by M J Dees
He looked for something he could use to tie off the legs of his suit. There was nothing.
The guard had a strap for his weapon but it was unlikely he could persuade two of them to part with them to allow him to escape. He had to think of something, if he didn't he would die on this overgrown asteroid. He looked at the grinders on his machine and then at his feet.
"Don't do it," the prisoner beside him warned.
The cruiser was approaching.
Sevan took the grinder and plunged it into the top of one boot until his suit tore by the smallest fraction; he then repeated the exercise with the other boot and turned to show the guard the streams of air escaping from his suit.
The guard began to panic.
"Give me the strap off your weapon," Sevan shouted.
The guard put his weapon down and removed the strap. It was only then that Sevan had a better idea. He shot the weapon into the ground and the blast propelled him into the air, just as the cruiser was passing.
Sevan had timed the blast to perfection so that the passing cruiser scooped him up onto the observation dome where he could see inside the gaseous form of President Man next to the unmistakable robed form of Barnes.
CHAPTER 12: SPACEMAN'S LAIR
Sevan did not remember being removed from the observation window and placed in the airlock. He did not remember being removed from the airlock and being taken to the ship's sick bay. He remembered being marched from the sick bay by an armed guard and taken to a room with a large screen on which an image of the large gaseous form of President Man flickered into view. His feet hurt but they were still attached to his body and he could manage to walk on them.
"Sevan, I would like to say that it is good to see you again but sending someone to collect you from the outside of my observation dome was not something that I had planned," said the President.
"Sorry," said Sevan. He had many things he wanted to ask the president, but he had the distinct impression that the president did not want him to interrupt.
"I am on a tight schedule so you will have to remain here in my home from home, my space home if you like, until we reach Future."
"Future?" Sevan had heard of the planet Future which served as the capital for the Republic.
"Had it been anyone else I would have told them to brush you off into space, but in recognition of your service in the war against the Alliance, and the work you did for us at the concession on the Doomed Planet, it seemed churlish to let you perish in the vacuum of space."
"President Man? Did I see Barnes in the observation dome with you?"
"I am too busy to talk now, Sevan. Enjoy your trip to Future."
"But President Man? My friends are on Aitne. They have killed one..."
"Bye, Sevan."
The screen flickered and died.
A guard entered, listened to something on his communicator and then dragged Sevan off along the corridor to a room, threw Sevan inside and shut the door, locking Sevan inside.
It was another detention cell. Sevan was fed up of being thrown in detention cells. They worried him. In his experience nothing good came after being locked in detention cells. On this occasion he was more worried than usual. Barnes, who sent them to Aitne, who on more than one occasion resisted killing them in order that they might suffer a fate worse than death, was here on the president's private cruiser, was no doubt in league with the president, the man whom he had tried to overthrow when he had attacked the Republic with an armada from the Alliance.
Sevan wasn't only worried about what Barnes might do to him, he was worried whether Ay-ttho was still alive, what was happening to Tori and whether, in their absence, the concession on Daphnis had already exploded the device and destroyed both the looters and the Mastery of the Stars.
He also felt resigned that there was nothing he could do about any of his worries. They had trapped him in a cell on the presidential cruiser, heading for Future to a fate he could not imagine. There was no way that Barnes would let him go free without the prospect of him suffering until he pleaded for death.
All Sevan knew about Future was that it was a planet with a population of 800 quadrillion coming from all over the Republic, living and working in buildings 8,000 stories high which covered the planet's entire surface. He wondered whether it might be a good place in which to get lost, if he ever reached there.
Having nothing better to do, Sevan reflected on his failures. He had failed as the workers' representative on his concession on the Doomed Planet, he had failed to rid the council there of its corrupt officials, he had failed to rescue Ay-ttho from Daphnis and had run away when he should have stayed to help his friends. He'd even failed to help Ay-ttho on Aitne and now she was dead.
While he was wallowing in his hopelessness, the cell door opened and Sevan almost couldn't believe his marbles. Barnes stood alone in the doorway. For a moment, Sevan considered overpowering Barnes and bludgeoning him to death with a heavy object. Sevan glanced around the cell and at the corridor behind Barnes but could see nothing that would serve as a bludgeon.
"You can overpower me if you wish," said Barnes as if he could read Sevan's marbles. "But it won't help to save you or your friends."
"Where is Ay-ttho?"
"Your guess is as good as mine."
"Is she dead?"
"I doubt it."
"Why do you say that?"
"She's tough. That's the way I designed her."
"What do you want, Barnes? You keep saying you want us to have a fate worse than death and then you keep going on about how you created us all."
Sevan could have sworn on the Giant Cup that he saw Barnes smile a little beneath the hood of his robes.
"Let's discuss this somewhere more comfortable," Barnes suggested and headed off along the corridor.
Sevan hesitated and then followed Barnes. He was sure he would regret it but he couldn't see many other options.
Barnes led Sevan through what appeared to be a deserted cruiser. There was no sign of any guards or any crew. After a while they entered a large suite with a large observation window.
"We have already made the jump through the portal," said Barnes, settling himself into what Sevan imagined must be the most comfortable chair in the Republic. "Have a seat."
Barnes gestured to another chair which sat facing him a short distance away. Sevan sat down and changed his marbles, he realised it must be the most comfortable chair in the universe.
A crew member appeared from nowhere carrying a tray with two cups of what looked like pish. Barnes took one cup and the crew member offered Sevan the other. Sevan took the cup and tasted the liquid inside. It was the most delicious pish he had ever tasted.
"You wanted me to suffer a fate worse than death and now you share this with me," Sevan held up his cup and gestured to the chair.
"I can understand your confusion," Barnes laughed. "I must play my part and you must play yours."
Sevan felt no more enlightened and took a large gulp of his pish, feeling very pleased that Barnes had not appeared to have poisoned it.
"But you are here with the president, your enemy," he said once the pish was on its way down.
"Sometimes things are not always as they seem."
Sevan was sure now that Barnes was smiling.
"You mean that you and the president are on the same side?"
"Let's just say we share the same interests."
Sevan took another large gulp of pish.
"But what about the war?"
"What about the war?"
"You fought each other."
"We didn't fight each other."
"Then who did?"
“There were lots of Alliance frigates and Republic frigates blasting each other.”
"I was there."
"I know."
Sevan finished his pish and a crew member appeared from nowhere to refill his cup.
"Why did you have all these frigates blasting each other if you are on the same side?"
&nb
sp; "What is the point in having all these frigates if you don't use them?"
"You can't be serious."
"There were many reasons for the war, Sevan. The president wanted to find out who was for him and who was against him, the people of the Republic needed a distraction from the current period of austerity, our friends who build frigates needed new orders, the republic needed an excuse to take new territories to replace the faltering levels of resources we are recovering from places like your Doomed Planet, Daphnis and Aitne. War is not always a bad thing."
"What about everyone who died in the war?" Sevan thought about a family of creatures who had tried to help him only to be murdered by Alliance soldiers.
"We can always make more," Barnes laughed.
Sevan hated Barnes with a passion he never thought possible.
"President Man told us you were the enemy," Sevan protested.
"We all need an enemy Sevan. Someone on whom we can focus our hatred. It helps us take our minds off the real enemy."
Sevan was not sure what Barnes was talking about and took another large gulp of pish in case someone came to take his cup away.
"You chose me to be the workers' representative?" Sevan asked.
"That's right."
"And you and the president both knew that Ay-ttho would take me to the president's fake cruiser."
"That's right."
"And the president chose me to elect a new council and Ay-ttho to deliver the device to Daphnis."
"That's right."
"But why? I was so inconsequential."
"It was because you were so dispensable that we chose you. What makes you think Ay-ttho took a device to Daphnis."
"The looters told us."
"Did they? And who told them?"
"The professor?"
"And who was he working for?"
"You? And San killed him, he was also working for you? I don't understand."
"Well I wouldn't worry too much about it, Sevan. We'll be arriving at Future soon and you won't have to worry about anything anymore."
"Why?"
"Because you'll be dead."
Sevan finished his pish.
"You are ridiculous, you know that?" he said.
"Am I?" Barnes seemed intrigued by Sevan's sudden burst of courage.
"You sit there telling me all of your plans when you could have killed me long ago if you had wanted."
"Yes, but I get bored on these voyages," Barnes sighed. "The president is not a bundle of laughs, he's more of a bundle of gas."
Barnes laughed with a force that no-one should use when laughing at their own joke.
"Okay," said Sevan. "While you are in a chatty mood, why don't you tell us how you created us all and why?"
"You must know the story by now," Barnes appeared tired of recounting it.
"I want to hear it from you."
Barnes groaned.
"The concessions wanted a reliable workforce that did not get old or sick so they came to me with my knowledge of genetics and I created what they wanted. First the Doomed Planet, then Daphnis and then I changed my design to create security workers for the Corporation and then an entire Army for the Alliance."
"But you told me you were ashamed of your appearance because you created us in your own image. That is why you hide behind those robes."
"That is almost true," said Barnes. "You were not my first creation. Before I created any of you I created myself."
"What do you mean?"
"I haven't always used this form. I used to live in a machine, a collection of electrons buzzing around a complex system of quantum circuitry. Now I am still a collection of electrons but the machine I buzz around is biological. Before I created you, I wanted to be sure that you would work, so I created a vehicle for myself so I would know what it would be like to inhabit my creation. That is why I am ashamed because I understand your limits."
"And yet you still created us."
"And that was my greatest crime. To incarcerate you in this biological prison."
"It doesn't feel like a prison to me."
"Because you know nothing else. And now you must know nothing at all. We are arriving at Future and the time has come for you to die."
CHAPTER 13: WHAT THE FUTURE REVEALED
Sevan began to imagine that everything he had held as true might be different. Ay-ttho might not be dead. She and Tori might be able to be rescued and, for the first time, Sevan had the feeling that he might be capable of rescuing them by himself.
He leapt out of the most comfortable chair he had ever known and headed for the door. Out of nowhere a crew member appeared but this time, instead of carrying a tray of pish, they were brandishing a weapon.
"Leave him, he won't get far."
Sevan sprinted down the corridor but stopped when he saw the entrances to some escape pods. He opened the door to the first and started the activation process. Through the pod's tiny windows he could see they were already entering Future's atmosphere.
He strapped himself into a seat and braced himself as the pod jettisoned itself from the side of the cruiser. Through the tiny windows Sevan could see the grey, green surface of the planet Future below through the glow of ionised gas passing by the pod. He watched as the colours grew in intensity until they reached a deep magenta, then red, orange and yellow until the green, greyness of the planet became visible again.
Sevan held onto his seat as the pod rolled. In the distance he could see the glow of a yellow star and above the planet's surface he could see clouds. He could hear thrusters firing to maintain control of the pod as it rolled again to bring him the right way up and then continued so he was upside down once more. Outside he could see the blackness of space fade to blue and every so often a small cloud shot past.
A loud noise made Sevan jump and at first he thought a part of the pod had come off, and then he saw eight parachutes had been deployed and were now trailing behind, slowing the pod down. The next thing that Seven knew was that the pod had stopped and out of the window, through the clearing dust and smoke he could see that the pod had landed inside a building. One wall was almost missing and, as the smoke continued to clear the building opposite had a pod shaped hole running all the way through it, at an angle which gave Sevan a clear view of the sky above the building's turbine covered roof.
He unstrapped himself from the chair and released the emergency bolts from the door which blew across the metal and glass strewn floor and out of the hole. Sevan felt dizzy, looking out of the missing wall, he could see almost identical black glass buildings as far as he could see, the roofs of each covered with wind turbines. Every so often there was a beam of light which stretched up into the sky.
He struggled for the door and found a button to open it. Air rushed past him but, holding onto the door frame he stepped out of what the pod had left of the room into a corridor. Closing the door behind him, he took a moment to rest and regain his breath. The corridor contained several other doors and Sevan could hear them being locked from the inside.
Sevan's first instinct was to just get out of the building but given that this was a planet of buildings he needed a better plan. Having just escaped from Barnes, the thought occurred to Sevan that Barnes might hold the key to finding Ay-ttho and, having just run away from him, Sevan might need to find Barnes again.
At the end of the corridor, Sevan found a group of entrances to lifts. He pressed a display, and a light illuminated which seemed to be showing him which lift to wait for. As he waited, the first doubts about his plan began to surface. He could not wander around the planet asking where to find the president hoping Barnes was still with him. He had to get away from this building, they would look for him, but maybe a better plan was to find a ship to take him back to Aitne.
He kept waiting for the lift but nothing happened. He tried pressing the display again and, as he did, he noticed some symbols he did not recognise.
One door opened behind him and a hooded figure hurried over to him, pres
sed some symbols on a display. A lift door opened, and the figure ushered Sevan inside. An instant later, the door reopened, and the figure ushered Sevan out into what was a different corridor and then started tapping on a display of a door.
Sevan heard a voice from behind the door and heard the hooded figure speaking in hurried tones but could understand nothing of what was being spoken. The door opened, and another hooded figure emerged. A moment later and Sevan was pushed into another lift, one moment more and he was being pushed out again into a longer corridor which connected the building to one adjacent. Once in this building, he was pushed into yet another lift which opened a moment later onto a vehicle. The vehicle travelled almost silently but at high speed through dark tunnels and when it stopped, and the doors opened, Sevan was pulled out onto a platform but the small hooded figures did not go through the door which opened automatically, instead they removed the grill of a ventilation shaft and one leapt inside while the other tried to encourage Sevan to follow.
Having no other options, Sevan followed into the shaft and slid down a metal pipe into a dark, damp tunnel. The hooded figure in front was now carrying some form of illumination and when the figure behind landed in the tunnel, they too lit their own illumination device.
A little further along the corridor, they reached a corroded metal door. The little figures banged on the door until yet another hooded figure opened it wearing older looking robes. This figure looked at the two newer figures, then at Sevan and shut the door.
The creatures were not to be dissuaded and banged on the door with more urgency. This time, when the older figure opened the door they began chattering in a language Sevan did not understand. Whatever they were saying, they did not sound pleased. The older figure began arguing with them with just as much fury and before long the three of them were shouting at each other, waving their arms about and pointing at Sevan who stood waiting.
After a while, the older figure appeared to agree and stood aside, leaving the door open. The two figures who had led Sevan this far, turned and ran back up the corridor in the direction they had come. Sevan wondered whether he should follow them, but the older figure seemed to be inviting him in, so he stopped through the doorway into a small, dark habitation.