The Particle Beast

by Ian C Douglas

He pulled his thermal coat over his school uniform, grubby from three days of dust. On tiptoes, he slipped out of the tent and picked his way through the shanty town of canvases.

  “Ow!” he cried, turning a corner and colliding with a shadowy figure.

  “Do you get everywhere?” came a familiar female voice.

  The torch in his magnopad lit up the green eyes and red hair of Isla The Incisor.

  “I could say the same,” Zeke replied, scowling.

  “Aw, come here,” she said, and gave him a powerful hug. Zeke gasped for air.

  “Actually, you owe me a big thank you,” she added.

  Zeke thought. “Oh, the key. Thanks for that. Not that it’s done us much good, Pin—”

  “Has been kidnapped by that scumbag Enki.”

  “You know?”

  “Cain told me.”

  Zeke’s narrowed his eyes. “What are you doing here? Hunting for the Cratan?”

  A look of uncertainty flickered on her pretty features. “Oh no. We gave up on him. Ptolemy sent me to make one last attempt to persuade Cain. We need Edenville in the Unpro allegiance.”

  “And he said no.”

  Isla nodded.

  “I thought so,” Zeke said. “Man of peace and all that.”

  “And where are you off to in the dead of night?”

  Zeke bit his lip. “It’s a long story…”

  Isla’s face grew stern as Zeke explained the turn of events.

  “And you think you can get inside this ‘pocket universe’?” She used her fingers to make air quotes for the last two words.

  “Definitely.”

  “Then I’m coming with you.”

  “No Isla, the more people go in, the greater the risk. Sorry.”

  Their eyes met.

  She sighed. “Okay, but look after yourself.”

  Isla brushed past him and began to walk away. She hesitated. “Zeke, when the war starts, make sure you pick the right side. I’d hate to see anything happen to a good kid like you,” she said, and disappeared.

  Zeke turned a full circle. His magnopad threw its weak light across the clearing. A rough arena of sand, ringed by basalt rocks. The air was cold and the silence was absolute. A scrap of nothing in the middle of nowhere, on a half-dead planet. Hard to imagine all around him stood a Hesperian citadel. An alien tomb, separated by a fraction of an atom. The citadel shared the same atomic structure as Zeke’s universe, but resonated at a different frequency. It was as simple yet complicated as that.

  Zeke took a deep gulp. He was about to step outside of the universe and run into Enki, Ricardo and far worse, the Particle Beast. The immensity of his mission dawned on him. A storm of butterflies scraped at his insides.

  “Think of Pin,” he told himself.

  He straightened up, stretched out his hands and began reciting from memory.

  “Zznss nglyrok: zahda, zahda, nx, fmii, dthoth, kshnii.”

  Open the portal: sequence three, three, seven, fifteen, dthoth, kshnii.

  Zeke closed his eyes and held his breath. His heart counted away the seconds. He opened his eyes.

  The same old sand below, the same old Milky Way above.

  “Crmpstahkel!” he snapped. It was the most unpleasant Martian word he knew. He repeated the chant, again and again. Nothing! This time he swore in English and kicked a pebble. At a complete loss, he crouched down on his haunches and began aimlessly flicking sand.

  Why wouldn’t it work? Was he mispronouncing those ancient syllables? Supposing Enki had a way of locking him out? There again, maybe his brain just wasn’t psychic enough?

  Thoughts rolled around Zeke’s head like loose marbles. He was so consumed with frustration, that it was a while before he noticed the murmuring. He leapt to his feet. The Dust Devil!

  It was standing outside the clearing. A glowing, spinning figure, all dust and wind. The shape of its forehead and prominent nose resembled Swallow.

  “What do you want?” Zeke shouted in Hesperian.

  “I don’t know,” it replied in English.

  Neither spoke.

  “I’m sorry I hurt you,” Zeke eventually said. He got it now. Jimmy had come to him for help. Zeke had turned him away. If only he’d taken Jimmy’s pleas more seriously. It had to be a living hell. But how on Mars did a human transform into pulverised rock?

  The Devil writhed. “Words cannot help me.”

  “Jimmy? Do you remember Jimmy?”

  “Sometimes.”

  Zeke thought for a moment. “Why are you here?”

  “You are doing it wrong.”

  “What?” Zeke asked.

  “There is another world. Here. Fused to this one.”

  Zeke nodded, then wondered if the Devil understood that gesture.

  “You must move as you chant, use energy. To slip between atomic frequencies.”

  “Oh? Um, thanks.”

  The creature turned, without using its legs.

  “Don’t go,” Zeke cried. “You were…were…dead. Why did you come back?”

  The head swivelled one hundred and eighty degrees. “The Infinity Trap needs me. I am the key.”

  “But it’s closed. I sealed it. I mean, we sealed it, together.”

  “And I can open it.”

  A distant voice pierced the air. “Wait up!”

  Zeke glanced back towards the camp. Scuff! The last thing he wanted now. He returned his attention to the Dust Devil. Only it was no longer there.

  “Wait up” cried the Canadian, getting nearer.

  Zeke had to leave and now. He drew a deep breath and started walking.

  “Zznss nglyrok: zahda, zahda, nx, fmii, dthoth, kshnii.”

  The rocks around him lost a little of their colour. At the same time he heard footsteps racing towards him. He quickened his pace

  “Zznss nglyrok: zahda, zahda, nx, fmii, dthoth, kshnii.”

  The rocks grew paler and paler. A strange, indescribable smell filled his nostrils.

  “Oh no, you don’t!” Scuff bellowed behind him.

  “Zznss nglyrok: zahda, zahda, nx, fmii, dthoth, kshnii,” Zeke cried, breaking into a trot. Mars began melting. He picked up speed.

  “I’m coming too.” A hand grabbed Zeke’s coat.

  Everything went grey. The ground ceased to exist. Zeke fell. Thud! He landed with a nasty thump. A heavy weight slammed down on top of him.

  “Will you get off me!” he snapped.

  “Sorry, bro,” Scuff said meekly, and rolled over.

  They both sat up and looked around.

  “Wowee!” Scuff exclaimed.

  They were sitting on gravel. Large globular structures rose up around them. Some were bulbous and curving like conch shells. Others were spherical and segmented. A few were the shape of snail shells. Each was mottled with bright pinks, yellows and blues and all glowed with a pearly light.

  “Amazing,” Zeke whispered, as both boys took to their feet.

  “Are these, like, Hesperian houses?” Scuff asked.

  Zeke nodded. He looked up. This universe was starless. A land without daylight.

  The citadel was surrounded by a ring of peaks.

  “Do you hear something?” Scuff said.

  Scuff was right, as though an elephant were charging. Far off, but coming closer. Zeke’s skin crawled. He wheeled round.

  “Scuff!”

  There, crashing towards them, was the Particle Beast. It galloped on legs as thick as tree trunks. Two scaly claws emerged from its shoulders, tipped with razor sharp pinchers. The face was canine, but with mandibles attached to the jaws. The entire body shimmered and crackled, a blizzard of sparks.

  “Run!” Zeke screamed.

  “Where!” Scuff screamed back.

  Without slowing, the creature raised
its pinchers to its demonic face. Something formed in its jaws, something shimmering. The creature was spinning a fireball.

  A weapon! wailed Zeke’s inner voice.

  The Beast spat. The missile exploded from its mouth like a cannonball.

  “Duck!” Zeke cried and threw himself on his buddy.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Inside the Structures

  Scuff glanced around. His look of terror gave way to one of bewilderment. They seemed to be sitting inside a giant egg. The spherical wall gave off a dull yellow light.

  “Where are we?”

  Zeke shushed him frantically.

  Oops, how about thought-talk? Scuff continued in Zeke’s head.

  I only translocated a few metres. It’s still out there, he thought back.

  Scuff paled. You mean we’re inside one of those alien houses? And that brute is on the other side?

  The thud of passing feet answered Scuff’s question. A noise like a bonfire crackled outside. Zeke closed his eyes and counted to ten. When he opened them again, all was quiet.

  Sweat was dripping from Scuff’s face.

  They were inside a chamber two metres wide and three tall. Overhead, a round hole revealed an upper chamber.

  “They didn’t go in much for interior design,” Scuff remarked, scratching his head.

  Zeke stared at him.

  “I mean, there’s no furniture or ornaments. Nothing.”

  Zeke nodded. “No clues at all to what they were like.” He ran his finger through the layer of dirt on the ground. “Possibly their possessions crumbled? Two billion years must take its toll.”

  “Bro!”

  “What?”

  “Bro!”

  “Yes, what?”

  Scuff pulled a face. “Maybe that muck is…them!”

  A shudder shook Zeke from his toes to his scalp. He inspected his dust-coated fingertip.

  “You don’t mean—?”

  “Like you said, two billion years. Their bones would turn to powder.”

  Zeke hastily wiped his finger on his trouser leg. “Sorry,” he said to the dust. He shifted onto his knees. “Okay, lets translocate out of here and start searching.”

  “Not necessary, bro.” Scuff tapped his skull. “Can hear them, in here.”

  “I’m forgetting you’re an ace at telepathy.”

  Scuff polished his knuckles on his chest. “Natcho for a boy genius. I’m picking up all four.”

  “What are they saying?”

  “Too far away to be clear. Just feelings. Pin sounds okay. That Bartie kid is scared. Enki’s furious about something. The fourth must be Ricasso. Bit of a low bulb there. I can hardly get him.”

  “Can you take me to them?”

  “Walk those streets, you mean?”

  Zeke nodded.

  “Bro, what about the hound of the Baskervilles?”

  “We’ll have to chance it.”

  “Can’t you translocate us?”

  “No,” Zeke replied. “I’ve no idea where they are. We could end up encased in rock.”

  Scuff sighed. “Just don’t want to get blasted by those fireballs.”

  Zeke frowned. “Not fireballs exactly. From what I read in Enki’s translations, it’s plasma.”

  “Plasma?”

  “That disrupts atomic structure. Erases the bonds holding atoms together.”

  “Whoa! The electromagnetic force?”

  “I think so.”

  Scuff hugged himself. “So, if one of those babies hits you?”

  Zeke frowned. “Your atoms disintegrate.”

  Scuff grabbed Zeke’s arm. “Please, Zekey boy, let’s translocate. It’s that-a-way.” He pointed to his left.

  Zeke pushed out his lower lip. “No.”

  “Oh, I know that look,” Scuff muttered. “And it usually ends in trouble.”

  “I did try to leave you behind.”

  “Sklazag gfaaj!”

  Zeke’s mouth dropped. “That’s Hesperian for something very cheeky, how do you know it?”

  Scuff broke into a chuckle. “I haven’t been hanging out with you all this time for nothing, bro.”

  Zeke shifted forward onto his knees. “Okay. We translocate outside and use your telepathy to track them down. Maybe we can sneak in and rescue Pin.”

  Scuff looked dismayed. “Not much of a plan.”

  “Yeah, I’m winging it,” Zeke replied with a shrug.

  Scuff let out a big sigh. “Lets get this party started.”

  Zeke pushed back his blue locks. “Actually, I’m really glad you’re here, bro.”

  Scuff rolled his eyes. “Real cute, Zeke, but promise you’ll never, ever, say bro again”

  Zeke grinned. Then he took hold of Scuff’s wrist and they vanished.

  “He’s gone back inside,” Scuff whispered.

  They were hiding behind a boulder, on the slope of the vast crater. The citadel nestled below, in the pit of the crater. The slope was punctured like honeycomb with caves. Scuff had tracked the brainwaves and located one halfway up.

  “Ricasso?” Zeke asked.

  “Either him or a gorilla. ’Cept a gorilla would be smarter,” Scuff replied.

  Zeke gazed up at the starless sky. “So what do you think that is? You’re the quantum physics expert.”

  Scuff pushed out his bottom lip. “The edge of existence, I guess.”

  “Like a roof?”

  Scuff nodded. “The roof of a sphere, with this nugget of rock at its centre.”

  Zeke smiled. “We’re inside a cosmic snow globe!”

  “Without the snow.”

  “So could we actually touch it? This roof?” Zeke continued.

  “Who knows,” Scuff said. “Maybe if you went straight up, you’d find yourself at the bottom. Underneath the city.”

  “And there’s nothing outside of this sphere?” Zeke asked.

  “I don’t think so. It’s a mini-universe.”

  “My head’s hurting,” Zeke said.

  They fell quiet. A soft hissing roused Zeke from his thoughts.

  “Look,” he cried, pointing back down the slope. The ground was a haze of sand. The boulder slipped an inch or two. For a horrible second, Zeke feared they were on the brink of a landslide. His stomach tied itself in knots. Then, thankfully, the sand settled. “That’s what I saw at the mine, twice,” he said.

  Scuff clicked his fingers. “The drilling! Somehow the vibrations are effecting both worlds.”

  “Is that possible?”

  “Who knows with parallel dimensions, bro. But didn’t Enki tell you the mining would destroy this place?”

  “He certainly did.”

  Scuff pressed his knuckles against his cheeks, concentrating hard. Zeke could almost hear the Canadian’s brain ticking.

  “This pocket universe was built by the Hesperians. It’s artificial. And nearly two billion years old. A long time, by anyone’s standards. The fabric has weakened.”

  “And?”

  “The vibrations from the vacking could be just enough. Enough to snap the link between the two universes. Which would spell disaster.”

  Zeke gestured for Scuff to go on.

  “Bro, this bubble universe is branching off from ours. Borrowing Mars’ gravity. If it snapped off then it wouldn’t be big enough to survive on its own.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Gravity would collapse in upon itself. Everything would cease. Not to mention the bridge back to our universe.”

  Zeke’s skin ran cold. Were they going to die there?

  “Don’t move.”

  Zeke and Scuff spun around. It was Ricasso, looming over the boulder. His face was ruddy and his eyes gleamed like rough diamonds. He waved a ferromagneti
c rifle under their noses.

  “Anything funny and your playmates get it.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Enki’s Cave

  “In,” Ricasso barked, as they reached the entrance.

  Scuff crossed the threshold first, then Zeke. Ricasso brought his rifle down hard on Zeke’s neck. He crumpled into the dust.

  “Tsk, tsk,” Enki squeaked, wagging a finger at his henchman.

  Zeke gritted his teeth and struggled to his feet. The cave was littered with backpacks and empty food cans. Pin-mei and Bartie were sitting in a corner. Pin was wearing a magnetic anklet and was glaring at Enki. Bartie was red-faced with black streaks around his eyes.

  Enki waved a small iPistol in their direction. “I knew you’d come, my dear boy,” he drawled. An oily smile dripped from his lips.

  Zeke brushed the dirt from his coat. “Why are you sheltering here? The Particle Beast?”

  Enki shrugged. “Unfortunately. It found us soon after crossing over.”

  “What happened?”

  “Everyone ran for their lives!”

  Zeke turned to Pin-mei. “I saw you. Hiding from the Beast.”

  Pin-mei nodded. “I got away for a while. But I gave myself up.”

  “Why did you—”

  Before Zeke could finish Pin-mei gestured to Bartie. He had clearly been crying. A lot. The poor kid was terrified. A twinge of guilt gnawed at Zeke’s heart.

  Aren’t you going to translocate us out of here? Scuff asked in Zeke’s head.

  One twitch of Ricasso’s fingers and we get soaked in magnetic ions, or worse, Zeke replied.

  Worse? Scuff thought back.

  Bullets. And I can’t get all four of us out at once. He turned to Enki “Well, you’ve got us, what now?” he said.

  Enki dabbed his forehead with an enormous handkerchief. A flowery perfume filled the cave.

  “I propose a collaboration.”

  “Go on,” Zeke said.

  “You’ll find I can be quite reasonable,” Enki continued. “You scratch my back and I scratch yours.”

  “What kind of scratching did you have in mind?”

  Enki tittered. “I need some psychic muscle. The girl might have managed, but you’ll be splendid.”

  “Muscle for what?” Scuff asked, with a frown across his chubby forehead.