by Marc
The rocket engine had soon ran out of fuel and was silent. Escape pods were supposed to be able to land on a planet automatically, but like everything else about them the arrangements were rudimentary at best, escape for defeated Guardsmen was scarcely high on the Imperium’s list of priorities, and Floscan began to feel there was something wrong. Strapped into the acceleration couch, he was being spun around wildly, tossed up and down and jerked from side to side. It was getting very hot, too, making him wish he had cut off the rocket engine sooner. He had hit the atmosphere at too high a speed. The pod’s outer layer was supposed to absorb heat and then shed it by peeling away in fragments, but how thick was it? When it was all gone he would be roasted alive. So violent became the descent that Floscan passed out again.
When he next opened his eyes, he did not know how much later, everything had become still. A breeze was on his face. He could hear a distant chirruping sound, as of unknown animal calls.
He had landed.
The acceleration couch had been torn from its moorings and his face had struck the control panel. He threw off the restraint straps and felt his aching cheek. It was bleeding. Automatically he consulted the survival meter under the mangled panel. It told him that the planet had a breathable atmosphere but then he already knew that, because he was already breathing the local air. Evidently the pod had cracked open on impact. He could see daylight through the gaping rent.
His limbs seemed to be made of lead and he was finding it difficult to move, making him fearful of having internal injuries. Several times he struck the rune-inscribed button that should have opened the hatch, but it was stuck. Then he tried to undo the hatch manually. The frame was warped and he was unable to shift it.
Finally, panting with effort, he attacked the rent in the pod’s side, placing his feet on one edge and bracing his back against a stanchion. The surprisingly thin shell of the pod moved, making a gap large enough for him to squeeze through.
He tried to stand up and found that he couldn’t. He had no internal injuries. It was simply that his body weighed three or four times more than it normally would. He was on a heavy gravity planet. How could he survive if he couldn’t even stand up? Guardsman Hartoum struggled to come to his feet. Using his arms, he managed to push himself to a squatting position. Then he heaved with all the strength he could muster in his legs, until he thought the blood vessels would burst.
‘God-Emperor, aid me!’ Grimacing with effort, Floscan came upright, shaking, feeling the gravity drain him of muscle power and try to drag him down. How long could he maintain himself like this?
He looked around him. The sky was a shining, metallic blue-grey, casting the landscape in a sinister glow. The terrain consisted of rocky crags and low hills to which clung shrub-like trees and crimson reeds. Altogether it was a dismal, depressing environment, over which there seemed to hang a feeling of menace.
The escape pod had cracked open on striking a rocky outcropping. Thick white parachute cords straggled from it but the parachute itself had been torn off sometime during the descent, though presumably not far from the surface or the impact would have killed him.
A stiff cold wind was blowing making Floscan shiver. Grey clouds raced overhead. He felt dizzy, whether from the blow to his head or because the heavy gravity made it difficult for blood to reach his brain he did not know. And he felt frightened, filled with foreboding. It was hard to believe that only yesterday he had been cursing the monotony of the space journey to an equally unexciting posting.
He was about to sit down again and rest when a hoarse shout made him turn round. He was standing at one end of a shallow valley. Charging along it towards him was a troop of about twenty men. They were massively muscled, evidently well adapted to the heavy gravity, with shaggy hair which streamed behind them in the wind. Some brandished spears, others raised bows and were whipping arrows from quivers strapped to their backs. And. they were heading straight towards him.
Death now seemed both certain and sudden, and all of Guardsman Floscan Hartoum’s gloom and uncertainty cleared from his mind. He was defenceless; escape pods carried no lasguns, which were too expensive to waste on men with little or no chance of survival. He doubted if he could run at all, let alone outdistance his pursuers, and if he took refuge in the pod he would only be left trapped like an animal.
He took a deep breath. Best take it like a soldier of the Aurelian IXth. He would go down fighting with his bare hands. But perhaps there was better than that. A flung spear clattered on the rock to his left. He managed to take a few steps, squatted down and lifted the thick wooden shaft off the ground. It was incredibly heavy in his hands, but somehow he heaved himself erect once more and turned to face the enemy, the spear-point held before him. If he could take just one of the attackers with him, he would have died with honour.
Another spear came hurtling by, together with a flock of arrows, but the aim was poor and all missed him by a wide berth. There seemed to be something strange about the oncoming natives’ gait. As they came close enough for him to make them out clearly, he saw that he had been mistaken about them.
They were not men at all, they were four-footed aliens! Seen from the front they looked human enough, clad as they were in short smocks of coarse cloth belted at the waist, but from the side or the rear it was a different matter entirely. The lower back and rump were sloped and extended, and were supported by a second pair of legs. These were just like the front legs except that they were shorter, almost stubby. Both pairs seemed to work in unison, so that the creatures ran with a swift but swaying gait.
The strange spectacle startled Floscan. The induction address at his regiment’s Founding flashed through his mind: ‘You will be fighting aliens, mutants, monsters, heretics, all things abominable to the Emperor!’ Now he was to die in fulfilment of those words!
But instead of rushing straight at him, the troop thundered past. It was charging, not at Floscan, but at something else. Floscan turned to look – and dropped his spear, paralysed with shock.
The quadruped aliens had been shouting warnings, not threats. The valley ended in a craggy hill, like many littering the broken landscape. Emerging over the brow was a monster combination of lobster, crab and armoured centipede – but of stupendous size. It almost covered the hill over which it was clambering, its bossed shell scraping on the rock, hissing sounds issuing from its oscillating mouth parts. As it descended, a giant claw reached out to seize the escape pod, crashing it like an eggshell before dropping it again.
The same claw reached for Floscan. He staggered back, straggling to maintain his footing. Yelling battle-cries, the natives sent spears and arrows clattering against the shiny carapace. They were aiming at the monster’s soft parts: waving eyestalks and the broad, dripping mouth that could have taken them all in one go. Stone axes hacked at the claw that was about to pick up Floscan. Chitin splintered, purple ichor flowed and gouted, the limb was severed and lay twitching.
It was incredible to Floscan that the natives would take on this gigantic, fearsome beast with their primitive weapons. And yet they were winning. Two staring golden eyes were transfixed by arrows, a third by a spear. Hissing and screeching, the monster retreated and crawled back over the hill to whoops of victory from the four-footed warriors.
Now their attention turned to Floscan. The leader, a fierce-looking individual with fiery red hair and beard, pointed to him and bellowed an order in a guttural, unintelligible language. A second quadruped dashed forward and seized Floscan, flinging him violently across his well-muscled, smock-covered back and holding him there in a vice-like grip. The whole troop turned and raced back the way it had come, knocking the breath out of Floscan with every pace.
Once again he had been snatched from the jaws of death. Once again, most likely, to face something worse. He was in the hands of aliens.
ONCE THROUGH THE valley, Floscan managed to raise his head and was able to see just how strange and dangerous a world he had come into. It was a nightmare wor
ld with its glaring sky, tumbled landscape and gigantic lifeforms. The crab-centipede monstrosities seemed to be everywhere, ambling aimlessly in search of food. The quadrupeds managed to avoid them, but apparently there were more terrifying threats to their existence. They slowed before they had got very far, spreading out and jinking nervously.
Floscan spotted what he thought at first was a factory smokestack rearing high in the air in the distance, such as might be seen in Aurelia’s industrial zone. It even belched smoke, or perhaps it was steam, and gave off vague hooting sounds. But it was not a factory chimney. It was alive. It was flexible. And it was bending over, its reeking mouth swooping across the terrain towards the troop. The quadrupeds scattered, taking cover in rock crevices. From there Floscan watched in fascination. Briefly he saw a ring of eyes around the ‘chimney’s’ circular rim as it picked off a crab-centipede. The monster was sucked straggling into the tube as it whipped upright once more, presumably to be drawn into an enormous stomach.
Cautiously the quadrupeds set off once more. Once out of reach of the stack-beast they sought high ground. Floscan was puzzled as to why they would expose themselves so, but from the vantage point of a craggy ridge he got the answer. The low ground was dotted with a terrifying type of plant-like animal: a house-sized bulb, vaguely resembling a cactus, from which spread dozens of wriggling, searching tentacles, radiating in every direction. Any edible animal they found was whipped back to be devoured.
A quadruped, or anything roughly the size of a man, would have stood no chance trying to cross that deadly network. Floscan’s mind whirled. Just how many alien horrors did this planet have to offer? Suddenly the quadrupeds seemed out of place, as if they did not really belong here. They were like hapless insects, ready to be picked off by a host of larger creatures.
But he could think no more, only concentrate on the agony of his rough ride on the back of the native. Though he dreaded what awaited him, it was almost a relief when the quadrupeds’ village came in sight. It was fortified with a twenty foot tall hedge bristling with thorns and sharpened stakes. At a shouted signal, a section of hedge was dragged inward allowing them to enter.
The scene within was tumultuous, a throng of four-footed aliens surging among huts thatched with crimson reeds. A blazing fire burned in the centre of the compound, some sort of animal roasting over it on a spit. Floscan was tossed from his carrier and set on his feet, again straggling to stand against the dragging gravity.
Great excitement greeted his arrival. The natives jostled with one another, rearing on their hind legs and uttering exultant cries. Hands grabbed Floscan and pulled him towards the fire. He shrank back, his face slack. Terror coursed through his every nerve. He was destined for the spit! He lost control of himself and began straggling desperately as the flames scorched his face.
Suddenly he was released. A chunk of smoking cooked meat, torn from the roasting carcass, was thrust into his hand. For all the ecstasy of relief he felt, Guardsman Floscan Hartoum discovered that he was hungry. He sniffed the meat. It smelled good. He bit, chewed, then began to eat ravenously. The aliens cheered. While he satisfied his hunger, Floscan glanced from side to side. What was in their minds? Were they toying with him, treating him well, before killing him? He had heard that primitive tribes did that.
How strangely human mese aliens looked, if one did not look below the waist. True, they were of fierce appearance, and were very broad-set. Floscan, who thought of himself as a burly youth, felt positively slim beside them. And of course he was weak as a child compared with their rippling muscles.
As he swallowed the last fragment of meat, the natives suddenly fell silent. Their ranks parted to allow the passage of one who had emerged from a nearby hut. He walked slowly and with dignity on his four legs. His face was craggy with age, and his hair and beard were white.
He halted before Floscan, regarding him with steady eyes. Then, to the Guardsman’s total surprise, he spoke, not in the unintelligible local speech Floscan had heard earlier, but in a strangled version of Imperial Gothic, so that he had to repeat his question twice before he made himself understood.
‘Have you come to us from the Emperor?’
Floscan blinked. How could these primitives on an out-of-the-way planet speak Imperial Gothic and know of the God-Emperor? Aware that his life might well depend on his reply, he thought for a moment and then spoke in a clear voice. ‘Yes! I am a warrior of the Emperor!’
The elder was clearly not impressed by these words. He looked Floscan up and down. ‘You? Warrior? Warrior has weapons. Where are yours?’
Too late, Floscan realised he hardly counted as a fighting man by these natives’ standards. He waved his arms defiantly and became theatrical. ‘The Emperor sent me through the sky to fight his enemies. I was cast down to this land… but lost my weapons.’
‘Then you were defeated,’ the aged quadruped grunted. He beckoned. ‘Follow.’
He turned and walked with his ambling gait back to the hut. Floscan tried to follow, but after only a few steps needed to be helped by another quadruped who put out a beefy hand to support him.
Inside the hut the elder gestured to a reed pallet on the floor. ‘More comfortable lying down.’
Thankfully Floscan lowered himself to a sitting position. The old alien did likewise, folding both pairs of legs under him. ‘I am Ochtar, the Remembering One of our tribe. My duty is to remember the ancient histories, make sure they are not forgotten.’ Floscan could understand his thick accent a little better now. But the next words left him dumbfounded. ‘Do you bring us a message from the Emperor? Is he going to take us into the Imperium and make us his children?’
To Guardsman Hartoum such an idea was not only bizarre and sinister, it was also impossible. He had been raised in the Imperial cult, and his childhood beliefs had been given additional fire during his short time in the Imperial Guard. Already the Aurelian IXth regiment had helped in the extermination of an alien race who for a while had shared their world with human colonists. Humans could not be expected to live indefinitely on a contaminated planet. He was grateful to the aliens for saving his life, but they were aliens.
‘It is the Imperium of Man, no?’ Ochtar insisted, when Floscan failed to answer. ‘We are men.’
Floscan looked at the animal-like appearance of Ochtar’s lower body. ‘Men have two legs!’ he burst out without thinking. ‘You have four!’
Ochtar sprang to his feet, glaring angrily. ‘We are humans with four legs!’ Seeing that he had frightened Floscan he calmed down and seated himself again. ‘Forgive my anger, Emissary. It is right that you should probe and question. Let me explain. Our ancestors were like you – two legs. Like you, they travelled the sky, searching for new worlds on which to live. Instead, they crashed here and became stranded. That was many, many years ago.
‘You have seen what sort of world this is. Where you come from, objects do not weigh very much and one needs only two legs to stand up. Here, everything is heavy. Not only that, but our world is hostile to human life. The ancients who crashed here realised that they would not survive long. But they had powerful magic, and they used this to give their children four legs so that they could stand up. And they gave them stronger muscles so that they could fend for themselves. By this means, our people have conquered adversity and have lived for countless generations, even though we have lost the ancient magic. Surely the Emperor will be pleased with us, and bring us into his family?’
Floscan thought hard. If there was any truth in this tale then the quadrupeds’ ancestors would have come from Mars, whose tech-priests sent countless ships out into the galaxy during the Dark Age. And yes, they would have had the ability to alter genes in the way Ochtar described as ‘magic’. But the tale was wildly improbable. ‘How did you learn the Imperial language?’ Floscan asked. ‘How do you even know of the Emperor?’
‘You are not the first two-legs to come here recently. Magson came. He wanted gemstones. In return, he gave us this. Try it on. It
will help you.’
Ochtar stood and drew aside a curtain. He brought out something made of a rubbery material. Floscan’s eyes widened when he saw it. It was a heavy-gravity suit, designed to make life tolerable on just such a planet as this.
‘Magson stayed long enough for me to learn his language.’ Ochtar continued. ‘He told us about the Imperium, and about the Emperor who is our God. All our legends were confirmed! We entrusted him with a petition to the Emperor, asking for his rule and guidance. That was years ago. Since then, we have been waiting for you.’
From the sound of it, this Magson was a Free Trader. It was most unlikely he had even reported the existence of the quadrupeds to the authorities, let alone forwarded the petition to the Administratum on Terra. Usually such traders heeded no one but themselves.
Floscan guessed he had the explanation of Ochtar’s claim to be human too. Ochtar was obviously highly intelligent – to have learned Imperial Gothic from a passing stranger was no mean feat. But he must have concocted the myth on hearing of the marvels of the Imperium, perhaps confusing the Imperial Cult with some tribal beliefs and so believing it himself.
‘I can prove what I said.’ Ochtar added then, as if reading his thoughts. ‘I will take you to the holy shrine of our ancestors. We will travel at night, when it is safer. Put on the cloth that takes away weight.’
Floscan accepted the h-g suit Ochtar handed to him. Inspecting the runic icons on the shoulder tabs, he could see why the trader Magson had been so ready to trade it. The suit’s power was low. Also it seemed to be damaged, no doubt ready to cut out at any time. Just the same, he pulled it on and immediately felt relief from the crippling gravity. He stood up, stretched and smiled.
His smile vanished as he remembered that he was going to have to spend the rest of his life here.
