The Stolen Future Box Set

by Brian K. Lowe

  “Let’s go!”

  “How did you—?”

  “I’ve been climbing trees since I was a baby. C’mon, Harros, let’s move it!”

  Marella was still dead weight, so he looped the rope around her uncooperative body and we hauled her up like a sack of rice. No sooner had we dropped the rope again than Harros seized it, practically running up the wall faster than he could have slid down it.

  “They’re starting to get restless down there,” he imparted breathlessly. “I think the machine’s turned off.”

  Indeed, Marella seemed to recover her spunk even as we stood there. Blinking her confusion away, when apprised of our situation she voted for an immediate departure; Harros seconded her.

  “I have to go back,” I said. “I—left something in the control room.”

  Marella stared at me. “What? Whatever it is, I’ll buy you a new one! Let’s get out of here!”

  “You go on. I’ll move faster alone.”

  “Oh, no,” she said. “We stay together. You’ve got the only weapon.” Although Harros seemed ready to protest, when Timash backed Marella he wisely kept his own counsel.

  I tried to give her my baton, but she would not hear of it, nor would the others. We all realized that only in a group might we have the strength to fight off any Vulsteen we met between here and the surface. I was about to lead us back to the control room when I glanced at the pit, and watched in a mixture of awe and horror as the first breen, clawed hands and feet throwing gashes of mud in its wake, raced up the side of the pit and stood truly free for the first time in generations!

  It turned, saw us, and bared its fangs…

  Chapter 32

  Fight for Freedom

  In the moment between the time the breen beheld us and its predatory instincts took hold, another breen scrambled out of the pit. It put out one hand against the other’s chest and growled a few words in their own language. The first breen’s lips reluctantly slid back over his teeth, even though the fiery hunger in his eyes burned unabated.

  “Stay there,” the second breen advised us in its coarse voice. It crossed the floor and stood with us as others climbed out of captivity, demonstrating a facility for scaling the walls that made Timash seem clumsy by comparison. It was plain that the pit itself had played no part in the slavery of these beasts; only the emotion sequencer had held them in thrall all these years. The pit must have served the Vulsteen more as a psychological separation than it had served to keep the breen in their place. We were quickly surrounded by furry bodies, some antagonistic, needing a growl from our protector to ward them off, but most seeming to ignore us, wandering the small space as though they had never seen it before—as indeed they never had.

  The very last breen to come forth was Uncle Sam, and all the others, save our guard, gathered about him. He lifted his arms to take them all in. They leaned forward as though to hear him better, and I could almost smell the bloodlust on their minds. But for all his people’s ferocity and righteous vengeance, he had a different answer.

  “It is over. Let us return to the surface and see the Vulsteen no more.”

  I feared a slaughter, that one of the young bucks would leap out of the crowd and strike him down, crying for vengeance and blood, but none did. Instead he walked through the crowd and they parted for him, obediently allowing him to lead them away from this place and back into the sunshine.

  Caught up in the tide of retreating beasts, I could do no more than stay my place as they streamed by; try as I might I could make no headway against them, and as a result I found myself on the fringe of the crowd, watching them go. Uncle Sam, leading the pack, had not yet noticed that we were not among them, and I am not sure that he would have stopped for us had he known.

  “Go ahead,” I ordered my companions. “I know where I’m going, and I can catch up before you reach the surface.”

  Marella started to protest again, but this time Timash sided with me.

  “He’s right. You’re better off with the breen. We’ll catch up.”

  Thus it was that Timash and I, scurrying in the opposite direction from the straggling breen, were the first to come upon the Vulsteen army.

  Contrary to our initial impression, we had not run headlong into the entire population of Vulsteen, but in that crowded corridor it seemed as though we had. We met at an intersection, neither party knowing the other was there until we had almost run each other over. They were not armed with the usual complement of clubs and nets, but wide, straight swords—they were not out to gather prisoners this time—but apparently the Nuum’s strictures against machines had affected even these subterranean hermits.

  How the Vulsteen knew that their slaves had escaped we did not know, nor did we ever find out. My best guess is that we set off an alarm when we turned off the emotion sequencer; it is inconceivable that no precautions would have been taken against its failure.

  Their mass proved their undoing and our salvation. Flooding the confines of the small passage, they had little room to wield their own weapons, while we simply lashed out at whatever got in our way. Timash, especially, was good at this, bulking thrice as large as most of our opponents, who, unable to fly backward from his fists as would have befitted the force employed, crashed into their still-charging comrades, causing riotous confusion.

  There was no science to what we did in that hallway, only a frenzy of swinging limbs and slashing swords. The Vulsteen fought and died without sound, without visible emotion. Perhaps that is why Timash and I lived and they did not.

  As suddenly as it began, it was over, and a dozen of them lay about us, some still breathing, some not. Who killed them, I do not know—in those close quarters some of them may have stabbed each other.

  We reached the control room without further incident. I grabbed the Library—which came loose at my touch, although no one else could have moved it—and returned to the room where we had left the breen. We moved much more carefully on the way back, but the Vulsteen patrols appeared to have already passed. Only the dead remained at the site of our skirmish in the hall.

  There were sounds coming from the chamber ahead. Screams that came from no human throat, ripping noises whose origin I did not want to imagine.

  Timash and I looked at each other, plainly and unashamedly afraid to rush into what could literally turn out to be a bloody hell, yet goaded on by our obligations to our companions. Had they made it to the surface, or were they trapped in the midst of the carnage?

  And then it stopped.

  Warily, we crept to the entrance to the larger chamber and peeked out. A very bloody hell, indeed. Even in my days and nights in the awful trenches of France, I had witnessed nothing to rival this. Bodies and pieces lay everywhere, blood coated the floor, dripping into the pit, smearing the fur of the victors. For those standing were breen, more than a match for men who despite their superior numbers had been limited by the edicts of Thora’s alien conquerors to weapons that only approximated what the breen had been given by God. The smell overtaking us made me want to retch. I saw nothing standing that was not breen, neither Vulsteen nor human.

  But even as I was casting about in my mind for a route that might bypass these bestial killing machines, a small knot of breen on the far side of the room opened and I saw Marella and Harros step out, unharmed but no less horrified than I by the abattoir that confronted them. We, at least, had been spared for the most part the awful sounds that accompanied so much death. Even as this thought crossed my mind I saw Marella throw her hands over her ears and bury her face in Harros’ chest.

  None of the breen had noticed us as yet. Thinking it unwise to appear suddenly in their midst, I called out to Uncle Sam, whom I recognized in the throng near my friends. Heads jerked around, teeth bared, but a shout from their leader brought them to heel, and we were allowed to cross the room unmolested, although I confess that my skin crawled icily along my shoulders the entire time. We walked through the breen as through a forest of lions, each gazing hungri
ly at our tender flesh but held in check by an invisible power. We were careful never to brush against even a single individual, for fear that the touch would drive him over the edge and the entire room would erupt in savagery once more. From the slight sigh that escaped when we reached him, I believe that Uncle Sam had dreaded that same possibility. Indeed, he lost no time guiding us to a passage to the outer world.

  Our goodbyes were of necessity swift and informal, but Uncle Sam’s thanks were no less genuine.

  “Where will you go now?” I asked. “None of you has ever lived outside before.”

  His answer surprised me.

  “Back to our people, of course. We have wandered these plains for thousands of years. Just because men fear us doesn’t make us animals. We have many tribes, many nations.” He nodded. “And we have long memories. Our people will be glad to welcome us home.”

  “But—but…” Harros sputtered. “I mean, will they accept you? I mean, won’t you be different?”

  Uncle Sam lifted one lip in his imitation of a smile. “Not so much as you think.” He laid a clawed hand on my shoulder. “Remember, my friend, the breen have long memories.”

  And with that he was gone. Not far ahead we saw daylight. It was morning, and we sat in one of the long shadows while we waited to our eyes to become reacquainted with the sunshine.

  “So, Keryl,” Harros spoke up. “If the breen have such long memories, do you think one of them could tell us how to get home?”

  Mentally I slapped myself for forgetting that our transportation had been smashed to pieces the day we arrived. How could I know that this would soon emerge as the very least of our problems?

  Marella got to her feet and looked out into the morning sky, shielding her eyes from the glare. Apparently satisfied with what she saw—or what she did not see—she returned to sit with the rest of us in the shade.

  “What’s so interesting out there?” Timash asked querulously. “That’s the third time you’ve been out there.”

  “Just looking for something to get us on our way. We’re not doing any good sitting here.”

  In discussing our options, we had decided not to return underground to the breen for assistance. Not only did it feel wrong after our triumphant exit, but the breen had only one thing to offer that we lacked, and the idea of marching for several days—and nights—escorted by the most ferocious killing machines ever to walk dry land left us more comfortable relying upon our own resources, scant as they might be.

  I was beginning to wonder about the steadiness of our own group: Marella was still a stranger, Harros had long overstayed his anticipated visit, and Timash had shown unwonted surliness ever since we emerged from underground. I had known him in the past to exhibit the moodiness of youth, but never such raw ill temper. Given his past animosity toward Harros and the latter’s lack of diplomacy, I feared they might come to blows ere we camped for the night.

  “Let’s go for a walk.” I stood up and cuffed his shoulder lightly. He looked up at me with angry red eyes, but I refused to back down. “Come on.”

  “Where are you going?” Marella asked as Timash got to his feet. “It’s dangerous out there.”

  “We won’t be long,” I said, and walked into the sunshine without looking to see that Timash had followed.

  He had to shield his eyes again. “It’s hot out here.”

  “You might as well get used to it. We’re going to have to move out sometime.”

  “Then we oughta travel at night.”

  I responded with an annoyed look. After several nights on the plains in the groundcar, he knew as well as anyone why we couldn’t travel at night.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked bluntly.

  He looked at me, lowering his arm as he put his back to the sun.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re growling and complaining so much I had half a mind to leave you with the breen. You could bite their heads off instead of ours.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “I’ve seen it before, you know. Back where I come from. I told you I was taken from the middle of a war. I was an officer, and I used to see this reaction sometimes after men went through their first battle.” When he failed to rise to the bait, I took the plunge. “It was you or them. It’s no sin to kill in war. That’s what happens in wars. If they don’t die, you do.”

  “But I didn’t have to like it!” Once the dam burst, there was no stopping the flood. “Back when we attacked the research station, they made me stay back. I watched everything, but I was more concerned with my friends than with the Nuum. I even pulled a couple of them out of the way when they were hurt, and I thought how great it all was, with the shouting and the fighting and here I was saving lives. But I didn’t hurt anybody! It was just like Uncle Balu’s stories, so when I got a chance to go with you, I saw myself charging around, having adventures—but I never thought about what it would be like to kill a man. Back there, in the city—I know, like you said, it was them or us…

  “But Keryl—when you and I were down there, trapped in that hallway with the Vulsteen coming at us and we started swinging and slashing away and they—I liked it! It was my greatest adventure, fighting evil and helping people and—and there you were next to me—I felt so great! People were dying at my feet, I could feel their bones breaking, but I liked it! I liked the feeling of power. But then, when we got back to the pit, and I saw all those bodies and all that blood…”

  Like a phonograph record, he ran down until his voice was inaudible.

  I put a hand on his hairy shoulder. “Timash, let me tell you something. When I was a boy, I read the same kind of stories you did, all about heroes and knights in shining armor.” From his expression, he had no idea to what I was referring. I let it go. “And I joined the army for the same reasons you wanted to come with me: Grand adventure, fighting evil. But I’d never killed a man, never even gotten in a real fight, until I went to France, and the first time I saw the enemy marching across no-man’s-land… I will never forget the feel of my rifle against my shoulder, and the kick of the recoil, and the sight of a man falling backward, dead because I shot him.” I had to stop while the damned moving picture played through my mind again. “Very soon afterward I learned there are two kinds of men in war: Those who kill because they have to, they’re soldiers. Those who kill because they want to, they’re murderers.

  “How do you feel, right now, about what you did?”

  “I feel like I’m gonna be sick.”

  “Congratulations. You’re a soldier.”

  Whatever my speech meant to him, he had no time to tell me before a huge shadow swooped down and someone began shooting at us.

  Chapter 33

  I Am Shanghaied

  The snap of the whip on flesh was short and ugly. Unlike the shells and the bullets, you never heard the whip coming, never knew when it was flying at you, or the man next to you, until it struck, the sound sharp when it split the air, wet and flat when it flayed your skin. It didn’t hit me, but I flinched. We all did.

  “Put your backs into it!” Garm shouted, as though he were the overseer on a slave galley and we were the human engines. And so he was, though we were not. This Nuum sky-barge depended no more on our muscles than Garm needed his ancient leather whip to keep order. But both had their uses.

  I snapped my head, tossing my hair about to keep the sweat from my eyes. My hair was longer than it had ever grown, even as a child, certainly longer than my days in the British army. My hands, chained to the oars, were helpless to wipe my brow. My mind, numbed by the incessant push and pull of rowing through thin air, fought to rise above the fog of misery, but it failed, sinking once again into the comfort of the past…

  Our shouts had been drowned out by the engines of the descending airship, and we could only scatter before it crushed us. As it was, the hurricane winds from its hoverfans kicked up such dust that we had no breath for shouting in any event. I held one hand over my mouth and eyes as best I could and stagg
ered in the direction I hoped was shelter. I could not see or hear Timash.

  Those shots had been meant only to frighten, not kill; had it been otherwise, we would have died without ever knowing we were targeted. The second the craft touched down men boiled out of the hatch, some coming for me and others, I assumed, seeking Timash. With the wind dying away, I could see them approaching; I had run into the open, not toward cover, and one look at their firearms told me that a dash for freedom now would likely end quickly and painfully. I stood carefully still.

  They were a motley pair that closed in on me, sporting garish baggy shirts and pants that complemented them only in a drunkard’s nightmare. To a man the landing party wore beards, an affectation I had not seen in this era. They held their pistols loosely, but with an air of confidence and familiarity. Their ship was the size of a house, roughly triangular, but plainly a larger cousin of our own late groundcar.

  “Look, boys, another one! And he’s a big one, too!” A barrel-shaped man in green shirt and purple trousers, sporting a bright yellow waist-sash holding a wide sword, rounded the ship and put his hands on his hips while he looked me over. His dress, manner, and the careless way his own pistol was thrust in his sash, inevitably reminiscent of a Caribbean pirate, was more evidence of the cycles of history. Behind him several more men escorted Timash, their pistols held in a less cavalier manner than my own guards’.

  “What’s the meaning of this?” The meaning was quite clear, but having no wish to seem meek in front of these men, I followed convention. I probably should have kept my tongue but there was no sign of Harros or Marella—and not far away camped a small army of breen. If I could make enough fuss, rescue was not out of the question.

  The big man thought my question humorous but undeserving of an answer. Despite his red hair and beard, he did not fit my usual image of a Nuum, and some of his men were black-haired. A few of them, I was sure, were Thoran, but each one held guns supposedly forbidden to all but the overlords. There were six raiders altogether, bad odds even without the guns.