“What are they?” Ulysses hissed at Nimrod out of the side of his mouth.
We are the Cythalan’xians, the creature replied before Nimrod’s mouth could even shape a reply. But I believe your kind know us by another name.
“Selenites,” Ulysses breathed. It was the name the writer Herbert George Wells had given to the inhabitants of the Moon in his speculative work The First Men in the Moon, having proposed that such creatures might inhabit the satellite’s interior.
That is correct, the creature responded, its mandibles making the same rapid drumming sound as the words formed themselves in Ulysses’ mind. And yet also incorrect.
“What do you mean?” Ulysses asked, mesmerized by his conversation with the creature. Nimrod seemed to be following their exchange, looking from his master to the creature and back again as each spoke in turn, implying that he could hear the Selenite’s words inside his head too.
We are not indigenous to this world. We came here long ago in our colony-barques, from far across the stars. The name ‘Selenite’ implies that we are of this Moon, as you call it, which we are not. But you may refer to us by that name if it is easier for your simple minds to manage.
“Aliens,” Ulysses gasped.
I believe the correct term is extra-terrestrials, the creature said. Its voice felt warm and soft inside Ulysses’ head.
“Bloody hell,” was all he could think to say in return.
My name is N’kel’nn’kel’elk’nn, the Selenite thought-formed, but you may call me N’kel. And now that we have been properly introduced, Ulysses Quicksilver, perhaps you would like to come with me?
Ulysses continued to stare at the creature, dumbfounded, and remained rooted to the spot as it turned and passed back through the entrance orifice. Its two bodyguards also remained exactly where they were.
“I should do as he says, sir,” Nimrod whispered.
“How do you know?”
“How do I know what, sir? That you should go with it?”
“That it’s a ‘he’?” Ulysses blinked several times, as if making sure that he really was awake. “Do you think we can trust them?”
Do you really have a choice? Ulysses heard the gentle voice chime inside his head.
He scowled, but the Selenite had a point.
And so Ulysses followed, unable to take his eyes off the thing as it led him and his attendant manservant out of the cave into the passageway beyond. The two looming, bone-armoured guards dropped into step alongside them, the hard points of their chitinous feet knocking hollowly on the pumice-like material that made up the floor of the carved passageway.
Other chambers branched off from the main arterial passageway they were following. Some looked like the one in which he had awoken. Some of these contained more of the curious moon-dwellers, although these individuals were coloured a paler, sandy shade of brown. Others he could not see inside, as the chambers had been sealed shut with some kind of gummy, resinous substance.
It felt like he was exploring the burrows and hollows of a giant ant’s nest and he was reminded of the hive that the Locusts had constructed within the desecrated shell of St Paul’s Cathedral.
His mind was full of questions. Where had these Selenites come from and how had they travelled to the Moon in the first place? How could there be a breathable atmosphere underneath the Moon’s surface? Had the Selenites saved him and Nimrod from the slug or had it been in their employ, somehow? How long had he and his manservant been underground? How was it that N’kel could understand them when they spoke, and when the alien spoke, how come Ulysses heard it speaking English? Was it really the slug’s burrowing that had been responsible for the tremors that had wrecked the Copernicus? And did these alien ants have anything to do with the events surrounding his brother’s death?
There were so many questions but the most pressing was the one which now pushed itself to the front of his mind, demanding to be voiced.
“Can you at least do us the courtesy of telling us where you’re taking us?” Ulysses asked, unable to contain himself any longer.
But of course, N’kel replied, demonstrating the kind of civilised etiquette that a Swiss finishing school graduate would have been proud of. You have an appointment with Her Majesty. We are going to see the Empress.
“The Empress? The Empress of the Moon?”
That is correct, the Selenite said, its soothing voice helping to ease his sense of apprehension. And, for your information, our species effectively has four genders. The reproducing males and the non-reproductive drones, as well as the female worker drones and the sexually reproductive Empress. I, myself, am female.
“Really?” Ulysses said, intrigued. Nimrod raised his eyes to the roof of the tunnel and let out an exasperated sigh.
Yes, although I am incapable of sexual reproduction.
“So, tell me about this Empress of yours.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Aliens
T MINUS 3 HOURS, 13 MINUTES, 27 SECONDS
THE FURTHER ULYSSES, Nimrod and their armed escort proceeded, the more apparent it became that the Selenites inhabited a vast network of tunnels, caves and galleries, all cut from the silicate material of the Moon’s crust – although by what means Ulysses couldn’t tell.
He knew that there were no natural tunnel formations on the Moon due to the lack of the eroding effects of water in a liquid state. However, he had also known that there was no breathable atmosphere of any kind on the Moon other than that which filled the habitation domes of the lunar cities and their associated outposts, and yet his continued existence had proved that assumption to be false.
But the means by which the Selenites must have constructed their hive bothered him nonetheless. Nowhere was there any evidence of metal tools or machinery of any kind. Ulysses knew that the Moon itself was poor in metals, but the Selenites – or the Cythalan’xians, as N’kel had referred to her race – had travelled here from many light years distant, or so they had been told. And if that were the case, Ulysses would have expected there to be at least some evidence of the vessel, or vessels, that had brought them here, re-utilised to enable the aliens to survive on the inhospitable Moon, either in a piece of wall-plating or section of roof support. There wasn’t even evidence of cutting marks in the rock; the walls were smooth as glass. How on Earth had they made these tunnels?
There wasn’t any evidence of metal in the armour worn by the bodyguards either, nor in the weapons they carried, which appeared to be made out of bone or some other calcified substance.
You are curious as to our nature. The Selenite’s unspoken words intruded upon Ulysses’ thoughts, making him start.
“I’m sorry?” he said.
And now you are wondering if we can read minds. If I am reading your mind right now. The Selenite turned to regard him with those sparkling inhuman eyes of hers, and Ulysses shrank back from her. But let me assure you, we cannot.
“Then how can I hear your voice inside my head?”
It is complicated. But let me reassure you, once again, that we cannot read your minds.
At least that was what she wanted him to believe, Ulysses considered, hoping his thoughts weren’t betraying him there and then.
“So, tell me,” Ulysses said, keen to move the topic of conversation away from the alien’s unsettling telepathic powers, “how is it possible that your species is able to survive down here? Where does your air supply come from? Are you pilfering it from a pipeline used to supply the habitation domes on the other side of the Moon?”
Even as he spoke the words, Ulysses suspected that his guess was wildly off the mark. N’kel had said that her people had been here for a long time, probably since before Man had ever set foot on the Moon.
Nimrod continued to cast furtive glances to left and right, as if keeping an eye out for handy exits, although where his companion thought they could escape to, Ulysses didn’t know.
It is thanks to the Uuhge. Without them we would perish. They chew their way throu
gh the crust guided by our sympathetic telepathic abilities.
The giant slug, Ulysses realised. And N’kel had referred to the creature in the plural; there had to be more of the monsters lurking beneath the surface of the Moon.
They are a silicon-based life-form from the Moons of Ymgall’agziss and so do not require oxygen to live. However, the process of devouring the silicate material of this world produces water and nitrogen as waste products.
He heard the names of the chemicals as he would understand them, even though he was sure the alien Selenite would never have used such specific words herself.
Other microbial processes break down some of that water into its constituent hydrogen and oxygen molecules, ultimately creating the atmosphere we rely on.
“And you brought all these different creatures and microbes with you from – from wherever it is you came from?”
Some of them. Others we acquired during our long odyssey.
“And what do you live on?” Ulysses asked, suddenly hoping that it wasn’t human flesh.
Algae, the Selenite replied. It serves many of our needs. Some strains light our city, while others provide us with all the nourishment we need.
“Haven’t you ever thought of making the last leg of the journey to Earth?”
The Selenite was quiet for a moment.
That was our intention once. Legend tells of a time when our race set its sights on the blue-green planet but now is not the time. Silence, we are here.
The party came to an abrupt halt as the tunnel they were following opened out into a much larger cavernous space.
The Empress’s audience chamber, the Selenite announced, her words tinged with pride.
The ant-like creature stepped aside, allowing Ulysses to pass through the tunnel-mouth and into the cavern. He was only dimly aware of the guards standing either side of the circular opening on a ledge of slug-cut rock, so captivated was he by the splendour of the space before him.
It was like gazing upon the interior of some unearthly, giant termite mound. The chamber was as high, from floor to domed ceiling, as a cathedral and as long as two rugby pitches laid end-to-end, shaped like a squashed egg lying on its side.
He was only half way up one side of it. A dozen other openings led into the vast grotto at myriad different levels.
Ulysses was blown away by the insect artistry of the Selenites and their ability to control the slug-like creatures, that they could coerce the Uuhge into carving such beauty from the substance of the Moon.
There were soaring pillars, jutting balconies and intricately sculpted galleries. A curving flight of steps descended from the balcony on which they now found themselves. At N’kel’s bidding, Ulysses and Nimrod began to descend.
As the party began its descent to the throne room floor, Ulysses could not help but gaze at the wonders all around him. He almost lost his footing more than once because he was too busy staring at the sculpted stalactite-like protrusions spiking from the roof or the higher tiers of the chamber protruding from the walls like bracket fungus on an old oak, festooned with hanging nets of bacilli that rippled with an eerie spectrum of colours.
They passed through a sculpted gallery shaped like the interior of a nautilus shell and emerged, some minutes later, close to the floor of the chamber.
Ulysses gaped, the breath catching in his throat.
“God in heaven,” Nimrod cursed under his breath.
The floor of the cavern – all two rugby pitches’ worth – was covered with a seething mass of the ant-like moon-men. Their mottled, sandy markings ranged from pale yellow to deep, russet brown. The Selenites were entering and exiting the chamber in seemingly never-ending snaking lines. Among the throng Ulysses saw a full phalanx of chitin-armoured guards and other castes as well, but predominantly worker drones. He could also see that there were not many coloured the same shade as their guide. Her markings and ceremonial chains of office marked her out as something special.
But more incredible than the host of ant-people was the creature they had all come to venerate, whose very word was law within the hive, whose every decree was responded to with something akin to religious devotion. And there was no danger of Ulysses mistaking any other for the Empress.
Where the worker drones were a near-white shade of tan and no taller than Ulysses, the soldiers of the colony a good two feet taller than that, broader in build, their exoskeletons coloured a rich roan, and N’kel somewhere between the two, their ruler was coloured a vibrant red.
She was also the largest, by far, of all the Selenites. She was the brood-mother of the hive. Her anatomy was markedly different from others of her kind. Where they were basically insect-like in form, she was somewhere between an arachnid and a crustacean.
Her body was segmented and had many more limbs. Her facial features – if they could be called that – were just like those of any other Selenite, although her bone-jewellery was more impressive than that worn by any of her people and had been polished to an obsidian lustre.
Ulysses felt his skin crawl as he gazed upon her awesome majesty, unable to blot the image of the savage, de-evolved Queen of the Locusts he and Nimrod had encountered within the ruins of St Paul’s Cathedral not three months previously, from his mind. But that particular specimen had been an egg-laying monster; the ovipositors of the Empress of the Cythalan’xians were still. She was clearly enjoying a lull in her alien breeding cycle, and was instead holding court at the centre of the hive, mistress of all she surveyed.
Ulysses looked from the Empress to their guide and noticed, for the first time, the atrophied limbs hanging at her sides below her primary arms, and that her abdomen was slightly more swollen than those of the other Selenites he could see. He wondered what familial connection there might be between N’kel and the Empress.
As they left the carved steps and set foot on the smooth floor of the audience chamber, Ulysses felt a resonant vibration within his very bones which rose to become a sonorous trumpeting. Surprised by the sound he looked round. Soldiers were blowing into huge cochlea-shaped horns, carved from the very stone of the chamber walls, and it was these that were producing the awesome booming notes.
The throng parted and N’kel took the lead, their accompanying guards bringing up the rear, with Ulysses and Nimrod sandwiched between them. In this order the party approached the dais-throne on which the Empress squatted, like an overgrown tarantula poised in the middle of its web.
The Empress turned her head towards them, the creature’s mandibles twitching, as if the Selenite queen were imagining what a tasty snack the two men might make.
Ah, brood-sister. Ulysses flinched. The Empress’s voice was sharp. When she spoke it felt as though her words were being etched into his mind in acid. It was totally unlike the gentle, soothing thought-tones of N’kel. What have you brought me?
Two of the Earth-men, majesty, N’kel returned.
The Empress regarded them with predatory interest.
Step forward, Earth-men.
N’kel stepped aside, so that Ulysses and Nimrod might approach the Selenite ruler.
Taking a deep breath, Ulysses stepped forward, head bowed respectfully. After all, if the Empress did intend to make a meal of them, there was little they could do to stop her, surrounded as they were by the Selenite throng.
Nimrod followed his lead.
Ulysses had met royalty on plenty of occasions – most recently Queen Victoria, and Tsarina Anastasia III of Russia – but the Empress of the Selenites, on first impressions at least, had more in common with the Queen of the Locusts than those heads of state. But the way in which she spoke marked her out as being as royal as the rest of them, imperious and proud.
Ulysses genuflected before Her Imperial Alien Majesty, and bowed lower still. Nimrod followed suit. “Your majesty,” he said. “It is truly an honour to meet you.” In his experience, when it came to royalty, a little flattery went a long way.
Of course it is, the Empress replied. I only wish I could
say that the feeling was mutual on meeting our first emissaries of human-kind.
Again, Ulysses found himself considering the nature of the aliens’ means of communication. He had seen no evidence anywhere to suggest that the Selenites would know words like ‘humankind’ or ‘Earthman’, or even ‘mutual’. However, they obviously understood the concepts and that must be what they were communicating to his subconscious at the telepathic level, his mind was doing the rest, making sense of these communications and translating them into a form of language he could make sense of.
But this didn’t lessen the shame he felt at her remark. He felt his cheeks redden as the heat of embarrassment rushed blood to his face.
“I am sorry if that is how you feel, your majesty. Can I ask what it is that we have done that might have offended you? If it is because we intruded within your realm, the only defence I can offer is that we did not know –”
Silence! the Empress demanded, and both Ulysses and Nimrod winced at the force of the telepathic pulse.
The creature rose up on her many legs, her segmented abdomen arching up over the top of her thorax like a scorpion’s tail, as if preparing to strike.
You call yourself human-kind, but you show little compassion for other species.
“I cannot apologise enough,” Ulysses countered, answering as quickly as he could, all too aware of the fact that the Empress might vent her fury on them in an instant. “I can only apologise and give you my assurances that we did not know we were trespassing within your –”
Stop your jabbering!
The force of the Empress’s command would have brought him to his knees, if he hadn’t been kneeling already.
You come to this world, assume mastery of it, and then proceed to shake our colony-city to its very foundations.
Dark Side Page 19
