Mission: Harbeasts of Mars

by V. A. Jeffrey

  “Good day. I'm Robert. How are you called?” He threw me a wary look but seemed willing to talk.

  “I am Yur.”

  “Yur, I am sorry to bother you, but I just need to know how to get back to my base.”

  “That is fine.”

  “How far is Syzygy from here?”

  “About two hundred miles. Or three hundred twenty-one kilometers.”

  “Are there any speeders or bikes one can borrow here?” His eyes widened as if I'd grown another head.

  Hey, I had to ask. I had no currency on me and hardly anything to bargain with. He shook his head slowly.

  “No, but. . .” he thought for a while then he said: “Tomorrow there should be a passenger freighter ship or maybe a rover coming through here. You can hitch a ride on it to your destination. How many stops it will make, I don't know. You'll have to have some kind of currency to give them.”

  “Do they accept weapons?”

  “Anything made of metal is a decent trade. Any sort of weaponry would serve as a good trade for a ride back to the city. Look upon the Arrivals Board there and you will see when the next freighter comes,” he pointed to his right on the wall and I saw a small screen with five lines of information going across in universal Chinese, Universal English, Spanish, Hanga and another alien language. Two ships would be arriving at Terra within seven hours and then the eventual arrival destination would be some place called Asmogor and one ship would be making a trip to here from Ophir and then its eventual arrival destination would be Syzygy.

  “Thank you,” I said. He nodded curtly and went back to his drink. Hoping that my two guns would be enough to pay for passage, I relaxed in my mind. All I had to do was get back to Syzygy and from there I would find a way to locate my team. If they were searching for me from the flare, they wouldn't easily find me, if at all. I was loathed to give up my guns, but I had no other choice. I mourned, briefly, for the eventual loss of them and then I sighed in relief at my short stay here, anticipating the journey back home.

  I decided to heed the service worker's advice and keep to my own room for the rest of the day until the rover to Syzygy arrived. I went to the counter.

  “Water please,” I demanded. The station manager glowered at me with a cold eye and grudgingly poured me a small canister water from an ice and water tank beneath the counter. I drank it down swiftly and set the canister down on the counter. Then I left a message with the manager, saying that my traveling companion Furat would no longer need to bother about me as I'd found a way back to Syzygy on my own. She gave me a long, cold, appraising look, which I found insolent and unnecessary. Intimidating or not, after my previous trials, my patience was at a low ebb. Had she been a male I would have challenged her to a fight right then and there. But unless a woman or an alien female had a lasgun pointed in my face, I didn't hit women. I held her gaze for a few seconds before going back to my room to rest.

  . . .

  I awoke to find myself in a most alarming situation (I really needed to stop waking up this way!) I was tied down by thick, hard cords or rope material to my shock, and I was being carried along in an old, small carrier behind a speeder bike!

  “What the hell is going on?” I shouted. “What is this? Furat! What are you doing? Why am I tied up like this?” I shouted, but to no avail. He ignored me. I noticed distinctly that the sun was low in the sky, the light was cast in the cool hues of dawn. I was starting to think that I was reliving a bizarro Groundhog's Day. Every morning I woke up to the same horrors in a different form.

  I struggled in vain to untie my bonds, but they only cut deeper into my skin. My helmet was rolling around beside me in the carrier, hitting my head as the carrier hovered along unsteadily. I realized that Furat meant to either kill me very soon or bring me to some other terrible doom. I resigned myself, for now to looking out at the landscape that flew by through the rectangle openings on the carrier's side. Above all the natural sounds of the Martian desert, which was wind and silence so far, I eventually focused on something odd. I soon realized that my captor, hurtling through the desert on his speeder bike, was talking. I listened carefully, wondering who he was conversing with. Was he speaking to someone through a transmitter or some comlink that I couldn't see? But I heard no one else talking, and the conversation, if one could call it that, was unnatural.

  I soon realized that he was talking to himself. He was speaking in what sounded like Hanga, but there were also random words of English peppered into his crazed, muttered monologue. I remembered the problem those at the temple near Ophir had with him and wondered what would drive him to follow the path of Jannis, knowing what I heard from Tulos and Sworda about him. Where are we going? Surely, we aren't going to Syzygy now.

  When evening drew in, the sky grew stormy. Or as stormy as a Martian weather system could be without an ocean of dust on the horizon. I detected soft flickers of lightening here and there scattered across the sky. Tiny stars peeked out from the thin spread of clouds. A soft roll of thunder sounded. Finally, he stopped to make camp. I felt sore after the hours of travel. Shifting myself to rise up, I strained to look up and saw a dark shadowy structure far in the distance up ahead in the fast fading evening light. It looked like a huge station. The sky was an ugly grayish-purple. It seemed an ominous sign to me of not just my own destiny but the entire human species.

  “That out there you see, is the place we are going to. It's a laboratory. We will be there in twenty-four hours,” he said pulling me roughly out of the barrel-carrier and dumping me on the ground. I marveled at his strength. If I decided to make my escape, my fight with him would be difficult.

  “What's this about, Furat? Why am I out here? Didn't she give you the message?”

  “And what message would that be? That you were leaving Terra Station?” He asked, tauntingly. The tone enraged me, but I did my best to calm myself.

  “What? You had a problem with me finding my way back? You actually want to lug a huge burden around out here in the desert?”

  “Soon, you won't be a burden. You are worth too much sold to others as parts to simply let you go wandering away.” I knew it. He had some sinister reason for this. He banged several heating glow sticks against his leg and threw them in a pile on the ground between us. He took out a canteen of water and drank deeply from it and then regarded me closely with his evil looking yellow eyes before speaking again.

  “Well?” I demanded.

  “You have an imperious air about you for one about to met his doom.” This threat just made me madder. Who the hell did he think he was? He was talking to a war hero!

  “What doom? What do you want from me? Why am I out here?” I exploded. He grinned this time, a grim, death-dealing grin.

  “Marrow. What else, Robert of Earth? At the laboratories there it can be harvested so that all of it is efficiently taken and none of it damaged. Here, I have found life. I've wandered the long, bloody desert for a sign of life, temporarily taken away from my original calling on the Mothership as a grand proctor of the renewed temple, and delayed by the heretics of Noctis Labyrinthus. I was given a sign so that I may accomplish my purpose. But I need marrow of the best quality. Something about you is very different from the other humans. I can sense it. When I first tasted it, your marrow was the same as any other human, but you have changed. I know it. I don't know how or why, yet, but you are somehow different. And now I shall feast upon your marrow and grow far more powerful than I have ever thought possible. You fell into my hands like a small young heshar flushed out into a trap.”

  Not if I have something to say about it, pal!

  “How did I get here when I was last in my room?” I demanded.

  “The way-station manager loves bribes. She'll do anything for a bribe. The water I gave you was drugged and she gave me a key to your room. For a large price.” He shrugged, looking triumphant.

  “And what great powers does marrow give you?” I asked sarcastically.

  “What do you mean?”

>   “In our last conversation over a year ago you mentioned that some of your people needed this marrow to function.”

  “For higher thinking abilities, advanced fighting abilities and gifts of foresight, seeing into the future, things no mere mortal can obtain on his or her own. Our gift and our curse.” I feared to think on why he perceived a change in me, but deep down I knew why.

  “You see, during the reign of Ancus, when he ruled supreme as the highest of the nobles, the nobility would take other Erautians bred and born for sacrifice, kill them and eat their marrow on certain sacred days.” I remembered when we'd brushed the subject previously at the blevdas. I shuddered to think of it, but I had only guessed at what they did before they came in contact with human beings. Now he'd made it plain what I'd suspected. My anger subsiding, I would need to measure my words carefully from now on and gather all my mental faculties if I wanted to find a way out of this.

  He leaned back, regarding me with a quizzical look, if I could call it that.

  “Although, now that I think on it, marrow from living humans is superior to that of dead ones. So, I will make you a deal.”

  “What deal?”

  “The ones at the laboratory will kill you, take your marrow and use it in various genetic experiments. That's what awaits you there.”

  “And what would you offer me instead?” I said, remaining calm. Though I was boiling with anger and fear inside.

  “I would keep you alive.”

  “And simply extract from me what you need, like last time?” His eyes narrowed into dangerous slits.

  “I won't kill you,” he simply said. He shuddered suddenly and his eyes rolled upwards in his head. His voice grew loud, so loud it rang out through the desert. “All must be subsumed in the name of Ancus! Ancus! Your holy place has been tainted by the filth and hordes of unbelievers!” I sat back slowly, watching him.

  “I thought you worshiped Jannis?”

  “All is subsumed before Ancus. Even Jannis. Who was weaker than Ancus, in the end.”

  “I know some would beg to differ.”

  “Who do you mean?”

  “Those at the Noctis Labyrinthus temple.” His face changed colors and he erupted in a white hot rage that was frightening to behold.

  “What do they know of it? They are heretics! They poison the pure and brilliant law of Ancus! Even Jannis was subjugated by him that ruled over all, that One of fire and blood, who overthrew all who opposed him, the Supreme One!” Spittle foamed at his mouth as he flew into an incoherent, screaming fit in Hanga and then eventually his curses and rantings descended into guttural mutterings. I looked around slowly, trying my best to keep a careful eye on him, but he didn't appear to even notice me at the moment, he was so worked up. The early night was dark, not a moon in sight but even so, I felt around in the dirt for something, anything. My hands came upon what felt like a sharp blade of hard rock, small enough for me to hide in my hands. I was feeling hunger for true nourishment creep up again. Oh, if only my stomach would stop grumbling!. I'd survived long distances in space, existing only on meal pellets and water without feeling this hungry. But I did have time to think.

  “Furat, do you have any food?” I asked. He stopped rambling and dug into his bag and came over to me. He reluctantly untied my hands and threw me a piece of a strange looking hunk of dried meat, which sad to say, I wolfed down without asking or caring about what it was. I just hoped to God it wasn't human jerky. I was careful to hide my bladed rock under my legs. He threw me another piece as if I were a dutiful pet dog. I wolfed that down too. While I ate, I listened to his mutterings. He appeared to be a lone gunman type, but I wondered how many here had interests that aligned with his? Fanatical and specist against anyone different, against anything not to their way of seeing things. I wondered, why would such a person who was rejected by his people be so fanatical about his culture's tenets based on such supremacy? I decided to ask him. Probably not a smart idea but I wanted information and I was stuck out here with nothing else to do for the moment. Who knew if that information would become important later, if I survived this?

  “Furat,” I asked quietly. He didn't appear to hear me at first. I spoke louder.

  “Furat.” He stopped talking to himself and glowered at me. I had to tread carefully. No more outbursts, Mr. War Hero.

  “I remember you saying that you were not allowed to be part of the Order of Jannis, that only those of high noble birth and blood were accepted. I've also learned that Ancus was cruel to those he felt were beneath him, as far as blood purity and bloodlines went. I'm curious. Why would you want to hold to such ideas?” I asked, wondering if he would kill me right here and now for such boldness but I pressed on.

  “I mean, you said that you wanted freedom because you weren't allowed to think for yourself under the Realm. Why do you care for these things now?” He paused and took a deep breath before speaking.

  “I believe in them, at my core. I do not reject them; it is the way in which my peoples are changing things that is wrong. The Realm especially has strayed from the true path of Ancus. I believe in power, and the use of it for each individual who has the might and the ability and the correct bloodline. What you might call: “Might makes right.” I am of the blood but because I am of a. . .how do you say it? A cadet branch of a noble family,” he spat venomously. “I cannot be accepted into the greatest secrets and mysteries of my own society. While fat, debauched, lazy princes and high nobles of the Realm are allowed everything! Everything they do not earn or deserve in any way. Power is a sacred thing. Power is a physical thing in the universe, from a cluster of galaxies, down to the elements that make up all flesh and quo.”

  “Quo?”

  “Matter!” He snapped “Power! It is forceful, creative and dynamic. It is both physical and spiritual, emotional and practical. It is religious, it is political. Knowledge and manipulation of quo is power. Power is everything. From star fires to empty space, it all has power. Power is the foremost element of the universe! The practice of power in all its forms is to walk the path of all holy paths. It is not for the weak, nor for fools. To know power is to know Ancus.” He grew pensive and quieter for a moment. “It has become anemic in the hands of the soft Princes of the Realm, those who are weak, diseased, corrupted, indifferent to the true teachings of Ancus: the power must be taken in blood and war. When they arrive, I and my compatriots will wage war on them.” So there are more like him.

  “How do you know this is the true path of Ancus if you weren't accepted?”

  “Perception. I am a spiritual one, Robert of Earth. I have been vested with perceptive and prophetic powers through my consumption of bone marrow. Besides, you don't have to walk the path or be initiated into the mysteries and rites to understand the most basic principles he taught and lived by.”

  “And what about the path of Jannis?”

  “The path of Jannis leads ultimately to the path of Ancus. All things lead to him, in the end.”

  “Was it always that way?” I asked. I thought that perhaps if I kept him talking he might calm down. Keep him distracted. It seemed to be sort of working. But his eyes glared with an intensity that was difficult to describe. They looked like jaundiced half-moons in the dark. I could only say that they belonged to one who was a true believer. Or zealot, take your pick.

  “At the temple, even in the one in Syzygy, they teach this nonsense that Jannis is of peace. Ancus swept away all those who opposed him, starting with his own house and his own people, for you see, he came from the great ones among our people. When he finally came to us, he slew Jannis and most of the Jannisii, who would not accept the true path. When Ancus came and raised our people up, we owed him everything, for he brought wisdom and knowledge far beyond what the old tribal gods and ancestors had given us,” he gave me a pointed look “and even beyond what Jannis taught.”

  Even in the face, or rather, jaws of death, depending on who or what would kill me first, I marveled at the burning passion he held for
his gods and his peoples' ways and the pitiable state in which he lived, a self-imposed exile caused by being an outcast, being different and the persecution dealt out from his own people; the inevitable negative aspects of all cultures. He seemed to pass his existence between varying states of violent rage, madness, and seething. Here was one who had taken in all the cruel and ruthless aspects of his people's cultures to heart, subsumed them into his being, like we all do, and through his own personality and I would suppose, environmental experiences, decided to identify with the powerful. With the rulers. With the terrible god-like being, Ancus. Perhaps it was because he was mentally ill. Or perhaps because, from his experience, this seemed the rational choice. Since he was alien I really didn't know his true psychology and experiences. I could only go by what I saw and experienced. But there it was. When I thought about it, it wasn't all that strange, nor all that alien. In fact, it was a very human reaction to prolonged persecution, oppression, and cruelty. Furat had not said he ever suffered direct persecution or oppression, but I could feel in my soul that life had not been kind to him at all. I praised God I hadn't walked in his shoes. But right now I needed somebody to hear my prayers to escape! And it sure wouldn't be Ancus who would listen.

  I thought I heard a wail far into the distance that made me jump. Surely those beasts couldn't have traveled this far from their lair, leaving their young all alone? Lions didn't do that. But then, they weren't exactly lions. Even so, Furat was not finished with his diatribe and went on as if he had not heard it.

  “Jannis was long destroyed in the cruel fires of Ancus. His ways faded, weak and discarded by the will of Ancus. By the will of Ancus!” He raved, spittle flying from his thin lips and almost as he said this I saw him make a terrible transformation right before my eyes! Several small spikes of what looked like plate or bone spurs shot out from parts of his body. They looked like tiny horns growing out, becoming longer. He made a wild, keening scream of pain which chilled me to the bone. His suit bled from under him where these bone spurs sprouted like plant shoots. He panted like an addict looking for a fix.