Faulty Prophet

by Karl Beecher

  In swinging her, Arfang had created an opening, a way back towards the bridge. The pistol! If she was lucky, it was lying somewhere on the floor there.

  She scuttled past him, practically on all fours to keep out of his reach. Fingertips snatched at the back of her survival suit, but she made it onto the bridge unharmed. She scoured desperately over table surfaces, under chairs, between consoles but the gun was nowhere to be seen. There were just too many nooks and crevices it could have skidded into.

  She turned around, horrified to see that Arfang had followed and was just a couple of paces behind. He now blocked the only way out.

  She had backed herself into a corner.

  Arfang wasted no time and swung a huge fist at her. Tyresa's reactions leaped in action once more. She ducked sideways, flung out her own arm, and deflected his punch harmlessly into the air. He swung again with his other arm and Tyresa deflected it again. A third time she deflected it and even followed up with a jab to his guts, which achieved little.

  This couldn't go on forever.

  The open airlock lay just beyond the doorway behind him. Her only chance now was retreat, to get back there somehow, into the chamber and close the door behind her. She looked feverishly for a way past.

  Arfang meanwhile swung another punch. Tyresa went to deflect it, but at the last second, it switched course. Arfang swept his arm under her armpit, lunged forward and wrapped his other arm around her.

  He had her now, so close Tyresa could smell his fetid breath on her face. She struggled and wriggled, but the man's grip was implacable. He lifted her clean off the floor and began to squeeze. His muscles compressed around her, squashing her like a snake crushing the life out of its prey. She tensed her own muscles, trying to fight the pressure, but it was futile. Every time her chest contracted, Arfang's grip closed further.

  Her left arm was trapped, but her right was free. She pounded her fist against the man's head, but it was like punching a sack of meat. She clawed at his face until she drew blood. She writhed and kicked, but nothing worked. The beast would not let go.

  She was running out of breath and out of strength.

  But there was one last thing she could do. With her free hand, she reached to her side, scrabbling for the scope hanging at her waist. The heavy, oversized, military-grade scope. She grabbed it firmly in her hand, brought it up over her head, and with all her might swung it against Arfang's mouth.

  Crack!

  Arfang's grip instantly went loose. Tyresa dropped to the floor and gulped at the air. Then, seeing Arfang still reeling, she put her hands on the console behind her, swung up her legs and kicked them hard against Arfang's chest. He staggered back a few paces, giving Tyresa the chance to see what damage she'd done. Arfang's chin was covered with blood. He poked gingerly inside his mouth, eventually stopping when he found what he was searching for. He bared his teeth in anger, and Tyresa saw a conspicuous, bloody gap among them.

  On the one hand, it had been a hell of a good shot. On the other hand, all she'd achieved was to make Arfang angrier and delay the inevitable. He was still blocking the way to the airlock.

  Tyresa, her hands still on the console behind her, felt at the controls. An idea flashed into her mind, a raw and dangerous idea. Probably best to try before she could talk herself out of it.

  She spun around to face the console. The helm controls. Perfect. She scrabbled desperately for the right buttons.

  Behind her, Arfang was closing in.

  There! The landing controls.

  Tyresa jabbed the forward thruster buttons.

  The Rabbit‘s front landing jets fired with a colossal whoosh. But, without the aft jets to accompany them, the ship merely reared up like a bucking horse. It must have reached up sixty or seventy degrees because the concept of 'down' on the bridge underwent a violent and sudden change.

  The direction of gravity swung towards the back of the bridge. The floor suddenly became a wall. Tyresa grabbed the railing on the underside of the console to stop herself from tumbling.

  Arfang was not so lucky. From her vantage point, Tyresa watched him suddenly become a comical sight, ‘walking' very quickly backwards flailing his arms around as he tried hopelessly to grab hold of something. But he kept falling, off the bridge, across the corridor, and into the airlock chamber. He finally slammed against the outer doors with a thud.

  The noise of the thrusters, meanwhile, began dying down. The ship reached the peak of its lurch, and it would soon come horizontal again. She had only a few seconds left. She shimmied along the railing a little, lined herself up, then let go. She slid along the ground, skidding into the passageway until she landed on the door frame of the airlock. The ship began to descend, and Arfang began a desperate scramble out of the chamber.

  But he had no chance. Tyresa punched the door lock, and the airlock's inner doors slammed shut, trapping Arfang inside. A few seconds later, the front of the ship came back to earth with a bone-shattering crash.

  Tyresa pulled herself to her feet and looked through the glass of the doors. Arfang was angrily punching, barging and kicking against them, but it was futile, even for him. Her hand hovered over the airlock release button, which would depressurise the chamber and open the outer doors. For a brief moment, as her heart pounded and she stood panting, she considered sending the bastard out into the fog to choke to death, but then the adrenaline drained away. That was the anger talking. It wasn't the way she did things.

  Instead, she turned and dashed down the corridor where she'd heard Colin's voice.

  "Colin!" she cried out. "Where are you?"

  "Here!" came his muffled reply, accompanied by a rapping sound.

  She followed it to one of the doors. The panel beside it was lit up red, and a tiny readout made it clear that not only was the door locked but a magnetic shield encompassed the room. This explained why Tyresa's scope didn't pick up Colin's life signs earlier1.

  She unlocked the door, which slid open to reveal Colin standing in the doorway.

  "Colin!" exclaimed Tyresa. She smiled and went to embrace him, but stopped herself when she got a closer look at him. "Jeez, you look like shit."

  Only a couple of days had passed since she had last seen him, but he looked like he'd aged a decade. His face was deathly pale, his eyes glassy and drooping. He didn't so much stand as he did gently sway like a tree in the wind. The fresh, bleeding gash on his forehead probably explained that.

  Tyresa pointed at it. "Did they hurt you?"

  "Huh?" Colin prodded the cut. "No, that happened just now. I was sent flying against the wall. Nearly knocked myself out. What happened?"

  "Ah, that was…I mean, I…" Tyresa suddenly felt guilty. "You know what, never mind, it was Arfang's fault. Come on, let's get out of here!"

  She grabbed his hand and led him quickly back down the corridor.

  As they arrived at the airlock, Colin looked around. "Where is Arfang?"

  "I had to lock him out," she replied, pointing to the double doors. Arfang's angry face was pressed up against the glass. Tyresa opened up a locker beside the airlock and began searching through it. "I got your message by the way."

  "My what?" said Colin uncertainly.

  "Your secret message. The one you smuggled in your video, remember?"

  "Oh that. Yes, well, I…I…"

  "Very clever. I didn't know you had it in you!" Tyresa pulled out one of the remaining survival suits and handed it to Colin. "Now stick that on, and we can get back to the Turtle."

  "Turtle?" Colin said as he eyed the suit. "Which turtle?"

  "The Turtle," repeated Tyresa. "My ship."

  "Oh, hmm…yes, of course. Your ship."

  Colin struggled with the survival suit, slowly turning the fabric around in his hands seemingly confused. When he finally found the leg of the suit, he lifted his foot as though it were made of lead. He looked like a hopeless drunk trying to get his trousers on. Then, he lost his balance and toppled over. Tyresa rushed over to him.


  "Man," she said, looking at his wound. "That blow to the head must have knocked the sense out of you." She began stuffing Colin's limbs into the suit. "We'll have to get Ade to take a look at it."

  "Ade?" said Colin. "Who's—"

  Suddenly, a loud, angry voice came from the bridge. It sounded crackly, as if coming through a speaker.

  "Arfang! Come in, Arfang, this is Hanson. Come in!"

  "Oh," said Tyresa, smiling, "that reminds me."

  She dashed onto the bridge, leaving Colin to finish suiting up. She opened a small panel beneath the helm console and rummaged around until she found the right component. A firm yank and it came loose with a pop! and the whole console went dead.

  She then went to a neighbouring console. In the deepest voice she could muster, she spoke into the microphone: "Arfang here."

  "Arfang," replied Hanson, "We've been betrayed! This is not the chamber of the Creator, it's some kind of—"

  Gunga's voice crackled over the speaker too. "Hanson, you forgot to grant him glory."

  "Oh, fuck off!" Hanson yelled back. "Arfang. I want to speak to the so-called prophet right now."

  Tyresa reverted to her own voice. "Colin can't come to the microphone right now. Can I take a message?"

  There was a pause at the other end. "Who is th…? Oh, no. Tyresa Jak?"

  Tyresa cleared her throat. "Doctor Jak, if you don't mind."

  Hanson snorted in anger. "Jak! This is your doing, isn't it? You've misled us noble, holy men with your deceitful, feminine wiles. You've enslaved a poor defenceless man and passed him off as our prophet. You've—"

  "I've removed the core sensatron from your helm console is what I've done," she said, looking at the component in her hand.

  "You've what? But we can't control the ship without that. You'll strand me here."

  "And me!" came Gunga's voice.

  "Shut up!"

  "Listen up," said Tyresa. "I've got to go now, but I don't want you following us. I'm going to bury the sensatron outside somewhere. As soon as we're away at warp, I'll contact you and tell you where you can find it. So sit tight and wait for my message, okay? Keep the faith, guys."

  "Jak, you're a de—"

  She closed the channel and returned to Colin. He'd made little progress with the suit, so she helped him with the rest of it then pulled him to his feet.

  "Ready?" she said, thrusting a helmet into his hands. She retrieved her own helmet from the ground. "We can't use the airlock for obvious reasons, but that's no great puzzle. There should be an emergency escape hatch down that way."

  "Puzzle?" said Colin. He seemed to be remembering something. A flicker of life illuminated behind those tired eyes. "The puzzle! Yes, of course. The puzzle. Well, riddle, really."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "The riddle," Colin repeated. "I know the real answer to the riddle!”

  13

  The thin yellow fog of the upper atmosphere finally cleared to reveal the familiar blackness of space. It was one of the few things that actually seemed familiar to Colin at that moment.

  He really felt odd. Aside from the physical symptoms—nausea, headache, and dizziness—he struggled to think straight. Every time he tried, his mind wandered into a weird sort of mental fog. His memory seemed to be playing tricks on him too. On one level, he knew that he'd been on the Turtle before, but actual memories proved elusive, flashing in and out of his mind.

  Tyresa sat in the pilot's seat in front of him. She similarly posed a puzzle. Colin definitely knew her. It was Tyresa: surly, no-nonsense, and an attitude you could strike a match against. The kind of person you wanted beside you when charging the enemy's stronghold or—closer to Colin's experience level—when arguing with a builder who's done shoddy work remodelling your bathroom. But actual memories of her were sketchy. They kept crystallising in his head, only to shatter whenever he tried to focus on them.

  "All right," she said impatiently, spinning around in her chair to face him. "I've not gone to warp yet, like you asked. Now, explain it to me again. I wasn't really listening last time."

  Colin looked at her and rubbed his temples. What had he been saying? Ah yes…

  "Are you sure we're safe?" he asked. "Hanson can't come after us?"

  "He's no threat," she grinned. "He doesn't leave that planet until he gets a message from me."

  "And the Trans…people?"

  "Transhackers? We're far enough into space that we can go immediately to warp. All the same, make it snappy."

  "Right." Colin paused. He'd gone blank again. "What was I saying?"

  Tyresa sighed and peered at Colin's forehead where he'd received that nasty knock. "Are you sure you don't want to go to sickbay? We could scan that head of yours and see if there's any damage. At the very least, you should lie down."

  "No," snapped Colin.

  Something deep down, a primal survival instinct of some sort, told him to stay active. As long as he was on his feet, he felt safe. The thought of lying down and closing his eyes brought him close to panic.

  "Fine," breathed Tyresa. "You were talking about a riddle that brought Hanson here."

  "Right, right," said Colin, his brain fog clearing again. "Where the home of the gods becomes the homophone of the gods. I gave Hanson a fake answer. But I think I know the real answer. You see—"

  Just then, Ade walked in, carrying a tray. "I thought, after your recent escapades, some comforting refreshment would be in order."

  Tyresa rolled her eyes. "Oh, Ade, not now."

  The android lifted the lid to reveal an array of chocolates and confectioneries.

  Tyresa eyed them. "On the other hand…" She snatched up a slice of cake.

  "Listen," implored Colin.

  "I am riss-ring," she said through a mouthful of cake.

  He went on. "The home of the gods was Mount Olympus in Greece. So the homophone of the gods is a different place with the same name. I told Hanson that the other Mount Olympus was near the CryCorp headquarters, but that was a lie."

  She took another bite and spoke through the side of her mouth. "So, there's another Mount Olympus? Where?"

  "On Mars."

  "Okay. And what's Mars?"

  "A planet in this solar system. There are two Mount Olympuses: one on Earth, the other on Mars."

  Tyresa noisily licked the melted chocolate from her fingers. "So, you're familiar with this planet?"

  "Ah, well, not really. It's just one of those little bits of trivia that pops up in pub quizzes now and again."

  "Riddles, huh?" she said, seemingly to herself. "Do we want to go digging up a mountain on the strength of that?" She looked at Ade. "What do you think about all this?"

  The android looked up. "Sadly, ma'am, riddles are not my strong suit. However, we have already seen on previous expeditions how riddles can be an effective means of concealing information across large spans of time. Recall Epsidani II?"

  "Exactly!" blurted Colin, even though he had no clue what Epsidani II actually was. He was getting a little carried away, but at least the adrenaline was clearing his head somewhat.

  His puzzlement seemed to show because Ade explained. "The Mawi Sect of Epsidani: An ancient secret society who ensured their confidential information would survive their persecution by hiding it in plain sight. In their case, by passing around riddles that only members and their descendants could understand."

  Tyresa appeared intrigued but at the same time, hesitant. "You really think they're comparable? The Mawis were sophisticated. Hanson and his bunch of loons are as sophisticated as a farting competition."

  "If I may, ma'am," said Ade. "It is not inconceivable that even religious extremists may obtain pieces of true information which are misinterpreted as prophecy and made to fit with their own beliefs. They might be mistaken in what they expect to find, but they may nevertheless find treasure of some kind at the end of the trail."

  That word, treasure, prompted Tyresa to lift an eyebrow.

  "Exactly," said Co
lin. "Even a broken clock is right twice a day."

  He saw Tyresa frown in confusion and remembered that he was living in a culture without any conception of an analogue clock. But it didn't matter. She seemed to be warming to the idea anyway.

  "All right, Colin," she said. "You're the walking encyclopaedia on this region. Which particular mountain is Mount Olympus?"

  "It's the biggest one on Mars," he said assuredly. He was even pretty sure of which pub quiz he'd learned that in.

  "Fine. And which planet is Mars?"

  His face dropped. "Pardon me?"

  She pointed at a nearby readout. "It says here there are eight and a half planets in this system.1 Which one is Mars?"

  Colin swallowed. All he could manage was a pathetic little smile of apology.

  Tyresa rubbed her nose irritably. "You don't know. Of course, you don't." Her head flopped back in the chair.

  "I'm sure I used to know. I did. I learned the order of the planets in school. But I…I must have…"

  "Forgotten?"

  "Maybe it's one of the memories that was rubbed out by my operation." He struggled to think, but he couldn't recall. But then, a different memory came to his rescue. "Wait! They used to call Mars the Red Planet, I'm sure of it. And, it was the planet next door to mine."

  "Ade," said Tyresa, looking distinctly unimpressed. "Either of the neighbouring planets look particularly red?"

  "Checking, ma'am." He scanned through a series of images on a console screen. "The second planet is distinctly yellow, but the fourth planet has a surface made up largely of iron oxide, giving it a reddish-brownish hue. It also has an exceptionally large surface elevation approximately twenty-two kilometres at its peak which appears to be a dormant volcano. Mister Douglass's mountain, perhaps?"

  Tyresa smiled. "Okay," she said, growing visibly excited. "Things seem to be falling into place. But where exactly do we look?"

  Eyes fell on Colin. He blinked. He hadn't a clue. Fat lot of good he was turning out to be. Embarrassed, he let his head fall and put his hands into his pockets. As he did, he felt a rustle and brought out the yellowed paper. "Of course! The coordinates. I got them from Hanson."