't like it."

  "I want to see!"

  Sabre released her, and she peered through the hole, then turned away, scowling. "It's horrible."

  "Yeah. Come on, we have to find another tunnel."

  Sabre returned to the garden cave to eat and rest, and pondered the situation while Tassin slept. The chance of finding the seat of trendil authority by blundering around in the tunnels was slim to none. He considered leaving the Queen asleep and going on alone, but Tassin
would not stay here. He needed a guide, and wondered if trendils would be susceptible to the cyber. With a sigh, he settled down and to sleep.

  The cyber's warning woke Sabre, and he sat up, glancing around. The scanners showed two trendils approaching along the tunnel outside, and a few moments later a pair of workers entered. Waking Tassin, he raised a finger to his lips. She glared at the trendils.

  "I'm going to capture one," he whispered.

  "No!" She gripped his arm, her eyes wide. "It's too dangerous. I forbid it!"

  He raised a brow. "You forbid it?"

  "Yes." She frowned. "You mustn't... Can't... Don't leave me alone!"

  "Relax. We need a guide or we'll be rattling around this place until we're caught."

  "They might kill you!"

  He shook his head. "They're only workers."

  "Even so..."

  "You just stay here. Nothing's going to happen to me." He tried to pry her fingers off his arm.

  "But what if you're hurt, or captured?"

  "What if the roof falls in? What if the sun goes out?" He sighed. "I'm going to go down there and capture one, kill the other, that's it, no 'what ifs'. Now let go."

  Tassin released him, her mulish, sulky expression telling him she expected to be proven right.

  One trendil was near the pool, the other on the far side of the cavern. Sabre moved across it, his senses alert. The aliens conversed in hisses, and the garbled translation tickled his brain. They discussed the fungi's growth and health.

  Sabre stopped, allowing the cyber to absorb more of the strange language and analyse it. When it was able to translate ninety per cent of the conversation, he crept towards his target again. Secure in the hive's safety, the beast was clearly unaware of him. Sabre crept up behind his prey and sprang onto its back. The worker hissed and raised its hand-arms, but Sabre gripped its neck and twisted, snapping it.

  The second worker looked up at the sound of its comrade's collapse, spotted Sabre and galloped for the door. It moved like a centaur, the crushed fungi giving off a musky reek. Sabre bounded after it, the springy fungus aiding him. The alien gave a high-pitched hiss when he sprang onto its back, sending it sprawling. The trendil struggled to rise, but Sabre sat on its neck. Its hand-arms clawed him, and he grabbed them and held them away, its weakness surprising him. The cyber translated the beast's hisses, whispering the words in Sabre's brain.

  "Help! Help me! Do not hurt me, man-thing!"

  Sabre had not expected the alien to have a sense of self, and thought it odd that it did not try to bite him. Now he had a new problem, for while it was one thing to understand the strange language, it was quite another to speak it.

  The cyber translated what he wanted to say into a single rising hiss. Pressing his tongue to the roof of his mouth, he tried to imitate the sound. It came out wrong, but the worker fell silent, staring at him. He had meant to say 'be quiet', but in fact had said 'be happy'. The effect was the same, however, and he twisted his tongue to speak the next, far more difficult words.

  "Don't struggle and I won't hurt you." The cyber re-translated his hiss as 'don't wriggle I and you won't kill’.

  The meaning was still there, and Sabre was quite pleased with his effort. The skifgar hissed, "You're not a wooden-head?"

  Sabre frowned. "What's a wooden-head?" The hiss came out as 'wood-brain be?'.

  The skifgar said, "I won't wriggle. Will you let me rise?"

  Sabre released it, and it towered over him before it lowered its head. It watched him with red eyes, its hand arms folded. For all its fearsome appearance, it showed no inclination to fight. He wondered how clever it was, and whether it was trying to lull him into a false sense of security. It had recovered its aplomb as soon as it learnt he was not a wooden-head, but it was an alien, and therefore thought differently. Perhaps his ability to speak its language was sufficient to reassure it.

  Sabre tried a more difficult sentence. "I'm looking for a metal object."

  The words came out jumbled, some slightly different, and the trendil cocked its head. Sabre tried again, this time a little more intelligibly.

  The worker bobbed. "I Garchish."

  Sabre introduced himself and repeated his question.

  Garchish said, "Must ask kin-mother-queen."

  "You don't know?"

  "Must ask kin-mother-queen. I know."

  Sabre frowned. "Then why don't you tell me?"

  "Must ask kin-mother-queen."

  "Does she have it?"

  The trendil said, "You warrior. Must ask kin-mother-queen."

  Sabre sighed. Evidently trendils had strict rules the worker could not break, but he did not relish the idea of asking kin-mother-queen. It could be a trap. Garchish waited, unmoving.

  Sabre said, "I'm not a warrior. You tell me." He had to repeat it twice before he got it right.

  Garchish glanced at his dead comrade. "You kill kin-brother-worker, you warrior. Kin-sister-warrior won't tell you, for you not kin. Only kin-mother-queen might tell you."

  "Or eat me."

  "You full of bones. If she wants, she makes you a wooden-head first."

  Sabre shivered at the matter-of-fact words. "What's a wooden-head?"

  "Like you, but no brains. When born, put seed in hole-in-side-of-head. Seed grow, eat brain, only wood left."

  Sabre swallowed stinging bile. He had encountered worse when the cyber had controlled him, though. Questions multiplied in his mind, but they were too complex to ask. Trendil society seemed to be based on status, and no matter what the race, all were treated accordingly. Since killing the other worker had proven that Sabre was a warrior, he now outranked Garchish. That was why the worker showed him respect, but other warriors were his equal, and the kin-mother-queen was his superior. Still, it seemed he would have to ask the kin-mother-queen for the sword.

  "Will you take me to kin-mother-queen?"

  Garchish's hands fluttered. "Yes."

  "Will kin-sister-warriors try to kill me?"

  "I cannot tell what kin-sister-warriors will do. You are an invader-warrior; they defend kin-mother-queen."

  Sabre asked, "Will you tell them I mean no harm to kin-mother-queen?"

  "Yes."

  The plan was risky unless he found a warrior who would believe his story and take him to the queen, since the worker lacked the status to protect him. His first encounter with a warrior would be the acid test. At least warriors appeared to be solitary, so he would have a chance to defeat it. Then what? It was up to fate. It seemed that only kin-mother-queen could give him the sword. He beckoned to Tassin, who stood up, her eyes glinting with fear.

  Garchish turned his head as she approached. "Kin-sister-warrior?

  Sabre was about to agree when an idea struck him. "No. Kin-mother-queen."

  Garchish folded his legs and dropped to the ground, flattening his neck along it. His whip-like tail curled into a tight coil, the dagger end pointed into the earth. Sabre smiled. Perhaps Tassin was their ticket to freedom after all. Garchish watched him, and he decided that he had better play along. He dropped to one knee and beckoned to Tassin, who frowned in confusion.

  "Don't be afraid of him," he said, "I've told him you're a queen. Their society is matriarchal. He's showing respect. Act like a queen."

  Tassin eyed the trendil. "How do their queens act?"

  "I don't know. Like all queens, I expect. Superior. Stick your nose in the air, glare at everyone, swagger. You know the drill."

  She glared at him. "I never acted like that."

  "On no?" He held up a hand when she opened her mouth. "Never mind, just do it now, okay? We have to go and see his kin-mother-queen to find out where the sword is. With you as kin-mother-queen, we might have a chance of surviving the encounter."

  She shot Garchish a nervous glance, and Sabre rose.

  The trendil hissed, "Does invader-queen give permission to rise?"

  "Yes," Sabre answered. "Take us to your kin-mother-queen."

  Garchish heaved himse
lf to his feet, his tail still coiled, hand-arms tucked against his chest. His head remained lower than before, and he glanced at Tassin, as if expecting some sign from her.

  Sabre said, "My kin-mother-queen does not speak to hive-workers."

  Garchish nodded. "Of course not. No mother-queen speaks to hive-workers, not even her kin-son-workers. Only elder kin-daughter-warriors may speak to their kin-mother-queen."

  "My kin-mother-queen speaks to no one but me. She does not soil her tongue with your language."

  "I understand." Garchish bobbed his head. "That is in order. I will take you to my kin-mother-queen."

  Chapter Fifteen

  The worker headed for the door, pausing to remove his panniers. As Sabre stepped into the tunnel behind Garchish, tension made his heart pound and his hands shake. His reaction was a standard cyber response to danger, in preparation for battle. Keeping Tassin safe was not going to be easy in a hive full of dangerous aliens. The cyber's lack of objection to his dangerous plan was a little odd, but perhaps even the supercomputer could not devise a better one. Unfortunately, raising his metabolism also used up his depleted resources. He glanced down at Tassin when she took his hand. Even though she disliked his plan, she wanted the reassurance of his hand, which he found oddly touching. Even more poignant, perhaps, was her faith that he could protect her from several hundred trendils, unarmed. Somehow, he doubted it.

  Tassin sensed Sabre glance at her when she took his hand. She knew he regarded her as a foolish young girl, and hanging onto him only confirmed that, but she did not care anymore. In this den of monsters, she was not going to be parted from him. This was the end of their journey, she was sure. The monster-queen would kill them, but at least she would be with him at the end. Years of weapons' training and close combat had callused his hand, yet it was a lifeline she clung to, drawing strength from him.