Crystal Venom

by Steve Wheeler

  The Avian nodded, turned and said something to two of the others who nodded in turn and left, heading towards the entrance. He looked at Marko, frowned, and signed. ‘Atmosphere dangerous to you. Oxygen levels too high for your type. Can adjust for you. Come.’

  They all stood up and began to move from the room, the small child still holding Marko’s hand. The two that had left arrived back with a stretcher. They placed it beside Glint and reverently, gently, lifted him onto it and then followed them all. In the entrance, three other humans arrived in metallic suits, trailing earthing straps and pulling a long cable behind them. They walked out into the cave and attached the cable to the Chrysops, earthing it, then disconnected the craft’s own earth straps as a wheeled hydraulic carryall, trailing its own piping, came out from a passageway, slid under the little craft, lifted it and reversed to bring it to where Marko and the others stood.

  The elder Avian gestured to the craft as Marko rapidly debated with himself as to what he should do. He wanted to trust the surrounding sentients, but wasn’t yet able to do so totally. Nevertheless, he walked across to the Chrysops and awkwardly clambered up onto the wing. The small boy also did the same, peering into Glint’s cockpit, smiling and asking questions that Marko could only just hear, but had no understanding of. The adults smiled and spoke to the child, who also laughed, patting Marko on the lower back as if he was an entertaining dullard.

  Marko reached into his cockpit and activated the Jim monitor who, moments later, rose up out of the craft, still assembling himself. Marko immediately realised his mistake as panels above them opened and a small, disc-shaped antigravity weapon platform dropped down to confront them with stubby barrels which pointed separately at Marko, the monitor and the Chrysops. Marko was cursing himself for not explaining his intentions when he saw a transparent shield slide up from the floor to protect the Avians and humans behind it. However, the small boy at his side quickly looked from Marko to the Avian and human adults and back again, his face filled with fear. Marko pointed for him to join the adults then signed as fast as he could to the sentients that the monitor was no longer Games Board in nature and was quite harmless.

  Knowing that a crunch point had been reached, he started the powering-up sequence for his whole body systems, hoping that he was not about to fry himself or get shot by the weapons platform. As the first stage of the suit came online, he opened his outer armoured helmet, which folded up and then down onto his shoulders so they could clearly see his face behind the primary helmet faceplate, and also Spike clinging onto the outside of it. The heads-up units came online as did his first-stage biomeds, then his cybernetics, allowing him access to the Avian language as he activated the speakers on the suit.

  ‘My deepest apologies, sentients,’ Marko began. ‘I should have told you further of my intentions. This unit is called Jim. He was rebuilt by us when the Games Board producer, who is now dead, destroyed his mind. He has no weapons. I activated him to see if there could possibly be effects on start-up from the electrical discharges. I have now done the same myself, so I am at your mercy.’

  He held himself very still, watching the discussions going on behind the shield. Soon the weapons platform backed off as the shield retracted into the floor. The elder Avian stepped forwards until he was at the edge of the Chrysops.

  ‘I too apologise, Marko. It would seem that we have trust issues on both sides. It is good that we can talk freely. So, what are your intentions?’

  Marko let out a long sigh of relief. ‘Right now, I wait until my colleagues can return to pick me up. These electrical events of yours … they must be regular occasions if you have inbuilt safeguards against them.’

  The elder nodded, looking around the enclosure. ‘Yes, we found this place many generations ago and modified some of it to our tastes. It will be several days before your friends will be able to return. There is an electrical flux built up between this planet, the gas giant and the surrounding magnetic fields which will have to dissipate before they will be able to return. We are most interested to know why your force arrived here at the time it did. Surely you were advised of the considerable risk you were taking in coming at this time of the gas giant’s year when it and subsequently this moon pass through the iron cloud? And besides, we have no interest in leaving this place as we have been here for hundreds of years.’

  Marko looked at the Avian. He then looked across at the rest of the group, shaking his head and wondering what manipulations the Administration were attempting this time. He stepped down off the wing

  ‘I need to wake the ACEs,’ Marko advised. ‘Do you object, Ant?’

  The tall Avian shook his head. ‘No, of course not. We know of them from the Games Board programs that the Haulers bring to us.’

  Marko was shocked. ‘Shit! So you are not cut off or a recent discovery?’

  Ant cocked his head, slightly intrigued by Marko’s comment. ‘No, Marko, why would you say that? Certainly there are factions among us who want to travel and see the other worlds of man, but we have been trading with the Haulers since the Avian subspecies of human were first created for this moon and the other environments like it.’

  Marko frowned, feeling very annoyed. ‘OK, so what we have been told is that you were created for the Infant conflict and carry highly contagious diseases as biological weapons.’

  The Avian brought up his hands and looked at them. ‘The Infant conflict is a source of continuing sadness to us, as a moon, one of the many habitable in that system, was colonised by the Avian humans hundreds of system years before that conflict. It always protested its non-involvement, but was destroyed anyway. Why would we wish to carry diseases to kill? We are human after all, Marko. You must know they would be lethal to us as well.’

  Marko gently pulled Spike off the side of his helmet, located the tiny sequential switches and pushed them to start the little spider up, holding Spike in his hand as he then knelt beside Glint. Marko opened the panel in Glint’s side and locked the breakers back in. The panel closed itself, Glint’s fur rearranging itself to conceal the joints. Marko looked down at Glint’s closed eyes, allowing himself to speed up, and as soon as Glint’s eyes opened he used the crew comms to rapidly tell him what had been happening.

  Spike woke up, flipped himself over and then scuttled up Marko’s arm to sit on his shoulder. A very fast three-way conversation took place, with the Jim monitor again recording everything he could see around him. Glint and Spike agreed to gain as much information as possible about the sentients and their surroundings so that the information could be passed to Stephine and Veg for their judgment.

  ‘Ant, why are so many of the Avians wishing to leave?’ Marko enquired.

  The Avian shrugged. ‘There is a new colony available to us further out towards the Crab Nebula. Sounds a very interesting place and so they want to go there, as this is not a big enough moon for our expanding population. Another reason is that none of us wish to become involved with the privateer corporation that set up a large base north of here over three system years ago. Before you ask the question I shall give you the answer: there are a great deal of marketable medications derived from the native biosphere here. They want it and we just want to live with it.’

  The little boy was now hugging Glint with one arm and trying to get Spike off Marko’s shoulder with the other and laughing all at the same time. Whenever the child bent his head, Marko could see the raised lumps over his shoulder blades and the fine feathers growing along his spine. He looked down and could see that the boy’s shoes were also very wide for such a young person. He looked closely at the three humans in the group and could see subtle genetic engineering in their skins and hair, but no obvious Avian features.

  ‘Come, Marko, it is time to introduce you to my family. You have met my youngest son, Tomas, and these are my wives, Christa, Jamie and Momo; my sons Dana and George; my other husband, Dane, and our daughters Jema, Henrieta and Teri. We are a relatively young family of only fifty standard years or mor
e.’

  Marko and Glint formally shook everyone’s hands, while Spike grinned and nodded. Marko, his cybernetics back at full power, was able to image map each individual in terms of the genetic imprinting on the children, and was able to identify the mothers and the fathers with Ant being the dominant father. Marko smiled, seeing the similarities between his own family and those in front of him as an acknowledgment that multi-member adult family groups could be so much more supportive on every level than some of humankind’s earlier style of family units, such as three or two parents and — for some hundreds of years — even single parents.

  ‘A question that has been bothering me.’ Marko said. ‘Why did we not know much more about you all?’

  Ant laughed. ‘Simple! We can choose at any time of our lives to shed our Avian characteristics and walk among the rest of humanity as ordinary people. If we arrived on any of humanity’s worlds looking like birds, imagine the racial tension that would ensue. Besides, the gravities generally are too severe and the atmospheres, in the main, too low in oxygen for our metabolisms; and the air is far too thin to allow us to fly well. No, not a lot of attraction for most of us there.’

  Marko nodded, wondering what it would be like to fly unencumbered, as Ant continued. ‘So, to answer your next as-yet-unasked question, it takes an adult two standard years to reabsorb their feathers and wings, then change their feet and grow a great deal of muscle to allow them to walk among the rest of humanity. Some take the opportunity to swap their sex at the same time, if they feel inclined. Tried it once, may try it again sometime, although going from a penis to a fat little clitoris, for me at least, took some getting used to!’

  Marko bellowed with laughter, and everyone joined in, except Tomas, who was enthralled by Glint’s ears and frill and was examining them closely. Glint was happy to let him, totally trusting of the small boy.

  Marko walked across to the Chrysops, climbed up into the cockpit and opened the locker with the fruit, food and drinks, which he loaded into a pack and took across to Ant. ‘I know that it is very little, Ant, but I would like you to have this. I can easily survive three days waiting for assistance, and the fruit would have started to spoil by then, anyway.’

  Ant took the proffered pack, nodded at Marko and smiled in gratitude. ‘So, fruit and foodstuffs from the famous Basalt. You will not be offended if we clone some of the fruit, will you?’

  Marko grinned back at him. ‘I am sure Stephine would be honoured for you to do so.’

  Ant formally thanked him then gestured for Marko and others to follow, leading them a long way back into the mountain to a magnificent, huge, domed cathedral-sized room carved out of the mountain. Tens of thousands of different creatures of every size, shape, configuration and type were sculpted on the walls and on the dozens of huge arched pillars which lined the space, everything lit from light sources they could not immediately see. Jim immediately flew up into the centre of it and slowly rotated, taking high-resolution images, while Marko and Glint walked around, looking at the walls in awe. Ant and one of his handsome standard human-looking wives, Momo, accompanied them until Marko suddenly halted, riveted to the spot. ‘Not the best day to view the carvings, Marko and Glint. The heavy cloud cover has dulled things a little, reducing the mountain’s translucence.’

  Marko did not care because in front of him was a set of magnificent carvings stretching around and up a pillar depicting humankind, male and female, from the earliest hominids to all the extinct varieties. At the top was Homo sapiens sapiens and then all of the many varieties of humanity, naked and without representation of cranial or body hair, showing clearly every shape, with individual muscle groups and skin variation perfectly carved right down to the finest surface vein or folded skin crease. On the domed wall above the pillar most of the creatures of Old Earth were represented, all interwoven, in a great segment above the pillar edged with fine straight lines, reaching curving right to the centre of the dome high overhead.

  Marko stood staring for some time, entranced to see tiny creatures and insects nestled between the larger carvings and wondering at the huge amount of time it would have taken to finish the millions of carvings, even if the artist and others had used machinery.

  ‘Ant, have you any idea of how old these carvings are?’ he finally asked.

  ‘We believe they were done some twenty-nine thousand standard years ago.’

  Marko walked to the next pillar, where he recognised the octopoids, in several distinct varieties, at the top of the pillar and above them most of the creatures of Old Earth repeated as per the previous coloum but this time including Homo Sapiens among the creatures. He mused to himself that another confirmation of the library data, which they had gained from the ancient alien artefact many years previously, was now in place.

  Glint gently grasped Marko’s right hand and pointed upwards. ‘You see, Marko, the octopoids indeed originated on Old Earth as well as you lot. Interesting. It is my conjecture that each pillar represents the dominant species and above it the planet’s biosphere. Our crew will be excited to see this.’

  Marko looked at him. ‘“Interesting” is a bit of an understatement, Glint. And of course Fritz will only be interested if they had music.’

  Marko and Glint walked on to the next pillar, then the next and so on. For the next two hours, they failed to recognise any other creature, and slowly walked back to where the larger family group of their hosts were seated in the centre of the room, patiently waiting for them.

  ‘Ant, Momo. How big an area of the Universe do you think this represents?’

  Momo shrugged. ‘We’re sorry, Marko, but of that we have no knowledge. Perhaps the Haulers would have better information. We do speculate about where other of these museums might be, and if we Avians, and the other derivatives of man, are represented in a more recent one maybe. We have not seen any of the creatures found on this moon carved into these walls.’

  Marko gave a short swift nod and was about to reply, when Glint made a suggestion. ‘Do it yourself, Momo: I’m sure that it can’t be that difficult. The stone I have seen here is very stable with no cracks or fissures in it. And the mining and carving equipment that would be useful to you is not that difficult to obtain.’

  She smiled. ‘Perhaps you are right, sentient Glint. Perhaps that is indeed a good plan for some time in our future.’

  Marko nodded in agreement. ‘Are the Haulers aware of this place?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, Marko,’ Ant replied. ‘They have all sent proxys down to study it, with some spending weeks going over every tiny detail. Surely they must have passed the information on to the general population. Although come to think of it, we have never seen anything about it, even though whenever a Hauler uplifts their cargos of teas and herbs they leave us with many months of audiovisual shows to enjoy. This I shall have to ponder.’

  Marko grimaced. ‘Don’t do anything about it, Ant. There are things happening in the background that we are only now becoming aware of. The Games Board and the Administration don’t want the public knowing of this. Keep it to yourselves or I can see an iron meteorite suddenly obliterating this place and you with it.’

  The family’s adults all nodded sombrely.

  ‘Yes, sadly, you may be right,’ Momo said. ‘But we wanted you in particular to see it, Marko. Come, you look tired. We have prepared quarters for you. At least you can rest out of your combat suit. Please, follow us.’

  His head still racing with thoughts of the other dominant species he had seen, Marko followed Ant and the others out through another door and then up long, gently curving staircases carved from the flawless honey-coloured stone. There were dozens of archways, landings and doorways leading off the staircases. They finally found themselves in a small suite of rooms after passing through a series of doors which had closed after them silently. From alcoves inside the final door, the Avians took compact units which looked as if they were made of polished deep red-coloured wood. The Avians placed the units on their shoul
ders and the units then conformed to each individual; tendrils grew from them, sliding up onto their faces and then into their nostrils.

  Sounding slightly more nasal then previously, Ant turned to them to explain what was happening. ‘This room and its ancillaries are oxygen-deficient for us, but will be good for you, Marko. We have prepared a late lunch and would like to join you, or would you prefer to dine alone?’

  Marko smiled. ‘My thanks. No, I would very much like to speak further with you all anyway and over lunch would be grand. There are a great many rooms here but I have only seen you people. Are there others?’

  Ant looked at Marko with a bemused expression. ‘Yes, of course, but we are among the senior families and it is our duty to place ourselves at possible risk from visitors. In your case, we do this very gladly and hope that the rest of your most esteemed crew will be able to visit as well. Your room, with ablutions, is through that door. The Jim monitor can stay here and interview us if it wishes?’

  Marko continued looking around the room. ‘Yeah. I know that the Games Board will be interested. Jim? Like the idea? Good. Thanks, I shall see you again shortly.’

  Marko, with Glint at his heels, walked to the door of his room, which opened to reveal a bed, a panoramic window with views down the mountain towards the valley, and beside it an en suite. Marko lifted Spike off his shoulder and placed him on Glint’s head. The spider immediately jacked himself into Glint as Marko sped himself up and linked to the ACE.

  ‘Well? Tell me,’ Marko demanded.

  Glint shrugged as the message flashed across. ‘No doubt your suit is giving you the same message, Marko. These people seem to be on the level. No pathogens that we know of, bacterial counts within normal boundaries, same with the virus numbers and type, as per everything we have seen so far on this planet. The air in here is just about perfect for you as well. The usual electronic signatures and we can’t recognise any hostile viral software anywhere. I’ve seen some very sophisticated visual tracking and lots of hidden weapon systems, so we could have easily been knocked over at any time. They do strike me as almost monklike in their demeanour and actually very kind. I have detected several attempts by their hardware to intercept our crew comms, so they know about it, but it’s your call.’