Godengine

by Craig Hinton

  Roz found the scene touching, and she looked around to gauge the others’ reactions. Then she noticed: Carmen was missing. She glanced up and down the narrow road between the high buildings, but there was no sign of the singer. Groaning with irritation, she was just about to mention the absence to the Doctor when Carmen appeared from a small alleyway. For a brief moment, her expression was hard, cold and calculating, but then she saw Roz’s attentive look and smiled warmly.

  ‘Call of nature,’ she said chirpily, noticing the attention.

  Really, thought Roz. In a hostile environment crawling with rock-snakes and spider-lizards, was it really likely that the timid Carmen Santacosta would wander off down a dark alleyway to relieve herself? Roz decided that the woman merited much closer attention from now on.

  ‘I suggest we carry on,’ said the Doctor to McGuire. Madrigal’s body was now covered by the shroud, its edges weighted down with lumps of masonry which had presumably fallen from the surrounding buildings during their centuries of neglect. ‘We still have another two days before we reach the Pole.’

  McGuire nodded, but the grief was vivid in his ashen face. ‘You’re right, Doctor.’

  Roz joined Cleece in the vanguard position; she was the best suited to be the marine’s replacement, wasn’t she? Without saying a word, McGuire handed over Madrigal’s plasma rifle and nodded, a silent thanks for her stepping into the breach.

  She gave the rifle a brief once-over to check that it hadn’t been damaged by the plasma blast, and then did a double take: the safety catch was jammed. With some effort, she bent the mechanism back into shape, but it puzzled her. Had the catch jammed when the rifle dropped from Madrigal’s lifeless fingers, or had it been deliberately bent? If the latter was true, the marine wouldn’t have stood a chance. It would definitely explain how a crack member of the Colonial Marines could fall prey to something so humble as a rock-snake.

  So, accident or deliberate sabotage? As the party continued through the maze of streets in funereal silence, leaving Madrigal’s shrouded body behind them, Roz felt more uncomfortable than she had for ages. Not only were they under threat from rock-snakes and spider-lizards, but there was a possible threat from within. And, despite all of her instincts, Roz couldn’t help suspecting that innocent, whimpering, timid Carmen was anything but the harmless nightclub singer that she claimed to be.

  It was just a pity that she no longer felt that she could take the Doctor into her confidence. She just hoped that that pity didn’t turn into an even bigger tragedy.

  The room was silent, the lighting low. But pitch-blackness was no hindrance to cybernetically enhanced night vision. Four sleeping figures occupied the cots by the far wall, their belongings piled up on the floor. To the side, a small, low table held the remains of dinner, twelve empty bowls. Draan smiled; Falaxyr’s assurances of the Adjudicator’s superiority had obviously been misplaced. This Cwej had probably eaten the food to begin with, making the gas wholly irrelevant. The faint chemical smell of the anaesthetic gas still remained in the air; the lingering odour of a compound harmless to Martians but instantly effective on mammalian life.

  In the open doorway, Draan considered the situation. Perhaps the Amber Marshal wasn’t quite as legendary as Falaxyr had warned – but was that warned or hoped? Draan had long suspected that the Grand Marshal still yearned for the days of battle and conquest; and, even though the GodEngine project would give them back their racial honour and glory, century-long plans didn’t cater to the immediacy that coursed through most Martians’ blood.

  Then again, if Falaxyr was that desperate to polish his fighting skills, why wasn’t he personally overseeing the abduction of the captives? Perhaps Falaxyr was so old, so weary, that he just liked to talk about it all the time. A lot of old Martians were like that.

  Gesturing to his squad of three Warriors, Draan stepped into the room, vaguely insulted and bitterly disappointed that Falaxyr’s promises of a testing skirmish against a ruthless foe had become nothing more than a simple fetch-and-carry exercise. The Adjudicator had undoubtedly fallen for the drugged food – where was the challenge in that?

  Draan was suddenly rocked back on his feet by an explosive concussion that erupted from the middle of the room. Losing his footing as the force of the detonation hit him in the chest, he crashed into Gaar and Ossarl and sent them sprawling onto the floor. Stumbling to his feet, he scanned the room, but the explosion had also released clouds of obscuring noxious vapour – extremely noxious to Martians, his head-up-display informed him. ‘Activate breathing filters!’ he ordered. At the same time, he tried to find some part of the electromagnetic spectrum that wasn’t blanketed by the gas. After far too long for Draan’s liking, his inbuilt sensor net informed him of the frequency at which the gas was transparent; as his visor automatically adjusted, he used his command override to electronically force his Warriors’ visors to do the same.

  The familiar retort of a sonic disruptor distracted him from his sensor readouts. Despite his instincts, Draan knew the displeasure that would await him if the Adjudicator was killed dishonourably, and indiscriminate shootings under these conditions was anything but honourable. ‘I gave no order to fire!’ Draan yelled at Ssell. ‘Close the door!’

  As Ssell and Gaar moved to obey him, another explosion came from the direction of the door. Draan managed to stand his ground this time, but the two Warriors staggered back from the doorway, clearly dazed.

  The gas released by the second explosion was beginning to obscure the visual frequency that Draan had selected earlier, so he instructed his sensors to find another. ‘Is that door shut yet?’ he barked at the dark shape of the nearest Warrior.

  ‘A few seconds, My Lord,’ grunted Ssell. Another shape appeared in the grey gloom, a shape too small to be one of Draan’s Warriors.

  The shriek that erupted from Ssell was bloodcurdling; Draan recognized it as the Warrior’s brain being scrambled by feedback from his armour’s cybernetic systems. Before Draan could react, the smaller shape had vanished through the door and into the corridor.

  Draan knew he had no choice. He linked into the base’s communications suite and accessed the general address system. ‘This is Supreme Lord Draan There is an escaped prisoner in the base. He is currently in section Ull-teth-Kliis. Apprehend him but do not kill him.’ He cut the connection and looked around the room. The two scientists were still asleep – and they were the true prize.

  Besides, how much trouble could one human being cause? It wasn’t as if the Adjudicator was a real threat to their project, was it? Leaving Gaar and Ossarl to bring out the scientists, he stepped into the clearer air of the corridor. He could already imagine Falaxyr’s growling tones: ‘I warned you of the dangers of underestimating the enemy, Draan. You are no better than your father.’ With a roar of anger, Draan slammed his clamp into the rock wall.

  This Chris may have had the initial advantage; but now he was up against the might of a Martian military nest.

  The Adjudicator didn’t stand a chance.

  PART TWO

  THE CAULDRON OF SUTEKH

  Chapter 8

  ‘Two days, Draan!’ hissed Falaxyr, knocking over the chessboard and scattering the pieces across the floor. ‘The Adjudicator has been loose in the base for two days!’ The Grand Marshal strode forward and held his clamp only inches away from Draan’s visor. ‘Do you realize how much this has inconvenienced me?’

  Draan knew exactly how much it had inconvenienced his superior, because this was the third time they had had such a dialogue since the human had escaped. He also knew that keeping quiet was his best defence when Falaxyr was as angry as he was now.

  ‘The project is unravelling before my eyes, Draan. Unless the Daleks see some tangible proof that the GodEngine is functional, they will conquer this world as easily as they did Earth.’

  Draan couldn’t see his people allowing the Daleks to simply annex them without resistance. ‘We are Martians, Your Excellency -’

  Falaxyr g
rowled, and turned his back on his adjutant. ‘Ninety-nine per cent of our race is currently on another planet, Draan, or had you forgotten the Great Exodus? We need the GodEngine; if not as a bargaining tool, then definitely as a means of defence. I have watched these Daleks systematically annihilate the outer colonies of the Earth Alliance with weapons that we could not begin to understand, let alone counter; they are merciless and without honour. If they decide to invade Mars, we will be powerless to stop them.’

  ‘But we have the two scientists -’

  Falaxyr thumped his desk. ‘But I cannot spare the technicians to put them through the Brain-rack! Thanks to your inherited incompetence, all of my personnel are currently hunting down this Adjudicator!’

  Draan wanted to point out that it was Falaxyr’s desire to treat the Adjudicator honourably that had led to his escape, but thought better of it. He remained silent, trying to let Falaxyr’s anger wash over him. It was difficult.

  ‘However, my need for the scientists is now too great to ignore, especially since they will begin to suffer permanent neurological damage if they are anaesthetized for much longer. Therefore, you will replace Technician Yeess on watch.’

  Draan ran a quick diagnostic of his helmet’s cyber-net, but his enhanced hearing wasn’t malfunctioning; Falaxyr had just ordered Draan, a Supreme Lord of the Martian Military Elite, to go on guard duty like a common Warrior.

  ‘Your Excellency, I must protest! I am -’

  Falaxyr’s voice was quiet yet threatening. ‘You are a bungler, Draan. Yeess is the only Martian left to me who can operate the Brain-rack, and therefore of importance.’ Unlike you, Draan, was the unspoken corollary. ‘A perfectly logical decision, I believe.’ The Grand Marshal reached down and picked up the Amber Marshal chess piece from the floor. ‘Now go, Draan, before I decide to let Yeess practise on you.’ An empty threat – the Brain-rack was specifically designed to influence human brains – but the insult was cutting.

  Draan left the chamber without comment, but his course of action was clear. He would find the Adjudicator and deliver him personally to Falaxyr.

  After torturing him, of course.

  Chris Cwej’s lanky frame was squeezed uncomfortably into a tiny little cubby-hole, but he wasn’t that bothered – he was safe, and that was what counted. He suspected that the Ice Warriors didn’t even know that the space existed; it appeared to be nothing more than a gap between three walls, and he doubted that they would even consider looking there.

  He was more concerned about the others. When he had formulated the plan, he had made it quite clear to Rachel and Felice that there were risks; although it was almost certain that the Ice Warriors wanted them for their scientific knowledge, there were ways and means of extracting such information. But they had agreed that, given the circumstances, there wasn’t really a lot of choice. Chris had to escape – the Ice Warriors would have undoubtedly killed him without a second thought – and the others had to play along.

  The plan did have some benefits – in addition to Chris’s continued living, of course. Rachel and Felice could get nice and close to the subspace manipulator, and find out what the hell the Ice Warriors were up to; and Chris could ride in like a white knight and save them all at the last moment. At least, that was the plan.

  Escaping from the Ice Warriors had been easy, but Chris had the Doctor to thank for that. The kit had offered a very eclectic version of first aid: dozens of tiny chemical phials, reels of superconducting filament, and a small manila envelope full of electronic components. There had even been what had initially appeared to be a locket; closer inspection had revealed that it was a personal shroud field. Although not powerful enough to render him completely invisible – hence his cramped hidy-hole – it was more than sufficient to scramble his life signs and prevent detection by whatever sensors the Ice Warriors possessed.

  When the gas attack had come, Chris had been protected by a set of nose filters from the kit; the others had reluctantly agreed to be rendered unconscious for the sake of verisimilitude. As they quickly dozed off, Chris had been putting the finishing touches to his very special welcoming present for the Ice Warriors; using the starchy vegetables from dinner as a chemical base, spiced up with a few extra ingredients from the phials, he had produced two handy gas bombs. With a touch of cunning, he had deposited the remainder of the food underneath one of the beds; if the food had been drugged, the Ice Warriors would have seen the empty bowls, and assumed that they were all definitely unconscious.

  But Chris was experienced enough to realize that he might need more than clouds of slightly poisonous smoke to ensure that he escaped. So, having finished the bombs, he had set to work on something a little more direct. With a few inches of filament and a superconducting circuit from the envelope, he had produced a very serviceable bio-cybernetic feedback scrambler.

  Chris had a lecture to thank for that: he clearly remembered listening to a grizzled old veteran of countless interstellar conflicts, who had pointed out that the vast majority of Man’s foes had chosen to evolve artificially using cybernetic augmentation. The Daleks and the Cybermen were the pinnacle of this false evolution, having surrendered almost all of their so-called humanity to cold positronic nets of silicon and steel. But other races were catching them up: the Sontarans implanted their clone musters with countless electronic ‘improvements’, and the Ice Warriors’ cybernetic techniques were legendary. Much of their legendary fighting skills were derived from their armour; despite their organic appearance, the carapace and the helmet were grown in nutrient tanks and augmented with cybernetics. As well as increasing an Ice Warrior’s already formidable strength, it provided a direct link to the Martian battle-net and boosted reaction time by five hundred per cent. But, like all cybernetic systems, it relied on feedback between the electronic and the organic components to function.

  And when that feedback was scrambled... Chris had to admit, he had been extremely pleased with himself when the Warrior had collapsed.

  Unfortunately, the scrambler was a rather limited weapon; the chances of getting close enough to an Ice Warrior to actually slap it onto its armour were fairly slim, especially without clouds of obscuring gas. And there were rather too many Ice Warriors around to take them all out personally. No, if he was going to rescue the others, he needed to play the Martians at their own game. Which was the art of war.

  He leant back in his cubby-hole and smiled. The last two days had been both terrifying and exhilarating as he had darted throughout the base, always one step in front of the Ice Warriors; his one regret was that Roz hadn’t been around to see him adjudicating his socks off. He wondered what she would have made of his ‘arrangements’, solid proof that he had been paying attention during those endless lectures about terrorism and clandestine warfare. Then again, he wondered what she would have done in his position; knowing Roz, she would already have freed the others and be back in the TARDIS... Chris shuddered. He had no reason to believe that Roz or the Doctor were even alive, and no idea what to do once Felice and the others had been sprung. For the first time in over a year, there wasn’t a set of blue doors and subsequent sanctuary waiting for them.

  One step at a time, Chris, he told himself. In three hours’ time, the Ice Warriors would discover what he had been up to over the last two days. And while they were dealing with that, Chris would grab his colleagues and make a break for it. To somewhere.

  Assuming his ‘arrangements’ worked as planned, that was. He shrugged. If there had ever been a time for cheery, devil- may-care optimism, this was it. He closed his eyes and waited for what he hoped was the inevitable.

  The gods who watched over the Labyrinth of False Pride had obviously decided that the meaningless death of Christina Madrigal was a sufficient sacrifice to permit unmolested passage through the maze. Either that, or the gestalt air of defiance that positively radiated from the party was enough to ward off the hostile denizens of the Labyrinth.

  In the two days since the death, things had def
initely changed in the group: McGuire noticed that Roz was invariably in the company of the singer, Santacosta – an odd pair, but at least it stopped the latter’s whinging; the female Martian, Esstar, seemed to spend most of her time with nervous, timid Sstaal, while Cleece kept his own company, stoic and silent like a model Ice Warrior. McGuire himself had spent most of the tiring – yet thankfully eventless – journey talking to the Abbot, Aklaar.

  There didn’t seem to be a single topic that the ancient Martian didn’t have some sort of an insight into, and his fresh views on subjects that McGuire would have imagined were all but exhausted gave McGuire the intellectual stimulation that he had all but forgotten about. They had discussed Madrigal’s eventual burial back at Jacksonville, and he had learnt from the Abbot of the complex and reverential death ceremonies reserved for war heroes; the Abbot had even helped McGuire compose a fitting obituary for the marine.

  So, all in all, the group was actually bonding, in some strange yet fascinating way. With a tinge of uneasy sadness, he just knew that Vincente would have been chuffed with the way things were going – except that he couldn’t, of course. There was still Vincente’s death to consider, and that was a gnawing puzzle that couldn’t be solved. Yet.

  Indeed, the only outsider to the group was the one person that McGuire had initially considered a threat: the Doctor. The odd little Scotsman had spent most of the journey through the Labyrinth withdrawing into himself, even giving Roz short shrift when she had tried to talk to him. She hadn’t persisted. It was as if he was privy to some horror that was too much to share, yet too much to bear alone. McGuire just hoped that he didn’t turn out to be a liability before they finally reached the Pole.

  The Pole – now only a few kilometres away – was going to be... interesting, McGuire had decided. The Abbot had explained that his pilgrimage would end with a public renouncement of the Martian warrior ethic, marked by the ceremonial breaking of the Sword of Tuburr. The Sword was thousands of years old, the ultimate symbol of their warrior heritage, and breaking it would serve to direct the remaining Martians down a new path, one of peaceful co-operation with their neighbours. The fact that Mars’s current neighbours were vicious tyrants didn’t faze the Abbot in the slightest; he was convinced that the invasion and blockade were nothing more than a temporary set-back, and that mankind – aided and abetted by newfound allies on Mars – would soon reassert its claim on Earth. And, for some reason, McGuire believed him.