Iástron

by James C. Dunn

  ‘Since the beasts escaped, you have been my source of strength,’ she said. ‘You kept everything under control. But now you need to be honest with me. I need to know what’s happening. You can’t keep me in the dark.’

  ‘Why did you save me?’ he asked.

  She paused, and looked away.

  ‘Why did you save me down in Section Six, the day the beasts broke out?’

  Again she said nothing, attempting to blank out the memory. When the alarm had first gone off, she’d made for the barracks along with everyone else. But upon realising that neither Lesper nor Kramer was there, she charged down to Section Six. There she found no guards, only blood.

  Kramer turned to the screen on the wall and switched it back on to reveal security footage of Section Six. She watched him cowering against the wall, sparks flying, and one of them towering over him. Then she saw herself enter the room, pick up one of the fallen coils, and fire at the beast. She merely stunned it, but it gave them enough time to get out.

  ‘I don’t know why I saved you,’ she said. ‘But I can’t imagine we’d have survived without you. Someone had to make the decisions you’ve made. You kept everything under control. You kept us alive.’

  Kramer stood and slowly walked to the window out of which the very edge of Tempest-Beta could be seen, before turning and looking her in the eye. ‘Human beings grow up believing that the world around them is a product of themselves, when in actual fact it is the other way around. They are slaves to the world around them. No matter how much we learn or how far we progress, as long as man continues to believe he is the one in control then control is the one thing man will never have.’

  ‘I’ve always trusted you,’ she said. ‘When everyone else didn’t, I saw you knew what you were doing. But . . .’

  ‘But you don’t believe in my decision to send the captain down with the bait?’

  ‘Honestly,’ she said, ‘no.’

  ‘Well, you were right,’ he said. ‘I did always know what I was doing.’ And with that he moved quickly back across the room, sat back down, and fluently keyed something into the computer. ‘I sent those people down there, along with the captain, because there is no way we can take them all with us. Nor can I risk another attack from the beasts. By sacrificing them, the demons will be kept below, deep among the catacombs.’

  Ketrass moved to stand behind him. ‘But why?’

  ‘Because,’ he said, not looking up, ‘in times of crisis the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Thousands of years of history have taught us that.’

  ‘What the hell do you mean, times of crisis? There is room on the Chaos for everyone!’

  ‘Yes, my dear, but you’re assuming I mean to escape and head for civilization.’

  ‘Where else would we go?’

  ‘What if I told you we could never return home?’

  ‘Then you’d have to give me a damn good reason why!’

  Kramer didn’t respond and continued typing into the computer. ‘Let me tell you a story,’ he said.

  ‘A story?’

  ‘Watch the screen, Avéne.’

  She looked up and yet more security footage materialised. It showed a man, running through the station corridors, frantically looking behind and above him.

  ‘Is that . . .’

  ‘Lesper,’ he said. ‘Yes. Our brave commander, after releasing the beasts and leaving me down in Section Six, proceeded to the dock and stole the Nyx.’

  ‘Yes, we know that.’

  ‘Well the story doesn’t end there. Keep watching.’

  Another camera was accessed, and she gasped, shivers trickling down her spine, as something large and dark moved through the corridors in the same direction as Lesper. Toward the dock.

  ‘One of them followed him?’

  Kramer didn’t reply.

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Let me get this straight. You found these . . . creatures, down in the Labyrinth. You brought, what, fifteen of them up?’

  ‘Fifteen, yes.’

  ‘Then proceeded to study them.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘But the other . . . Subject Sixteen . . . you created it yourself.’

  ‘Yes, Avéne.’

  ‘Using whom?’

  ‘Our old captain. Captain Berenguer.’

  ‘What?!’

  Kramer twitched, but said nothing.

  ‘Dathlan Berenguer was a good man. He didn’t deserve—’

  ‘No one deserved what happened to him. But it was necessary.’

  ‘You keep telling yourself that!’

  The Professor twisted back to his screen. The footage went off. Another image sprang up. A strange image.

  ‘Is that—’

  ‘A satellite projection?’ he said. ‘Yes, it is. A reading from our station scanner directed at the planet below.’

  ‘And that’s a . . . a personnel beacon?’

  ‘It is indeed.’

  There was no need to explain who this particular beacon belonged to. ‘It’s Lesper,’ she said. ‘The Nyx is down there, down on Tempest-Beta.’

  ‘Precisely.’

  Ketrass took a deep breath. ‘Subject Sixteen followed him onto the Nyx and he ended up down there. But I don’t understand. Could Lesper be alive?’

  ‘The reading confirms he is in fact dead,’ he said. ‘But the beacon’s continuing regardless. Something is charging it. But that’s not the interesting part. Lesper once told me he feared the true keepers of this place had never left.’ Kramer rewound the recording of the beacon’s position so that it read some days ago.

  ‘I discovered the beacon two days after the attack, as I was widening the search to see if I could find a beacon within Erebus, around the periphery of the Labyrinth. I found nothing there, but instead happened upon this.’

  The date on the screen read just after the attack, then advanced another day, and—

  ‘Hell no!’ Ketrass cried, staring at the screen, mesmerised. ‘You’re joking. H . . . How?’

  ‘Who knows?’ Kramer said with an excited though somewhat anxious grin. ‘But I have my theories.’

  He played the recording again. Ketrass could not understand it, but guessed what it meant. She placed the pistol down onto the table and walked forward, watching the pulsating beacon inside the Nyx, staring as it moved across the screen, hauled by something incredibly large and powerful across the stormy surface of Tempest-Beta, through and into a patch of unnerving darkness, where it disappeared.

  ‘Something’s down there.’

  CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

  THE THREE SAT panting in a closed-off room, the kindled coilbolt immersing their uneasy expressions in a red burning blaze under which Ferranti hastily obstructed the windowed door, Justus lay on a nearby table, and Anna sat with her knees tucked into her chest in the darkest corner she could find. Justus held up the flickering coil and attempted to work the circular comm device he had found within his jacket. Anna watched him hold the comm up high and the palm-sized metal plate buzzed into life. A connection was made as the sound of static filled the small space.

  ‘Is it working?’ she asked.

  ‘Only one way to find out.’ Justus flicking the toggle, held the contraption high, and said, ‘Araman . . . Araman, it’s Antal. Are you there?’

  A moment of overwrought quiet followed, then:

  —I’m here.

  Justus breathed out heavily. ‘Thank peace,’ he said. ‘Araman, you have to help . . . the beasts are down here with us! We don’t know where the others are—’

  —I know, Araman replied. Stay calm. I will help you.

  ‘I knew you wouldn’t betray me,’ he said.

  —Don’t be silly! Now listen: Ketrass and I are going to deal with Kramer. But they’ve completely destroyed the elevator shaft. I didn’t know he would do that.

  ‘So what do we do?’

  —It’s impossible to get back up that way unless you’re one of those creatures, and the very last thing you want i
s to get caught in between.

  ‘Okay,’ Justus said, attempting to remain calm and composed. ‘What other way back up is there?’

  Another moment of silence.

  —There is no accessible way up this side of the station.

  Anna slumped to the ground. Justus lowered the coil, dropped the comm onto the table, and put his head in his hand. Hopeless.

  —Antal . . . there are two ways down into Erebus.

  ‘Section Six!’ Justus cried.

  ‘Quiet!’ said Ferranti from beside the obstructed door. ‘No noise.’

  Justus nodded and picked the comm back up. ‘Section Six. Isn’t there another way?’

  —I’m afraid not, Araman said. That’s your only chance.

  ‘That side hasn’t been blocked off?’

  —It has been blocked off, yes. But from what I gather only the top-side barricade is still there. I can try and destroy it, leaving only one obstacle in your path.

  ‘What obstacle?’ Anna asked.

  A lamenting sigh carried from the comm, filling the room.

  ‘We’ll have to go through the Black Labyrinth,’ Justus said, trembling as he said it.

  —Listen, said Araman. I have to go. Things are not good up here. Make your way through the Labyrinth. It’s your only chance.

  ‘Okay. Good luck up there.’

  —Oh, Antal . . .

  ‘Yeah?’

  —Take your coilbolt.

  And he was gone. Justus glanced up at the other two; he looked just as bewildered and frightened as Anna felt.

  ‘What’s the Black Labyrinth?’ Ferranti asked.

  ‘It’s . . . It’s what they call the inside of this asteroid . . . the maze of rock beneath us. There’re two ways down there. We’re above one. The other is in Section Six, the other side of the station. If we’re going to get out we have no choice but to go through it. If their plans are right there’s a chance it’ll bring us up on the other side—’

  ‘With those things out there looking for us?’ Anna cried. ‘I don’t think so!’

  ‘You’d prefer to stay here and wait for them to come back for us?’ he said. ‘Which they will.’

  Anna did not reply. Truth be told she did want to stay and let the creatures come back for her. There was no way to get out; and crawling down towards them in the dark sounded worse than her nightmares. All she wanted was Gílana back.

  ‘If that’s the only way, then that’s where we’ll go,’ Ferranti said, and he reached for the cupboard to begin sliding it from in front of the door. He was so tough, so strong; she wished she could have that kind of strength.

  ‘There’s just one thing,’ Justus said. ‘Our power doesn’t work down there . . . among the labyrinth. Electricity, battery . . . none of it does for very long. I don’t know how we’ll be able to see a thing, never mind figure out where we’re going.’

  ‘What about this?’ Anna asked, remembering the small swiss-knife Ferranti had given her for her birthday; she reached down into her boot and lifted it out, flicking on the tiny torch to light the room.

  Justus looked at it carefully. ‘Some kind of battery power? Old?’

  ‘Yes,’ Ferranti said.

  ‘I doubt it’ll work. Ketrass . . . my friend told me batteries run out quick. The one and only time I’ve been down there my torch went off almost right away.’

  ‘But if we take it,’ Ferranti said, ‘there’s always a chance, however small, right?’

  ‘I suppose . . .’

  ‘Then let’s get moving. We don’t have much time. You said they’ll leave soon.’

  ‘Within an hour or two. Hopefully Araman will be able to hold them up.’

  Ferranti nodded. ‘No time to waste then.’

  * * *

  The three started out, Justus’ coil lighting the way as he led them lower and deeper. Anna treaded carefully, creeping in the middle of the two captains. Only their breath was audible in the silence, alongside their slow footsteps and the hum of the coil. Not long after moving off, they reached another elevator hatch.

  ‘This isn’t going to be easy,’ Justus said. ‘There’s another shaft here. It’s the only way down.’

  Anna sighed. She couldn’t do it.

  ‘It’s longer than the other, and we’ll have to climb down.’

  ‘Climb?’ she said.

  ‘Unless you can think of a way to operate the elevator,’ he said, ‘we’ll have to use the ladders. I’m not saying it’ll be easy. But it’s probably safer. Less noise, less chance of drawing attention.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Look,’ Ferranti said, annoyance in his voice. ‘We don’t have a choice anymore. You want to get back to your sister?’

  ‘Of course I do!’

  ‘Then we have to trust him. Come on, I won’t let anything happen to you.’

  Anna knew he was lying. If those things, whatever they were, found them, then they were all as good as dead. But, in his attempt to comfort her, he had reminded her of the only reason she might possibly be able to do it: Gílana.

  ‘Okay,’ she said.

  Justus forced the hatch open and then turned to her. ‘You have that torch?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Perhaps we should use that.’ He switched off the coil. ‘This makes too much noise. If they’re coming back up I’d prefer to hear them before they hear us.’

  She took out her swiss-knife and handed it to him; he lifted the base of the elevator and dropped down. Anna slowly moved through the gap, followed by Ferranti. Her palms were so sweaty, she could hardly keep her grip on the thick iron bars sunk into the rocky wall. Her legs were weak, her hands unsteady. She took long, deep breaths. When she looked down, however, she realised she could only just make out Justus’ form below her, never mind the bottom of the shaft. The space was so wide she could not even make out the far wall.

  ‘You okay?’ asked Ferranti from above.

  Anna breathed her reply, attempting to focus on maintaining her grip. She thought of her uncle, and Jon, and Gílana, and Callista for that matter. The old Iástron would have known what to do. For several chilling minutes they descended the passage, Ferranti continuing to encourage her and Justus silently leading the way.

  Eventually his voice came from below. ‘We’ve reached the bottom. Be quiet now.’

  Anna found her feet, unsteady though they were, and once more Justus led them through hissing tunnels, dark and deep and cold; and they shivered in the wretched fear. Those foul creatures were sure to be around the next corner, or above them, or else waiting in the shadows. They soon reached what seemed to be the end of the tunnel. Justus turned and gestured to the wall, upon which hung several yellow suits.

  ‘We’ll need those inside,’ he said, peering around. ‘Put them on quickly.’

  Anna reached up for one, but as she did Ferranti grasped her arm and pulled her back, Justus extended his weapon, and all three backed up in terror.

  ‘Don’t fire! Don’t fire! It’s me, only me!’ cried a shuddering old man, emerging from the dark corner behind the suits. The captains relaxed, breathing heavily, though Anna’s heart continued to thump in her throat. She recognised the old man immediately.

  ‘Commander Naffan,’ she said. ‘What’re you . . .’

  ‘The same as you, my . . . my dear.’

  ‘Good to see you alive, Commander,’ Ferranti said. ‘Are you alone? Were you brought down here?’

  ‘Yes and yes,’ he said, shaking blue and covered in the sweat of fear. ‘Only me. Where is everyone?’

  ‘Not with us,’ Justus said.

  ‘Th . . . Those things,’ he said, ‘p . . . pulled us down here. When a second’s chance came I threw myself behind here and couldn’t force my body to move.’

  ‘So they came through this way?’ Ferranti asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ Justus said. ‘Araman said that’s where they were taking them.’

  ‘You never said we’d be following them down,’ Ferranti said. ‘Goin
g exactly where they’re going.’

  ‘We take the risk or we stay and die for certain.’

  Ferranti looked back to Anna.

  ‘Well I’m coming with you,’ Naffan said. ‘I’m having out!’ Sniffing and wiping his brow he clambered out, picked up a suit, and straightened his back. ‘We need these?’

  ‘If we’re going to get out,’ Justus said, ‘yes. Inside there’s some kind of atmosphere. We just can’t breathe it.’

  All four placed the yellow suits on top of their clothes. Anna managed to get into hers, fixing her heavy helmet over her head and securing the oxygen tank over her back, before helping the shorter Naffan into his.

  ‘I don’t suppose there’s much hope of us getting away from here,’ he said to her. ‘Wherever here is. I thought after what happened on Rotavar, the horrors we saw there, that we’d return home and everything would be okay.’

  ‘It will be. We’ll get out,’ Anna told him, and placed the helmet over his head. ‘You’ll see.’

  Naffan smiled feebly. ‘I hope so.’

  Behind them both captains, already in their suits, had begun to open the hatch. They twisted the lever. A hissing sounded. They all backed away.

  ‘It’s okay,’ said Justus, laughing, it seemed, out of relief. ‘It’s only air escaping.’

  ‘Lord help us!’ said Naffan. ‘If you do that again I will lay a clout across your back!’

  Justus chuckled and returned to opening the hatch. Lucky for the four of them, they each had their suits and helmets firmly fixed in place, as the hatch opened and what air there was in the room was at once mixed with whatever atmosphere existed on the other side. Anna watched Justus step through, and followed to witness a scene of utter chaos. It seemed the beasts he spoke of had not used the other hatch, but instead broke through.

  ‘They destroyed that hatch,’ Ferranti said; the others listened through the comm devices built into the suits.

  ‘Yeah,’ Justus said. ‘They tore the hatch apart like paper. But they must have opened this one.’ He bent down for a closer look. ‘Their claw marks are all over it.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Maybe they figured out how to open them.’