The Fall of Tartarus

by Eric Brown

  By the sixth night, a combination of the monotony of the journey, the succession of beers, and a self-questioning doubt as to the sanity of her mission, pitched Katerina into a philosophical mood. She realised that she had seen no other ships heading into the interior. The few boats she had observed had been moving in the other direction, half a dozen vessels overloaded with citizens eager to flee the hostile southern continent and start a life afresh on some safe, new world. She was going against the tide, both physically and in a more abstract sense. As she slouched on the battered chesterfield that she had made her own, and stared out into the night sky, a blood-red dome shot through with high gold and silver cirrus, she realised she had only the dubious word of some cheap fortune-teller that her brother was still alive. She had been told what she wanted to believe by someone who perhaps had the ability to read her mind, divine her most secret wishes. The chance that Bobby had survived the crash-landing was slim indeed - even more so the idea that he might somehow have survived for three years in the hostile jungle. Drunk, she told herself that she should forget the film, turn back before she further endangered herself. . . But even as she was thinking this, she knew she could not give up now. Part of the drive to learn the truth, she knew, was not so much the love she had had for Bobby, but a strange and unsettling hate. She resented him for leaving her, for not coming back - so in lieu of his coming back for her, she would shame Bobby by seeking him out, irrespective of the danger to herself.

  At dawn, the magnesium glare of the rising sun pushed back the blood-red night. Katerina stood unsteadily, pitched her empty beer bottle at the far shore with more venom than accuracy, and staggered to her cabin. She showered in the l ukewarm water pump ed no doubt straight from the river, which neither cleaned her nor cooled her down, fell into bed and within seconds was sweating again. She slept fitfully as the temperature increased and the sun sent spears of light through the gaps in the broken blinds. Lucid dreams merged with half-forgotten memories of Bobby, so that when she was jerked awake by a sound from the jungle he seemed to be with her in the cabin, the spectral presence of this half-man, half-boy creature by turns frightening and reassuring.

  She recalled the fortune-teller’s words.

  ‘Tears of joy?’ Katerina had asked.

  ‘No,’ Sabine had replied. ‘Tears of sorrow.’

  As the sun went down and the temperature dropped appreciably, Katerina lay with her head buried in the sweat-soaked pillow and thought back to the last time she had spoken to Bobby.

  * * * *

  It was two weeks before his sixteenth birthday, the time he would leave the orphanage and make his way in the world. He was playing a hectic game of football with a dozen other boys on the balding playing fields within the grounds of the home. He drifted out of the game - it seemed with reluctance - and made his way across to where Katerina was sitting by herself in the shade of a flame tree, watching a film on her portable screen. He paused before her, with the same hesitant uncertainty he had shown on leaving the game, and she was alerted. This was quite unlike him.

  He squatted beside her, peering with feigned curiosity at the image on the small screen. He knew nothing about films, never watched them, and now this show of interest irritated Katerina.

  She killed the set. ‘What’s wrong?’

  He avoided her eyes. ‘Two weeks,’ he said, almost inaudibly.

  She smiled. ‘You getting cold feet, Bobby! Thought you didn’t like this place? Thought you couldn’t wait to get out? That’s what you told me!’

  He shrugged awkwardly.

  ‘Don’t worry. You can come back to visit me. And you can sit at the headmaster’s table with the other old boys on feast days.’ Her tone was mocking, but she faltered when he failed to respond.

  ‘Bobby, what is it?’

  He was silent. She thought she knew what was troubling him. Most kids on leaving the orphanage found work and accommodation in the town - there were schemes run by local businesses to provide employment and shelter for graduates. Although Bobby’s grades had been good, he’d said nothing to her for the past month about finding a job.

  ‘Bobby, you’ve nowhere to go to, have you?’ Sympathy was mixed with anger at his lassitude. He was a bright kid when he applied himself.

  Wordlessly, he pulled a folded, glossy brochure from the back pocket of his shorts and thrust it at her. It was an advertisement for the Sigma Corporation, recruiting apprentice engineers.

  ‘I sat the exam and passed,’ he whispered. ‘I leave in three weeks.’

  ‘The Sigma Corporation? But that’s brilliant!’ And she flung her arms around him in a hug that foundered on his mobility. She pulled away. ‘Bobby,’ she said, exasperated, what’s wrong?’

  ‘The Sigma Corporation’s based on Draconis IV,’ he said. ‘In three weeks I’ll be leaving Earth.’

  Something deep within her froze. They had been together for as long as she could remember. He had told her that w hen he left the orphanage he would get a place in town and visit her every other day, and on weekends she could co me and stay with him. The idea of being without Bobby was unthinkable.

  ‘How long?’ she managed at last. ‘How long will you be away?’

  He stared at the ground. ‘The apprenticeship is for three y ears,’ he whispered. ‘After that there’s secondment to one of Sigma’s sister companies.’

  She was silently shaking her head. ‘But how long will you be away?’ she almost wailed.

  ‘Kat, in three years I’ll come back for you, okay? On your sixteenth birthday, I’ll be back. I’ll have earned enough by then to buy your passage to Draconis. I’ll find you a place to live, a job.’

  ‘Three years . . . ?’ She had never relished the thought of her three remaining years in the orphanage, even with Bobby nearby to make it bearable. She told herself that she would be unable to go on without him.

  Then she looked at her brother. He had known for weeks about his departure, and he had been unable to bring himself to tell her, to hurt her. Yet she could sense that a part of him was proud of his achievement, and excited to be leaving the orphanage on an adventure to the stars - and she knew that she could not deny him the chance of a lifetime.

  She reached out, flung her arms around his shoulders and wiped away her tears with the cuff of her blouse.

  Two weeks later they said goodbye outside the gates of the home, while the taxi waited to take Bobby to the airport. ‘I’ll be back in three years,’ he promised again. ‘It might seem like a long time, but you’ll see how fast it goes.’

  The following three years were, contrary to Bobby’s forecast, the longest of her life. Those aspects of the home which had been tolerable with Bobby around now became impossible to bear: the lack of affection, the feeling that she was special to no one, the fact that there was no one to whom she could unburden herself. She became withdrawn, even from people she’d considered friends before. She concentrated on her work, and counted the days to her sixteenth birthday and Bobby’s return. His monthly letters spoke of an exciting new life, of friends, of experiences she could only ever imagine.

  Two weeks before her birthday, it was announced that due to economic recession, and the resulting shortage of jobs in the area, fifth form pupils would be required to stay on at the home for another year. While those around her bewailed their prolonged captivity, Katerina basked in the secret knowledge of her imminent rescue.

  Her sixteenth birthday came and went, though, with no sign of Bobby. In the days that followed the longed-for hour of liberation, she told herself that he had been delayed, that today he would come for her, and like this weeks and months passed by. She had not received a letter from him since before her birthday, and every month, as often as she could afford, she wrote to him, imploring him to get in touch. Six months later, with no sign of Bobby and still no word from him, she admitted to herself that life on Draconis was too good for Bobby to waste time and money rescuing his kid sister ... So she let her studies slip, and dodged lessons
when she could. Then one morning she skipped literature studies, went swimming in the river, and then caught the express to the coast.

  * * * *

  The sun had set by the time she rose, showered, and made her way to the bar for the breakfast of fruit and coffee, which she would eat in silence with the old man and woman. It was the seventh day of the journey, and they were due to dock at Lapierre’s Landing at midnight. After breakfast, Katerina resumed her station on the chesterfield by the open window, drank beer and stared out at the dark jungle beneath a fiery night sky.

  She was on her third beer when her attention was attracted by movement on the bank of the river. She made out the fleeting glimpse of a human figure dashing through the foliage. As she leaned forward and stared, she caught fight of more and more figures, perhaps a dozen, as they ran swiftly through the jungle, paralleling the course of the boat. They emerged upon a projecting, moss-covered rock at a bend in the river, stood in absolute silence and watched as the boat passed by. Katerina was up and filming, aware of the quality of the shot. The tribesmen were tall and sun-bronzed, with fair hair and blue eyes. Some wore loincloths, others went naked. All carried spears or bows and arrows. They stood in a still and silent tableau, watching the slow passage of the boat with no sign of either hospitality or Hostility. The river turned again and the tribesmen passed from sight. Katerina resumed her beer and contemplated existence in such hostile terrain.

  One hour later, as they approached the rotting timber settlement that was Lapierre’s Landing, she activated her camera and composed an establishing shot.

  She had expected a small town, at least a settlement of a hundred or so cabins. Her heart sank when the boat pulled into the L-shaped jetty and she made out a dozen ramshackle timber huts in a clearing surrounded on three sides by jungle. There was no sign of activity on the shore, though trails of smoke did rise from a couple of the cabins. Katerina collected her pack and carefully negotiated the precarious gangplank.

  She spotted a crude sign nailed to a timber construct on the river’s edge. The sign read, ‘Sook’ - with the remaining three letters, ‘ie’s’, hanging on a loose board at right angles. Katerina made her way along the muddy bank, the humidity sapping her strength, and ducked into the doorway beneath the dangling sign.

  Tables and benches, constructed from the ubiquitous timber planking, filled the gloomy interior - the crowded seating arrangements suggesting that Sookie’s had seen busier days. An old woman, her European face lined with wrinkles, sat beside a huge, throbbing refrigerator. She stared with an expression of frank amazement as Katerina sat herself down on a bench and mopped the sweat from her brow.

  There was no sign of Old Henrique.

  Recovering her composure, the woman hauled open the fridge door and pulled out an ice-cold beer. She removed the cap with an opener tied to the hinge of the fridge door with a length of twine, and passed the bottle to Katerina.

  Liquid had never tasted so good. Katerina held up the empty and nodded for a second bottle.

  Two beers later, she lined up the empty with the others and smiled at the old woman. ‘Look. I’d like to go on drinking all day, but I came here for a reason. I’m looking for Henrique. Old Henrique.’

  The woman stared and shook her head. She muttered something in a language Katerina did not understand, perhaps corrupted German.

  ‘Old Henrique,’ she spoke loud and clear. ‘Where can I find him?’

  Enlightenment showed on the woman’s face. ‘Ah, Henrique?’ she said, then babbled on and pointed towards the jungle.

  At last she climbed to her feet, took Katerina by the hand and led her outside. She walked her to the centre of the clearing and pointed up the slight incline. Katerina made out a raised timber walkway disappearing into the jungle. ‘Down there? I’ll find Henrique down there?’

  The woman nodded, almost pushing Katerina on her way. ‘Ja, Henrique.’

  Shouldering her pack, Katerina walked from the river, passing timber huts on stilts, mangy dogs sleeping in their shade and filthy, naked children watching her silently from doorways.

  The walkway was a death-trap of treacherous mould and missing planks. She clutched a loose handrail and inched her way forward, peering into the gloom ahead for any sign of habitation. A hundred metres further on, the walkway terminated at the front porch of a long, low hut. The door was open and an orange light glowed within.

  Katerina knocked on the timber frame, only then remembering the old woman’s advice to present Henrique with a bottle of feti to keep him sweet. Damn - she’d promise him an entire crate if he could help her.

  ‘Enter,’ a gravelly baritone sounded from inside.

  She stepped into a one-room building entirely in shadow but for a globe of light which illuminated a big man seated in an armchair. She had expected some diseased and weather-worn trader in his hundreds. Old Henrique, despite his title, was perhaps fifty, massive-chested, bald-headed and emanating, even when seated, an awesome sense of power.

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ he said in French. ‘Lizzie sent you, right? And she suggested you bring feti as a gift. But Sookie’s doesn’t sell the stuff, and you’re wondering if you’ll still get your interview.’

  ‘Almost right,’ she said. ‘But I don’t want an interview.’

  ‘You don’t? You’re not a journalist?’ He smiled to himself at some personal joke. ‘You’re not here to quiz me about what it’s like to be afflicted?’

  ‘Well, I am a journalist, but I haven’t come to ask about your health.’

  ‘That makes a change, girl. I get medical hacks come from all over the Thousand Worlds to pry and poke and ask a hundred stupid questions. Then of course they all want the photograph.’ He stared at her, his eyes large beneath his bald head. His stare seemed to challenge her.

  She accepted the challenge. ‘The photograph?’

  Smiling, he lifted his hands from the arms of the chair and slowly unfastened his shirt. Despite herself, Katerina stared. His chest and belly was covered with a thousand blood-red writhing tentacles, each perhaps as long as a finger, embedded in his flesh.

  He smiled in satisfaction at her expression, and then slowly fastened his shirt.

  ‘I was way down south one night and I hadn’t fumigated the tent, and in the morning something had laid its egg in my chest. By the time I got to Apollinaire it was too late. Yekini’s, after the prospector who was first afflicted. It’s a symbiotic creature which usually lives on Leverfre’s mandrills, but humans’ll do at a push. It isn’t life threatening, and the pain can be kept in check with pills. On the plus side, it releases a mild hallucinogen into my bloodstream, which I must admit I find rather pleasant.’ His expression hardened. ‘Now, you’ve got what you want, so why don’t you go back to where you came from?’

  Katerina matched his stare. ‘I’m a journalist,’ she said, ‘but I’m not a ghoul. I didn’t come here because of the Yekini’s.’

  He gestured at her to explain herself, his expression half-amused.

  ‘Lizzie told me you know Kruger territory and the Bourg people.’

  He bunched his lips in contemplation. ‘And if I do?’

  ‘I need your help. I can pay, and pay well.’

  Henrique was silent for long seconds. At last he asked. ‘Pay for what?’

  ‘Information, first - then maybe advice and help.’ He rested his head on the back of his chair, the tanned skin of his face highlighted by the lamp beside his chair, ‘What do you want to know?’

  Hesitantly, picking her words with care, Katerina told him about her brother and the crash-landing. Then she asked Henrique if he had heard or seen anything that might corroborate the fortune-teller’s claim that Bobby is still alive.

  He heard her out without a word, staring up at the thatched ceiling of the hut, his face impassive. The silence continued long after Katerina had finished speaking.

  At last he said, ‘Chances are if he came down in Kruger territory, was injured and wandered off into the jungle,
then he’s dead.’

  ‘Not according to the fortune-teller.’

  Henrique closed one eye and regarded her askance. ‘And you believe in fortune-tellers?’

  Sophia told me I’d go places, Katerina thought, and I did: perhaps it was only because someone believed in me, after the disappointment of Bobby’s broken promise, that I began to believe in myself and strove to succeed.

  She shrugged. ‘Yes. I don’t know. Perhaps it’s because I want to believe so much that I do.’

  Henrique listened without mocking her, then nodded. ‘When did your brother go down? What time of year?’

  Katerina calculated. ‘Three years ago, St Bede’s month.’

  ‘High summer. Golden fruit’s harvested in summer, so the Bourg people might’ve been in the area.’