The Fall of Tartarus

by Eric Brown

  And what cheered Jenner was that Cahla had taken to him; not with any demonstrative show of affection or emotion - hugs and kisses were not part of the way of life of the tribal peoples - but in her own, calm, neutral way, the way she followed him, watched him through her fringe, was always by his side when he talked to his team in the briefing room.

  The first time she disappeared, Jenner thought that she had finally had enough of this strange new life, had decided to return to her true existence in the jungle, and despite the intellectual realisation that this was for the best, he still could not help mourning his loss.

  Then, three days later, Cahla returned, the waist-thong of her loincloth hung with a dozen frogs, a furry monkey-like creature slung over her shoulder like a backpack. She carried a blow-pipe, fashioned from a bamboo-analogue, clutched in her small fist.

  From time to time she would disappear like this, be gone two or three days, or sometimes longer, and then reappear - and Jenner’s guilt that he had perverted the course of her life was assuaged by the evidence that she could still function in her own environment.

  * * * *

  The sun had set, but the sky still glowed with flickers and pulses of orange light. Makhabi gestured that they should pull into the shore for the night. They made camp on a broad curve of sand. Makhabi moored the boat to the trees while Jenner erected the dome-tent and Cahla broke out the rations. They ate in silence, seated outside the dome, Jenner drinking water to replace the fluid lost during the day. When it came to the sleeping arrangements, Makhabi insisted on remaining outside, sitting cross-legged with his blow-pipe at the ready. Jenner shared the dome with Cahla, opaqued the membrane against the flickering night, and soon fell asleep.

  He was disturbed only once during the night, and even then he was only half-awoken. He heard some small sound within the dome, and realised that it was Cahla, nestling close to him. She was crying quietly, inexplicably. Jenner put an arm around her, and after a while she ceased her sobbing and slept.

  They set off before sunrise in the morning, the steady throb of the engine the only sound in the pre-dawn stillness. Cahla seemed her normal self, and Jenner refrained from questioning her about her sadness of the night before.

  For the next few miles the river was entirely overgrown with a verdant mat of vegetation. They proceeded down a long, twilit tunnel in which the territorial cries of birds and beasts echoed eerily. Makhabi seemed all the more alert today. He sat bolt upright with his blow-pipe raised to his lips.

  Cahla explained in a whisper, ‘Here, bad haranga from trees drop. Quickly kill us, eat. Careful. Careful must be.’

  At last they emerged from the covered stretch of river, the daylight blindingly bright to eyes grown accustomed to the aqueous half-light. For the next few hours they made good speed along a winding length of river free from algae and weeds. Around noon, after a light meal, Cahla offered to take over at the tiller. They exchanged positions, and Jenner made himself as comfortable as possible in the bottom of the boat, and dozed.

  * * * *

  He was awoken by Cahla some time later. ‘Jen, Jen. Now wake up.’

  They were no longer moving; the engine was silent. Jenner sat up, working the aches from his back. ‘Have we arrived?’

  ‘Nai,’ Cahla said. ‘Now long walk.’

  He stepped onto the bank of the river and between them they ferried the provisions ashore. Makhabi unfastened his own boat, and tied both craft to the bole of a tree. Then he spoke to Cahla.

  She translated, ‘Four, five hour walk, say he.’

  They divided the canisters of water between them and set off into the jungle along a well-worn path, Makhabi leading the way and Cahla bringing up the rear. They halted repeatedly to allow Jenner to rest and take water. Already his shirt was rank with sweat, and he was feeling light-headed. After three hours he exchanged positions with Cahla and watched the girl negotiate the uneven surface of the jungle floor with swift-footed ease, effortlessly at home in this hostile environment.

  They came upon the encampment of the Ey’an people without warning. One moment they were striding through the jungle, identical to every other stretch they had traversed, and then they were on the edge of a vast clearing, the absence of trees allowing the sunlight to fall en bloc - so that for the first few seconds the details of the camp were lost in a blinding dazzle. Jenner shielded his eyes, made out a series of small, conical huts flanking the clearing; at the far end was a long communal hut raised above the ground on stilts.

  Only then did Jenner notice the people. They stood about in one and twos; men, women and naked children, all tall, tanned and fair, the males of the tribe daubed with verdant stripes like Makhabi’s. They had ceased what they had been doing to turn and stare at the sudden appearance of Jenner and his companions, and he felt uncomfortable under the weight of their collective attention.

  Then he saw something which increased his pulse and sent a prickling sensation across his scalp.

  Across the clearing stood McKenzie’s flier, its bulbous glass fuselage reflecting the sunlight, rotors drooping.

  Before he could react, gather his thoughts and question Makhabi, a welcoming committee of three Ey’an people, two old men and a woman, approached from the communal hut and crossed the clearing. From somewhere, more tribes-people emerged. They stood on the periphery of the clearing, a packed gallery of silent spectators.

  The three elders paused before Jenner.

  Their expressions were unsmiling, which in itself was not unusual. Even so, Jenner thought he detected an air of hostility in their manner.

  ‘Jenner?’ the old woman said. ‘Come. Follow.’

  Before the three turned, Jenner asked, ‘McKenzie and Patel? Where are they?’

  ‘Later. Now, come.’

  Only then did he wonder how the woman had come to learn English. He looked around for Cahla, as much to see a friendly face as for some explanation, but in his trepidation he could not make her out among the other tribes-people.

  He followed the three elders across the clearing, aware of a thousand pairs of eyes monitoring his progress. He arrived at the communal hut and followed the elders up a flimsy ladder lashed together from saplings.

  The interior of the hut was dim. From the entrance he was unable to see more than a few metres before him. He could, however, make out the rattan walls on either side, and two rows of silent, seated Ey’an people. The elders proceeded slowly, with a certain ceremony, down the aisle formed by the tribes-people. Someone at his side - he saw that it was Makhabi - touched his arm in a gesture for him to follow.

  As he walked, the far end of the hut resolved itself. Two figures were seated in front of him, cross-legged. The elders joined the seated figures, so that now a phalanx of five Ey’an people confronted him. Makhabi gestured for him to sit down. Stiffly, tired after the trek through the jungle, Jenner lowered himself to the floor.

  Later he would look back in amazement at how the human mind could absorb so much shock and still continue to function. He was surprised at how calm he was, then, as he stared into the shadows and saw his wife.

  ‘Laura . . . ?’

  It was Laura - four years older, thinner, totally grey-haired now, but Laura still. She was not smiling, but Jenner told himself that her expression softened as she looked upon his confusion.

  ‘Jen, welcome to the Ey’an-heth, the wise council of the Ey’an.’

  She was naked but for a loincloth, and her tanned torso was painted with green slashes. The shock was making him dizzy. ‘Laura?’

  ‘I’ve been rehearsing this meeting for a long time, Jen,’ she said softly, ‘dreading the inevitable and knowing that it was necessary, for both of us. Listen to me and try to understand. I know you will feel anger, resentment - those feelings are natural - but try to control them, understand what I have to tell you.’

  Jenner cradled his head in his hands. ‘I don’t think I can understand anything now. None of this makes any sense.’

  ‘Pleas
e, listen to me. Four years ago I left you and the Station and found ... I found what for years I had been looking for, without really understanding that I had been looking for anything. It happens like that - you know what you have been seeking only when you find it. And I found it among the Ey’an people.’

  It was all he could do to stare at her.

  ‘Ever since . . . what happened to Rebecca, I was dissatisfied with what I had, with what I could attain from the life I was leading.’

  ‘I meant that little to you!’

  ‘It was nothing to do with you. It was just ... I needed another life. A life of simplicity and certainty, a life close to the earth.’

  Jenner interrupted, ‘You can’t be happy here, among these people . . . You’re an intelligent woman.’

  ‘And I thought you were an intelligent man, Jen. I thought you might possibly have understood that even a so-called unsophisticated people can be wise and compassionate.’

  As she spoke, Jenner recognised the Laura of old, the Laura he had loved — and he wanted to reach out and take her in his arms, and in so doing erase the misery of his loss.

  She was speaking. ‘I wanted to tell you all this, Jen - but it was not the reason I asked you here.’ She paused, looked around at the elders. They gestured, inclined their heads.

  She continued, ‘The Ey’an people want you to know that they are happy here and wish to remain on Tartarus until the very end, that they do not wish to undergo the evacuation you are here to oversee. The Ey’an worship the power and the inevitability of the supernova, and will seek its salvation when the great day comes. In the aftermath of the firestorm, we will be reunited with our ancestors, and the ones we have loved and lost—’

  He stared at her. Slowly, understanding came to him. ‘You believe that by staying here, Rebecca will be returned to you?’

  Her gaze was unremitting. ‘It is what my people believe. They crave reunion with their ancestors, who have become Gods. Don’t you see that to remove these people from here, from their very roots, would destroy them?’

  He gestured feebly. ‘Laura . . . it’s my duty to ensure the complete evacuation of all tribal peoples from this continent. I . . .’

  ‘Let me warn you,’ Laura said, strength in her tone, ‘that we do not intend to leave Tartarus.’ She called out something in an alien tongue, and there was activity behind the seated elders.

  ‘This will serve as a warning,’ she said, and the brutality of her tone sent a shiver of foreboding through Jenner. ‘We had to make a stand, a gesture of our intent. I suggest that you take heed.’

  As she spoke, four Ey’an people carried two crude stretchers from the shadows, and laid them between the elders and Jenner.

  He could only stare. He felt something freeze within him as he looked upon the contorted bodies of McKenzie and Patel, at the long darts protruding from their chests. The shadows within the hut concealed their faces, and for this he was thankful.

  ‘How could you . . . ?’ he cried.

  ‘If it will persuade you of the wishes of the Ey’an people, then their sacrifice will have been worthwhile. It was the only way we had of demonstrating that we have the means to resist all your efforts to remove us. If you come for us in future, we will be ready.’

  ‘You don’t know what evil you’ve committed, in the name of your so-called freedom,’ he said. ‘Not only the deaths of McKenzie and Patel, but the genocide of the Ey’an, the extinction of all future generations.’

  He climbed to his feet, sick with the heat and the turn of events. ‘If you think you’ve heard the end of this—’ he began.

  Laura stood and faced him. ‘Is that a threat? Do you mean that you will return with reinforcements, after tracing us with your trinkets?’

  He stared down at her. ‘How . . . ?’ he began.

  He was aware of the eyes of the Ey’an people, laughing at his bewilderment.

  ‘You tortured—’ he said, gesturing towards the bodies. Before putting his friends to death, had they tortured them to extract the information about the gifts?

  ‘We tortured no one. They died swiftly and without pain.’

  ‘Then how . . . ?’

  ‘I thought you might resort to trickery to effect our evacuation. We fought like with like. We had to know what you were planning.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ he said, his heart thumping with sudden dread.

  ‘We had to have someone in the Station itself,’ Laura said.

  Her words filled him with disbelief. ‘Cahla?’ he whispered.

  ‘We had to do it,’ she said, unsmiling. ‘It was the only way.’

  ‘How . . .’ he managed, ‘how could you be so . . .’

  ‘We had to save our people. All else does not matter.’

  Jenner cried openly. ‘She’s coming back with me! You can’t take her—!’

  ‘Jen,’ Laura said, something approaching tenderness in her tone, ‘please go now. Cahla is one of us, and always will be.’

  No!’ He wanted to argue, wanted to hit out at her, and at the same time wanted only to be far away from the woman who had once been his wife.

  Makhabi gripped his upper arm and escorted him from the hut and into the clearing. He shook himself free from the tribesman’s grip, calling Cahla’s name and dashing like a madman among the Ey’an. Makhabi caught him with ease, strong arms restricting his movement. A thousand pairs of eyes watched him as he stumbled towards the jungle path. He stared into every face; if only Cahla could see him now, w itness the straits into which she’d cast him, then surely she would return with him ... He wanted to find her, tell her that he forgave her for what she had done, that he under stood; he wanted to ask her if her affection had been genuine, or nothing more than an act.

  But, though he often thought he saw her among the myriad Ey’an faces, he could not be certain.

  He stopped defiantly at the edge of the clearing, looked back in an attempt to make out the girl, if only to retain in his mind’s eye a last picture of her to carry with him from the planet. The only face he recognised was his wife’s: Laura was standing beside the ladder of the communal hut, staring at him across the clearing.

  Then Makhabi took his arm and forced him into the jungle.

  He recalled nothing later of the long walk to the river, escorted all the way by the tribesman - only the eventual sight of the sluggish river and the ball of the setting sun. He climbed aboard his boat and started the engine. As he moved slowly away from the bank without a backward glance, his speed impeded by the surface weeds, he was overcome by the weight of a terrible depression at the thought of the fate to which his wife had consigned herself, Cahla, and the Ey’an people.

  He sat at the tiller and wept.

  * * * *

  Jenner had no idea how long had elapsed when he heard a cry from the bank of the river. He looked up, but could make out nothing. Then the cry came again - animal in its urgency.

  Something appeared from the foliage on the river bank and shot into the water like a spear. She did not emerge until the parabola of her dive brought her up beside the boat. She gripped the gunwale and pulled, so that the boat rocked and her streaming head showed above the side. Her bright eyes stared him through the wet strands of her fringe, her watchful expression caught between fear and entreaty.

  His heart swelling with an emotion he found hard to contain, Jenner reached out and pulled Cahla aboard. Then, his arm around the quietly crying girl, he gunned the engine and steered the boat downstream, towards the Station and salvation.

  <>

  * * * *

  Vulpheous

  T

  he landscape that enclosed Connery and his campsite was stark and inhospitable - the crater of a long-extinct volcano a kilometre wide, its inner walls encircling a perfect disc of still, green water. A fitting venue, Connery thought, for the final act of a drama that had lasted five years. For that long he had tracked the last existing Vulpheous on Tartarus, at first following no more than folk
tales and rumours, later picking up the trail of the creature sighted by mariners and islanders across the southern sea from the continent of Iriarte to the archipelago of Demarg é . Now he had traced it to its lair, its final resting place before the sun went supernova.