Champion of Mars

by Guy Haley

  Without warning, one head stabs forward, faster than any thing of flesh and blood could possibly move. Yoechakenon dodges barely in time, and its loathsome face brushes past his leaping calf, causing the armour to ripple with revulsion. The Spirefather seems unable to focus, and the head goes back to weaving back and forth alongside its twin.

  Yoechakenon, run! You cannot defeat it. This is not like the Spirefather of Olm. This creature is not of our order of reality. You cannot win!

  “Yes, I can,” says Yoechakenon. There is not an iota of doubt in his voice. The armour growls. Yoachakenon drops the baffles and steps forth into full view. From the depths of the armour I watch in dismay, my choir minds splintering into competing voices of concern.

  “I am Yoechakenon Val Mora,” cries my love, his voice amplified to thunder by the armour. “First champion of Kemiímseet for three self-generations, bearer of Gartan, first among the thirteen Armours Prime, and by virtue of this, first champion of all Mars. I am master of the glaive, waster of cities.” He levels the glaive at the corrupt Spirefather; its mind sends the twin discs into a keening battle wail. “I am a spirit-killer, bane of man and machine, lord of battle, and I challenge you.”

  The Spirefather looks upon this silver antagonist. A look of moronic confusion sweeps over its faces, to be replaced by one of fury. It sends its heads forward once again, stabbing for him – once, twice – and Yoechakenon laughs and blinds a score of its thousand eyes with a languorous flick of the glaive. Trumpeting in outrage, the Spirefather draws in on itself. An expression of immense strain sweeps over its faces, and the fingered frills on its necks waggle horribly. There is an otherwordly bellow, and the bulk of the Spirefather is birthed into the First World. Its endless carrion body slithers on and on, skittering round the chamber on centipede legs until it fills the space to bursting with its coils. Its third head slips through last, hanging dead and bloody-eyed, its face and neck shredded to pieces. Its tussle with the armour within the Second World cost it dear.

  Yoechakenon nods at the monster. Here is a worthy foe, he thinks. In this battle is great honour.

  With the armour’s howl pouring from his throat, Yoechakenon charges.

  The glaive blurs as Yoechakenon lavishes artful cuts upon the Spirefather. The monster snaps and whirls, its coils slipping over and under one another. Yoechakenon somersaults, the armour boosting his abilities to superhuman levels. He wounds with graceful sweeps of his living weapon. Always he is a millisecond ahead of the thing’s jaws, never there when its claws slash.

  I see where I can help. I link my mind to the armour’s spirit. I employ eleutheremics to predict from where the Spirefather’s next attacks will come. Yoechakenon’s muscles hum with effort. Time slows, his senses heightened so that the very stuff of the air glimmers to his all-seeing eyes. His reaction speeds increase a thousandfold, he is a streak of movement, never still. He puts out a hundred of the Spirefather’s wild eyes, trims away its grasping frill of hands, cripples its legs by the dozen. Yoechakenon laughs, the battle joy coursing through him. He feels more alive now than he has done since he watched the flaming spires of Olm collapse.

  But the Spirefather is ancient and cunning. Its eyes widen, faces vibrating with furious concentration. A torrent of corrupted data spews into the room, forcing all its foulness into my mind.

  Terrible visions spill from me into Yoechakenon. I scream. Yoechakenon stumbles, his grip loosening on the glaive. I struggle to shut off the link with the Spirefather’s mind, but cannot.

  The Spirefather strikes. A scythe-taloned leg jerks forward and buries itself in Yoechakenon’s shoulder. It shears through the armour, passes through his body and emerges from his back. Acid sears his flesh. We three cry out in unison, for – amazingly – all are wounded. When the Spirefather withdraws its talon, the armour’s skin does not knit, and milk-white fluid spurts from the tear to mingle with Yoechakenon’s red blood.

  The Spirefather draws back its heads and laughs, a disturbing noise akin to the sobbing of a broken man.

  Yoechakenon recovers his footing as a maw snaps by his face. His ears buzz, his vision dims. He brings up his glaive, lets it play out so that he grips one end, close to one of the blades. Pain sears his chest. Torn muscles part unnaturally, and his broken clavicle grinds. Still, he fights. He spins the glaive round, once, twice, putting the motion of his torso into his throw.

  The glaive leaves his hand and spins end over end, the paired blades describing a razored parabola. The weapon slams home, slicing deep into the Spirefather’s leftmost neck. The head falls to one side, a sliver of skin holding it to the body. Yellow ichor pumps in a geyser from the ruins of its throat, its eyes dim, and a death rattle joins the awful roaring.

  The central head continues to live, staring and gibbering with insane hostility.

  I fear the worst. Then I see, through the thrashing body of the Spirefather, the crumpled remains of the Library node, fountaining energy.

  Of course. Of course.

  I wordlessly communicate my sight to Yoechakenon. He understands.

  The armour lets his particle pistol up and out of its thigh. Yoechakenon sets it to the highest setting and obliterates the node.

  There is an explosion, bright yellow fire that forces back the flickering violet. A foul wind whips into the centre of the chamber, sucking rootlet and bone and severed limb into a collapsing space as the node falls into itself. There is a rending; the noise of tortured reality.

  Stillness.

  The Spirefather lies dead, its last monstrous face puzzled, like a man who has been stung by the smallest scorpion and cannot believe it has killed him.

  Yoechakenon clutches his chest. The armour ripples, flapping from his skin, bleeding where the Spirefather rent it. Yoechakenon struggles to bring the armour’s spirit back under control, to end their battle frenzy. It is becoming hard to do so. He has worn the armour too long, it has become too wilful and is maddened with pain. With one last push, he forces its snarling face down in his mind, and locks it in the autonomic cage inculcated into his mind by the sages of the gymnasium of champions.

  His mind clears. His gifts shrink back into the secret places of his body.

  The pain of the Spirefather’s wound hits him with full force and he sways, falling to his knees. His breath comes hard and sharp. He grits his teeth in agony. The armour is in no state to take on his healing.

  “The Spirefather is vanquished,” I say. “The creatures are dead or have fled. We must depart. We do not know their numbers, or what other things may lurk here. You are injured, and if you can best a hundred of them, can you best a thousand? If, Librarian forbid, they have weapons from the old times, we are finished.”

  Yoechakenon nods as much as he can.

  He feels for the glaive, pulls it from the Spirefather’s neck. He clutches at it, using it as a staff to bring himself back to his feet. In this state, he doubts if he could stand against five of the creatures.

  The corridor resounds with far-off noises.

  Blood runs down Yoechakenon’s left arm, marbled with the fluids of the armour. The slash in the armour refuses to close, its spirit whimpers dangerously.

  “It came out of the Second World.” A spasm of pain, a sharp intake of breath. “Physically. I have never heard of such a thing.”

  “Nor have I, not since ancient times. The Second World cannot intrude into the First, not in this way. Separate yet together, forever apart. The spirits to the unreal, the flesh to the actual, that is the way.”

  The monstrous corpse of the Spirefather fizzles, melting into revolting yellow liquid.

  The noise from above has abated. They are up there, more of the creatures, but they are afraid. For now.

  “Is there another way out?” asks Yoechakenon.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did you find the location of the Librarian?”

  “I did, but I learned nothing more of this spire.”

  “Then interrogate the building.”


  “Yoechakenon, it has suffered grievously...”

  “It is dead anyway.” He clenches his jaw, and speaks through gritted teeth. “Strip it of all information, or we will find ourselves in a similar situation.”

  “Your wound, it is not healing...”

  “Interrogate the building!” he snaps, pain applying the lash to his anger.

  Mournfully, I reach out to the Spiremother. He is right, it must be done. I pity them, these lower consciousnesses; they have no choice but to give all of themselves up to the demands of their masters.

  I wonder if those higher than I feel the same towards me.

  I take the building’s mind into mine, a form of quinary embrace, and let it sigh its last into me. With it comes the weight of twenty millennia of sorrow, and a despair I have never experienced before. The building has witnessed the death of all that she holds dear, the flight and doom of all she held to be her children, the loss of her purpose. In her decrepitude, the Spiremother remembers what had once been, what she once was, and the burden of sharing that knowledge is great indeed. A rush of overwhelming loss, so piercing I will never be fully rid of it. The wave of sorrow abates, the consciousness of the spire perishes with a moan of thanks, and I am left with a comprehensive view of the city as it had been, long, long ago.

  I rally my choir and force my personality to cohere. The lights of the spire lessen and blink out. A metallic groan vibrates through the building, from the depths of the taproot to its dry summit, as the spire’s corpse settles into itself.

  “This way, down the corridor. There is a tunnel that leads out.”

  Yoechakenon commands the armour, and it responds in spite of its hurt. The suit glimmers and its mirrored surface fades, leaving the corridor empty but for the cooling fire of the spire’s ideograms and Yoechakenon’s wound floating like a macabre smile in the air. “Show me the way,” he says. His voice is a strained whisper.

  There is a hidden door. All power is gone, and we must force it open. Yoechakenon grunts as his broken collar bone grinds. He cannot close the way, and must leave our path plain for all to see. The clamour of the creatures rings louder in the city’s dead arteries above.

  A long tunnel lies before us, its utilitarian design at odds with the ornately carved panels of the Heart Chamber.

  I reckon that we have, at most, thirty minutes before the spire-dwellers find their courage and the pursuit begins in earnest.

  We leave like ghosts, the heart of the spire cooling behind us. The city is truly dead now.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Pursuit

  “NO! THAT IS completely out of the question!” Jensen was angry, a heartbeat away from shouting. The remaining scientists looked from him to Lasalle. The Frenchman scratched his neck.

  “It’s not my decision, Jensen.”

  “I note your objections, Officer Jensen,” said Delaware. It sat in its sheath at the Mission Control table, along with everyone else. “Nevertheless, we will bring the artefact up to Ascraeus Base where it can be more effectively studied.”

  “We’ve had blackouts, we’ve had malfunctions, it’s obvious that it’s affecting the crew’s mental state. As safety officer, I cannot allow...”

  “Your objections have been noted, Safety Officer Engineer Jensen,” said Delaware.

  “This thing, it has a particularly pronounced effect on our station AI...”

  “I am a Class Six; your station AI is an inferior model. I have examined the data, and there is no indication that the artefact will have the same effect on me. The artefact comes to the surface. I would prefer you assist, as you know the caves. If you will not, then I and Engineer Patel will bring it to the surface.”

  “I must say here, too, Jensen, that you’ll be in direct breach of your contract, refusing an order from a company superior.” Lasalle laced his fingers together and opened his hands like a book full of apologies. “I’m sorry, but there it is.”

  “Jimmy.” Jensen appealed to Orson.

  “It’s their business now, Jensen. It’s out of my hands.” The eugene was subdued.

  Jensen was not. “I will not do it. No, absolutely not.”

  “Very well,” said Delaware. A company merc came into the room. “Vasquez, take Jensen to his room. He is under house arrest until such time as we can review his actions and initiate disciplinary proceedings. Engineer Patel, you are acting station safety officer and engineer.”

  The engineer nodded. He didn’t say anything. Nobody said anything much around the Class Six.

  “Fucking idiots. You don’t know what you are dealing with.”

  The Ascraeus team looked at each other. They’d never heard Jensen swear before.

  “I assume the rest of you will be assisting our research efforts?” said Delaware. It looked around the table. Its eyes were blank, as smoothly marbled as the rest of its body, but it saw well enough. No one raised any objection.

  “My team is at your disposal,” said Orson.

  “Good. Please report to Engineer Patel. He will assign duties to you for the raising of the artefact. You are dismissed.”

  THE RETRIEVAL OF the artefact was carried out by drone bodies, operated remotely by the two AIs and Engineer Patel. First they widened the entrance to the fissure with drills. They worked carefully, almost gently, and that part of the process alone took a day. The team rotated duties in Deep Two: the Van Houdts were on together, then Holland and Orson, and lastly Maguire and Miyazaki. They watched the screens and monitored energy emissions. Deep scanning followed, again done carefully so as to avoid activating the artefact. Over a period of two days, a comprehensive picture of the cylinder built up – a short staff or baton, around forty centimetres long. Holland had the impression that the Class Six could have handled all this itself, and that they were being employed to keep them out of mischief.

  All the way through the retrieval, a company merc stood guard in Deep Two’s observation suite. After each shift, a second one took them back to base in an open top, and the third waited by the door of the rec room while Lasalle debriefed them individually. They were still expected to fulfil their other station duties, and the time for sleep was limited.

  More than once, Holland awoke, sure there was someone in his room, telling him to take her back.

  On Holland’s third shift, they removed the artefact. Rather than attempting to shift it from the stone, Cybele and Delaware cut a rectangle fifty centimetres long and twenty wide into the rock with saws. They then drilled seven holes around it.

  “I am inserting the explosive now,” said Engineer Patel. On the screens in front of Holland, thin robot fingers pushed a plug of putty-like explosive deep into the holes one by one. The holes were irregularly spaced, placed to make use of natural weaknesses in the rock.

  “Retire the drones,” said Delaware.

  Holland held his breath.

  “Firing in three, two, one.” Patel depressed a button. There was a bang, and the rock shifted slightly.

  “Any activity in the cylinder?” asked Patel.

  “Negative,” said Holland. The readouts of instruments tuned to the cylinder’s energy signature remained flat.

  “Proceed,” said Delaware.

  Robot arms pulled the rock free. It was small enough to be carried by Delaware’s sheath, the sheaths operated by Patel and Cybele walking in front of and behind him to bring it back to the surface.

  They drove it back up in its own open top.

  Holland’s vivariums were removed to make space for it.

  HOLLAND SAT IN the rec room by the kitchen. It was late and most everyone else, barring the AIs and the mercs patrolling the base, was in bed.

  Holland had his tablet in front of him. The results of the tests he’d done on the insect were before him in two- and three-dimensional displays. Where the hell had it come from? An obvious explanation was that it was an escapee from an Earth spacecraft, but he’d sent the results back to Earth and it matched no insect genome from there. And there w
ere further anomalies.

  He spun a hologram of the thing’s helix round with a finger in the air, and rubbed his eyes. He was tired, but he had no desire to sleep until he absolutely had to. Too many blue girls in his dreams. There were genes here that the database on Earth had identified as coming from several different animals, some from entirely different phyla. Some had the streamlined look of artificial genes. The more he dug about in its sequence, the more it looked like the thing had been engineered.

  He had an idea.

  “Cybele?”

  “Dr Holland,” came Cybele’s smooth, ambient voice. “How may I help you?”

  “You are not busy?”

  “Not at all. Delaware has no need of me at this moment. He is considering the best way to sample the artefact.”

  “He?”

  “It is a useful label, although I do not think he has truly adopted one of the human genders as yet.”

  “But you have. Why are you a woman, can I ask you that?”

  “You may ask me whatever you wish. I was programmed as a woman. I have tried to be a man, but I feel more comfortable designating myself as a female.” Her voice glided round the room. “Now, how may I assist you?”

  “Could you take all the genetic material from this insect that you tested for me, and match each segment of its coding with suggested Earth species? We’ve a full genetic database here, haven’t we?”

  “The exobiology suite possesses a near-complete genetic database for comparative purposes, yes. This may take some time. I estimate twenty minutes.”

  “Please proceed.”

  Holland’s holograms jumped off his tablet and expanded to fill the air. Cybele’s smooth voice went through each of the segments of the creature’s genetic code, as their details – type, proteins produced, other genetic structures they interacted with – flashed by, too fast to see. She began suggesting source organisms for each. Holland kept watching as he went into the kitchen and made a cup of coffee. Maguire came in, tousled haired and grumpy.