by J Battle
There was no answer at first, so he called again, beginning to think that this was really too much of an affront to his dignity as one of the senior councilors of the Galactic confederation.
A small furred head popped out from the darkness of the cave and glared down at him.
‘What do you want, stranger?’
Heldon took a moment to switch his mind from Old Galactic to this local language that he’d not had to use since his first days with Jashna-del.
‘I seek out the honored Heshna-del; first and only son of the much revered Jashna-del.’
The only response to his words was a long sibilant hiss, and then the head was gone.
‘Will I find him resting here? Or is he about important business elsewhere?’
This time two furry head emerged from the gloom.
‘No,’ said one. ‘Yes,’ said the other.
Heldon tried to bring to mind what he’d learned previously about Fellray females. He had lots of data but nothing suggested that they’d be this awkward to deal with.
‘Can you tell me where I might find him, then?’
This time a third head appeared. ’Yes,’ she said, and then proceeded to whisper into the ears of the other two.
‘Please, oh honored and respected Fellray females tell me where he is so that I can seek him out on important business.’
‘Important business, you say,’ said the third female, ’then Heshna-del will be of no use to you now.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because he is due to be executed by his son, Trushna-del at the Crater of Honorable Death.
Heldon left them behind as he rushed back up the narrow path. The small craft he’d commandeered when he arrived in orbit at the end of a long sequence of shifts was waiting for him. Within seconds he’d brought up the co-ordinates and they were ready to go.
The Crater of Honorable Death was only a hundred kilometers north so, just a few minutes later, he was landing at its edge.
The crater was much smaller than the one he’d left and looked more like an impact crater than the remains of an extinct volcano.
A small group of Fellray was gathered together near the edge and Heldon hurried towards them. In his reduced male form, he was no more than a head taller than the tallest of the five avians, though he probably out-massed them all.
‘Heshna-del,’ he called as he approached them,’ I need to speak to him on urgent business.’
One of the Fellray stepped forward, his shudder-wings flicking to quarter display.
‘Name yourself stranger, in honor and respect.’
Heldon paused.
‘I am Heldon os-Regum, First and Last of the Pillunet, Honorable Senior Councilor of the Galactic Council.’
The Fellray closed his wings and flexed his claws.
‘Very fine,‘ he replied, ’very fine indeed. But we know your name Heldon, and it requires no respect, for no honor is attached to it. Leave before harm befalls the creature that persuaded my father’s father to dishonor and ignominy.’
‘Father’s father? Then you are not Hesna-del? Where is Hesha-del? I must speak to him.’
‘You are too late, betrayal speaker. My father, filled with honorable acceptance and joy, accepted and received the Son’s Blow and he lies now below.’
‘You’ve killed him!’ Heldon stepped close to the edge.
‘He is not yet dead, Heldon. We are not barbarians. He is no more than stunned. He will lay down there until nightfall, preparing himself. When he is ready, he will release his simmerglow and be destroyed, completing the great circle of tradition. From father to son; from son to father. This is how it has been; this is how it is; this is how it will be.’
As he spoke the rote phrases, Heldon studied the inside of the small crater. Fifty meters below him was the prostrate body of a mature male Fellray, his wings half opened and spread across the rocky ground. Ignoring the group of Fellray around him, he climbed over the edge and began to make his way down the black, heat blasted slope.
Sliding the last ten meters he arrived close to Heshna-del in a cloud of rubble and dust.
‘Heshna-del.’ He leaned over him; he looked so much like his father. ‘Can you hear me?’
‘Words are too precious to be wasted on the dead.’
‘Yet you are sufficiently alive to hear them.’
‘A small matter of time will change all of that.’
‘Whilst you wait for that small matter of time to pass, will you hear my words, Heshna-del? Will you listen to a friend of your father’s?’
‘Friend, you call yourself friend. I know who you are, in whatever form in which you choose to present yourself. I know who you are, and I know what you are, Heldon. Speaker of lies; bender of wills. My father would have died with honor, and contentment, struck by the Son’s Blow. But his mind and will were twisted; bent to your purpose; bent from his just and rightful path. Turn away Heldon, for I am deaf to your honeyed words.’
Heldon considered respecting his words and walking away. This was after all no more than a whim on his part; this yearning to have a Fellray of Jashna-del’s line accompany him in his trial. But perhaps there was more to it than a frivolous, ill-considered wish. Perhaps the Galaxy really did need this death wish obsessed creature. If he turned away now, would there be later costs?
‘Your father needs you, Heshna-del, and his need is urgent.’
The lies came to him easily, as they had always come.
Chapter 48
'Andreas, may I have your attention?'
The AI's voice was soft but insistent.
'He's not really...here, just now, man.' Iron watched his father as he licked his fingers, one by one.
'I must speak to him. There is a possibly critical situation developing.'
'You'd better tell me about it, man.'
There was a slight pause as if the AI was considering the wisdom of obeying this instruction.
'I have detected a change in the shift engine. It is unclear to me what change has occurred, and the consequences of this adjustment are also open to interpretation.'
Iron stared up at the speaker for a moment. 'You'd better wait for my dad, man. I didn't get any of that.'
'Swift action may be critical. I would request permission to interfere with the implants your father possesses in an attempt to bring him back to his senses.'
'You can fix his head? Gee, man. That'd be good.'
'I can see that his hardware is perfectly acceptable so there must be a programming error which I should be able to bypass with...There, his brain should be functioning at normal human levels.'
'What did I miss?' Andreas was sitting upright in his seat, his eyes bright and alert.
'There has been a change to the shift engine, but I am unaware of the nature or consequence of the change. I have also just received confirmation from other FTL capable ships that their shift engines have also been remotely modified.'
'Why? They were all set to do what Stave wanted. Call Stave; I'm sure there will be an explanation.'
'I have attempted to contact Stave every thirty seconds since the change was detected. There has been no response. His ship reports him exiting its airlock and the presence of an alien spaceship.'
'A Hru-argh ship?'
'The image provided does not match any of the craft seen so far.'
'So, what do we do? Can we trust him still? Or has he joined the enemy?'
'These are questions we lack data to answer with full confidence, but we have some preliminary results.'
'Go on then.'
'I must stress that we lack firm data, but there is a 76.2% probability that Stave has betrayed us in some way, and a 68.8% probability that using our shift engine would risk the integrity of the ship.'
'What's she mean, Dad? She's making me worried.'
'If I got it right, son, she saying that Stave has done a runner and left us in the shit, right up to our necks by the sound of it.'
'What we going to do, Dad? You'
ve got a plan, ain't you? You've always got a plan.'
Andreas sighed. 'I'm working on it, son; working on it.'
They took turns riding the lift down below and were soon floating over the shift engine.
'I think we should disable it, as we can no longer trust it to do what we expect.'
'I'll get it, dad.' From the confines of his smart red jacket, Iron withdrew a gun with an impressively wide barrel. 'I'll blast it to pieces.'
'But you don't have any ammunition, son and, anyway, you never...'
'I have too, man. That Dan, he said to me, a gun without bullets is a stick. I didn't know what he meant, but it sounded clever. He explained, so now my gun ain’t just a stick; it's a gun.'
'Don't fire it, Son. Not inside a spaceship in the middle of space; you never know where the bullet will go. We'll just disconnect it from its power supply; that should do it. Ship, will you pass the message to all the ships you can to tell them to disable their engines?'
'But how will we fight the Hru's without the funny engines?'
Andreas draped an arm across his son's shoulders and gave a little squeeze.
'I don't think it's about fighting the Hru's now. I think it's about survival.'
Chapter 49
To say that she was isolated was something of an understatement.
She was locked in a sealed room at the summit of a tall narrow tower. The tower was at the highest point of a small mountainous island. The island was at the center of an icebound sea on an uninhabited planet orbiting an ancient star that had grown parsimonious with its distribution of energy and was situated so far from its nearest neighbor that only the most powerful of telescopes could detect its presence.
The chances of someone dropping by unexpectedly were astronomical. Just in case that unlikely event occurred, she was guarded by a Sullibubble.
There's an old saying about Sullibubbles that, if you need more than one Sullibubble, you need an army. It's not clear whether the army needs to be of Sullibubbles, or of more conventional soldiers. Nevertheless, they are large, armored creatures; calm and unimaginative, and patient. Perfect to fulfill the role of guard.
Sten stood something short of three meters in height, and he was broader than he was tall. His long powerful arms hung so low that his seven knuckled hands brushed the floor on either side of his broad naked feet. His back and chest were covered by armored plates, as was the brow above his surprisingly small and delicate looking face. He was naked apart from a narrow belt from which suspended a bulging sack containing all of the precious knickknacks he'd collected over the years.
He was examining an impact hole in the wall; one of several dotted over the grey stone wall. An uninformed observer might have taken them as evidence of a recent attack on the prison; perhaps a desperate, failed rescue attempt. They'd be wrong; they were merely evidence of Sten's clumsiness; parts of the wall where he'd accidently bumped his elbow, or his knee, or his quite outstanding buttocks.
He turned back to his screens. There were six of them; all showing a different perspective on the same scene. The scene was the cell of his single prisoner. He sat slowly into his chair. He always sat slowly these days, after breaking so many chairs that he now had to pay for his own.
The figure on the screens was marching back and forward across the long narrow room, her strides long and fluid. There was a tension about her that made him nervous. She always made him nervous, even though she was tiny and was locked behind an impregnable door. When she'd first arrived, bound and gagged, her eyes had threatened to burn right through his armor and he'd felt strangely small.
She stopped suddenly and stared right into the camera, as if she knew he was watching her. He held her eyes for a moment, then looked away. She couldn't hurt him; not locked away as she was, and she could glare at the cameras as much as she liked; it was as close as she was likely to get to freedom.
When the knock came, he was unsure how he should react. In the years he'd been here, no-one had knocked on the door. He thought standing up might be a reasonable reaction, so he stood up, careful not to knock his chair or the desk over.
The knock was repeated and Sten decided that more than just standing up was required, so he took a step towards the door, sending his chair flying across the room.
The builders of the prison had clearly not expected there to be visitors, so no intercom or camera system had been installed.
Sten leant his head close to the door and whispered, 'Who's there?'
'An emissary from Lady Heldon; please open the door.' There was authority in the voice, and Heldon was paying his wages, so it was perfectly natural for him to open the tall, heavy door.
When he saw who was there, he moved forward, blocking the entrance.' Who are you?' There was threat in his voice as he towered over his slim blue visitor. 'Why are you here?'
Stave took a short step closer; he had to bend backwards a little to look the guard in the face.
‘As I said, I am on Lady Heldon’s business.’
‘But you’re blue. Just like…she is blue as well.’
‘The color of my skin is hardly relevant; not when I am on the Lady’s business.’
‘No, I don’t like this. Why would they send a blue when I’m guarding a blue?’
‘Listen to me, Sten.‘ He reached out to take the wrists of the giant in his grasp, but they were as wide as his own thighs, so he merely laid his fingers gently against his skin, feeling his slow pulse. ‘I have an urgent message for you. It is so important, and secret, that it could not be broadcast, even over secure frequencies. The Lady has instructions, just for you. You will become the most famous of all the Sullibibbles.’
‘If it’s so secret, how will I become famous?’ Sullibubbles quite often show unexpected intellectual abilities.
‘When the time comes when secrecy is no longer required, your name will be spoken with awe.’
‘Your words are smooth and clever, but I’ll need proof that you are who you say you are, before I let you in.’ Despite his words, Sten seemed to stand taller, as if the idea of being some sort of hero appealed to him.
Stave handed a slim oval disc. This was the critical moment. It was a good forgery, but a forgery nonetheless. If the Sullibubble used low powered implants to access the device, he might just have a chance of success. A more sophisticated desk top reader might spoil everything.
Sten held the disc up to his left eye and scanned it with his on-board equipment.
There was a long moment in which Stave found it very difficult to take a breath, then the colossus grunted and moved back a little. ‘Everything seems to be in order. I’ll just ask you to turn around while I scan you for weapons.’
‘I’m on the Lady’s business, Sir. Of course I carry weapons!’
‘I must ask you to hand them over. They will be stored safely in the box above the door.’
Stave handed over a slim death-gun, his fingers lingering at the last moment, reluctant to let go of the only weapon he ever carried. In truth though, it would be of little use against the hulk before him.
‘You may now enter.’
Stave slid past him and quickly scanned the room. There were two internal doors; one would lead to the guard’s living quarters; the other to his mate. But which was which? Then he noticed the locking mechanism on the tall door to his left and had his answer. She was so close that he could almost sense her presence.
‘I’ll just double-check this on the desk reader; there’s something I don’t quite understand about this.’
As he spoke, he bent to pick up his damaged chair. Stave took the opportunity and launched his attack. The kick to the back of the giant’s knee would have smashed through any self- respecting castle door, but Sten’s leg remained still and solid; then he began to turn, swinging his left arm before him. Stave ducked beneath the massive limb and delivered a quick coup- de-gras to the genital area of the beast. At least he guessed it was the genital area; he’d never had much to do with Sullibubbles, no
t romantically anyway.
The blow had no effect and he was forced to flip backwards to avoid the grasp of the quite ridiculously large right hand that was coming his way.
In a display of brute strength that didn’t fail to impress Stave, Sten tossed the heavy desk across the room and began to thunder towards him. Stave waited until the very last minute, then he grabbed the smallest finger of Sten’s left hand and threw himself to one side, twisting the finger as he went. But there was no satisfying snap, or even a howl of pain. The Sullibubble just kept on coming at him.
For the next five minutes he ducked the blows and repeatedly flung himself to safety, temporary though it might be. His opponent was much slower than he, but virtually indestructible. He'd spent some time with him now, and felt his pulse, so he had a sense of what his massive foe was about to do next, but he'd need much more time to develop a secure and robust sub-bond between them.
The fight continued, with Sten throwing deadly blows and Stave stepping out of danger at the last moment. Eventually, Stave decided that this wasn't going to work. There was no sign of the giant tiring and the room was too small for him to be sure of avoiding his clutches. He had to get the beast outside so that he could implement his back-up plan. He just hoped it would be more effective than his number one plan.
Swaying from side to side, he backed himself into the corner furthest from the door. When Sten roared and mounted his final assault, he ducked between his legs and rolled across the room, ending up on his feet beside the door. He pulled the door open and then paused; waiting for the approach of his enemy. He had to get this right; too quick and the Sullibubble might just lock the door behind him; too slow and he'd be pounded into a blue mess on the floor. He sensed him right behind him and threw himself forward, hoping the giant would follow. Sten's grasping hand couldn't quite reach him before he moved, so he slapped the door shut.
Stave was halfway out when he felt the door jerk towards him. There was just time to leap to safety before its crushing weight, but, without pausing to think, he jammed his foot against the frame of the door as the door rammed home.