“Oh yes, sir,” said Kevin. “I thought you knew.”
“No! I didn’t know!” Cal yelped. He spun in his chair. “Miz, Mech, did you know?”
“No, man.”
“Nu-uh.”
“Loren?”
“Of course I didn’t!”
“See? None of us knew, Kevin!” Cal cried. “None of us knew. Why didn’t you say something?”
“It was all there in the files I brought up. Didn’t you read them, sir?”
“No! I made a point of not reading that stuff! I’m pretty sure we even had a conversation about how I hadn’t read it!”
“Did we, sir? I’m afraid I don’t recall,” said Kevin. “But yes. She is to be put to death. That’s why the Cantatorians were so keen to get her back, you see? So she could be sacrificed. It was rather the point of them offering the reward. Rather rum luck for the girl, really.”
Cal clutched his head. “Oh Jesus, we brought her home to die,” he muttered, then he looked up at the ceiling. “Wait, what do you mean ‘sacrificed’? Sacrificed to who? To god?”
“No, sir.”
“Well who, then?”
“To the Spider-Dragon of Saktar, sir,” said Kevin.
Cal blinked several times.
“OK, you’re going to have to run that one by me again,” he said, after some thought. “What the fonk is the Spider-Dragon of Saktar?”
“It’s an old Cantatorian legend, sir. Old as their civilization, in fact,” Kevin intoned. “Saktar is the prominent mountain around which they have structured the bulk of their society. Perhaps you saw it?”
“It’s a huge mountain. Of course we saw it!”
“Well, maybe not Loren,” said Miz.
“Miz, not now!” said Cal. “What about the mountain?”
“The legend goes that the Spider-Dragon resides within it, and that it shall emerge in times of need to protect Cantato Minor. In return, it asks only one thing.”
“A sacrifice,” Cal guessed.
“Indeed, sir. Once every hundred years, a girl is selected at birth. From that moment onwards, her life belongs to all of Cantato Minor. Her purpose, when the time comes, is to be thrown into the fiery pit at the top of the mountain where, it is believed, the Spider-Dragon of Saktar shall feast upon her flesh, and fashion implements from her bones.”
“Jesus!” said Cal. “So we brought her home to be tossed into a volcano?”
“Precisely that, sir. The idea of a Spider-Dragon is a rather ludicrous one for an otherwise highly-advanced species, so while she has little to worry about on that front, it is the fall into the fiery pits of Saktar which is likely to pose the problem. Survival-wise.”
“And everyone knows about this? The Conductor? Her parents?”
“Oh yes, sir.”
“Soonsho?”
“Indeed. She will have been prepared for it from a young age. It’s an honor, in many ways. Albeit a somewhat double-edged one. You know, what with dying and everything.”
“We have to go back,” said Cal.
“Now, wait a minute, wait a minute. Let’s not rush into this,” said Mech. “Who are we to judge other cultures? You know? This is a tradition. You heard Kevin, it’s an honor to be chosen. I mean, who’s to say she doesn’t want to be thrown into a mountain? Hmm? You ever think of that?”
“She doesn’t,” said Cal. “I saw it on her face earlier. I knew there was something wrong. I should have said something.”
“But, my point is,” Mech continued, “should we really be interfering in what seems – certainly from what I’ve heard in the past few minutes - to be an important cultural event in—?”
“We won’t let them take the money back,” said Cal.
Mech punched his fist into the palm of his other hand. “Then what the Hell are we waiting for? Turn the ship around and let’s go back there before they toss the kid into a fonking volcano!”
Cal sucked air in through his teeth. “They’re not going to be happy.”
“Well, long as we’re agreed they ain’t getting my money,” said Mech. He caught the look from Miz and quickly corrected himself. “Our money. Who really cares? The kid saved us. Least once, maybe twice.”
“Maybe we can talk some sense into them,” said Loren. “You know, persuade them not to go through with it. They seemed pretty reasonable people.”
“They did,” Cal agreed. “Although that was before we found out they were going to toss an innocent teenager head first into a volcano to satisfy a fictional Spider-Dragon. Now that’s come to light, I’ll be honest, they kinda seem less reasonable. I’m not sure we’re going to be able to talk them round.”
“All guns blazing, is it, sir?” asked Kevin. “Good show!”
Cal’s solitary joystick twanged out of his chair.
“Thanks, Kevin, but hopefully it won’t come to that,” said Cal. “We’ll go down, try to reason with them, then, when that inevitably fails, Mech can throw Soonsho over his shoulder, and we’ll all run away as fast as our legs will carry us. Anyone see any obvious flaws in that plan?”
Mizette shrugged. “I guess it isn’t terrible.”
“Miz, that is arguably the single most positive thing I’ve ever heard you say,” Cal said. “Thank you.”
He spun his chair to the front, slapped his hands on his thighs, then stood up. “Loren, set a course for Cantato Minor,” he said. “If anyone needs me, I’ll be through the back, eating pie and crying.”
* * *
The Currently Untitled dropped through the atmosphere of Cantato Minor, several hundred miles away from where it had exited. Cal sat in his chair, feeling anxious and bloated. Mostly bloated. He could feel several pounds of cream and caramel sitting like a rock in his lower intestine, and he was pretty sure his blood had turned to butter.
The empty redness of the Cantato Minor landscape spread out in all directions beneath them. Ahead, rising in the distance, stood Saktar. The top third or so was mostly obscured by cloud, but from back here they could see the very tip of the mountain-top just barely poking through the cloud layer.
“Anything?” Cal asked.
Mech shook his head. “Don’t think they’ve noticed us.”
“Good. Kevin, do we still have that cloaking thing?”
“Well, unless it’s fallen off when I wasn’t looking, sir, then yes. Should I activate it?”
“Do it,” said Cal. “The longer we can keep the element of surprise, the better. Any sign of Soonsho?”
“It appears they have already begun the ritual, sir,” said Kevin.
Cal sat bolt upright in his chair. “They’ve already tossed her in?”
“Not yet, sir. However, I don’t believe we have a lot of time. If we wish to prevent Ms Sooss meeting an untimely end, I suggest we should probably hurry up.”
Loren tapped a few controls and the section of the screen showing the mountain top grew to fill the view. They were still too far away to see clearly, but there was definite activity going on up there. Platforms floated above the pit. Figures moved around on top of them. It was impossible to tell if any of them were Soonsho, but Cal was prepared to bet she was up there somewhere.
“OK, can you take us into the cloud? Ideally without crashing into the mountain?” Cal asked.
“Uh… yes,” said Loren.
“Well way to fill us all with confidence, Loren,” said Miz.
“I can do it,” said Loren. “It’s not a problem.”
“Then do it. Keep us low until we’ve figured out what’s going on, then we’ll show ourselves. Slow and steady.”
The Untitled descended into the thick bank of cloud and edged forwards. The cloud itself probably wouldn’t be enough to hide the ship, but between that and the cloaking device, Cal reckoned, they should go unnoticed.
As they drew closer, the true picture of what was going on above the mountain began to reveal itself. The Conductor and Soonsho stood alone on one of the flying disks. Several other disks surrounded them, hangi
ng in the air at various levels. The Conductress stood on one, alongside Soonsho’s parents. Various men and women in long, ornate robes stood on the other platforms. Dignitaries of some kind, Cal guessed. Priests, maybe.
The cloud became too thick for them to see through. Kevin automatically overlaid a heat map on the screen. The Conductor had Soonsho held by the back of the neck. With his free hand he alternated between gesturing at the sky and the vast mouth of the mountain beneath them.
“I bet he’s chanting,” said Cal. “Guys like this, they love a bit of chanting.”
“He’s getting agitated,” said Loren. “Like he’s building to the finale.”
“He’s gonna push her in,” Mech warned.
“OK, take us up,” said Cal. “Get us over them, then once we’re in place we’ll show ourselves.”
“Uh, sir,” chimed a voice from above.
“Not now, Kevin,” said Cal. Loren was easing back on the stick, tilting the nose of the Untitled out through the cloud bank.
“Try not to, like, fly us into the volcano,” Miz suggested. “It’s that big rock thing with all the fire inside.”
“I’ll try,” said Loren through gritted teeth.
“Easy,” said Cal. “Easy. We don’t want them knowing we’re here yet.”
“Sir…”
“One sec, Kevin.”
Loren guided the ship clear of the cloud, skimmed dangerously close to the lip of the volcano, then banked upwards until they were level with Soonsho and the Conductor.
It was at this point that Cal realized everyone on the platforms was staring at the Untitled in shock.
“I don’t understand. What are they looking at?” he asked.
“Us, sir,” said Kevin. “I tried to tell you, the cloaking device doesn’t turn the ship invisible, it merely hides it from scanner detection.”
“So… they can all see us?”
“Indeed, sir.”
“They can all see the ship?”
“They can, sir.”
“Shizz. So much for that plan.” Cal stood up. “Loren, turn us around and lower the landing ramp. I guess I’d better go talk to them.”
* * *
Cal stood on the edge of the ramp, the vast, gaping mouth of Saktar yawning below him. They were high enough that the heat wasn’t intense, but it was definitely uncomfortable. Sweat slicked his back, and he was beginning to regret putting on a fresh shirt. Although, that was pretty far down his list of problems at the moment.
The Conductor’s disk was somewhere around fifteen feet ahead of him, and slightly lower. With a good run up and the wind at his back, he could potentially land on it, but he was far more likely to fall short and plunge into the bubbling mass of lava far below, so he put that idea on the back burner for the moment.
“Listen, you don’t have to do this,” Cal said.
“Yes,” said the Conductor, his face scrunched up with anger. “We do.”
All around him, the other Cantatorians wore similarly furious expressions. Only Soonsho had seemed pleased to see him, although that wasn’t all that surprising, given the circumstances. Her parents didn’t look averse to the idea of him being there, but they weren’t rolling out the red carpet, either.
“Think about what you’re doing here,” Cal said. “You’re about to throw an innocent girl to her death. And for what? Because some ancient legend about a Dragon-Spider told you to?”
“Spider-Dragon,” the Conductor hissed.
Cal waved a hand. “Same thing. Tell me, Conductor – any of you – have any of you ever actually seen this thing? Has anyone? Hmm? In all these years, with all these sacrifices, has there ever been one scrap of evidence to suggest there’s anything down there but smoke and lava?”
“The legends are very clear,” said the Conductor.
“So what? Where I come from, Scooby Doo is very clear, it doesn’t mean he’s real!” said Cal. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’d be awesome if he was, but he isn’t.” He held out his left hand, palm upwards. “Legends.” He held out his right hand. “Facts. See? Not the same thing.”
He looked around at the other Cantatorians, hoping to see them all deep in thought, carefully contemplating his wise words. But nope. Based on their expressions, they pretty much all just wanted him dead.
“This legend is… what? A few thousand years old?”
“A few hundred thousand,” said the Conductor, quite grandly, as if this added weight to his argument.
“Jesus. OK. So, let me get this straight. Hundreds of thousands of years ago, someone told a story about a Dragon-Spider—”
“Spider-Dragon!”
“Whatever. About a Spider-Dragon who lives – and I’m going to say this part slowly – inside an active fonking volcano, and who, without ever actually showing itself or anything, somehow demands a sacrifice every hundred years.” Cal looked across his audience again. “That’s what you believe? Seriously?”
“You are an outsider,” said the Conductress. “You would not understand.”
“No, I understand perfectly,” said Cal. “I understand that you’re all nuts. All of you. And, usually, I’d have no problem with that. Believe what you like. Knock yourself out. But when your beliefs involve you throwing children into lakes of fire, that’s where I have to draw the line.”
“She wants to do it. She is honored to do it,” said the Conductor.
Cal met Soonsho’s eye. Her expression told him everything he needed to know. “No. No, she doesn’t,” he said. “So she’s coming with us.”
“No,” the Conductor hissed. “She is not.”
He pushed. Soonsho grabbed frantically for him, but she couldn’t turn enough before her foot went over the edge of the disk. She fell in silence through the stinging smoke and the rising heat, her eyes open, her mouth tightly closed, afraid of hurting anyone, even now.
“Shizz. SPLURT!” Cal yelped, then he launched himself off the landing ramp, tucked himself into a dive, and plunged after the girl.
The ash and smoke scraped across his eyes, layering them with a film of soot. The heat, which had already been uncomfortable, quickly became borderline unbearable. It stung his skin and stole his breath away as he fell down, down, down towards the flailing Soonsho, and the lake of lava looming below.
She was falling awkwardly, all flapping arms and thrashing legs. Cal sliced through the air, straight and streamlined, and gaining fast. Twenty feet away. Fifteen. He gritted his teeth against the pain, smelled his nostril-hair charring away into nothing.
Ten feet. Five.
He tried to call to her, to reassure her everything would be OK, but his voice was a shriveled croak and a series of spluttering coughs.
Three feet. One.
Zero.
Cal’s hands wrapped around Soonsho’s waist. A rubbery tendril tightened around his legs. Splurt!
They plunged another half dozen or so feet, then Splurt tightened like a bungee rope, and suddenly the lava was moving away from them as they sprang upwards, leaving the worst of the heat and smoke behind.
“It’s OK. I got you,” Cal wheezed. He coughed up something black and spat a wad of it into the molten red metal below. “I got you.”
Splurt pulled them onto the landing ramp, but kept a hold of Cal’s leg, just in case he tried anything stupid again. “I’m OK, buddy. Thanks,” Cal croaked. “Take Soonsho inside.”
Soonsho looked across the gap at her parents, then at the Conductor.
“What do you think you are doing?” the Conductor boomed. “You are the sacrifice of Saktar! This is your destiny.”
Soonsho bit her lip, her eyes shimmering with tears. Then, she raised a middle finger in the Conductor’s direction, and stumbled up the ramp behind Splurt.
“Ha! She must’ve picked that up from Miz,” Cal said. “Teenagers, huh?”
He nodded to Soonsho’s parents. “We’re going to look after her. Don’t worry, she’ll be safe. Safer than she was here, anyway.”
Cal
fired off a salute. “It’s been a pleasure,” he said. “You know, parts of it.” He about-turned and was halfway up the ramp when the mountain shook.
He stopped. He turned back.
“OK. Um. What was that?” he asked. He peered over the edge in time to see the lava lake begin to ripple, as something shifted beneath the surface.
A long, black leg, easily a mile long extended from within the lava and pressed itself against the inside wall of the volcano. Two equally enormous mandibles rose out of the molten metal and snapped hungrily at the air.
“Oh,” said Cal. He swallowed, and shot the Conductor a nervous smile. “Whoops. My bad!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Cal raced back up the ramp, just as a second leg and a substantial amount of head appeared from beneath the lava.
“The ramp! Close the fonking ramp!”
Outside, the flying disks scattered, retreating from the mountaintop at top speed. An eruption of molten metal spewed into the air, and Cal felt a brief blast of searing heat at his back before the hatch slid into place behind him.
“What’s going on? What happened?” demanded Loren, as Cal stumbled through the door behind her. Several warnings were flashing on screen, all of them in varying shades of emergency red. “Is the volcano erupting?”
“Something along those lines,” said Cal, flopping into his seat. Soonsho was already scrabbling for her seat belt, while Splurt pulsed protectively in front of her. “Uh, you might want to put a bit of distance between us and the mountain.”
Loren edged forward on the thruster. “How much distance?”
“Ooh, about the length of a giant spider should be enough. Maybe a little further, just to be on the safe side.”
Loren, Mech and Miz all turned to look at them. Cal smiled sheepishly. “So, yeah, funny story. You know the Spider-Dragon of Saktar we spoke about earlier? Turns out, totally a real thing.”
“Rear cameras,” Mech grunted.
One third of the screen changed to show a view of the mountaintop behind them, just as one of the mile-long legs emerged from within the crater. Lava oozed between the hairs and dribbled down the mountain’s steep curves, blackening the metal.
Space Team: Song of the Space Siren Page 19
