Under the Burning Clouds

by Steve Turnbull

  He said nothing.

  “Come on, Timmons,” she said. “I’m sure you can count. What about your associates? I would call them your friends, but you have no friends and neither do they.”

  There was a pause. The man who was not Jeremy spoke. “The seventh.”

  “That’s right,” she said. “I am on the seventh. What chess piece am I? A bishop? A knight? A rook?”

  “Ha! If you were a chess piece, Miss Anderson, you would be nothing more than a pawn. You have done everything exactly as I planned. You are nothing.”

  “Well,” she said, “that’s fine. You see, I am entirely happy to be a pawn.”

  The one called Jeremy piped up. “At least she knows her place. We could have some fun with this one, Terry.”

  Maliha shivered at what she imagined his idea of fun might be, but that didn’t matter—the game was not over yet. She stepped forward onto the black square in front of her and laughed. “Now I am on the eighth, I expect you know what that means?”

  There was silence.

  She pulled back the fold of fabric from her head and stood up straight, no longer leaning on the stick. “I have been promoted from pawn to queen.”

  A new voice broke the silence, the man who had not spoken before. “Black-eye! She has black-eye. You said she would only die of that if she was too afraid to come.”

  Maliha stared at the triumvirate of businessmen. They were all on their feet. Timmons faced her from the dais, but the other two shuffled back. They looked massive but it was all illusion.

  “Stay where you are, you cowards!” shouted Timmons. “Or I’ll shoot you first.”

  They froze and stared up at him.

  Not them, Timmons, me. “Shoot me, Timmons, and you’ll be infected too.”

  There was the distinct sound of a gun being cocked. “You’re too far away, Miss Anderson. I can kill you and we’ll be away before there’s any chance of infection.” He lifted the gun and pointed it at her.

  The sound of movement on the balcony to her left distracted Maliha for a moment and she turned to see someone launching themselves into the hall. A gunshot echoed round the hall. She was surprised not to feel the impact, not even the burning pain of a graze.

  She turned her attention back to Timmons. His gun was pointed directly at her. He had missed.

  He fired again and she flinched. She heard the bullet ricochet from the stone floor behind her. And again. And again. The sound of shots was deafening in the enclosed space.

  She remained standing. There was no sensation of pain. Nothing.

  “What the hell’s wrong with you, Terry?” shouted the one who had been hysterical about her black-eye. “Kill her!”

  Someone landed on the ground beside her. “You can’t kill her, Timmons, she’s a goddess.”

  Françoise. Maliha was annoyed. Why could she not do as she was told and get information from Timmons’ office while she had him distracted?

  “And who’s this?” The excitable one’s voice was getting higher in pitch.

  “This is Françoise Greaux,” Maliha said clearly. She let it sink in. “You had her killed, if you recall, tortured to death.”

  “No, this is a trick.” Timmons stepped off the dais and drifted to the deck. He strode towards them, closing the distance in long strides. He did not intend to miss again.

  But Maliha smiled. Timmons was backed into a corner. He had been unable to shoot her, probably due to the visual effects in the room, and someone he had supposedly killed was back from the dead. If she didn’t know better she might have been convinced of her own godhood.

  “I am Françoise Greaux and the goddess brought me back. She killed your torturer by casting him out into the Void. She died and she came back also.”

  Maliha thought that final flourish was a bit too much. She was right. Timmons raised his gun and shot Françoise as he approached. She went down with a cry and a moan, with her hands clutched to her stomach. Maliha resisted the temptation to run to her and continued to face Timmons.

  The sound of a distant crash penetrated the hall from behind her, followed by sporadic gunfire. The two other men looked at one another. They hesitated, waiting for the other to act, and then together beat a retreat behind the dais.

  “Don’t leave!” she commanded and they froze. “I want you to witness his failure.”

  With her smile broadening, Maliha took a step towards her adversary.

  “Do you know who I am, Terence Timmons?”

  He jumped as there was another, louder crash from behind the doors.

  “Who am I?” she shouted, dragging his attention back to her.

  “Anderson, Alice Maliha Anderson!”

  He raised the gun.

  “Shoot me now, Timmons, and you will die of black-eye.” She took another step towards him.

  The gun clicked. He pulled the trigger again and again.

  “It’s a six-shooter, Timmons, and you had an empty barrel for safety.”

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw Françoise move and the glint of something metal.

  “I am the avatar of vengeance, Timmons. I am the Durga Maa.”

  The metal flashed at her; she turned her head and intercepted the gun Françoise had tossed. She turned back to Timmons. Whatever was crashing towards them was just beyond the doors. Maliha knelt on one knee, and bowed her head.

  There was a tremendous crash and splintering of wood. The air filled with clouds of dust. In the noise and turmoil, Maliha extracted the lenses from her eyes. Powerful diesel engines roared and the gale from the rotors tore through the hall.

  She blinked with relief and rose like a demon with her sari whipping around her. Timmons was staring over her shoulder and backing away. She did not look. She did not have to. The engines idled and the noise reduced. She still had to shout.

  “Timmons!”

  He looked at her with amazement as he realised her eyes were no longer black.

  “You killed people I knew and loved. You killed people I did not know. And for all of them I claim vengeance, Terence Timmons.”

  She lifted the gun, aimed for his chest and pulled the trigger. In the almost non-existent gravity the gun kicked hard.

  He stood there with blood seeping from a graze in his shoulder, staining his fine suit.

  Maliha tutted and tossed the gun aside. “Valentine,” she said and gestured towards Timmons, “if you wouldn’t mind.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “What?”

  “You won’t be annoyed at me?”

  “Just do it!”

  A shot echoed through the hall. Timmons clutched at his chest, his gaze wavered and he collapsed to his knees. The spell the scene had cast on his two associates broke and they fled.

  Maliha walked up to Timmons and knelt on one knee beside him. Blood was pumping from his chest under considerable pressure; something important must have been badly damaged.

  Good.

  “I’m glad you weren’t killed outright, Timmons,” she said, “because it’s important for you to know that you have failed utterly.”

  She met his eyes. She could see the agony in him and she felt no pity.

  “It’s not just your failure, Timmons,” she said. “By playing this game you have shown me the hand that you and your associates are playing. I know the scale of your empire. More than that, I know your mistakes and the horrors that you are going to unwittingly inflict on the people of Earth.”

  “I ... don’t ... care...”

  “No, and that’s the problem.” She sighed and stood. “But anyway, you’re going to die and I, a mere woman, have killed you.”

  “Not ... stop ... us ...”

  “No, I know that, but your associates have seen me bring you down and that will slow them.”

  She felt someone come up beside her. A hand she knew came into view, holding a gun. He pulled the trigger and shot Timmons through the head.

  “Was that entirely necessary?” she said. “I hadn’t finished.
”

  “Oh, I expect you would have been melodramatic, just walked off as his life’s blood seeped away. Then someone would have come in and rescued him. Besides, we need to get out of here before reinforcements turn up. Too much jabbering.”

  Maliha turned to Valentine. He looked older. She rested her hand on his arm for a moment and then crossed to Françoise. She carefully lifted her body, went across to the flyer and handed her up to Valentine, who had climbed aboard.

  “Alice through the Looking Glass?” she said.

  “It was the best I could come up with in the time, what with lions, unicorns, snarks and boojums,” he said. “Come on, we need to go.”

  Bullets ricocheted from the hull fired by Timmon’s guards. Valentine climbed into the pilot’s chair and brought the engines up. Maliha sat next to him.

  “I think I’d better teach you to shoot,” he said as they turned in the confined space. He gunned the thrusters and the crew of the stronghold dived out of the way as he rocketed along the corridor towards the dock.

  “And fly,” she said.

  Valentine used the guns mounted on the flyer to wreak damage on the other vessels in the dock, before turning them on the locks and hinges of the main door until, as the rain poured in, he burst out into the storm.

  Epilogue

  They had landed at a small town, close to where the highlands dropped off to the sea in the endless coastal waterfall. A doctor had treated Françoise’s wound; it was unlikely to be fatal as long as she was kept under normal temperatures and humidity.

  The vehicle Valentine had commandeered possessed both of those qualities, being one of Timmons’ personal vessels. There was not a great deal of room, but it would do for them for the time being.

  Once Françoise was settled Valentine took them into the air again.

  “Where are we going?” Maliha asked.

  “The goddess has a mission.”

  “Kindly refrain from using that term.”

  “As lovely as ever, Miss Anderson.”

  She felt a rage explode inside her. “You dropped me out of an airship with no parachute at several thousand feet!”

  “It wasn’t that high, one thousand at most,” he said casually. “I saved your life.”

  “I thought you were dead. They told me you were dead.”

  “I may have implied that someone else was me.”

  She hit him on the arm just above the elbow.

  “Oww!” He rubbed the spot. “What was that for?”

  “Because I love you, you impossible man.”

  He turned his smiling face towards her. “Really?”

  “Don’t fish for compliments,” she said and crossed her arms, pointedly ignoring him.

  They flew on. The flyer made good speed, but it was late in the evening when they touched down on the outskirts of a small town. A high, thick wall surrounded it, while a network of wires criss-crossed above it.

  They climbed into the rear cabin. Maliha checked on Françoise, who was sleeping. Valentine was rummaging in some bags. Maliha frowned.

  “Is that my luggage?”

  “You’re not going back to the hotel.”

  “No, I suppose not, but you brought my luggage?”

  “And Françoise’s. Ah, here it is.” He stood up, pulling out a rectangle of cloth covered in a green and yellow pattern: Riette’s kanga.

  “You found him?”

  “Assuming he’s still alive.”

  “I really do love you.”

  “So you keep saying, but I might be more convinced if you refrained from hitting me.”

  Maliha wrote a note for Françoise and attached it where she would be able to read it when she awoke.

  Valentine held the umbrella as they walked along the raised wooden walkway to the small house. They were wet through, of course, and Maliha clung to the kanga.

  As Valentine knocked, Maliha realised she was trembling.

  A young man answered the door. He was clean-shaven and dressed in the loose-fitting clothes all Venusians wore. He frowned when he realised he had no idea who they were.

  “Marten Ouderkirk?”

  “I am he,” he said and the Boer twang was evident in his voice.

  “May we come in?”

  “Who are you?”

  Maliha glanced up at the rain and the half-light. He stood back and allowed them inside, where they dripped on the wooden floor.

  “My name is Maliha Anderson,” she said. “I met Riette.” She held out the kanga, allowing it to unwrap slightly so the pattern was clear. The kanga that Marten had bought for her.

  He did not move at first and then he reached out and took it from her. He clutched it to his chest and turned away from them so they would not see him weep.

  * * *

  “Are you sure about this?” asked Valentine as they climbed back on board the ship with Marten following.

  “Yes.”

  “You collect people.”

  “I know, I’m sorry.”

  “I imagined we might go somewhere and be alone for a while.”

  “After killing one of the most influential individuals in the solar system and scaring two others?”

  He powered up the rotors and they lifted off smoothly.

  “They’ll go after Amita and Barbara to try to get to you,” he said.

  “Amita already has her instructions, they’ll be fine.”

  “How could you have known this would happen?”

  “I didn’t know it would, but I knew it could. Timmons isn’t the only one who can make contingency plans.”

  They were silent for a while.

  “Don’t you need to rest?” she said.

  “We have appointments to keep,” he said. “You’re not the only one who makes contingency plans either.”

  “We’re going back to Earth?”

  “I thought that would be best.”

  “Yes, it is,” she said. “We’ll have to intercept Constance and Izak when they arrive, but I think I know someone who will help with that.”

  She glanced back through the cabin door to where Françoise lay, looking back at her with a grin on her face. The revelation that her symptoms were not caused by any form of Venusian fungus had been both a relief and a concern. Françoise had been happy about it though.

  Maliha turned back to Valentine. “And when we get back the first thing we have to do is get married.”

  “Yes,” he said. “If that’s what you want. I didn’t think you were in a hurry and there will be a lot to do.”

  “We have to.”

  “Have to?”

  “Yes.”

  There was a short pause.

  “Oh.”

  ~ end ~

  Thank you for reading the Maliha Anderson series. It’s been quite an adventure for everybody—myself included.

  If you enjoyed them please write a review on your favourite website, and you don’t have to have bought a book from Amazon to review it there.

  There will be more about Maliha Anderson but in the meantime you can read the other books in the same setting by joining the mailing list at http://bit.ly/voidships.

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  About the Author

  When he's not sitting at his computer building websites for national institutions and international companies, Steve Turnbull can be found sitting at his computer building new worlds of steampunk, science fiction and fantasy.

  Technically Steve was born a cockney but after five years he was moved out from London to the suburbs where he grew up and he talks posh now. He's been a voracious reader of science fiction and fantasy since his early years, but it was poet Laurie Lee's autobiography "Cider with Rosie" (picked up because he was bored in Maths) that taught him the beauty of language and spurred him into becoming a writer, aged 15. He spent twenty years editing and writing for computer magazines while writing poetry on the side.

  Nowadays he writes screenplays (TV and features), prose and code.

 

  Steve Turnbull, Under the Burning Clouds