When their meeting on the subject of self-preservation at any cost came to an end, agreement about how to tackle their expansion in a dwindling galaxy had been decided. The Mott would drive out the creatures who inhabited the planets they wished to expand to. Far easier than training clever people to sit, or stoop - depending on their anatomies - for the best part of their lives in trying to translate the impossible Jaulta Code. Anyone who wanted part of the action would have to bring along their own battle fleet.
In the depths of a well-furnished bunker that protected its occupants from the radiation of their own failed experiments, three creatures sat viewing each other with stern green expressions of disapproval. An onlooker might have been excused for thinking they didn’t like each other, but it wasn’t personal. It was in the nature of their particular species, the Olmuke, to like nothing, not even themselves. Self-dislike being the most potent motivator, next to fear, for engineering the despicable, these three had the highest qualifications for carrying out the work of assassinating a planet.
Before them stood the three-dimensional map of their first quarry. It was a pale, lush world without any great oceans, and just enough water to rain on the vegetation. It revolved at a comfortable distance around a stable yellow sun, and would only need slight adjustments in its atmosphere to ideally suit the Mott. Being the most powerful and dangerous species, they got first pick from the fruits of the green trio’s endeavours.
Jannu flicked the image off with the middle toe of his splayed foot. He leant back and rubbed the top of his flat head with a six-fingered nail less hand. ‘If this one goes right, we shouldn’t have much trouble with the others.’
‘If this one doesn’t go right, we’ll have more than just trouble with the Mott,’ Kulp reminded his partner in crime. ‘I have this peculiar attachment to my own skin and am determined nothing will go wrong.’
As neither of the others were as attached to Kulp’s skin as he was, Tolt said, ‘Your space-distort net, remember. You take the blame if it doesn’t work.’
‘I take the reward if it does,’ Kulp snarled.
‘We take twenty per cent each,’ the others promptly reminded him, unwilling to be browbeaten by the arrogant engineer. After all, they had provided space freighters for the enterprise and had raised the battalion of robots to transport the beacons for the net.
‘Have you noticed that if the Mott occupy this planet they’ll have surrounded the most densely populated cluster?’ asked Jannu.
‘So?’ Kulp wasn’t interested. ‘We’ll be their friends.’
Tolt glanced accusingly at Kulp. ‘It can’t have escaped your attention. Least of all someone with your massive intellect.’
Kulp made no apology. ‘I’m a pragmatist. Our own species didn’t appreciate my talent. The Mott do. If it so happens that I land on the winning side, it’ll be because they recognised my potential.’
‘Well,’ said Tolt, ‘what you were putting your talent to on our planet would hardly have endeared you to anyone there.’
‘Are you complaining?’
‘Not yet. But I might reserve that right.’
‘You’re in too deep to have rights,’ Kulp reminded them. ‘Squirming like hooked sea serpents when things start getting tough won’t help you. Besides, what is there to worry about? What sort of opposition can we expect from the planet? These creatures have always been pacifists. They wouldn’t even let anyone fight on their behalf.’
‘I wonder why?’ murmured Jannu thoughtfully. ‘There‘s something definitely unnatural about that.’
‘Just because most of the galaxy are warriors doesn’t mean there can’t be exceptions,’ laughed Tolt in a guttural splutter. ‘What’s the point in having so many fighters if there aren’t a few victims?’
Jannu sneered with self-disgust. ‘Aren’t we advanced. I wonder if this is really progress?’
Kulp shrugged. ‘Why worry? It’s now that matters. Now and how much you can make out of it. So let’s survey the system for any possible distort factors.’
In a chamber below the room where they had sat, the three-dimensional image of the planet they had been watching was projected into a large sphere. The planet became smaller and smaller until the entire solar system and sun were revolving before them in reduced splendour.
Kulp activated a grid over each section of the projection and carefully checked out every flaw, comet, and piece of space debris that inhabited the system. Eventually he came to something odd. He flicked the grid on and off once or twice as though not believing his findings.
‘What’s the matter?’ Jannu demanded.
Kulp didn’t reply. He left the grid encircling the planet, to operate the scanner that could isolate the smallest space distortion. His suspicions confirmed, he rocked back on his heels to announce, ‘There’s a compressed black body circling that planet.’
‘Can’t be!’ Tolt immediately protested, though he knew Kulp would never have made such a statement without being sure.
Kulp’s ego would never let him make mistakes. ‘It’s causing a space distortion equivalent to a small collapsar,’ he insisted.
‘The planet would have been torn apart by now if that was the case,’ protested Jannu.
‘Nevertheless,’ Kulp pondered, ‘it obviously hasn’t been, so we must assume either that it’s artificial, or that the planet has some control over it.’
‘Will it affect the space-distort net?’ asked Tolt.
‘Not when I’ve finished adjusting it. If it doesn’t act on the planet, I’m pretty sure I can do something to prevent it counteracting the net.’
If any of them had possessed any intuition in place of their limitless confidence, they might have stopped to wonder what had caused the planet’s unlikely companion, sinister in both presence and motion. It defied every law of physics known to Kulp’s logical mind. He just knew that it would have to be dealt with. Because someone or something had managed to place it there without it sucking in the surrounding solar systems, didn’t mean they were more super-intelligent than he was. The mathematics that held it inert could probably be unravelled with time. Kulp didn’t have time and decided to simply isolate the anomaly so it didn’t interfere with his distorting net.
Once on board the service freighter, Tolt sent a jolt of power through the thousand robots that were to carry explosive beacons and unkindly woke them from their dreamless lethargy.
He fed the first of Kulp’s revised instructions through their obedient circuits. ‘Work, you idle junk piles!’
As the beacons had to be adjusted to surround the collapsar, the Mott’s budget for the distorting net would be doubled. The Mott had the reputation of being the touchiest species ever to bumble part way up the evolutionary spiral, and, above all, they were touchiest about parting with their wealth. As far as Kulp was concerned, they were just roadkill on the highway to engineering achievement. He was more interested in the procedure for wringing the planet dweller from her cosy shell.
With the beacons adjusted, the robots were put to sleep until they were needed again.
As they had so many automated systems to crew their spaceships, Kulp, Jannu and Tolt were able to have one each, which suited their inborn anti-social natures a treat. Especially Kulp, who could be paranoid about letting any inferior being touch his preciously expensive craft. He regarded it with the nearest sentiment to affection that an Olmuke could have for anything.
Although Jannu and Tolt occasionally spoke ship-to-ship on their tedious journey, Kulp was left alone. By the time they reached the Mott monitoring station, Kulp had completed the revised mathematics for his web.
It was with his usual arrogant manner that he strode into the commander’s observation chamber.
‘We had to compensate for a dense anomaly,’ he announced to the Mott’s back without introduction or apology, knowing the warrior wouldn’t understand the mathematics and be able to contradict him.
The matted hair that reached down the Mott commander’s belt
didn’t give any indication that their owner was alive let alone had heard what Kulp said. (The Mott regarded tripping over their ringlets in the heat of battle an honourable way to die.) Kulp knew the species well enough and stood in silence to wait for the acknowledgement of someone who rivalled him in arrogance.
Slowly the Mott turned to reveal his solitary bloodshot eye and trio of tusks. Having four wide short legs and an equally short pair of arms with immensely long fingers, Jannu and Tolt couldn’t help wondering if evolution had quite finished designing the species when the genetic engineers took over.
The commander switched his translator on and indicated that Kulp should repeat his message. Kulp switched his translator on and obliged, as though the Mott should have understood it the first time.
Not comprehending the best part of what Kulp explained in a deliberately confusing way, the Mott decided not to show his ignorance of the figures. He could feed them through a machine that would explain them for him later. Instead, he feigned the thoughtfulness of an intellectual, as most tyrants do at some time or other to justify their actions. He hoped this might confuse his uncompromising green visitor just as Kulp had confused him with sums.
‘I have been pondering on the fragile state of our galaxy, my friends,’ the Mott declared, as though they should have been profoundly interested in his findings, while knowing that all three of them would have felt more at ease with any one of the polished robots operating the station. ‘I have been wondering how the older species managed to construct the ships to take them from this galaxy. There were no other galaxies within range then either. Such a distance must have been impossible, even for them.’
‘Perhaps they didn’t make it,’ Kulp said. ‘It seems obvious to me that we were the ones to survive and they died somewhere out there on the edge of the Universe.’
This annoyed the Mott. ‘That’s what I thought!’ he snapped.
It had been difficult for the Mott to accept that the rest of the galaxy didn’t love their empire-building species. Especially as they had bestowed such benefits as pointless loans and bombs in exchange for their freedom, but having to listen to someone of greater genius was more than they could bear. And who were these green, flat-headed creatures anyway?
Then the Mott remembered the space-distort net and his temper sweetened. ‘Many theories have been put forward about the subject by those time-wasting thinkers who should be liberated from breathing. I doubt that the solution to it matters as much as they would have us believe.’
‘I understand my planet has discouraged such activities as well,’ Kulp agreed, ‘though I haven’t been back to confirm this for myself recently.’
The Mott sneered. ‘Of course not. One could hardly expect you to.’
‘How the Old Ones managed to escape is now irrelevant,’ Kulp went on. ‘Let’s just be thankful they didn’t decide to stay and make the galaxy more crowded than it is.’
The Mott sniggered through his wickedly curved tusks. ‘Their strange ideas about fairness and justice might have cramped our styles if the records are to be believed. What freedom would they have left us to operate in?’
‘I doubt that they would have even left us alive. I sometimes think those rebellious Torrans understand more about the Old Ones than they’re willing to admit and are trying to resurrect their old-fashioned ideas. The way they disappeared means they must be up to something.’
‘They don’t have the strength to cause much trouble. They’re ineffectual when it comes to fighting.’
‘Must be the only ones who are,’ Tolt observed, from what he thought to be the safety of the far side of the chamber, but he wasn’t out of the Mott’s translator range.
‘And where would you be without our wars and victories, my green-featured friend?’ the commander snapped. ‘Probably running some needlework class on your insignificant little world with all the other Olmuke defeatists secretly dreaming of becoming warriors.’
Tolt said nothing because he knew he could never win the argument, and Kulp said nothing because he agreed with the Mott. Jannu had long since lost interest in the conversation and was trying to engage a promising-looking robot in discussion.
Noting the lack of response to his challenge about the insignificance of their planet, the Mott grunted in disgust, ‘You green things are all spineless.’
‘As long as we’re paid, we’ll be almost anything your ego needs,’ promised Kulp insincerely.
The Mott knew that wealth was a matter Kulp took as seriously as the rest of his species. ‘You’ll be paid, technician Kulp. You make sure we have that planet in the time specified and you’ll be paid in full.’
‘I will complete my side of the bargain, Commander. Be assured that Moosevan will die.’
CHAPTER 4
‘I’ve found a mushroom! I’ve found a mushroom!’ Vicky squeaked in her reedy voice as she danced round the outside of the fairy ring clutching her treasure.
‘Let me see,’ ordered Julia. ‘Don’t eat it!’ she added quickly.
‘Why not?’
‘Because horses come through this field,’ Julia reminded her as she saw Mrs Trotter and her black beast in the distance.
‘Oh, all right.’ Vicky carefully put it in her pocket with the old pine cone and flint shaped like an arrowhead.
Kitty held out a blue and yellow marble and waved it tantalisingly in the air before her. Without hesitation, Vicky surrendered the mushroom in exchange for the marble.
Kitty popped the delicacy in her mouth and swallowed it.
‘Oh honestly - that could have had all sorts of dirt on it,’ Julia scolded
Vicky resented the accusation that she could have poisoned her best friend. ‘It was clean. Mrs Trotter never comes down this far. She always goes past Yuri’s gate.’
Sure enough, Daphne Trotter and her menacing mount seemed to be paying the unfortunate astronomer a visit.
If Yuri had heard Daphne’s unusually silent approach he would have stopped polishing the frame of his reflector and beaten a hasty retreat.
The first thing he knew about it was her cutting tones calling out, ‘I suppose that must be the only thing you bother polishing?’
Knowing it was too late to dash inside and pretend he hadn’t heard her, Yuri’s dignity would only allow him to reply unenthusiastically, ‘Good afternoon Mrs Trotter,’ and he carried on carefully buffing his most precious possession.
Daphne was hardly going to be put off by the disgruntled tone in his voice. ‘I see you haven’t done much about your garden yet?’
‘Why deprive field voles and mice of home?’ asked Yuri. ‘I like things the way they are.’
‘You know that cottage is under lease to whoever you rent it from, don’t you?’ She leant over the side of her huge black horse to peer threateningly down at him.
‘I have heard…’ muttered Yuri unsurely.
‘And I’ve discovered that one of the conditions of that lease is proper maintenance of the property by the resident,’ she informed him with relish, but he just shrugged his shoulders. ‘You don’t even know who owns the lease on this land do you, my little Russian misfit?’
‘I know it is not you, Mrs Trotter,’ Yuri said firmly, not seeing how she could counter that.
‘Not yet,’ she replied with the fixed smile of a crocodile. The duster fell from Yuri’s hand at the horror of what she was insinuating. ‘Don’t look so crestfallen, Yuri. I’m sure you must have another home in a polluted junkyard in the east of the old Soviet Union.’
‘I cannot go back there,’ he tried to explain, though he knew such appeals to her better nature would be exhausted before they found it. ‘Why hate me so much?’
‘I don’t hate you, Yuri,’ explained Daphne with the peculiar conviction of the hypocrite, ‘I just believe everyone has a place on this Earth - and yours isn’t here! Your people are a threat to the peace of the world and I don’t see why one of them should have the protection of this country.’
‘I and my
people have little to do with policies our leaders pursue.’
‘Then that is their look out. You can find somewhere else to set up home if you like, but by the time I’ve finished, there’ll be no aliens residing here.’
At that, pictures rose in his mind of Daphne Trotter riding out of the village the family who owned the Chinese take-away, Mr Singh the dentist and himself. She would probably even gallop down to Mr Cooper’s farm and set about the two anthropology students had she known they were staying there.
‘And don’t go running to Diana. She can’t help you. She’s got problems of her own to worry about,’ warned Daphne. ‘I’ll see you again tonight when I have the lease to the property, then I’ll find a young local couple who won’t be too idle to do some gardening.’ With a click of her tongue and prod of her heels into the horse’s flanks, she left the stunned Yuri looking helplessly after her and wondering if she hadn’t invented it all to frighten him.
With little enthusiasm, he picked up the duster to carry on polishing the frame of the telescope, muttering, ‘Oh, Mr and Mrs Trotter, why did you decide to have that little girl? She is not healthy in head.’
The children in the fairy ring watched Daphne gallop off and wondered what they had been talking about.
‘I think she was asking to have a look through his telescope,’ Lin suggested.
‘Oh, she was probably nagging him about his garden again,’ Julia told them, well aware of what sort of woman Daphne was; Diana was unable to keep her opinion of the creature to herself once one of her moods came over her. ‘She always is. But Yuri says he likes to keep it like that for all the wild animals to live in. I saw this tiny dormouse up there the other day, and a baby fox.’
‘They were probably hiding from Mrs Trotter,’ Tom remarked gravely. ‘They were hunting foxes the other Sunday.’
‘I think that’s very cruel,’ said Vicky wrinkling up her nose. ‘They teach us to be kind to animals at school, but one of our teachers goes out hunting as well!’
‘That hairy student called John who works at the museum told me that he belongs to a group who go around upsetting people who hunt foxes,’ Julia explained. ‘He and his friend put some aniseed down to confuse the hounds and the other Sunday Mrs Trotter got very upset. They say she still is.’
The Planet Dweller Page 4