All The Frail Futures: A Science Fiction Box Set

by J Battle

  He swung his rifle around; there were four rows still standing; all apes. He swung back to the dead soldiers; all of them were cats. The answer was obvious; some act of treachery, of stupidity, on the part of the apes. He found it hard to believe that they would allow such internecine rivalry to jeopardise their chances of success against the Succ-y-Rist.

  As the light faded, he pointed the rifle towards the sea. There was nothing there; just a slight froth on the waves as they broke against the beach. Then he lifted the end of the rifle slightly, intending to drop the rifle back over his shoulder and move on. But the action was never completed, because he saw them. Stretched across the width of the bay, and reaching back almost to the horizon, ghostly white shapes filled his sights. There were thousands of them; many thousands. He pulled his face away from the rifle and checked its measurement systems. The first creature was two hundred and forty metres from his position and it was still absolutely enormous.

  He looked down at the army that had been gathered together to take them on and groaned at how pitiful they now seemed.

  He dropped to one knee and adopted a firing pose, his cheek pressed against the cool stock of the rifle. He pressed the dark-light button and the images in his sights became clearer as he flicked from creature to creature.

  There seemed to be three main types, though they were all pale inverted triangles. The most common were wide squat shapes that stood up to three metres above the water. Then there were a good number of slimmer, taller aliens whose height above the water was closer to five metres. Dotted amongst the others, were a small number of the taller ones, reaching more than ten metres above the rippling sea.

  They were not yet approaching the shore; they all remained still, the only motion that of the water and the many tentacles on display, waving slightly in the still night air. Milligan adjusted his position to plant his backside on the hard yellow stone of the road. It was going to be a long night, he thought, and he should have brought a cushion.

  As he settled down for the night, he heard a single click, somewhere in the darkness behind him. There was silence for a long second, then he heard a clack. He twisted around and brought his rifle up again, pointing towards the barren lands across the road. There was nothing there; even with light enhancement, all he could see were shadows.

  He’d been staring for a couple of minutes at the shadows when something flicked in his brain and he saw what he was actually looking at. Flat, oval shaped shadows, moving across the bare dirt of the barren lands towards the road; towards him. He didn’t know what they were, but, even armed as he was, they made him feel somehow fragile.

  He decided to hold his fire until they reached the road, then he’d send them back to whatever hell they’d come from.

  He looked to his left; the river of blackness lapped onto the edge of the road. He looked to his right; there were already hundreds of the black discs half way across the road; directly ahead of him, the road was perfectly clear. Not a single disc had approached the road near to where he now stood. For some unfathomable reason, they seemed to be avoiding him.

  If he’d been a more imaginative man, as he watched them cross the road and disappear into the darkness of the swamp, he might have guessed at the reason for his reprieve. But he was just glad that he was not yet fighting for his life.

  It didn’t occur to him that they wouldn’t waste time or energy on him when, with all those dead bodies on the beach, there was a feast to be had tonight.

  **********

  ‘We have a problem,’ said Jones, as he turned from the console to the cats. Perdus was in a deep meditation that could have passed for sleep, and Deylus was actually snoring.

  At Jones’s words, they both lifted their heads, suddenly alert.

  ‘We have enough fuel to get to this island on the other side of the planet, but we don’t have enough to get back. So it’s going to be a one way mission.’

  ‘There will be a way back, trust me,’ said Perdus, arching his back and stretching out his legs, ‘the Twin Gods, may they bless the sky and the land, will make sure that there is.’

  ‘Or we could just die,’ suggested Deylus as he stretched out to see how many seats he could cover. ‘What will it be like, anyway? This island. Will there be food there? People? What do you think?’

  ‘Pi hasn’t told us very much about the island; only where it is and what you are going to have to do. And she didn’t mention an exit strategy. I don’t think she cares what happens to us, as long as we do what she wants.’

  Deylus exposed his fangs in a silent snarl.

  ‘She makes my claws itch. I want to mate with her again, of course I do. But when she’s not here, getting me all excited, and I can think clearly, I don’t trust her, or that blasted wall. Didn’t you hear what she said? She’s released our minds; what does that mean? If our minds have been released, they must have been imprisoned in some way, mustn’t they?’

  Jones nodded, then he remembered to tilt his head in an attempt at the cats’ affirmative.

  ‘Do you feel any different?’ he asked.

  The cats looked at each other for a moment, then both dropped their heads below their shoulders; a negative gesture.

  ‘I still feel hungry and randy all the time,’ offered Deylus, ’though I think I hate the wall more, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘I feel exactly the same; my devotion to The Wall and the Twin Gods, may they bless the sky and the land, is undiminished,’ announced Perdus, with a slightly more pompous air than usual.

  ‘There’s a surprise,’ commented Deylus

  ‘Anyway, I just thought I’d make you aware of our position. If you can think of some clever way out of this situation, just let me know,’ said Jones.

  ‘Whether we get back or not is irrelevant, if we believe that killing the Succ-y-Rist male is vital to the survival of our race. I say we do it, and then we can work out how to get back.’ With the problem solved to his satisfaction, Deylus lay back and closed his eyes.

  Perdus chuckled. ‘In his own inimitable way, he has summed up our situation quite clearly, though our way home will be presented to us when we complete this task.’

  Without another word, Jones slipped into the control seat and began the preliminary flight checks.

  When he was sure that everything was as it should be, he called a warning back to the cats and slowly lifted the AEC from the piazza.

  Within seconds they were deep into the cloud layer.

  ‘How do you know where you’re going?’ asked Deylus as he moved to the front of the craft, ‘all you can see is cloud.’

  ‘We have sophisticated instruments which tell us exactly where we are, and can actually fly the craft if they have to.’

  Deylus glanced back at Perdus to see if he had understood what Jones had just said, but he received no response.

  ‘So, these ‘instruments’ that can fly the craft, are they like little humans inside that box thing?’ He gestured with his nose towards the flight console.

  ‘No, they’re not people, they are machines.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know that word. Perdus…’

  Just then they broke out of the cloud cover into the clear blue sky and the dazzling yellow sun.

  ‘I knew it would be blue,’ gasped Perdus, ‘just like the raiments of the Twin Gods, may they bless the sky and the land.’

  ‘You never said,’ responded Deylus, absently, his eyes screwed up against the sun’s light.

  ‘It’s in the scriptures.’

  ‘There’s a surprise.’

  They flew higher and higher.

  ‘What’s happened to the sky,’ complained Perdus, ‘why isn’t it blue anymore?’

  ‘This high, the air’s too thin, so it’s always black.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’ He sounded more than a little disappointed.

  Deylus missed this part of the flight as he was enjoying a relaxed nap in the warmth of the sun.

  Chapter 53

  The drizzle that
came with the dawn had faded away, leaving a cool freshness to the air that went a little way to alleviate the fatigue Helen was feeling. The energy that had fizzed through her veins when she emerged from The Wall was no longer overwhelming. It wasn’t gone completely; she could feel it like a weight in her stomach, waiting for the call to action.

  She looked to her right and saw Jo, staring straight ahead, her jaw locked, ignoring the cool water that lapped at her feet. The tension in her shoulders was obvious, and her fists were clenched as if she was desperate to hit someone. Further along the beach, she could see Pascal standing relaxed and calm, his arms folded across his incipient pot belly, his eyes watching.

  She turned away from the sea for a moment. The bodies had all gone. She’d heard the clickerclackers in the night, in their disgusting feeding frenzy. She’d wanted to use her new power to intervene, but Pi had stilled her hand.

  ‘We need them still,’ he had whispered, so close that she could feel the warmth of his breath on her cheek.

  Now there was not a single bone visible in the still bloodstained sand.

  She looked up at the rows of apes, their bloody weapons in their hands, gore in their chest hair and their eyes downcast and worried. She searched herself for some optimism about their chances today, and found little encouragement.

  ‘They come.’ Pi’s words were calm, despite their content.

  Helen swung back, and saw for herself.

  The first of the Succ-y-Rist had started to move towards the shore, a little further down the beach from Helen, almost on a level with Miles. With graceful movements of its many tentacles, it glided through the shallow sea, the water bowing on each side.

  When it was only fifty metres from the water’s edge, Helen heard a groan from Pi.

  ‘They’ve changed since we last met,’ he said, his beautiful face marred by worry, ’they weren’t that big, just three or four metres tall and…’

  He said no more as Miles screamed and leapt into the water, lightning bolts bursting from her fingertips.

  ‘No!’ gasped Helen, one hand reaching out in a pointless gesture, as Miles joined with the creature that was more than five times her height, and a hundred times her mass. With fingers turned to claws and her skin red with the heat burning inside her, she pounced at the head of the monster, suspended in the middle of its chest. It was three metres above her head but she seemed to fly straight at it and was soon trying to rip it from its moorings, with her feet braced on either side. She didn’t see the heavy tentacle flash towards her, rippling as it went and thicker than her own torso. The impact was catastrophic, crushing most of the bones on the left side of her body as she was knocked into the water.

  Helen and Pascal both ran towards her, to try to save her, but before they even reached the water, she had dragged herself upright.

  Her left arm was twisted and broken. Her left leg stuck out at a horrendous angle, but still it supported her. Her cheek and the side of her skull were a crimson mess, with her left eye resting in the dent of her cheek, blue against red, dangling from her optical cord.

  Although her mouth opened beyond its natural width in a terrible silent scream, she began to jerk herself across the sand towards the Succ-y-Rist, to have another go.

  With both hands raised, she fired bolts of white lightning at the monster, to no effect. Still, she kept on walking. When she was within reach again, a long tentacle snapped out and wrapped itself around her waist. It lifted her effortless into the air, fifteen metres above the water. For a long second, it held her there, then it whipped her at the water, at such a speed that there was an audible crack when she hit the sea. It held her under the water for only a couple of seconds, then she was back in the air. It was about to repeat the process when there was a sudden hiss as water was flashed to steam, and the tentacle came away from its body and splashed into the sea; freeing Miles.

  The Succ-y-Rist shook its body and raised all of its remaining tentacles at once, as if trying to be sure that they were all still there. There was another hiss and one more tentacle dropped. The sound that came from the alien was a deep bass, low and vibrating, soon joined by the rest of its comrades as they mourned for its pain. With a spasm it brought its tentacles down to its sides and began to move towards Miles, who was already sitting up and checking for more broken bones.

  Before it could do any further harm, Helen and Pascal had reached her and begun to drag their struggling friend back to the beach.

  ‘It can’t hurt me. It can‘t hurt me,’ she gasped, only half resisting her rescuers, ‘look, I’m okay. I’m not even bruised.’

  With the fingers of her mangled left arm she poked her eye back into its socket with an audible squelch.

  When they felt they were a safe distance from the water’s edge, they rested her broken body on the sand.

  Helen’s hands went to her mouth when she saw the damage that had been done.

  ‘I’m ok,’ Miles muttered, and tried to smile with the half of her face that was still working. Then she closed her eyes and seemed to fall into blissful unconsciousness.

  ‘What can we do for her?’ Helen whispered.

  Pascal coughed and bent closer.

  ‘With a proper surgical theatre and a team of surgeons, we might have saved her. But here, I don’t even have the drugs to make her comfortable.’

  Pi appeared beside them.

  ‘Straighten her limbs, quickly. She will heal, but her bones will mend the way they are now, so put them back in their correct positions, and she’ll will still be able to function. Not much you can do for her face.’

  ‘If I move her limbs, it will just cause more pain for her.’

  ‘Do as I say, Doctor. Trust me, I know what will happen to her.’

  Pascal stared at her for a long moment, then turned to Helen.

  Silently she nodded.

  With a shudder, he grabbed Jo’s left leg and straightened it, closing his mind to the grating sound.

  Then he did the same for her arm.

  He checked her ribs and discovered that, remarkably, they were whole. Then he moved onto her face to see what he could do for her. Slipping his hand inside her mouth, he found that he could push the parts of her cheekbone close to their original position.

  Then he sat back on his heels. There was nothing he could do for the concave forehead; not with just his fingers. He touched her undamaged cheek gently, then, with a grunt, he stood up and looked around, at the monster filled sea, the cloudy sky, and the army of apes.

  ‘What happened back there, anyway?’ he asked, ‘how did she escape?’

  Helen was looking back at the road. Her keen, enhanced vision spotted a familiar rotund individual.

  ‘Looks like it was Milligan, with a plasma gun, saved the day. Wave to our hero.’

  D had watched the action from a distance, too far away to interfere himself. He turned as Pi appeared.

  ‘You could have helped her,’ he said.

  ‘No. We needed to see what they are capable of. They are not what we expected. They have changed themselves since we last met. They are so much bigger and stronger,’ she replied.

  She held an open hand out to the army of apes. ‘They will not be enough. Not nearly enough.’

  D got the impression that she was not really talking to him.

  ‘We will all die here today, Daniel,’ she sighed, turning back to him, ‘you can see this? Our only chance… No, we should do that first. It will be costly, but it might help prevent…’

  D could see that she was no longer talking to him; she was communicating with The Wall, getting or perhaps giving instructions. For now, he was not needed. He walked away from her and went to check on Miles, giving a thumbs up to Milligan on the road. Who’d have thought that he even knew which end of a plasma rifle to point?

  Milligan simply nodded and pointed at the sea.

  The closest aliens were moving. More quickly than you would have expected, they glided through the water to join their injured com
rade, just a few metres from the shore, in the knee-high shallows. There they stopped, their tentacles waving slightly as they waited for the right time to attack.

  D heard a movement behind him and raised his hand to still the restless army of apes.

  ‘Don’t move yet. Wait for them to come out of the water. They’ll be more clumsy on land and we’ll be able to pick them off.’

  The apes held their position, swords raised and ready for action.

  An hour passed with no change, then another.

  ‘They want us to attack them in the water,’ said Helen, ‘we have to make them leave it and attack us.’

  ‘What about Milligan? If he starts killing them where they stand, it might encourage them to attack,’ asked D.

  ‘Yes, that might work.’ She turned to the road and waved to him. When she had his attention, she pointed at one of the largest of the Succ-y-Rist and pantomimed firing a trigger. Milligan nodded and settled himself down on one knee.

  He took careful aim at the head of the target creature, in the middle of its chest, and fired. The head burst apart like a rotten tomato and the body jerked, the tentacles snapping and twisting. After a few seconds of this, it settled down and was still again. It was not clear how much damage his shot had done.

  Starting at the creature’s top left shoulder, he began to fire single shots steadily, zigzagging back and forward across the wide white chest area, searching for the killing point. He paused after the tenth shot, to check on the results. The Succ-y-Rist was shaking, green puss oozing from each wound, but it was still standing, supported by its many tentacles. As he watched, it suddenly pushed itself out of the water and began to drag itself slowly across the heavy sand towards him, one long tentacle snapping at him hopelessly.

  Milligan glanced over to Helen to make sure that she’d seen how slow and clumsy it was on the sand, then he set the rifle to automatic and fired a single long burst aimed at a spot in the centre of the beast. Before it collapsed onto the sand, he saw that he had burned a hole right through its chest.