When Rayne woke, the sun's rays slanted through the dead trees. After eating more food, she examined her raw, sooty palms, picking out a few splinters. Although the wounds were not serious, the risk of infection in this polluted environment was high, so she went to the stream that chuckled through the rocks nearby. Stripping, she washed in the cold water, scrubbing her jeans. She emerged shivering, to wrap herself in the blankets she dug from under the rock where the food was stored, then lighted a fire.
The wounds in the back of her calves were easy enough to tend, and she removed several more splinters, but she could only examine the ones in the back of her thighs by touch. When she finished, twilight filled the grove with shadow, and she curled up next to the fire for another lonely night. At least she was safer in the country.
The swollen, sickly sun's first rays woke her, stealing into the grove with their slight warmth like fingers of light. She sat up with a start as the events of the previous day flooded back, making her glance up at the sky. It contained only dirty grey clouds, and, after studying it for several minutes, she relaxed. A hoar frost whitened the ground, liming the trees and bracken with a coating of ice.
The chilly air nipped at her nose and numbed her fingers and feet. Her legs had stiffened, and the pain made her gasp as she dragged more wood from the dwindling pile and lighted a new fire. As soon as a tiny blaze took hold, she huddled close to it and almost thrust her hands into the flames to warm them. Her breath steamed, and she clenched her jaws to prevent her teeth from chattering as she waited for the sun to warm the air.
By mid-morning, her jeans were dry, and she ate a little food, then dressed and sat beside the fire. She pondered the flying saucer's attack again, trying to fathom the reason for the senseless assault on an unimportant girl. The more she thought about it, the more convinced she became that she would never figure it out. She sighed and stared into the fire, remembering the dangers that had honed her reactions so keenly.
Her parents had joined the revolution in twenty-twelve, when wages had been cut to food only, and so many had lost their jobs. It had been madness, not a real revolution. They had been killed in a riot when the troops had shot most of the crowd on the government's orders. Massacring crowds reduced the overpopulation that ruined the economy and threatened dwindling food supplies, as well as curbing civil unrest. People had become a burden, and the army had been ordered to sacrifice the many for the sake of the few. She and Rawn had been at home when their parents were killed, and ran away to avoid the looters who came afterwards in search of food.
Harvests had failed, and the erratic weather wrought havoc. Floods had washed away entire crops, while droughts hit other areas. Unseasonal hail storms had wreaked terrible damage, and freak winds or wild fires ruined what was left. Earthquakes had ravaged some countries, and the resulting famine and disease wiped out entire populations. Crops that had survived the weather became sickly, and the remaining livestock was slaughtered. The ozone layer had thinned, and millions starved. People had eaten their pets, turned on each other and abandoned their children to die in the streets. Mankind had turned to the last remaining food source and hunted whales and dolphins to extinction, wiping out fish stocks.
It had been a time of turmoil and terror. People had killed randomly, burnt and looted in their desperate search for food. The government had ordered the army to keep order and reduce the population, but the soldiers rebelled and went home to their families. The putrid stink of decaying or burning flesh had filled the air, and hospitals became charnel houses. All the while, the world had died.
Rawn had looked after her since then. They had run and hidden, trusting no one, two frightened children in a world gone mad. They had nearly been caught a few times, but survived.
Rayne frowned as a prickle of unease made the hairs on her nape rise, and glanced up. Years of being hunted had honed her survival instincts, and she never ignored her sixth sense. Her eyes flicked back down as a golden glow appeared about ten metres away, growing brighter until she was forced to squint. Seconds later it faded. A man dressed in strange white clothes, a tinted helmet hiding his face, stood there.
Rayne stared at him, frozen with shock and fear. If he had moved she would have run, and she sensed his scrutiny as she groped for and found a fist-sized rock. The stranger wore what appeared to be a weapon on his hip, and she waited, holding her breath as she wondered what use the rock would be if he chose to use his weapon. The stone dug into her palm, which grew damp with nervous perspiration, and she was forced to breathe again as her lungs burnt for air. The golden light shrouded the stranger again, and when faded, he had vanished.
After a while, she rose and limped to the spot where he had stood, searching for tracks. She found two footprints, which proved she had not been hallucinating, and she shivered, glancing up at the empty sky. The uneasiness stayed with her, and her neck prickled in warning, making her retreat to her fire and build it into a blaze. Her eyes darted around, vigilant for any sign of danger.
On board a ship that orbited high above the Earth, the man who had recently shed a white bio suit studied the image from the spy cam he had ordered to follow the girl. The wafer-thin crystal screen gave a sharp, perfect colour picture, almost as if he was still there with her, just a few metres away. He recalled his amazement when he had first caught sight of her. The shock had kept him rooted to the spot for several minutes, ignoring the growing urgency of the telepathic calls of his crew. He still thought it amazing to find such a creature on this dying, polluted world, where half the people had degenerated to shambling monsters and the other half were undernourished and diseased.
Although he had been sent to find her, he had not been prepared for his first encounter, and still marvelled at it. Her golden hair had gleamed in the weak sunlight and her grimy skin glowed with health. The sharp intelligence of her luminous eyes had startled him. They had been filled with suspicion and fear, while her thin, callused hand had gripped a largish rock, ready to hurl it at him if he made the wrong move. She exuded a kind of leashed savagery, the alertness of a wild animal mixed with the rational response of a civilised being.
This girl was the one. He was more certain of it than he had ever been of anything in his life. He turned to the book that lay on the desk's smooth white surface and ran his fingers over it. Soft leather bound it, and the gold that trimmed its edges also depicted the name inscribed on its cover.
The Olban, set down thousands of years ago, contained all the teachings and prophesies that had guided the Atlantean culture throughout the ages. This particular copy was, of course, a symbolic token. His home city's high priest had given it to him before he left on this mission. It signified the sacred duty imposed upon him and his crew; a constant reminder of their objective. The Olban's contents were, and always had been, available on the central data processor. Over the centuries, many prophesies had come true, affirming the wisdom of the ancient seers who had foretold them.
Now a grave and momentous prophecy was about to unfold, which could change the course of the Atlantean Empire's fortune. He opened the book to the marked page and read the short passage that had brought him to this dying planet.
'In the time of the junction of Perinus and Lodis, when the comet Vistar appears in the heavens, travel through the void to the dying world. Here will be found a golden girl child, pure of spirit and flesh, she who must be saved, so she may save Atlan.'
That time had come. On Atlan, astronomers had seen the two stars, Perinus and Lodis, melt into one, and the comet had drawn its fiery trail across the night sky. The council had sent out all available ships to search for dying planets, and he had found this one. This girl, he was positive, was the golden girl child of whom the prophecy spoke. All the other people were sick, dying or depraved, yet she was perfect.
Tallyn turned back to the screen as the girl glanced around as if she sensed the spy-cam, even though she could not see it. Remarkable. Her harsh existence must have honed her senses to the point where
she could detect the slight static frisson of the spy-cam's shield. The spy-cam employed a fluctuating stress shield that warped the light around it, effectively making it invisible to the naked eye, and it floated high above her on a tiny anti-gravity coil.
Touching a crystal on the console, he called the ship's laboratory. Professor Rasham's mild, cultured face appeared on another screen, looking, as he always did, as if he had just been pulled through a hedge backwards, his thinning grey hair standing out in a wild halo.
Tallyn suppressed a smile. "Professor Rasham, have you the results of the air samples you took?"
Rasham's eyes brightened. This was his favourite subject. "Why yes, Commander. Basically, it's similar to our atmosphere still, in spite of the pollution, although that is a major difference, of course. There's less oxygen than is desirable, and the pollution factor is high. Methane, ammonia, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide gases have been found in far higher concentrations than is good for a person. The ozone layer is breaking up rapidly now, and the ultra violet and infrared radiation is getting very bad. The result of many decades of rampant greenhouse gas emissions, of course."
"Projections, Professor?"
The professor harrumphed. "Ah, well, not good. The increased radiation is killing the, err, natives. Most suffer from malignant cancers, apart from a few who have avoided direct sunlight, and some have mutated beyond all recognition. However, it's killing off the vegetation now, and once that goes, the oxygen level will become too low to support life. The polar caps are melting, causing the seas to rise, and, of course, the increase in temperature is causing more water to evaporate into the atmosphere to form clouds, which are trapping still more heat -"
"What will happen to the people?" Tallyn interrupted.
The professor shot him an injured look. "Well, those who don't die from the solar radiation will die of suffocation or starvation. They are going to die, that's certain. Earth is turning into another Venus. Soon it'll be just as hostile, with a corrosive methane-ammonia atmosphere, and nothing will survive. The temperature will continue to rise until the core expands and volcanoes erupt, spewing molten lava over the surface. Which will be dry, of course, as all the seas will have evaporated -"
"How long, Professor?"
The mild-featured man looked vexed at the constant interruptions. “Hard to say, exactly. Maybe three or four years before the people are gone, then the clouds will continue to thicken -"
"Thank you, Professor."
Tallyn broke the connection with a sigh. Like most elderly, over-educated men, Rasham loved to extol his subject, and if not kept under control could produce a monologue that would consume hours of precious time in educational, but unproductive discourse. It had taken Rasham close to five hundred years to gather all his vast knowledge, and it seemed to long for egress, taking control of his tongue in order to gain access to a fresh mind. Once Rasham had possessed high-cast black and white hair, but age had mixed it into a dull grey monotone that most Atlanteans found unattractive. Then again, one as old as the professor did not care about such things anymore.
Turning back to the spy screen, he watched the girl feed the fire, her eyes scanning countryside and sky. He wondered if she possessed more than the five senses humans were limited to, for she seemed unusually astute. Some studies conducted on humans indicated that a few had developed one of two extra senses over the course of their evolution, and most possessed a latent but never-awakened ability.
Leaning back, he pressed his hand to the sensor pad before him and closed his eyes, selected his topic from the central data bank and allowed the rush of data to enter his mind. It streamed in, a mixture of written information, images and sensory perceptions too intense for an untrained mind to absorb. The history of humankind, their biology, language, culture and peculiarities flashed into his mind in a few moments, preparing him for the ordeal of dealing with a member of this alien and heretofore-un-contacted race.
The reasons for their isolation soon became clear. Their propensity for violence and cruelty, their strange disregard for the destruction they had wrought upon their planet, dooming their civilisation, was enough to befuddle the most open of minds. It struck him as odd that the Golden Child should come from such an inept society, but then, perhaps she was the first to see the mistakes of the past.
Rayne spent the day resting beside the fire, nibbling food bars and mulling over the increasingly strange events. First the scarlet saucer, then the white-clad man, both with no logical explanation. It seemed unlikely that the white-clad man was connected to the scarlet saucer, yet she found it hard to believe that two alien ships studied Earth's demise. Also, why were they so interested in her? Were they doing this to other people too? At least the white-clad man had not appeared threatening, and she hoped the scarlet saucer had left the area.
The odd feeling that she was being watched stayed with her, even though there appeared to be no reason for it. She spent another night curled up in the blankets beside the fire, but the next day the food ran out and there was little firewood left. When the fire died and her stomach rumbled, Rayne decided she would have to go back into the city. Without food, she would only grow weaker, and she could not rely on her brother returning. Rawn could be dead for all she knew, and to sit here hoping he would come back was sheer folly. Only the fittest survived on this cruel world, so she had to find food or starve.
Quitting her warm nest took a great deal of willpower, and her injured legs protested. She buried the blankets under the rock and forced herself to her feet, grimaced and bit her lip to stifle her whimpers of pain. Her first few steps were so excruciating that she nearly returned to her camp, unable to face the long walk. She refused to lie there and starve, however, so she pressed on, ignoring the agony that shot up her legs at every stride. As she walked, her stiff muscles loosened, allowing her to walk a little more freely, but fresh blood dampened her jeans. She stumbled often, unable to hide the dangerous weakness that, if a gang of vagrants or another raider saw it, might lead to disaster.
Rayne reached the outer city at midday, and limped through the dingy, tumbled-down buildings. Rats scampered, squeaking, from piles of refuse, and she hurried past an occasional corpse, mutilated, diseased or skeletal. Many vile stenches abused her nose, varying only in their strength or foulness. Skinny, hollow-eyed people dodged into ruins at her approach, their eyes gleaming from the shadows as she passed. Rayne paused in an empty building to regain her strength and rest her throbbing legs, the pain making her queasy.
Keeping a sharp look out, she only rested for a few minutes. As she rose to leave, however, she froze at the faint sound of shuffling feet, and frowned. There were several of them, but the tread was too heavy for a group of vagrants. Raising her head, she sniffed the wind, all her senses straining. A vile stench wafted to her, which had not been there moments before. Terror turned her blood to ice, and she bolted from the building like a hare from its burrow, only to stop just outside the door.
Twenty mutants formed a semi-circle around the door she had just exited, shuffling closer. Rayne glanced back as another mutant filled the doorway. They stood seven foot and over, their long arms reaching to their knees. Brown, matted hair covered some, and slack lips revealed long yellow teeth. Others looked more human, but grossly deformed, and wore only a few dirty rags. One had elephant-like ears and hands that looked more like clubs.
Another had a single eye and nostril, while the mutant beside him had a dog-like muzzle full of sharp teeth. Some had almost normal faces, but half-animal bodies with claws, spines or scales. Most of them had cancerous growths of various sizes, suppurating ulcers that oozed stinking pus. Their stench made her bile rise, souring the lump of terror lodged in her throat. Dirt matted their hair and caked their mottled skins with a layer of greasy filth spotted with patches of dried gore and pus. A few even had mould growing on them.
They were genetic mutants, those unfortunates who had been children or just conceived when the ozone layer broke do
wn and the sun's radiation had wreaked havoc on their development. Most had died. These were the angry, suffering survivors, who killed for food and fun, their minds as twisted as their bodies. Their size and well-fed appearance stemmed from their cannibalistic lifestyle, and she was to be the latest delicacy on their menu.
Rayne looked around for a weapon. Rawn had always protected her, and weapons of any sort were hard to come by, due to the demand for them. Desperate, she tugged at a steel reinforcing rod protruding from some rubble, but it was firmly lodged and all she did was scrape her raw palms on its rusty surface. The approaching mutants stared at her with dull eyes and licked their lips in anticipation.
Picking up a brick, she hurled it at one, but it bounced off the creature's forehead with no noticeable effect. Panic squeezed her heart in an icy grip as she glanced around for a way out, but they were shoulder to shoulder, closing the circle. Her stomach threatened to hurl its meagre, acidic contents up her throat. Rancid breath, mixed with unwashed hairy bodies, urine and faeces, plus the decaying blood of past victims that clung to their fur, created a stench unrivalled in singular vileness.
Sobbing with hysterical panic, Rayne hurled brick after brick at the encroaching mutants, following each with a stream of useless abuse. Her aim was good, but the bricks bounced off the mutants' thick skulls without making them blink. Some leered and growled, others quickened their steps and raised their arms.
A low-pitched hum filled the air. A pillar of blue fire impaled the mutant in front of her, which exploded. Blood and guts splattered its companions, making them recoil. The blue fire burnt a molten spot in the ground before it cut off, then impaled another mutant. The powerful hum made her teeth ache, and intense heat scorched her skin as mutant after mutant died, impaled by the beam of light. She gasped and crouched down, covering her face as an orgy of blue heat destroyed the mutants. Some died before they could make a sound, and none had time to even turn away.
Prophecy se-1 Page 3
