Iástron

by James C. Dunn

  Without delay she removed the rest of the life-suit and stood back in her Titanese overalls. Looking around and listening as hard as she could, she could make out voices and hisses calling out all around, some distant, others close, and so she moved off through the pitch-black tunnels. She could see her way through the dark, but had no idea how.

  After what felt like hours, having moved through a series of small tunnels leading steadily higher, she turned a corner and continued through into a larger chamber. Unable to make herself stop even for a second, she entered another. Eventually she looked out over a wide chasm, and a hand seized her ankle. A figure looked up from the ground, gasping for breath, and clad in a yellow space suit.

  ‘Naffan!’ she said. ‘Commander Naffan, you’re alive! Can you move?’

  ‘No,’ he said, struggling to breathe. ‘Please don’t leave me.’

  ‘I won’t. I won’t.’

  ‘Stay . . . with me.’

  Anna looked around. Shapes she had not noticed now moved everywhere. ‘Naffan, I—’

  ‘Please.’ Through the helmet she could see his eyes begging. She couldn’t leave him now, and so took his hand and knelt down.

  ‘I’m sorry this has happened to us . . . to you. I told you we’d be okay, but I was wrong. I’m . . . I’m sorry.’

  Another sound nearby. Rocks shifted. Movement in the shadows.

  ‘Something’s here. We should move. Come on, Naffan, I’ll help you up.’

  More shadows crawled across the room.

  She turned back to the elderly man. ‘Naffan? Commander Naffan?’ A tear rolled down her cheek. He was already gone, his eyes closed, his old face pale yet peaceful. Anna stood gradually, wiping her eyes, and stopped.

  Even as she looked, an arm reached around the closest corner. It was dark, long, and thin. Black-boned, the horned demon appeared in her path. She did not attempt to run, but remained still, forcing herself to breathe in short gasps. The beast moved forward on all fours, close to the ground. Razor-sharp teeth draped over the corners of its severe snout. It crept closer, silently watching her through eyes concealed within folds of dark skin. It reached her, and stood to full height, towering over her. Trembling, she closed her eyes.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY

  THE BLONDE GIRL stirred. Eyes moved beneath her eyelids. She remained still, not yet conscious. Araman looked down at her. I’m going to save you. I’m going to save you all.

  Xerin Kramer moved from where he sat upon the ground, and leaving Ketrass on her knees found his feet.

  ‘Stay there,’ Araman said, stepping forward, angling the blaster.

  ‘How long are you planning on playing this game, boy?’

  ‘Until I get what I want.’

  ‘Pray tell me.’

  He looked to Avéne. ‘I know what it is you’re planning on doing.’

  ‘I very much doubt that, Alwar.’

  ‘Either everyone leaves or no one does.’

  ‘Okay.’ Kramer smiled. ‘No one does.’

  Ketrass followed the professor and stood, a frown sweeping across her facial muscles. ‘I’ve had enough of this,’ she said. ‘You want the soldiers up here, don’t you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re creating a distraction so you can get Justus out of Erebus.’

  Kramer watched the daggers they aimed at each other, a look of delight on his face, and said, ‘Very clever, Avéne. Pointless as it is to try. How is he attempting to do it?’

  ‘They’re on their way through the Black Labyrinth at this very moment,’ she said.

  ‘Avéne, no,’ Araman said.

  ‘Are you sure that’s the right thing to do?’ the Professor asked.

  ‘It was the only way—’

  ‘No, I mean are you sure saving the Captain is the right thing to do?’

  Araman leaned forward. ‘What the hell are you talking about? Of course it is, you callous man.’

  ‘Harsh words,’ Kramer said. ‘Then again, you don’t know what I know.’

  ‘Which is what?’

  Kramer stood slowly and walked to the window overlooking the planet below. Araman kept the blaster pointed at him. ‘There is a greater danger here that I didn’t tell you before, that I haven’t told anyone. Only Lesper and I knew about the design, about the trap.’

  The two listened intently. What was it he knew?

  ‘There is a man out there not of our time,’ Kramer said. ‘You have heard the old tales of the legendary Iástron race?’

  ‘Yes,’ Araman said.

  ‘And have you heard the tales they tell of the Iástrons’ powerful leader, Peter Marx?’

  Ketrass nodded. ‘Most people have, even if they don’t know the name.’

  Kramer smiled. ‘Well, I have something to tell you both. Peter Marx, it would seem, has been on this station with us for some time.’

  Araman leaned forwards, lowering the blaster.

  ‘When the Iástron society of the Four Systems failed—a long time ago now—Peter Marx, along with the majority of his people, disappeared. Very few have been seen since. He who believes them to be truly gone is a fool. One man has been hunting them: my Córonat, our master, has spent his life in pursuit of Peter Marx. A few short weeks ago, Lesper found him.

  ‘He is not human and cannot die like the rest of us. He is dangerous and intends on destroying our entire operation. So far he has succeeded in infecting Lesper, releasing the imprisoned beasts, and setting them loose. How and for what purpose I can only guess, but we have information on him dating back centuries. He has followers on this station that are helping him, even now.’

  Ketrass edged alongside him. ‘Professor, what are you saying?’

  ‘I am saying, my dear, that our new captain, Antal Justus, cannot die. He cannot be killed and will not succumb to old age. His real name is Peter Marx, and Lesper and I, on instruction from our master, lured him into coming here. Araman, our quiet little friend, has been fooled too.’

  ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  Kramer looked Ketrass dead in the eye. ‘Peter has been under our scrutiny since he first arrived. Every middle-ranking soldier was briefed on him, observed and watched him. We tested Peter’s reliability by sending him under the watchful eyes of his soldiers to the outpost Aurora, after which I sought evidence of his loyalty, ordering him to send the prisoners down into the station. Alas, he failed, and will now remain trapped, down among the catacombs, forever.’

  ‘What about me?’

  ‘You will come with me, Avéne. You are quite safe.’

  ‘And Araman?’

  ‘Araman Alwar,’ he said, ‘I am going to kill.’

  Araman raised his head, looked at Kramer, saw the pistol in his hand. Kramer pulled the trigger. At once he felt the furious, knife-like blow tear through his shoulder. His head spun. Multicoloured rays of light filled his vision. A blinding heat flushed through his face as he fell from the chair and onto his back.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE

  A DEEP ROAR sounded among the caverns. Justus opened his eyes and stared into a mass of black. Another roar was quickly answered by a spine-chilling hiss. He reached out with both hands, grasping for something with which to pull himself up. The deep thudding which at first he thought to be grating the inside of his head began to pulse through the ground beneath him. Realising he was spread out on his back, he forced himself to sit. The still form of Diego Ferranti lounged nearby. The torch lay discarded between them, its beam burning faintly at the far wall.

  ‘Ferranti?’

  No reply.

  ‘Ferranti, can you hear me?’ A dull hum entered his helmet. There was still a connection. He leaned over and shoved him. ‘Ferranti!’

  ‘Uhh . . . huh? What?’

  ‘You scared the hell out of me!’

  He grunted. ‘Whatever. What—’

  A roar shook them where they sat.

  ‘What the hell was that?!’

  A shiver flew dow
n Justus’ spine.

  ‘Where’s it coming from?’ Ferranti whispered.

  ‘I . . . err . . . I don’t know.’

  Ferranti stood, picked up the torch. ‘Let’s get the hell out of this tunnel.’

  They looked up and simultaneously grasped their miraculous stroke of luck, having tumbled down a steep hollow, suits somehow undamaged. Both stumbled along again, down through a narrow breach. After the run-in with the beastly battalion, the two meandered slowly lower, and eventually found themselves lost. Both were close to giving up. Their life-suits were all set to concede defeat.

  They had only just come to a halt, exhausted, when another cavernous snarl echoed towards them; it was impossible to tell from which direction it had ricocheted. But to both of them it was clear: whatever it was was certainly larger than a beast. Rushing on down a small channel they snaked around spiked barbs jutting out from the dense walls and doing their upmost to impale them, before emerging in another tunnel, almost as large as the central chamber in which they had lost Anna. Justus stared straight ahead. Something moved in the distance. The ground beneath them shook once more in rapid thumps. The trembling grew greater, faster, and more powerful. Then they heard the roar once more: a sound which made the hissing of the beasts more akin to a serene melody.

  The two men looked to each other in dread, and made ready to run; but as they turned they found that they would have stood, were there any light, in the shadow of a creature unimaginable. It gazed down at them with two burning eyes and seemed to sneer through jagged, unevenly-bladed teeth, set into a titanic jaw. Its saliva oozed, almost seeping upon them as it leaned forward on two powerful hind legs, its short, thin arms reaching no lower than its ribcage.

  The rumbling at their feet grew greater as the creature behind seemed to gain speed. The coilbolt in Justus’ hand couldn’t possibly do the monster any harm.

  ‘On the count of three,’ he said, ‘we go right.’

  ‘Uh-uh,’ came a whimper.

  ‘One!’

  He waved the coil up high.

  ‘Two!’

  The colossal creature snapped its head towards the bright red light—

  ‘THREE!’

  Justus launched the coil far to his left while the two captains shot towards a narrow tunnel in the opposite direction. But it seemed, though speed was on their side, luck, as it would have it, was not. They charged into the dark tunnel leading from the chamber—or at least what they thought was a tunnel. Reaching no more than a metre or two within, they gazed in horror at the dark dead end now facing them.

  Ferranti shone the light about uncontrollably, attempting to uncover a small crevice leading out. But there was nothing, only thick, black stone trapping them in all directions but one. As Justus spun and Ferranti shone the light back into the chamber leading out they both vaulted back. A horrifying face moved within. Its huge, thick flexing tongue grabbed and searched; the roaring echoing around them threatened to burst their ear-drums.

  Justus regretted throwing his weapon away and he prayed that, were Anna alive, she hadn’t been found by one of these things.

  ‘What do we do?’ Ferranti cried, fast losing control.

  ‘Stay calm. Think!’

  The monster’s jaws reached their limit, while its tongue stretched out, scalpel-like barbs extended from within, now mere inches from Justus, who pushed himself up against the far wall. Closing his eyes he struggled to focus his breathing. He pictured somewhere happy, somewhere, anywhere but this nightmare.

  He sat at the helm of the Flux, his hands about the controls. Dimal, Noah, Raj, and Shree all smiling at his side—

  ‘Justus!’

  His eyes shot open as Ferranti struck headlong into the creature’s jaws, assailing the black tongue with the swiss-knife, and a roar filled their ears. The enormous head shot up, breaking the low roof of the cave and forcing down a mass of rock on top of them. Justus coiled himself into a ball and waited for the noise of collapsing rock and chilling roars to abate, before jumping up and searching desperately for Ferranti amongst the rubble. He sighed as he found the captain still alive. He checked both suits for signs of damage, and his face burned when he found a tear in his own, around the right elbow.

  He held his arm over the split and attempted to move, knee deep in slabs of black rock. ‘Ferranti, you hear me?!’ Ferranti, also knee deep, having been driven up into the wall, made no reply. Justus saw the swiss-knife-and-torch still in the other’s hand; with his aching left arm covering his right elbow he reached across with his right arm and lifted the light from Ferranti’s grasp to find it had extended into a somewhat sizeable blade. Hardly able to move, he pushed the dagger back in and aimed the light at the tunnel entrance. The creature had disappeared. Instead, stood still in the opening of the tunnel, was—

  ‘Anna?’

  A figure moved forwards.

  ‘Anna, is that you?’

  Whatever it was wore no life-suit.

  ‘Antal?’ came the reply.

  He almost burst into tears. ‘I’m here! Ferranti and I, we’re here!’

  Anna bounded forwards and began shifting the larger rocks to make a path in which they could move. With her help, he and Ferranti scrambled from inside the opening; but upon leaving he fell to the ground as the sight before him almost stopped his heart there and then.

  The two monstrous creatures stared down at him, their emaciated chests heaving under might, weight, and bone. And all around, like stones surrounded by boulders on a mountainside, the beasts waited, eagerly. Their horns rocked from side to side, watching, waiting.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Anna said, almost calmly. Her eyes were focused, stern. ‘They won’t hurt you . . . I think.’

  ‘How do you know?’ he asked. ‘How are you breathing? Can we all—’

  Anna shook her head and presented her arm, upon which seethed a band of black; it glowed as though it had been dyed or burned into her skin. ‘Something happened up there, when I put this on,’ she said.

  ‘You touched the orb,’ he said. ‘I heard that word. Gilaxiad. What happened?’

  She looked away down the tunnel, teeming with motionless, gazing beasts. ‘I’m not sure. But it’s all connected. It has to be. My presence is stopping these things for now, but I don’t know how long that’ll last.’ She looked him in the eye, before holding out his advanced coil. ‘Don’t lose this. Something tells me you’re going to need it.’

  She tapped Ferranti’s helmet and he began to stir. He gazed up at the beasts and the creatures close by. Anna held a finger to her lips and smiled. She seemed different somehow, like she wasn’t scared. How could she not be scared?

  ‘We’re lost,’ Ferranti whispered. ‘We have no idea where we are.’

  ‘I do,’ she said. ‘You can follow me.’

  Justus looked down to his torn suit and motioned for her to help him. Inside the pocket of each was a minor patch-up kit, enough to mend the split at least. She took it out and began securing his suit, while Ferranti remained rooted to the spot.

  ‘How did you survive?’ Justus asked her. ‘You fell so far.’

  ‘The bracelet,’ she said. ‘It did something, like it wanted me. I . . .’ She breathed in and out slowly, and shook her head as though remedying some internal thought. ‘I found Commander Naffan. He’s gone. But after that, one of them found me.’ She affixed the second layer of adhesive substance to his arm and wrapped a tight binding around it.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘It moved towards me, slowly, on all fours . . . and then stood above me. One of its fingers . . .’ she shook her head again ‘. . . touched me and stroked my face. I whimpered and whispered, “Please, stop it.” But it didn’t. “Please . . . stop,” I said. And then it stopped, and backed away, and turned towards the wall.’

  ‘It obeyed you?’

  ‘I told it to leave. The thing seemed to bow, and then left me alone.’ She went to continue, but seemed to think better of it. There was something else, someth
ing she was holding back, but they needed to move, so he didn’t push it.

  She moved to help Ferranti to his feet. ‘We go. Now.’ And she started off, leading the way; Justus followed second, and Ferranti hobbled after holding the swiss-torch. They weaved their way through the beasts, trembling at the sight of the creatures, waiting for them to strike, to tear them limb from limb.

  ‘They’re watching us,’ Justus said.

  ‘Don’t stare back,’ she told them.

  ‘Do they even have eyes?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. They can see us somehow.’

  ‘How do you know this?’ Ferranti asked.

  ‘Shhh,’ she replied with an unsettling air of composure.

  ‘Something here is very wrong, Anna.’

  ‘Aren’t you cold?’ Justus whispered.

  ‘I don’t feel cold or warm,’ she said. ‘It’s the bracelet. It’s done something to me . . . like it’s keeping me alive.’

  When they reached the end of the hordes of beasts—they must have passed thousands, he had no doubt—the many creatures began to follow. Justus felt like they should be running, but Anna wouldn’t let them. The demons followed slowly on all fours, crawling and watching, but never hissing. After a while Ferranti stepped ahead and took her arm.

  ‘Anna, tell me what’s going on. How do you know where you’re going? We could be going in circles—’

  ‘We’re not.’

  ‘How do you know?!’

  ‘Ferranti,’ she said. ‘You told me that people say ultimatt power gives engines life.’

  ‘Yes, but that’s a theory among scores. So what?’

  ‘Well, that’s what it felt like in the chamber. Diego, that orb called to me. When I put the bracelet on I felt connected to it, and touching the orb it . . . it somehow felt—’

  ‘Alive?’ Justus said.

  ‘Alive. Yes, exactly.’

  ‘You mean this place,’ he said, staring around, ‘this place . . . it’s . . . living?’

  ‘No,’ Anna said. ‘Not the rock. The power source at its centre. Just like on our vessels. I think this whole place is a vessel . . . a ship . . . a—’

  ‘Interstellar spacecraft transport,’ Ferranti finished.

  Anna smiled fearfully, nodded.

  Justus gulped. ‘A vessel you just fired up.’

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO

  THE THREE MOVED faster now, aware that time was short. According to the life suits over ninety minutes had passed since they first put them on. Oxygen levels were low, their energy was dwindling, and the beasts continued to follow behind.