The Fall of Tartarus

by Eric Brown

  CODEY : The Slarque, who else? Didn’t Rogers tell you they were in contact with me?

  SAM : Yes - yes, he did. I didn’t know whether to believe him. Are you ... are you still in contact?

  CODEY: They’re in contact with me . . .You don’t believe me, girl?

  SAM : I ... I don’t know—

  CODEY : How the hell you think I found you, ten klicks down the next valley? They read your presence.

  SAM : They can read my mind?

  CODEY : Well, let’s just say that they’re sympathetic to your thoughts, shall we?

  SAM : Then they know why I’m here?

  CODEY : Of course.

  SAM : So ... If they’re in contact with you, you’ll know why I’m here . . .

  (Codey stood up suddenly and strode off, as if I’d angered him. He stood with his back to me, his head in his hands. I thought he was sobbing. When he turned around, he was grinning . . . insanely.)

  CODEY : They told me. They told me why you’re here!

  SAM : . . . They did’?

  CODEY : They don’t want your help. They don’t want to be saved. They have no wish to leave Tartarus. They belong here. This is their home. They believe that only if they die with their planet will their souls be saved.

  SAM : But . . . but we can offer them a habitat identical to Tartarus - practically unbounded freedom—

  CODEY : Their religious beliefs would not allow them to leave. It’d be an act of disgrace in the eyes of their forefathers if they fled the planet now.

  SAM : They . . . they have a religion? But I thought they were animals . . .

  CODEY : They might have devolved, but they’re still intelligent. Their kind have worshipped the supernova for generations. They await the day of glory with hope . . .

  SAM : And you?

  CODEY : I ... I belong here, too. I couldn’t live among humans again. I belong with the Slarque.

  SAM : Why? Why do they tolerateyou? One . . . one of them killed my husband—

  CODEY : I performed a service for them, thirty years ago, the first of two such. In return they keep me company . . . in my head . . . and sometimes bring me food.

  SAM : Thirty years ago . . . ? You gave them the prisoner?

  CODEY : They commanded me to do it! If I’d refused . . . Don’t you see, they would have taken me or Rogers. I had no choice, don’t you understand?

  SAM : My God. Three years ago . . . my husband? Did you . . . ?

  CODEY : I . . . please ... I was monitoring your broadcasts, the footage you beamed to Apollinaire. You were out of range of the Slarque up here, and they were desperate. I had to do it, don’t you see? If not . . . they would have taken me.

  SAM : But why? Why? If they bring you food, then why do they need humans?

  Codey broke down then. He fled sobbing up the ramp and into the ship. I didn’t know whether to go after him, comfort him, try to learn the truth. In the event I remained where I was, too emotionally drained to make a move.

  It’s evening now. I’ve locked myself in my cabin. I don’t trust Codey - and I don’t trust the Slarque. I’m armed and ready, but I don’t know if I can keep awake all night.

  * * * *

  Oh my God. Oh, Jesus. I don’t believe it. I can’t—

  He must have overridden the locking system, got in during the night as I slept. But how did he know? The Slarque, of course. If they read my mind, knew my secret . . .

  I didn’t tell you, Hunter. I wanted it to be a surprise.

  I wanted you to be there when Freya was growing up. I wanted you to see her develop from birth, to share with you her infancy, her growth, to cherish her with you.

  Two and a half years ago, Hunter, I gave birth to our daughter. Immediately I had her suspended. For the past two years I’ve carried her everywhere I’ve been, in a stasis container. When we were reunited, we would cease the suspension, watch our daughter grow.

  Last night, Codey stole Freya. Took the stasis container. I’m so sorry, Hunter. I’m so . . .

  I’ve got to think straight. Codey took his crawler and headed up the valley to the next one. I can see the tracks in the grass.

  I’m going to follow him in my truck. I’m going to get our daughter back.

  I’ll leave this recording here, for when you come. Forgive me, Hunter . . . Please, forgive me.

  * * * *

  He sat on the ramp of the starship with his head in his hands, the sound of his pulse surging in his ears as Alvarez passed Sam’s recording to Dr Fischer. Hunter was aware of a mounting pain in his chest. He found himself on the verge of hysterical laughter at the irony of crossing the galaxy to meet his daughter, only to have her snatched from his grasp at the very last minute.

  He looked up at Alvarez. ‘But why . . . ? What can they want with her?’

  Alvarez avoided his gaze. ‘I wish I knew—’

  ‘We’ve got to go after them!’

  Alvarez nodded, turned and addressed his men. Hunter watched, removed from the reality of the scene before him, as Alvarez’s minions armed themselves with lasers and stun rifles and boarded the truck.

  Hunter rode on the roof with Alvarez and Dr Fischer. As they raced up the incline of the valley, towards the v-shaped cutting perhaps a kilometre distant, he scanned the rocky horizon for any sign of the vehicles belonging to Sam or Codey.

  His wife’s words rang in his ears, the consequences of what she’d told him filling him with dread. For whatever reasons, Codey had supplied the Slarque with humans on two other occasions. Obviously Sam had failed to see that she had been led into a trap, with Freya as the bait.

  They passed from the lower valley, accelerated into one almost identical, but smaller and enclosed by steep battlements of jagged rock.

  There, located in the centre of the greensward, were Codey’s crawler and Sam’s truck.

  They motored cautiously towards the immobile vehicles.

  Twenty metres away, Hunter could wait no longer. He leapt from the truck and set off at a sprint, Alvarez calling after him to stop. The pain in his chest chose that second to bite, winding him.

  Codey’s crawler was empty. He ran from the vehicle and hauled himself aboard Sam’s truck. It, too, was empty.

  Alvarez’s men had caught up with him. One took his upper arm in a strong yet gentle grip, led him back to Alvarez who was standing on the greensward, peering up at the surrounding peaks.

  Two of his men had erected the collapsible cage, then joined the others at strategic positions around the valley. They knelt behind the cover of rocks, stun rifles ready.

  An amplified voice rang through the air. ‘Hunter!’

  ‘Codey . . .’ Alvarez said.

  ‘Step forward, Hunter. Show yourself.’ The command echoed around the valley, but seemed to issue from high in the peaks straight ahead.

  Hunter walked forward ten paces, paused and called through cupped hands, ‘What do you want, Codey? Where’s Sam and my daughter?’

  ‘The Slarque want you, Hunter,’ Codey’s voice boomed. ‘They want what is theirs.’

  Hunter turned to Alvarez, as if for explanation.

  ‘Believe me,’ Alvarez said, ‘It was the only foolproof way we had of luring the Slarque—’

  Hunter was aware of the heat of the sun, ringing blows down on his head. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘Why me? What do they want?’

  Alvarez stared at Hunter. ‘Three years ago,’ he said, ‘when the Slarque attacked and killed you, it laid the embryos of its young within your remains, as has been their way since time immemorial. The primates they used in times past began to die out millennia ago; hence the fall of the Slarque. It so happened that humans are also a suitable repository ... Of course, when Sam rescued your remains and had them suspended, the embryos too were frozen. We discovered them when we examined your remains on Million.’

  Hunter was shaking his head. ‘You used me . . .’

  ‘It was part of the deal, Hunter. For your resurrection, you would lead us to
the Slarque.’

  ‘But if you wanted the Slarque, you had them! Why didn’t you raise the embryos for your exhibition?’

  ‘The young would not survive more than a few months. We examined the embryos and found they’d been weakened by inbreeding, by cumulative genetic defects. I suspect that the brood incubated in the body of the prisoner thirty years ago did not survive. We need the only existing pair of adult Slarque.’

  Something moved within Hunter’s chest. He winced.

  Dr Fischer approached. ‘A pain-killer.’

  Hunter was unable to move, horrified at what Alvarez had told him and at the same time in need of the analgesic to quell the slicing pain. He just stood as Fischer plunged the injector into his neck.

  Codey’s voice rang out again. ‘Step forward, Hunter! Approach the south end of the valley. A simple trade: for the Slarque young, your wife and daughter.’

  Hunter stepped forward, began walking.

  Behind him, Alvarez said, ‘Stop right there, Hunter. Let the Slarque come to you . . . Remember our deal?’

  Hunter hesitated, caught between obeying the one man capable of granting him life, and the demands of the Slarque who held his wife and daughter.

  The pain in his chest was almost unbearable, as if his innards were being lacerated by swift slashes of a razor blade. My God, if this was the pain with the sedative . . .

  He cried out, staggered forward.

  ‘Hunter!’ Alvarez cried.

  He turned. He saw Alvarez raise the laser to his shoulder, take aim. He dived as Alvarez fired, the cobalt bolt lancing past him with a scream of ionised air.

  He looked up the valley, detecting movement. Two figures emerged from behind a jagged rock. They were at once grotesquely alien and oddly humanoid: scaled, silver creatures with evil, Scorpion tails. What invested them with humanity, Hunter thought, was their simple desire to rescue their young. And even as he realised this, he was overcome by the terror of their initial attack, three years ago.

  Behind him, he heard Alvarez give the order to his men. He turned in time to see them raise their stun-guns and take aim at the Slarque.

  ‘No!’ he cried.

  A quick volley of laser fire issued from a single point in the rocks high above. The first vector hit Alvarez, reducing him to a charred corpse. The succeeding blasts accounted for the others, picking them off one by one.

  Only Dr Fischer remained, hands in the air, terrified.

  Hunter hauled himself to his feet and cried Sam’s name, trying to ignore the pain in his chest.

  The Slarque approached him. As they advanced, Hunter tried to tell himself that he should not feel fear: their interest in him was entirely understandable.

  ‘Sam!’ he cried again.

  In his last few seconds of consciousness, Hunter saw his wife run from the cover of the rocks and dash past the Slarque. He was suddenly struck by the improbable juxtaposition of ugliness and extreme beauty. Behind her, he saw a thin, bedraggled human figure - the madman Codey, hefting a rifle. In that second he remembered the death of Alvarez, and wondered if Codey’s action in killing the doctor meant that he, Hunter, would die on this infernal planet without hope of resurrection.

  He keeled over before Sam reached him, and then she was cradling him, repeating his name. Hunter lay in her arms, stared up at her face eclipsing the swollen sun.

  He felt the life forms within him begin to struggle, a sharp, painful tugging as they writhed from his chest and through his entrails, the tissue of his stomach an easier exit point than his ribcage.

  ‘Sam,’ he said weakly. ‘Freya . . . ?’

  Sam smiled reassurance through her tears. Behind her, Hunter saw the monstrous heads of the Slarque as they waited. He tried to raise his face to Sam’s, but he was losing consciousness, fading fast. He was aware of a sudden loosening of his stomach muscles as the alien litter fought to be free.

  The he cried out, and died for the second time.

  * * * *

  Aboard the Angel of Mercy, orbiting Tartarus Major, 1st, May, 23,210 — Galactic Reckoning.

  I need to make this last entry, to round things off, to talk.

  With Dr Fischer I collected the remains - the bodies of Alvarez and his men - and your body, Hunter. Fischer claims he’ll be able to resurrect Alvarez and the other men lasered by Codey, but he didn’t sound so sure. Personally, I hope he fails with Alvarez, after what he put you through. The man doesn’t deserve to live.

  I’ve negotiated a price for our story with NewsCorp - they’ve promised enough to pay for your resurrection. It’ll be another three years before you’re alive again. It’s a long time to wait, and I’ll miss you, but I guess I shouldn’t complain. Of course, I’ll keep Freya suspended. I look forward to the day when together we can watch her grow.

  The final exodus has begun. I can look through the view-screen of my cabin and see Tartarus and the giant sphere of the sun, looming over it. Against the sun, a hundred dark specks rise like ashes - the ships that carry the citizens to safety. There’s something sad and ugly about the scene, but at the same time there’s something achingly beautiful about it, too.

  By the time we’re together again, Hunter, Tartarus will be no more. But the exploding star will be in the heavens still, marking the place in space where the Slarque and poor Codey, and the other lost souls who wished for whatever reasons to stay on Tartarus, perished in the apocalypse.

  I can’t erase from my mind the thought of the Slarque, those sad, desperate creatures who wanted only the right to die with their young in the supernova, and who, thanks to Codey and you, will now be able to do so.

  <>

  * * * *

  Dark Calvary

  H

  e buried Francesca in the rich jungle soil of Tartarus Major while the sky pulsed with the photon haemorrhage of the supernova and the Abbot of the Church of the Ultimate Sacrifice knelt and chanted prayer.

  And he thought that was the end of the affair.

  * * * *

  Hans Cramer met Francesca when she was eighteen, two decades his junior but wise beyond her years, and already a second-class helio-meteorologist aboard one of the Fleet’s finest nova observation vessels. Cramer was employed as an itinerant lecturer, teaching philosophy and theology to the reluctant crews of the various ships of the Zakinthos Line. His posting to the observation sailship Dawn Light was just another move, but one that changed his life.

  Francesca was a regular at his rambling lectures in the vast auditorium of the city-sized sailship. She was distinguished by her striking Venezuelan face and jet black mass of hair - an affectation in space, where so many crew went partly shorn or bald. What attracted him initially was not so much her physical aspect as her youth, and that she attended every one of his lectures. She was that rarity among spacers: a student who wanted to learn. After years of having his talks received with boredom, or at best polite apathy, Cramer found her attentiveness exhilarating. It was natural that he should single her out for special tuition. He gave her one-to-one lessons, and she responded. He prided himself on the fact that she excelled herself, absorbed everything he had to offer, and was still hungry for more.

  Inevitably, perhaps, they transcended the teacher-pupil relationship and became lovers. It was a gradual process, but one which culminated in an event that informed them both that their feelings for each other were reciprocated. They had been discussing the physics of spatial dimensions congruent to singularities, and the conversation continued well beyond the time Cramer usually allotted for her tuition. The talk turned general, and then personal. There was a period of silence, and Cramer looked into the depths of her Indian eyes - and he was suddenly aware of his desire, affection, and overwhelming need to be responsible for Francesca.

  For the next year Cramer lectured aboard the Dawn Light as it sailed from star to unstable star, and their love deepened into a thorough understanding of one another. She told Cramer that which she had never told anyone before: how, at the age o
f ten, she had lost her father. He had been a scientist, working on the planet of a sun due to go nova, when the sun blew before its time and killed him and his scientific team . . . This, Cramer thought, helped to explain the choice of her profession.

  Cramer became for Francesca a combination of lover-teacher-protector, as well as a friend and confidant . . . And for him Francesca was the first person in his life to remind him that he was not, contrary to nearly forty years of assumptions otherwise, the fulcrum of the universe. Her naivety, her vitality and honesty, her willingness to learn, her trust in others - he was in awe of all these things. Sometimes he wanted to protect her from herself when others might take advantage, but at the same time he learned from her that openness and trust can bring its own rewards: contact with one’s fellows, even friendships, which for long enough he had shunned. Her youth and enthusiasm were a foil to Cramer’s age and cynicism, and though at times he found it exhausting, more often than not he was swept along heedless by the tide of her passion.