Artemis

by Philip Palmer

  We called up the base ship and they teleported replacement ammo and Bostock Batteries. It took four hours to check each one for misflits, then we were ready to roll.

  A mountain of carnage loomed above and around us. The smell of ancient death now had an overlay of blood and ruptured guts and shit.

  The battle had taken a lot out of us, in terms of time and energy. Four entire days had elapsed since we had first landed on Kandala. We were exhausted and famished. I gave orders to bivouac down for a night’s sleep.

  Big mistake. The nocturnals descended and swarmed upon us at about three a.m. That also was a long and bitter battle. It took six hours to kill each and every one of them. We identified forty-three different species of savage predator, from as many different planets. The mountain of carnage grew.

  We moved out of the Boneyard into the outer precincts of the city, where we took our masks off and put traditional Kandalan robes over our black warsuits. Then we jogged for a few miles, but slowed down to a walk once we started seeing humans. We were at the limit of our physical and psychological capacity, and we hadn’t even engaged the enemy yet. I was beginning to get the measure of the High Priestess. It was a stroke of genius to use alien predators as a cordon sanitaire.

  The city of Kandala was just as we remembered it from the sims. The narrow streets, the busy market stalls, the jewelled Citadel walls, the golden roads and sidewalks decorated with mosaic sigils. But the people – well. That was something else again.

  There were giants. Dwarfs. Trolls. Small flying humans who looked like fairies. There were headless men, and women with three breasts or more, or with tentacles instead of arms. And there were alien sentients too. Creatures I’d read about in books but never seen. The humanoid legless Mannananggal.5 The dragon-like Panlong.6 The Wampus,7 a leopard-like slinking beast with six legs and dazzling eyes. And more, many more.

  Most of these were creatures rendered extinct, or near-extinct, in the years of the Corporation’s great Expansion. The planets of these sentient beings had been terraformed, to be made habitable by us but not them. And only a few specimens were retained, to be kept in zoos. My guess was that Sinara Lo had grown these creatures from blueprints of their DNA, genetically modified so they could breathe the same air as each other.

  Some, however, were simply genetically mutated humans. Like the headless guys, and the three-breasted women, and the half-naked bald people who had hundreds of eyes upon their torsos. That was just freakish.

  “Can I interest you,” said a voice, “in some merchandise?”

  I turned to look, saw nothing, then looked down. I beheld a short squat creature with three eyes and yellow skin and a big smile that stretched around its entire face. I couldn’t work out if it was mutant-human or alien. It was an absurd-looking creature, like a grinning teddy bear without the fur, and its voice had a bubble of pleasure in it that was beguiling.

  “No,” I said.

  “Amphorae? Tumblers? Gold jewellery? Silver plate? Jewels?”

  “No.”

  “That robe is not authentic. I could sell you something more plausible.”

  “No.”

  “You’re from off-planet aren’t you?”

  “No.”

  The three-eyed squat tubby creature beamed up at me with pleasure.

  “Then why have I never seen you before?”

  Max shifted uneasily. “Thank you, sir, we have no need of your merchandise,” he said, in rather bad Kandalan.

  “Let’s get out of here,” said Durando.

  “If you are intruders bent on ill, perhaps I should call the Warden,” suggested the three-eyed squat tubby creature.

  “Or a bribe might help,” it added.

  Max stiffened; ready for carnage. I raised a hand to still his wrath.

  “Bribe it,” I suggested, and Andres reached into his purse.

  Andres counted out the bribe, in gold capsules carved with an unforgeable hallmark, which our boffins had forged. Billy waited, silent. His eyes roamed the streets, capturing every clue, alert to danger.

  I shifted on the balls of my feet, wondering if I would have to kill this annoying creature. Sheena and Andres had the same thought; they quietly moved themselves to cut off the beast’s exit points.

  “Generous,” conceded the alien creature.

  At that moment I had an idea.

  “Will you help us?” I suggested.

  Max shot me a sceptical look. Durando looked impatient. Sheena looked impassive, her default expression. Andres kept his eyes on the crowd.

  Billy looked at me then shrugged. He trusted me – that was his message.

  “Local knowledge,” I insisted.

  “How can I refuse?” The creature laughed. “And you should be aware that you stand no chance of success on your own. The person you seek is well guarded. Magic protects her palace.”

  “Yeah?” I said sceptically.

  “Yes indeed,” beamed the yellow creature. “For the city is run by a mind that exists in the realm of the differently possible. What you call the quantum world. Its powers are so near to magic, who can tell the difference?”

  I shrugged. Fair point.

  “What’s your name?” I asked, intrigued about this strange and knowledgeable beast.

  “Majalara,” said the creature. “My people were born on a planet far from you, whose name in your language I do not know. But I myself was born in a vat. I—”

  “You’re an alien,” I interrupted.

  “Yes. But—”

  “We get it. Skip the backstory. We know all we need to know.”

  “I like the eyes,” confided Durando.

  “And I like yours,” said Majalara. “Oh and by the way…”

  I could hear it too. The tramp of soldiers’ boots, moving closer and closer towards us. We turned, saw two Mutant Soldiers heading towards us. They were swapping comments, clearly bearing down upon interloping strangers.

  Sheena threw a stone whilst barely seeming to move, and it hit a man selling earthenware pots. He screamed and staggered back into a shelf, and the pots went flying. The Mutant Soldiers turned and looked at the chaos.

  “Hold my hands,” I said and held both hands out. The others clasped my fingers. And after some hesitation, so did Majalara.

  We flitted and reappeared in the eastern quarter of the city, just yards from the impregnable jewelled walls of the Citadel.

  “Hey!” shouted Billy, shoving Durando. Durando shoved back. The two men jostled, kicking up gravel, behaving like two friends having a quarrel.

  “If you can’t take the truth,” sneered Durando.

  “Don’t ever talk about her like that again. All right? What kind of friend are you?”

  And so they went on, childishly wrangling. The scuffle attracted the attention of passers-by; and distracted attention from the fact that a few seconds ago, none of us had been there. Standard misdirection strategy.

  “What you just did – that was extraordinary,” said Majalara, astonished.

  I was now convinced I would have to kill this beast. It knew too much. And yet, there was something about it—

  “Can you help get us inside the Citadel?” I asked.

  “It’s impossible. Many have tried. I have tried.”

  “You know where the gate is?”

  “I know.”

  “Will you show us? We have – machines that can—”

  “There’s no way of entering the gate. No machine will help you. It does not exist, until Sinara wills it so. I can tell you where it will appear, but no more than that.”

  “Stealth technology,” said Andres. “We don’t need this wretched—”

  “Only servants of Sinara can enter the Citadel. The gate will know. Some have tried to sneak in. Dressed in stolen robes. Carrying false identity papers. The gate knows, all interlopers die. I have seen it,” said Majalara.

  “The brain chip,” said Billy, and I nodded.

  “Show us the gate,” I told the creature.r />
  “Why should I?”

  “We just bribed you!” I pointed out.

  “I want more.”

  “Oh, and what else would you like?” I asked viciously.

  The creature beamed, from ear to ear. It was, I decided, a truly disgusting smile.

  “The death of Sinara Lo,” Majalara said.

  “Then,” I said, “we have a deal.”

  Yeah, it sounds pretty random but it happens that way sometimes.

  Except, of course, it wasn’t random at all. Majalara had been waiting for this moment for a long time. He had – no, that’ll come later.

  Here’s the deal on Kandala.

  The Citadel was surrounded by high walls as you know, and also enclosed in a powerful force field that could absorb the energy from a One Sun strike. And the skies above it were dotted with thousands of Osprey and Caracaras jets that could devastatingly rebut any direct aerial assault or attempted missile strike. Nullers were installed in every stone of the jewelled wall, making it impossible for beaconband signals to work within; and also preventing me from teleporting inside. The body of the QRC was concealed somewhere within the walls, with its mind carefully shielded. But it had cloned its essence into the satellite QRC outside the gates, which ran the city and planet; and which I had used to help me flit to safety a few moments earlier.

  In summary: No tunnels could be dug beneath the Citadel, because it was built upon a mountain of poured tectonite. Aerial attack was impossible as already explained. The walls were allegedly unbreakable, even by a direct nuclear blast, which suggested that Sinara had purchased sheets of durium from a black hole supermetal forge. And, as we had learned, there was no gate. So, all in all, no way in.8

  However…

  We knew that law and order was enforced in the city and the planet by Sinara Lo’s Mutant Army. These mutated Soldiers had all the ferocity and brainwashing of the Soldiers we were used to, combined with extraordinary physical powers.

  And this army was garrisoned at various places around the city. But in the event of an actual invasion, we had reasoned, the Soldiers would surely have standing orders to return home to the Citadel. They were valuable human assets. They couldn’t be put at unnecessary risk outside the Citadel walls.

  This was Plan A you understand. We had to join the army.

  The heavens erupted. The blue of the sky turned into an inferno of reds and yellows and dazzling whites as the fusillade of missiles from outer space exploded in the upper atmosphere and spread a haze around the planet.

  And again.

  And, dazzlingly, again.

  At my instruction, the bombardment was incessant. But, so far, the Kandala space defence system was bearing up well. A billion microdrones in orbit around the planet were in place. And swarms of them flocked upon the incoming missiles and triggered them into premature detonation.

  Launching a missile attack at this planet was like pouring gasoline upon a fire. Hence, the inferno above us.

  A group of Soldiers were hurrying through the market square, when Majalara called to them. These were warriors of the Mutant Army. Tall (twice my height). Headless (or rather with a skull so deeply embedded beneath the shoulders it was safe from all but the most savage blows). And with eyes at both front and back – two above the nipples at the front, two just below the shoulders at the back. Oh, and most of these Soldiers were octopus armed too – four at the front, four at the back, with an extra leg for stability.

  The mutant warriors wore red body armour marked with the sigils of Hecate, for this was a witch-worshipping planet. And they waddled with remarkable speed. It was hard to conceive having a conversation with one of these three-legged eight-armed beasts. They spoke through the diaphragm, and there was no face whose expression you could read.

  These were monsters, spawned from Sinara’s fast-grow vats, like weeds cultivated to kill all the trees in the forest.

  “Help me!” Majalara cried and the mutant Soldiers waggled their arms in what I took to be a scornful way when they saw his dwarfish comic form. “Please, help me,” he continued with a heart-rending tone of desperation in his voice. “A missile has landed in Alchemy Street! There’s an enemy pilot on board!” The mutants waggled their arms again, sardonically this time I fancied. But they followed.

  When they turned the corner into Alchemy Street the six of us emerged from shadows and killed the monsters with dagger thrusts. We cut through their armour at their shoulder-mound to penetrate into the skull and brain below. Our knives were made of diamond-tectonite, the hardest substance in the universe except for whatever the walls of Kaldana Citadel were made of. It took huge strength to plunge these blades through a soldier’s body armour, but we had practised this move many times before in training.

  Thus, three of them died in a trice, as we leaped and grabbed and stabbed. That left three mutant Soldiers still standing, and they came at us with silent rage. Max was grabbed in a giant hand, Durando received a plasma blast to his body, I was batted down and almost knocked unconscious. But we had our hand guns drawn in the midst of pain and confusion and we rained projectile bullets upon the three freaks, focusing on the transparent shoulder-bosses which shielded the eyes.

  One died. The second was knocked off its feet by Max, who proceeded to plunge his knife into the creature’s arm joint. The blade slid in and an artery was severed. As the mutant bled Durando and Sheena and Andres and I rained bullets on his shoulder-mound until it ceased to move. Meanwhile, Billy killed the third and final mutant in ways I cannot bear to describe.

  Then we took the top armour plates off six of the dead mutant Soldiers and dug down within to find the heads, then removed their brain chips. It was a bloody process.

  “Is there no other way?” said Majalara mournfully.

  “It’s a fucking war,” Max snapped.

  The squat little creature had a face so sad I wanted to laugh.

  “Okay,” I said, “copy and save.”

  We set our eyes to record the dead Soldiers in their every particular. Their armour. Their sigils. Their height and breadth. The size of their hands, and the shape of their third legs. Then our warsuit holos erupted into activity, and the six of us became mutant headless giants in red and richly patterned armour.

  “I will come with you,” said Majalara.

  “Yeah, you’ll blend in nicely,” I pointed out.

  “I have this,” said Majalara, and perhaps I was mistaken but his smile seemed even broader, “capacity.”

  And his shape started to change. I felt my vision swim as his body morphed. And the dwarfish clown became a giant eight-armed three-legged headless warrior.

  “We are herbivores,” explained Majalara, “with a gift for camouflage.”

  I heard the trumpet sound that was summoning the soldiers. I knew too that the mutants, dumb as they were, would have MI’d for help as they started to die. We didn’t have long.

  The sky erupted again as a heavy hail of SNG missiles and unmanned rockets crashed down upon the atmosphere of the planet, to be smashed from the sky by a million tiny fists. A stray missile broke through and was detonated as it plunged through clouds. The black haze and supersonic boom added to the chaos of the moment. Just what we needed.

  We joined the throng of the soldiers of the Mutant Army. Most were headless giants, of the two-armed and eight-armed varieties. But there were dwarfs too – no doubt genetically modified to be able to run through narrow tunnels and sewers in pursuit of errant slaves. The officers rode Mastodons, magnificently hairy tusked beasts which I knew had been extinct on Earth long before the human race made genocide its hobby and obsession.

  Our holos were plausible enough but I knew we wouldn’t survive a close inspection. So once again, we needed as much anarchy and confusion as possible, in order to slip through undetected.

  We also of course needed to pass the security brain scan. Which we were able to do, because each of us had a mutant warrior’s brain chip held under our tongues, modified by me.
These would identify us as being the Soldiers we had killed.9

  We joined a regiment as they were hurrying towards the Gate. We would never have known it was there; it was just another patch of wall with no markings, no arch and keystone, and no actual opening. Not a gate at all in other words. But Majalara had assured us this was our way in.

  Above us, another missile had broken through the planetary defences and there were twin palls of black smoke hugging the sky now. The Soldiers were screaming at each other as they marched towards the jewelled wall.

  Then a small slit appeared in the wall. And it grew, like a balloon swelling, larger and larger, until it was the height of a man. Then it grew more; until the Gate was manifest and open with a jewelled arch above it. And the soldiers ran through the gap in single file.

  Max, Durando, Billy, Sheena, Andres and Majalara followed me as I ran inside. I was momentarily awed at the sight of the Forest of Towers from such close range. Beautiful too was the Silver Campanile, which soared high to the east of me; and I even spared a glance for the seven glistening domes of the Cathedral, visible in the gaps between the houses like winking eyes.

  We were in an outer courtyard; in front of us was a low gateway leading to the courtyard within; and to the courtyard beyond that. At the heart of these concentric circles was the Inner Citadel, where the Cathedral and the Forest of Towers were to be found.

  The outer courtyard itself was thronged with tents and burning braziers where Soldiers cooked and stalls where knives and jewellery were being sold. It was a city within the city; surmounted by those vast Citadel walls which were patrolled by mutant Soldiers and bristling with plasma cannons to repel invaders who could not possibly invade – because of the force field all around. Birds flew above us but could not descend beyond a certain height. Bird dung was visible in mid-air, little balls of shit that could not land because of the invisible roof. The clouds shimmered, because of the refractive effect of the anti-energy shields. And the sky itself was crowded with tumult, as the aerial war continued and puffs of coloured smoke appeared and slowly dissipated in the wind; each the token of a distant explosion.