Interzone Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine #220

by TTA Press Authors

  He forwarded her Jennifer's electronic business card, and saw her eyes flick down as it arrived in the corner of her screen.

  When she looked up, she said, “The police were here just now, looking for you."

  Caesar nodded. He knew they were after the crate.

  "Don't worry,” he said. “Just call Jennifer, and let her deal with it."

  "But what are you going to do?"

  He tried to shrug but the safety straps were too tight.

  "I'll be okay,” he said. He rubbed his forehead. “You just look after yourself, and the kids."

  "Dad.” Amber bit her lip. “You're not coming back, are you?"

  Caesar glanced across at Maya.

  "No, honey,” he said. “No, I'm not."

  Five minutes later, they were in flat space, ready to jump. Maya shunted control of the Bradley engines to his workstation.

  "Ready when you are,” she said.

  * * * *

  Random jumping was a dangerous sport. It was a pilot throwing his ship into hyperspace without specifying a destination, just to see where he'd end up. It was illegal in some parts of known space, prime entertainment in others—and the stakes were always high.

  Caesar Murphy was one of the better pilots, in that he was still alive. In the random jumping community, he was something of a legend, having made more successful jumps than anyone else—almost fifty since turning professional.

  Before that, he'd worked his way across the sky, serving time on freighters and troop transports, slogging all the way from the core to the rim and back again, saving up the money to buy his own ship. Over the years, he'd hauled every sort of cargo. He'd seen the sun rise on a dozen different worlds, had his nose broken in a bar brawl, and married twice. He'd lost his first wife to infidelity, the second—Amber's mother—to complications during childbirth. There had been nothing permanent in his life. He remembered it as one long series of farewells. Even now, at the end of his career, he was saying goodbye to his only daughter.

  His fingers hesitated over the controls.

  Maya said, “Are you sure you want to go through with this?"

  Caesar took a deep breath. He thought about the crate in the cargo hold, and the creature within. Three years ago, he'd found it curled in the ruins of an ancient citadel, on a dying planet circling a swollen star. It had been wounded and afraid, helpless in the gritty black dust that blew across the plateau where the citadel stood. Not knowing what else to do, he'd rescued it, brought it back and turned it over to the authorities as soon as he landed.

  Since then, he'd been dreaming about it. It had haunted his sleep. Always the same dream, over and over, night after night. Which was why he'd used his money and fame to steal it back from the laboratory where it was being studied, why this last flight was actually a cover for his real intent: to put the thing back where it had come from.

  He set his jaw and engaged the engines.

  "You know I don't have any choice,” he said.

  * * * *

  Travelling through hyperspace was rough, like battering through white-hot plasma—the kind of ordeal only specially toughened, streamlined ships could endure.

  In The Red Shark, Caesar and Maya rode the turbulence strapped into their couches, neither speaking, intent on their instruments.

  After an hour, they came out on the ragged edge of the galactic disc, where the stars were few and far between.

  While Maya scanned the ship's systems for damage, Caesar went aft, to check on the cargo.

  "How is it?” she asked him over the intercom.

  At the bottom of the crate, the creature lay wrapped around itself in a knot of folded tentacles, like an octopus without a head. It smelled of mould and stagnant water. There were biopsy scars on its wrinkled skin, wire tags fixed to its legs.

  "It looks okay,” he said. At the sound of his voice, the creature shivered and shrank in on itself, its skin changing in colour from light brown to sickly marble.

  Caesar backed away. It had suffered enough already and he didn't want to alarm it. Instead, he returned to the Star Chamber.

  "Do you have any idea where we are?” he asked, sliding into his couch.

  Maya tapped her screen and a projection of the local sky appeared on the Chamber's curved wall.

  "As far as I can tell, we're here,” she said, using her cursor to highlight a small blue star a few light years in from the rim.

  "And where's our target?"

  Maya moved her hand to the very edge of the Abyss.

  "Over here."

  * * * *

  Every night it was the same. He stood before the citadel again, looking out over the remains of a city—a half-submerged, swampy metropolis, its ruined buildings inhabited by multi-limbed creatures like the one curled up in the hold of his ship, all squirming together in the streets, skins rippling through every colour of the visible spectrum.

  Instinctively, he knew this was how the planet had been before the black dust started falling from the sky.

  He saw it then, the dust, blowing down as he remembered it, settling like a layer of fine soot, sticking and clinging to every living thing. He sensed its malevolence; saw the tentacled creatures thrashing about unable to breathe as it smothered them. He saw plants wither, trees die.

  And then, when there was nothing left alive, the black dust gathered itself into a single glowering ball and turned its cold, inhuman attention on him...

  * * * *

  Caesar woke with a shout, heart hammering. Beside him, Maya stirred. She was used to his nightmares. “Go back to sleep,” she said.

  His hands were shaking. He slid out from under the blanket and picked his trousers off the deck. Then he leaned down and kissed her warm shoulder.

  "See you later,” he said. He padded up to the Star Chamber and made himself a coffee, adding extra sweetener.

  They were in orbit around the planet where he'd found the octopoid creature—the planet from his dream. It had taken them two further jumps and more than twenty-four hours to get here, and his back ached from sitting in the pilot's couch.

  He perched on the edge of an instrument console, sipping his coffee. The walls of the spherical chamber displayed a 360? external view fed from cameras on the ship's hull, and when he looked down, he could see the planet's baked rocky surface passing beneath his feet, all brown and grey.

  Somewhere down there, he thought, are the answers I need.

  * * * *

  Half an hour later, they began their descent.

  Impatient and uncomfortable, he brought them in hard, scrawling a fiery trail across the empty sky, dropping down to the plateau beside the ruined citadel.

  Then, with The Red Shark still bouncing on its landing shocks, he unbuckled his straps and led Maya down to the cargo hold, to suit up.

  She had to help him into his pressure suit. He wasn't as limber as he used to be.

  "I'm really glad you're here,” he said.

  He bent forward stiffly to let her snap his helmet into place, and then watched as she fastened her own, tucking her long hair into the neck ring of her suit.

  "When this is all over, we'll go somewhere quiet and start a new life,” she said.

  She reached forward and squeezed his hand.

  "Are you ready?"

  She went to the back of the cargo bay and opened the ramp. Hot, dry air blew in, too thin for them to breathe.

  Together, they manhandled the crate down onto the rocky ground, and opened it. Inside, the creature shivered, still folded in on itself.

  Using her gloved hand to shade her eyes from the swollen sun, Maya said: “What's wrong with it?"

  Caesar didn't reply straight away. This was as far as his plan went. Instead, he walked a few paces to the edge of the plateau, to get a better look at the ruins of the city in the wasteland beneath.

  "Just give it some space,” he said.

  He could see scattered heaps of rubble that corresponded to the positions of the buildings in his dre
am. The swamp they sat in had dried long ago, but there were still a few hardy plants clinging on here and there between the stones, sucking what little moisture they could from the hot, rust-coloured soil.

  Beside him, the citadel itself lay like a smashed chandelier, its silent ancient towers fallen, its stone walls crumbled. He picked his way over to a large chunk of masonry that had fallen from the archway above the main entrance. Up close, he could see the coarseness of the stonework, the telltale marks made by the flint tools used in its construction.

  "It's moving,” Maya said over the radio. Her voice sounded loud in his earpiece. He turned to see her standing by the empty crate, its former occupant using a single tentacle to pull itself laboriously across the rough ground, its skin changing hue as it adapted to its surroundings, trying to blend in.

  "Let it go,” he said. He looked up at the citadel's battered walls and felt his heart beat faster as he saw the thin black haze hovering in the air above them.

  Maya joined him, picking her way through the debris, and they watched the octopoid pull itself into the shade of the building's entrance, as if seeking shelter from the haze overhead—a haze which was thickening by the second, turning into a vast dark cloud that threatened to blot out the harsh light of the red sun.

  "We should get back to the ship,” Caesar said. On his last trip, the dust had been blowing around like a sandstorm, and he had no desire to get caught in it again. Already, there were a few black motes drifting down from the sky like dirty snowflakes.

  Frowning, Maya put her gloved hand out to catch one.

  "What is it?"

  "Leave it."

  He turned to look at The Red Shark. As he did so, the dust began to fall—slowly at first, then faster and faster, until it became a black sleet that quickly obscured the ship and the edge of the rock-strewn plateau beyond.

  "Caesar, what's happening?” Maya said, brushing at her suit, trying to keep it clean.

  Caesar didn't answer. There was dust clinging to his faceplate, and he felt queasy as he remembered the way the creatures in his dream had suffocated. He took Maya by the shoulder and shoved her in the direction of the ship. “We have to get out of here,” he said.

  They started scrambling over the rocks. She was younger than him and could move faster over the difficult terrain.

  "Keep going, get to the ship,” he panted, not wanting to hold her back.

  He looked up. Overhead, the sky had darkened to a thunderous black, and the falling dust had become a blizzard. He stumbled on, wiping his faceplate every few steps until, eventually, he lost his footing. His boot skidded on a loose rock and he went down hard, landing on his hands and knees with a cry. His ankle felt broken. The pain brought tears to his eyes.

  "Maya,” he said.

  He rolled on to his side. He couldn't see her. The dust was falling in clumps now, like volcanic ash, obscuring everything.

  Sweating and cursing, he pushed himself up into a sitting position. He couldn't walk and he couldn't see his ship.

  He looked around. The citadel was still close behind him. He would have to shelter there until Maya found him. With gritted teeth, he pulled himself towards its stone steps, his injured leg trailing behind.

  Once inside, he found the octopoid had left tracks and scuff marks in the chippings and broken plaster on the citadel's floor, leading him to a tight, sloping tunnel extending down into the bedrock beneath.

  Carefully, Caesar lit a torch from his pocket and lowered himself into the hole, sliding down on his backside, trying not to jar his ankle or scrape his helmet.

  After a few metres, the walls widened and he found himself in an underground vault. The ceiling was a dome maybe two metres at its highest point. There were strange hieroglyphs hacked into its smooth sides, stylised representations of multi-limbed creatures that seemed to writhe and dance as he moved his torch.

  At the centre, the eight-legged creature from his cargo hold had pulled itself up onto a carved pedestal with a flat, wide top like a bird bath. As it settled itself into place, the floor shook.

  Still on his knees, Caesar fell forward into the room as a solid stone slab ground across the vault's only entrance, sealing it—and him—from the world outside.

  * * * *

  He spent a long time trying to find a way out. He pushed at the slab blocking the door. He tried to call Maya on the radio. He felt his way around the walls, and he shouted at the creature on the plinth, all to no avail. Eventually, exhausted and in pain, he slid down onto his haunches, breathing hard, his breath misting the inside of his faceplate.

  "That damn dream,” he said. If it hadn't been for the dream, he'd have stuck to his plan—to kick the creature out the airlock and get airborne again as quickly as possible—instead of wasting time in the ruins, trying to see the shadow of a long-vanished city.

  He rapped his knuckles against his helmet, wishing he could take it off, longing for an excuse to bust the seals and just get it all over with. Instead, he crawled over to the central plinth and looked up at the mass of pale tentacles resting at the top, limbs all curled in on themselves like the flabby fingers of a dead fist.

  He reached a gloved hand and brushed a wire tag hanging from one of the creature's legs. The lab he'd stolen it from had given up their attempts to communicate with it and had been preparing to dissect it. Its skin was scratched and bruised where they'd taken samples, reminding him of the way his hands had looked on the day after his first bar fight, all those years ago, on some forsaken ball of mud somewhere down near the core.

  He'd been seventeen, maybe eighteen years old at the time, working his first military contract. A raw young kid with too much swagger and not enough sense, all puffed up in his uniform, and just stupid enough to challenge two drunken stevedores in a downtown bar.

  Thinking about it now, kneeling in front of the plinth, he smiled. He'd had his ass kicked on half a dozen planets since then, but he'd never forgotten that first time.

  "What do we do now?” he said through his suit's external speaker. On its perch, the creature shivered at the sound of his voice, drawing further into itself.

  "How long do we have to stay here?” he said. His suit wasn't fully charged. He only had another hour of air.

  In the light from his torch, the creature remained hunched and silent. Curled up, it was about the size of a large footstool—big enough to put up a fight if he tried to move it from its pedestal by force.

  He got to his feet and staggered over to press his gloved hand against the slab of rock blocking the entrance. His ankle felt a bit better now—not broken, merely bruised.

  "Is this how you survived last time, shut away down here, all by yourself?"

  He patted the rock. As a pilot, he was used to spending long periods of time cooped up in a cramped cockpit—but there was something about the sheer weight of this obstruction that scared him. Trapped in the dark with a dwindling air supply, beneath thousands of tonnes of solid bedrock, he felt the sweat break out around his collar. He needed to get out, back up to the surface, somewhere he could breathe freely without the helmet, see without the torch...

  He thought of all the random jumps he'd made, and the other pilots he'd known. Where were they now? One by one, they'd jumped away, never to be seen or heard from again—probably having died lonely, desperate deaths in uncharted star systems.

  That, he knew, was the price they paid for the excitement and fame, that was what was at stake every time he gambled his life on a random jump—the risk that something would go wrong, that he'd end up somewhere with no way back, stranded and alone.

  Well, he thought, if that's the way it is, I'm not going down without a fight.

  He turned back to the pedestal in the centre of the room.

  "Let me out,” he said. “I don't have enough air to stay down here."

  The creature flinched. He walked over and gave it an experimental shove.

  "I need to get back to my ship,” he said.

  He shoved agai
n but couldn't dislodge it. All eight of its limbs were gripping the plinth.

  He tried slapping and punching it, but it only curled tighter.

  Eventually, he stepped back, breathing hard, feeling old. If he didn't have the strength to move it, he'd have to try something else. He shone his torch around, but there was nothing he could use as a weapon.

  "I'm getting too old for this,” he muttered, and noticed again how the tentacles drew tighter at the sound of his voice.

  "What's the matter?” he said. “Don't you like the noise?"

  Grimly, he turned the volume on his suit's external speaker up as far as it would go, and put all his pain and frustration into one desperate shout of anger.

  Startled, the creature released its grip on the pedestal and its tentacles whipped up to protect its body. Seeing his chance, Caesar grabbed hold and heaved.

  Unbalanced, he fell backwards and it landed in his lap like a heavy, wriggling dog. For a moment, they sat there stunned. Then the rock door scraped back into its recess and a few swirls of dust blew into the room. Caesar felt the creature squirm, its skin turning a flabby white. He kicked it away with his good leg, and then crawled for the opening. As he did so, the creature rolled upright and slithered back to its pedestal, clearly desperate to re-seal the entrance.

  "Oh no, you don't,” Caesar said. He was almost at the door now, trying to ignore the pain in his bruised knees and ankle. With one last effort, he threw himself out of the room, into the narrow tunnel outside, and collapsed to the ground, panting.

  Looking back, he caught a final glimpse of the creature lowering itself into position, then the heavy stone door crashed back into place, and all he could see was rock.

  * * * *

  By the time Caesar pulled himself back up the sloping tunnel and staggered out onto the citadel's stone steps, the dust had stopped falling. Like ash, it lay over everything on the plateau—the collapsed towers, the ruined city, The Red Shark. He had maybe forty minutes of air left; his suit chafed and his ankle hurt.

  He limped down the steps. Overhead, the sun was a swollen red blister in an indigo sky. Beneath his feet, the dust crunched like fresh snow.

  Moving as quickly as he dared, he picked his way through it to his ship. When he got there, he was concerned to see more dust clinging to the hull, and no sign of life on board. Breathing hard, he leaned on one of the landing struts.