Prophecy se-1

by T C Southwell

  When the last mutant was vaporised, the blue fire vanished, leaving scorched, smoking spots that glowed. Shredded gore coated the rubble, and chunks of cooked meat clung to the crumbling wall behind her. Rayne lowered her hands and glanced around, poised to flee but afraid to move in case she attracted the attention of whoever had killed the mutants. She was fairly sure it had been a laser beam, invisible against the sky. Her mind raced as she struggled to make sense of it.

  An alien ship had just tried to kill her, now some unknown and unseen benefactor had saved her, or were they just toying with her? Perhaps they enjoyed her fear, and now waited for her to flee before killing her, too. She glared at the sky, hating their power and elusiveness, determined not to give them the satisfaction of watching her run about in terror. Her bravado drained away, and she stumbled from the scorched circle to hobble down the street as fast as she could, intent only on getting away.

  The imperative and rather rude telepathic intrusion of Marcon, his first officer, jerked Tallyn from a deep slumber. Such tactics were only ever used in an emergency, so he quelled his initial annoyed reaction and sent back a query. Marcon's response, that a group of mutants were attacking the human girl, brought Tallyn wide awake. He jack-knifed out of his bunk and pulled on the one-piece stretch overall that was slung over a nearby chair.

  His quarters were only a few strides away from the bridge, and within seconds he watched the confrontation on main screen. He admired her pluck as she hurled bricks and abuse at the monsters, but when it was quite obvious she could not escape, he gave the order to destroy the mutants. The ship's neural net, under the guidance of a net-linked officer, locked onto the targets and calculated distance and trajectory before firing the lasers with deadly accuracy.

  The girl glanced around and up, but the ship was in orbit, hidden by the grey clouds that cloaked her world. The spy-cam that brought her image to him also marked her position, enabling the ship's infrared scanners to track her movements. The spy-cam was programmed to keep her image in its lens. She hobbled down the street, the spy-cam following like a faithful dog. Her limp worried him, and the brown stains on her trousers indicated injuries that he had only noticed when she had set out on her journey this morning. The possibility of infection added to his concern, making him toy with the idea of picking her up.

  Tallyn could not explain why he had not done so yet, but something warned him not to, in spite of her injury. The same instinct told him she was the golden girl child in the prophecy. Over the years, he had learnt to trust his instincts, and this was probably the most significant mission he would ever perform. As the ship's commander, he had no need to explain his actions, or lack of them, to the crew, although Marcon had looked at him oddly.

  The ship held orbit now above the city where the girl dwelt, and she was obviously the target. The crew probably wondered why he did not order her transferred up, but Atlantean crews rarely questioned their commanders' orders. Nor did he find any need to explain it; he would wait until the time was right.

  Rayne entered the Inner City late in the afternoon. She slipped into the shadows of the towering, shiny skyscrapers and dodged from building to building. Her chances of finding Rawn were slim to none, but she had to try. The pain in her legs sapped her, hunger gnawed at her, and she stopped at taps to drink. The water eased her stomach ache, but added nothing to her dwindling strength. Twice, she spotted police patrols and hid in dark doorways until they passed.

  At dusk, she rested in a ruined office building, on a battered sofa that had somehow survived the destructive effects of the pollution that ravaged the planet. She stared out of a grimy window at the dismal street, raising her gaze once more to the grey clouds that no longer offered any protection against the sun's radiation. The cuts in greenhouse gas output had been too little and too late.

  The vast amount of gas already released wrought irreparable damage on the ozone layer as it rose into the upper atmosphere. Huge cattle farms produced massive amounts of methane, and the destruction of the world's forests reduced oxygen production just as drastically.

  The ozone layer was almost gone now, making exposure to the sun hazardous, for even a few hours could cause skin cancer. The acid rain ate into everything. It soaked into the ground and killed the trees and few struggling weeds that were left. Once filtered by the soil, it was safe to drink. Sometimes thick yellow smog would envelope everything, burn eyes and skin and leave behind a layer of black soot.

  The once-beautiful blue oceans were mere legend now. Brown seas foamed on filthy beaches like a massive sewer. No one lived beside it anymore, for the stench of rot and noxious bacterial secretions were strong enough to make people sick. A thick blanket of green algae covered the sluggish waves. Adapted to the saline conditions, it thrived on the toxic soup of chemicals and pollutants that filled it. The sea had turned into the very thing humans had used it for, a cesspit.

  Rayne sighed and rose, wincing. The prospect of stumbling through the darkening city did not appeal to her, but necessity drove her. If she did not find Rawn, she was not sure she would survive, since she would have great difficulty running with her injuries and she had to find food before she became too weak.

  Chapter Three

  Rawn wandered along a deserted street, glancing into gloomy corners, his hand never far from his weapon. Since his encounter with the slavers, he had increased his vigilance. He no longer allowed his constant worry about Rayne's welfare to distract him, although it nibbled at his mind like a rat gnawing in the ceiling. Hunger gnawed at him too. He had not eaten since this morning, when his food had run out. He stopped for water at a tap in a building, then walked on until dark, when he found a safe place and built a fire.

  As the night chill settled through the air, he went to a nearby drapery and searched amongst the rubbish and dust for blankets and curtains. Returning to his fire, he settled down for the night.

  Rayne built a fire, but her leather jacket could not cope with the bitter cold. Although she huddled over it, her back remained cold while her front cooked. Her supply of combustible material dwindled rapidly, for cardboard burnt quickly and wood was in short supply. Curling into a ball, she strived to conserve her warmth as the fire died. Her stomach rumbled, and she longed for her brother's comforting warmth. She clenched her teeth to stop them chattering, but her shivers grew more violent as the night air cooled. Nevertheless, she closed her eyes and tried to sleep.

  Every little noise woke her from her uneasy doze, mostly rats scuttling in the garbage, and she knew she would have a restless night.

  Tallyn stood in the gloom at the back of the ship's bridge and watched the girl with growing concern. The officer who monitored the surface conditions informed him that the temperature approached freezing point, since the thick clouds dispersed at dusk to release the heat trapped under them. This planet's peculiar weather grew stranger every day, and the changing atmospheric conditions led to some pretty weird aberrations, such as hail storms on a warm day or heat waves on a cold one.

  The girl suffered from the cold, and he considered the various ways in which he might help her. He could transfer a blanket down to her, but, with her suspicious nature, she would probably not use it. The same would apply to a heating unit, so the only real option was to bring her aboard. As yet, he had not informed anyone that she was their target, but the surveillance and concern for her welfare should have made that obvious by now. He glanced at Marcon, who stood nearby, an ear cocked for orders.

  "Deploy the transfer Net. Put her into the quarantine section under deep sleep inducement."

  Marcon nodded and took his station to send orders to the various crew members who would be required to perform their particular function. Crystals twinkled in the gloom as the locator beam was sent out. Using the spy-cam as a guide, the particle beam locked onto its living cargo and sent back her precise location. The Net deployed next, surrounding the girl in a nimbus of golden light as it coalesced into a shell of pure energy.

 
The transfer Net's technology had always fascinated Tallyn, although its use was limited by the amount of power it devoured when the ship was not linked to the energy dimension, like now. This single transfer would use enough power to run the star ship for a month. The transfer Net worked in a similar fashion to the way in which the ship moved through space, but its ability to work at a distance complicated it. The ovoid of energy, once formed into a tangible shell, changed the frequency of its wave form, and by doing so, side slipped through time and space.

  Essentially, the shell transferred itself into a dimension of pure energy, where distance, matter and time did not exist. Without these laws, all that remained was to force the energy shell to re-emerge at a predetermined point, in this case, the ship's hospital. To do this, the programmed instructions of the initial beam forced the shell to change its wave form again, whereupon the energy dimension ejected it, and it emerged at the time and place contained in its original instructions. Within the energy shell, the cargo, even when awake, was unaware of anything other than the golden glow, followed by a change of venue.

  Many scientists had argued against the Net's safety, challenging its inventors to prove that living cargo could not be destroyed, should the shell break down in the energy dimension. The ensuing experiments had gone on for years, but the closest anyone had come to losing a cargo was a small animal that vanished into the energy dimension for seven years, but re-emerged unharmed at its point of origin. This had caused serious consternation, since the laboratory had, in the meantime, been torn down, and the Net had returned in an office block.

  The animal, when caught, had proven to be in excellent health, since no time had passed for it. After that, the Net was deemed to be safe, although by then it had already been in use for several years. Essentially, the conclusion was that the shell could not break down in the energy dimension simply because it was kept intact by the one thing that abounded there. Energy. The beast's loss had been due only to its sender failing to encode any return instructions into the initial beam, and even then it had eventually returned, unharmed.

  The wave form of the Net changed, and the shell and its cargo vanished from the spy-cam’s screen. The spy-cam, confused, spun as it searched for its target, but a new set of instructions halted its frantic revolutions.

  Tallyn left the bridge and walked along the corridors that led to the ship's hospital, his feet silent on the thick moss carpet. Going over to the shimmering stress field that surrounded the bed where she lay, he gazed down at her. The doctor, clad in a sealed suit, tended the wounds in her legs. He glanced up and waved before returning to his work.

  Tallyn studied the girl, his conviction that she was his quarry growing stronger. Her perfection cried out for notice, almost impossible in the revolting atmosphere in which she lived. Her skin had no sun blemishes at all, which, even if she had lived all her life in a cave, was amazing. His hair stood up as he moved closer to the stress screen, and he stepped back, unwilling to be touched by its unpleasant aura.

  The screen, unlike the Net, used hardly any energy at all, but created a barrier by changing the polarity of the air molecules in a series of alternating layers. This created a tangible barrier through which air could not circulate, for the stressed molecules were static, held in position by the field's slight energy. Its effect on flesh was startling and violent, deadly if a person tried to penetrate it. Fortunately, its hair-raising properties and the shimmer of its stressed particles were warning enough to keep most people away.

  The agony it imparted upon entry would also enforce a speedy withdrawal. Stress screens were used in prison ships and bank vaults, and as yet, no one had found a way through one without a door stasis switch. The screen's effect on metal armour was even more dramatic than flesh, resulting in atomisation and the instant death of its occupant. An air-cleaning unit stood beside the girl's bed, providing her with fresh air. The doctor, his task finished, switched off a door in the screen and exited, approaching Tallyn.

  "She's the one, isn't she? I would never have thought that such health could thrive in that putrid environment."

  "Yes." Tallyn gazed at her, then turned to the doctor. "Keep her asleep until morning, then I'll have her returned."

  The doctor looked perplexed. "Returned? But surely…?" He caught himself. "Yes, sir."

  Rayne woke with a gasp, opened her eyes and sat up. All her senses tingled and her head spun from the speed of her movements before her metabolism had speeded up from its sleeping state. Her breath condensed before her face in the cold air, yet she was warm, the chill nipping at her fingers and nose. She had slept through the night, with no dreams or sudden awakenings caused by rats or other noises.

  The dull throbbing ache in her legs was gone, and when she poked the wounds she found hard scabs where yesterday there had been bleeding sores. She was refreshed and invigorated, and a metallic taste lingered on her tongue. The peculiarities were alarming, yet harmless, and made her wonder afresh at the strong sensation of being watched. She glanced around at the dank, gloomy room in which she had spent the night, her gaze flitting over peeling walls and mildewed floor to come to rest on the ashes of her fire.

  Hunger lived as a dull pain in her belly, and today she must find food. Dismissing the inexplicable oddities for the moment, she pulled her jacket closer and rose, going over to the door to peer out. Rain had fallen during the night, and she was surprised that she had slept through it, since rain was so dangerous, it usually woke her. Puddles in the road hissed as they ate into the tar, and acrid steam stung her nostrils. Leaving the room's safety, she walked down the deserted street, avoiding puddles. Finding a tap, she drank and washed her face, keeping a sharp lookout for danger. The only place she would find food was at an autocrat's store, and, although the prospect chilled her, hunger drove her on.

  Rayne set off to find one, sprinting across roads and staying close to walls, where she could duck out of sight if necessary. Even vagrants were a threat to her now. Her only defence was to act like a raider, so they would think she was armed. She flitted through the city until she found a food store, but the number of guards patrolling its entrance dismayed her. The autocrat must have been raided recently, for there were four guards instead of the usual two.

  Rayne considered finding a less well-guarded store, but the prospect of continuing her dangerous journey on an empty stomach did not appeal to her. Like most food stores, it was an old shop with all the doors save one bricked up. In the early days, raiders had used explosives to blow open food store doors, and some autocrats had given up repairing the damage. This store was one that possessed no doors, its owner having opted to use more guards instead.

  This meant that raiders were sometimes killed, which pleased the autocrats. The rivalry between store guards and raiders had become something of a deadly game, which was why guards did not merely stand outside the doors, or wait inside in ambush. To even the odds, they patrolled in front of the store, giving raiders a chance to get in if they had the guts to try.

  Watching them, she noticed that there was about a minute when both pairs had their backs to the door. This gave her a slim chance, but it was risky. If they caught her, they would give her to an autocrat, a prospect grim enough to make her hesitate. Then her stomach rumbled, reminding her of why she was there.

  Rayne waited for the right moment, missing two before she plucked up enough courage to make her dash. Leaving the safety of the doorway, she sprinted across the road and ghosted through the door. She held her breath as she waited for the shouts and the pounding of feet that would tell her that she was now trapped. Her heart's hammering was the only sound in the vast, dilapidated room, however, and she turned to survey her surroundings.

  Mountains of boxes were stacked against the walls, and she went to tear open the nearest cardboard lid and look inside. Plastic-wrapped food bars, nutritious but, in this case, tasteless. She gathered some, then looked in another box, finding tinned stuff, too heavy to carry. A third box yielded protei
n and vitamin pills, and she filled her pockets with these and more food bars of different flavours and nutritional values.

  Once she had as much as she could carry, she returned to the door. It was dangerous to stay inside too long, since the guards sometimes checked for intruders. She peered out and jerked back. The guards faced the door, and she waited, then looked again just as they turned away.

  With her heart lodged in her throat, she sprinted for the doorway she had hidden in earlier. Shouts rang out behind her, followed by the clatter of running feet, and she veered off. Clutching her stolen booty, she raced down the street, the guards pounding in pursuit. She lengthened her strides, her muscles stretching, her hair flying like a banner. For a while, she revelled in her speed, but all too soon the burning of fatigue invaded her legs. Sprinting required a great deal of effort, and was not something that she could sustain for too long, especially while carrying an armload of food.

  Scarcely a block passed before the extra weight and her weakened condition took their toll. The guards kept up, their wild shots ricocheting off the walls on either side of her, alarmingly close. They did not seem to be aiming to kill, only to frighten her, for now. She dived into an alley, hoping to lose them in the shadows and garbage, but they were too close, and followed.

  The men stopped firing and whooped with triumph as they closed with their quarry, certain of their success. Dropping the food, she sprinted again, intent only on escape. Her legs were lumps of burning lead and her lungs seemed to have shrunk. The guards gained, and she leapt over a pile of old cardboard and stumbled, sobbing with terror and exhaustion. The alley ended a few metres further on in a high wall. She slowed, her mind numb with horror, unwilling to look back at her triumphant pursuers.