The Particle Beast

by Ian C Douglas

  Zeke pulled a face. Lifting a feather by thoughts alone was one thing. A twenty kilo weight was another. In his mind’s-eye he visualised the dumbbell slowly levitating off the table. But it wouldn’t budge. He concentrated, feeling the heaviness of the object in his mind. He began to sweat. Still nothing happened. The dumbbell weighed too much. Zeke gritted his teeth and clenched his fists.

  “Up, up, up,” he muttered.

  The dumbbell jerked upwards a couple of centimetres It wobbled above the table and rose another centimetre and then one more still. Zeke felt his biceps straining, as though he were physically lifting.

  CLANG!

  The dumbbell clattered back onto the table. A few sneers hissed around the room.

  Puffing, Zeke went to sit down, but Chinook kept a firm grip on him.

  “And now the boulder, boy.”

  “The boulder!”

  “Yes, Hailey.”

  Zeke eyed the hefty chunk of basalt. It was around three metres tall and five wide, jagged and ochre red. Chinook was asking the impossible.

  “Sir, I couldn’t lift that in a month of Martian Sundays.”

  “Now!”

  Zeke closed his eyes. He pictured the rock. He thought how heavy it must be and tried to imagine heaving it up. Every muscle in his body tightened. He thought harder and harder. His armpits grew sticky. Harder and harder. He could actually feel the rock’s weight now. It was crushing him, overwhelming him.

  “No!” he cried, and fell back into his teachers arms.

  Chinook pushed Zeke onto his feet. “Why couldn’t you lift it?”

  Zeke hesitated. Was it some kind of trick question? “It’s too heavy, obviously.”

  Chinook turned to the classroom. “Hailey is right and wrong. When we use our bodies for lifting we are subject to the laws of physics. But why he couldn’t lift it psychokinetically? Belief. Hailey believed the rock was too heavy to be lifted. Therefore, he failed. But when we use our minds the power of imagination is our only limit.”

  Pin-mei put her hand up. “So Sir, are you saying we can lift anything if we have faith?”

  “Sure. Faith, after all, can move mountains.”

  He scanned the forest of puzzled faces. “The feather, for example, did Hailey lift it using muscle power?”

  Thirty heads shook vigorously.

  “Muscles exist on the material plain, where things have mass and weight. With me so far?”

  Thirty heads nodded slowly.

  Chinook went on. “But with the feather he used his brain cells. He imagined the feather hovering. Absolutely nothing to do with weight. Therefore, think that the boulder is light as a feather and have confidence. You’ll be able to lift it as easily as the feather. See!”

  A light kindled in Chinook’s dark eyes. The boulder steadily ascended till it nearly scraped the ceiling. It bobbed for a few seconds, before spinning around three times. Then it gracefully lowered itself back to the ground.

  The students clapped. Chinook motioned to the one empty seat. Zeke ran for its sanctuary.

  Have you been up all night? You got eyes like a panda.

  It was Scuff, speaking by telepathy.

  Zeke peered over his shoulder. Scuff was sitting two rows back, half reading a comic, half paying attention.

  Yes, Zeke thought back.

  Scuff shrugged as if to say, go on.

  Everything’s changed. Albie told me where my father is. In the constellation of Cepheus. I’m going to get him.

  Whoa there, cowboy. Congratulations and all that. But how are you going to commute across the Milky Way?

  Zeke bit back an urge to snap. Sometimes Scuff was a pain the size of a gas giant. That’s why I was up all night. I sent out a long distance T-mail.

  Scuff sent him a quizzical look. You used the Mariners’ solar system-wide communication chain?

  Yes, passed telepathically from Mariner to Mariner. From Mars to the asteroids to Jupiter, and then via the odd space station to Saturn.

  Who lives there?

  Edward Dayo these days.

  Scuff frowned. Who?

  Edward Dayo, the Apprentice Mariner who translocated us to Mars. I’m begging him to take me.

  The dreadlocks guy? Bit of a big favour.

  He’ll do it. He’s got to.

  Scuff’s mouth dropped. Wait a cotton-picking minute. You’re not leaving us, are you?

  Zeke shifted round to face the front.

  Chinook was rubbing his temple with his forefinger. “I’m getting a message from the Principal’s office. Oh, you again. Hailey, you’re wanted right away. Pronto.”

  “What have I done now?” Zeke implored his teacher.

  A trace of a smile creased the Inuit’s lips. “Nothing, for once. Seems you have a visitor.”

  Chapter Three

  The Office of Principal Lutz

  Zeke stood as near to the school secretary as he dared. Marjorie Barnside was pounding away on her keyboard. Surely, if he listened carefully, there’d be a sound. The hum of a circuit or the squeak of a pulley. Anything that would betray her secret. The school secretary was an android.

  “Ach, would you stop breathing down my neck!” she snapped.

  Zeke stepped back.

  But the curiosity was too much. He leant forward. And then some more. Any further and he’d fall into her lap.

  “That’s it!” Barnside cried in her thick Belfast accent. She pushed the digi-writer away and swivelled in her chair to face him.

  “Look, big lad, you know. And I know you know. And you know I know that you know. Are ya with me?”

  “Oh, definitely, Miss,” he replied as convincingly as he could.

  “So is this what you want to see?”

  Barnside placed both hands around her neck and gave a hard tug. Her head came clear away from her shoulders, revealing a mass of wires inside.

  “Happy, are we now?” asked the severed head. A strand of iron-grey hair slipped across the face.

  Zeke flopped into a nearby chair. It was more disconcerting than he’d expected. He nodded feebly. Barnside clicked her head back into place.

  “Will ya give me some peace now?”

  Zeke nodded again, lost for words.

  “Look, I’m just a humble school secretary. Doing what I love. I didn’t ask to be who I am.”

  “I guess nobody does,” Zeke replied.

  “My role in life is to be here for Madam.” Barnside gestured toward Lutz’s door.

  “She has one of the most important jobs in the Solar System. And I assist her in that. Who else would put up with the tantrums?”

  “Sorry, Miss. I didn’t mean to pry.”

  “That’s exactly what you were doing.”

  Zeke lowered his gaze.

  “So stop faffin’ and leave me be. That’s all I ask. Let us get on with running this school.”

  Zeke was burning with questions. Why was Lutz allowed an android when they were banned on two planets and assorted moons. And if Barnside was a machine, who had built her? But her fierce expression said she was in no mood for any further revelations.

  The Principal’s office was inside the school’s highest minaret. Two storeys of bookcases clung to the circular walls, linked by wobbly ladders. Zeke had never seen anyone climb the ladders. He suspected that one foot on the lowest rung would bring the whole structure toppling down. The bookcases were stuffed with files and folders, reflecting Lutz’s distrust of computers. But then she had a lot of secrets to hide.

  A clammy breeze sneaked through the skylights, scattering dust. Specks floated in the air. Some settled on Lutz’s ceremonial robes, like dandruff. She was sitting in her office chair like a queen on a throne. Her broad African face was as stern as it was majestic. That was hardly surprising. She was famous from Mercury t
o Pluto for her iron will.

  A stranger was sitting across the desk from Lutz. He was a small, stocky man with beady eyes and a shiny bald head. The hair at the back of his head was black and greasy. His skin was olive-toned. Zeke wondered if he was Mediterranean. What on Mars could this man want with him?

  Lutz threw Zeke a grave look. “Sit beside our guest.”

  Zeke obliged. “Why have you—”

  Before he could finish, she placed her finger on her lips. She looked grumpy, even by her standards.

  “Please continue,” she said to the stranger, with a forced smile.

  The man giggled. “Let me check I understand. The school was built on Mars because there’s no magnetic field?” He had a squeaky voice that lacked any accent.

  Lutz nodded and said, “Magnetic fields blank out psychic power. It wasn’t until humans went into space, outside Earth’s magnetosphere, that psychic abilities were discovered. That one-in-a-million person gifted with ESP. So the school was built here, to turn generations of psychic children into Mariners.”

  The man beamed enthusiastically and scribbled notes into his magnopad. “So magnetism could be used to disarm your students?”

  Lutz looked baffled. “I guess so. They have those guns, you know. What are they called?”

  “Ferromagnetic rifles,” Zeke said coldly.

  “Let me get that bit down,” the man said, focussing on his magnopad.

  “We teach the full syllabus. Translocation, telepathy, precognition, psychokinesis, remote viewing—”

  “Yes, yes, I’ve read the prospectus.”

  Lutz looked at the man as if he were a cockroach.

  “We’re fully independent of all governments, including UNAAC. Only the Mariners Institute has any say in our running.”

  “And being on Mars means no school inspectors to stand in your way?” The man remarked without looking up from his pad.

  Lutz glowered silently.

  “I have no interest in what you’re doing to these weird children. There are more pressing concerns,” the man remarked, and gestured towards Zeke.

  “This gentleman has come all the way from Earth to see you,” Lutz explained. “Why he wants the help of an unruly brat like you, is beyond me. However, he has e-docs signed by Earth’s president, no less.”

  She turned to the stranger. “How is Reggie, by the way?”

  “Oh, you know, overworked,” replied the little man.

  Lutz sighed. “He was such a naughty child. Now he runs the planet. I should have smacked his bottom when I had the chance.”

  Zeke was growing impatient. “And who are you, then?” he said directly to the man.

  “This is Doctor Apollodoris Enki. Humanity’s greatest living translator,” Lutz said.

  The name hit Zeke like a slap across the face. “You! You translated Hesperian for Professor Magma!”

  Enki smirked. “I played a small role, yes.”

  Zeke leapt to his feet. “Well, you can go back to Earth, or better still the heart of the nearest black hole, and never come back!”

  “Hailey!” Lutz barked.

  Enki giggled nervously.

  “You’ll be just like him,” Zeke bellowed. “You have some plan, don’t you? Use Hesperian technology to take over the world. And all you’ll do is destroy yourself. And anyone crazy enough to get involved.”

  Lutz banged the table with her fist. “Impudence! I will not have such impudence!”

  “But Principal, they killed Mariners.”

  Lutz was about to bark at Zeke again. Instead she hesitated. “Is this true, Doctor Enki?”

  Enki dabbed his forehead with a handkerchief. “Principal Lutz, we were doing research of interplanetary importance. As you know, Martian artefacts are very dangerous. There were a small number of fatalities, but those young men died heroes.”

  “I don’t like the sound of this,” Lutz said.

  “Everything is a matter of record,” Enki went on. “You can speak to the highest office at UNAAC if you doubt me.”

  “I will.”

  “But all that is over. I’m here to prevent a catastrophe.”

  “Catastrophe?” Zeke and Lutz said at the same time.

  Enki fished a vial of smelling salts from his bag. He sniffed in the vapour.

  “Drilling is about to start at the Melas Chasma. They hope to find subterranean deposits of Helium Three.”

  “Yes, I know,” Lutz interrupted. “The Governor of Mars’ brainchild. They call the process ‘vacking’, I believe. So what?”

  Enki’s eyes widened. “There is a citadel there. A Hesperian ruin. Not only will the drilling destroy a site of unimaginable value, but they will release a deadly power. One that could kill everyone on Mars.”

  “Donner and blitzen,” Lutz cursed. “The Martians went extinct two billion years ago. Their architecture crumbled away long before the human race existed.”

  Enki wriggled his fat posterior to the edge of his seat. “You’re wrong.”

  “Then why hasn’t it been seen?”

  “Because it’s out of sync with our dimension.”

  Lutz frowned. “Out of sync?”

  “Hesperian technology created a pocket universe, a bubble in the fabric of existance. And their city is there. Why, I don’t know, but it’s invisible and intangible. We can’t see it or touch it. But the drilling will destroy it.”

  Lutz leant back in her great leather chair, lost for words.

  “What’s this deadly power?” Zeke asked. Goose bumps were dancing across his skin.

  “A savage monster! A raging brute, without intelligence and programmed to kill.”

  So not the Spiral, Zeke thought with relief. He’s super-intelligent.

  “If my translations are right, the Hesperians left a monster to protect their citadel. An entity made entirely from subatomic particles. Created that way so it was unstoppable and indestructible.”

  “Have you spoken to Governor about this?”

  Enki tittered. “Oh yes, but the man’s power mad. He kicked me out of Tithonium.”

  Lutz rubbed her chin. “And so, you plan to stop the miners?”

  “No, but I can seal off the citadel forever. But my translations are incomplete. That’s why I need Hailey. Professor Magma told me how a Hesperian orb downloaded their language into the boy’s brain. Magma said Hailey’s fluency in Martian was unique. Better even than mine, and I’m a genius.”

  Lutz folded her arms across her stomach. “This citadel is a very farfetched tale. But in the unlikely event that’s it true I authorise you to take Hailey. I must protect the school.”

  Zeke clenched his fists. “That’s not your decision, Principal.”

  She stared at him blankly. “Excuse me?”

  “You’re not the boss of me.”

  She laughed. “Actually I am, mon petit enfant. Martian law gives me loco parentis as long as you reside at my school.”

  Zeke returned her stare. In the strangest of ways everything seemed to click together. He squared up his shoulders.

  “I’m sure you’ll be pleased to hear I resign.”

  Lutz froze, open-mouthed. “Yes,” Zeke went on. “I’m leaving the school and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

  Chapter Four

  Elevenses On Mars

  Zeke emerged from Lutz’s minaret in a dream. There was something liberating about telling the principal where she could stick it. After all, she’d had it in for him since day one.

  The building faced the vast emptiness of the Ophir Chasma. Zeke gazed into the distance, mesmerised by its towering cliffs. Ophir Chasma was Mariners Valley’s northernmost canyon. The Valley itself was over half a million square kilometres in area and seven kilometres deeper than the Martian surface. After two centuries of terra-forming, Mar
iners Valley was the most habitable region on the planet. The great depth gave it the densest air, and therefore the warmest temperatures. That is to say, the least chilly.

  Zeke thought of the brave astronauts who landed long ago, when Mars was still airless. Those missions were like seeds. And civilisation sprouted from those seeds. A network of colonies that spread across the wilderness. But Mariners Valley was so huge you could walk for days before reaching another outpost. More likely, of course, you’d die along the way. Mars was still rife with dangers, quicksand, solar radiation, freezing nights. Not to mention the outlaws and fugitives.

  Ochre stones littered the landscape, untouched for billions of years. Basalt pillars poked through this ancient rubble, fashioned by the winds into fantastical shapes. Zeke’s imagination ran riot whenever he looked at them. This one was a giant, that one a monster, another a dinosaur. But the most awesome thing about Mars, Zeke always thought, was the silence. You could hear the echo of a pin dropping a kilometre away. Ophir Chasma was immense and brooding. It made him feel very small.

  “G’day, mate.”

  Zeke jumped.

  It was Mariner Alistair Knimble, the Translocation teacher. He was the only member of staff who was actually quite fond of Zeke.

  “I didn’t hear you,” Zeke began.

  ‘N’ah, I translocated.”

  That explained it. Knimble had sidestepped reality and arrived out of thin air.

  “Is it true?” Knimble asked.

  Zeke clicked his tongue. “You know already, Sir?”

  Knimble laughed. He was a wiry Australian, bald and with a goatee beard. But his eyes were his most captivating feature. His bright blue eyes had an intense stare. As if he could see through brick walls.

  “Gossip travels at the speed of thought around here, mate.”

  Zeke guessed Knimble and Lutz were already talking telepathically. Hard to keep secrets in a school for psychics.

  Zeke nodded.

  Knimble sighed. “Lutz has expelled a few students over the decades. Including me, as you know. But nobody ever resigned. Unheard of.”

  Zeke shrugged.

  “You’ve got a lead on your dad’s whereabouts?”