by Jeff Kamen
‘How long can we take them off for?’ Stoeckl asked, fiddling with his valve.
By way of reply, Lütt-Ebbins twisted the nozzle beneath his chin to shut off the oxygen and pulled down his mask. It left behind a dark ring of grime on his face, the skin around his nose and mouth showing oddly clean and pale. ‘Let’s try a few minutes at a time,’ he said. ‘And we’ll need to watch each other. Let’s not do anything stupid.’
~O~
They discovered that they could breathe for short bursts before the dust overpowered them. With their masks hanging down in such intervals, they opened cartons and sachets and made a paste to eat and drank sparingly. Then they sat back a while, coughing, talking. They were too tired to do much more than laugh in relief at having made it there, but when a little later they were shaking out their blankets, deciding to rest properly, it was in a different mood that Stoeckl thanked Lütt-Ebbins for saving him. ‘I owe you one, Lütt,’ he said.
Lütt-Ebbins waved him away.
‘I mean it.’
‘Come on, forget it.’
‘No, I won’t forget it. I want to remember. What you did … coming for me. I don’t know who else would have done it.’
Lütt-Ebbins lay his head back on a flat stone. ‘Well. It wasn’t too hard. You’d have done the same in my position.’
Stoeckl looked at him a moment, then away. ‘Well, maybe,’ he said. ‘Maybe I would.’
The cave fell to a daylit hush, the creepers shivering in the entrance. They could hear birds trilling outside, the gusting wind.
‘Listen, how did you ...’ Stoeckl began, turning, but Lütt-Ebbins was already asleep.
Stoeckl hesitated, then wandered over to the entrance and looked out through the foliage. His eyes bloodshot, his tanned features stained and drawn. Huge clouds were rolling in the distance, breaking up slowly in mysterious vectors. He lowered his mask to test himself in fresher air, but in a few minutes it hurt again and he gave up on it. Turning back, he found a spot to lie in and checked his valve, then he looked over to check Lütt-Ebbins’ gear was in place. Finally, with a long sigh, he drew his blankets over him and entered the cave’s rustling calm.
~O~
They awoke a minute apart with headaches, both afraid, both deeply disorientated until they’d hissed assurances to each other and were up on their feet.
Outside, the desert lay plunged in the mountain’s shadow, and beyond it the drab wastes were blotted away in an evening haze adrift with dustclouds. Lütt-Ebbins blamed himself for oversleeping, but Stoeckl assured him it wasn’t his fault, reminding him what they’d been through in the previous hours. It was too late to head away, and in making light of it they discussed the virtues of leaving in the morning, early, before beast or mountain dweller could stir.
Over another meal of wurmpaste, they watched as night descended. They peed outside on the ledge and stood cloaked in blankets watching the stars appear. They noticed how the birdcalls were changing, and then finally the calls were gone. A darkened planet lay spread before them, quiet and undisturbed. When they talked again, it was of how different everything seemed from up there, not just the upper world, but the world they’d left behind, the revolt having thrown up much for them to contemplate, and its outcome in many ways still undetermined. They spoke of the life they wanted upon returning home, with a new society to establish, a new way of governing things. Later, with the cave air growing chill, they discussed the fate of the base and its final demise. Lütt-Ebbins mentioned the Oxtranox cargo in passing, and at this Stoeckl showed new interest. ‘Think it’ll blow?’ he said.
‘Surprised it hasn’t yet.’
‘I’m going to take a look.’
‘What for?’
‘See what’s happening,’ Stoeckl said, and as he rose, Lütt-Ebbins cautioned him to be careful on the ledge and to take a torch.
~O~
An hour or so later Stoeckl was shaking his arm. Lütt-Ebbins jolted awake, looking at him bare-eyed in fear. ‘What is it?’ he whispered.
‘Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you. It’s just the base.’
Lütt-Ebbins sat up, reaching for his spectacles. ‘What about it?’
Stoeckl’s face was grave. ‘I think you should see it. There was a sort of glow, but ... well, it’s changed.’
‘Go on. I’ll follow.’
Out on the ledge they stood watching as a tall spear of flame arose from the burnt remains of the turret, a flame that was spitting, the base of it tinged with darts of blue. Increasingly, it seemed to resemble an acetylene burner. As the minutes went by it appeared to burn more fiercely, the upper flame beginning to extend high into the night.
‘What’s happening?’ said Stoeckl. ‘Think it’s the Oxtranox?’
Lütt-Ebbins narrowed his eyes. ‘Could be. Although it should have exploded by now. Unless they added something to it.’
‘Added something?’
‘I don’t know. But something’s definitely catching down there. Maybe plastics. Or rubber, something in the systems station.’
‘You don’t think it’s the foam?’
‘No way, not a chance. You can’t burn that stuff.’
‘How did the fire get through it, then?’
‘Well, I imagine there must be gaps in it.’
Stoeckl’s features tautened. ‘You don’t think … you don’t think anyone ...’
‘No. Impossible,’ Lütt-Ebbins said, more sharply than he’d intended. ‘It’s a furnace down there. Nothing could survive it. Certainly no human.’ But even as he spoke, he saw a face regarding him from behind a charred pair of goggles. A face behind the flames. So far, he’d not mentioned Moth to Stoeckl, and was not minded to now. It could wait; wait for the long hours of their journey when the sun was out and life seemed more hopeful. Or later still, when it was all behind them, when the pain was at a distance ...
‘See that?’
Lütt-Ebbins nodded slowly, noticing a new disturbance within the turret, a deft and shaded motion that became a steady flickering. ‘Let’s go down,’ he said, switching on his torch. ‘Get a better look.’
By the time they’d descended to a shelf overlooking the desert stones, there was a great train of sparks and glowing debris blowing from the base, the winds carrying it in bright discs far across the wilderness. They climbed along to the shelter of wind-warped trees, and once there, certain they couldn’t be seen from above, they sat watching as something appeared to dab and weave inside the inferno. For a while they mused on whether it was a play of light created by rising smoke, or perhaps the effects of debris blowing across the ruined turret, belts of ash perhaps, or unknown particles the superheated air was carbonising; and then the flickering stopped. They exchanged a look. A minute later it rekindled. Within it a shaded form was turning, acting in slow deliberate motions that were entirely different in nature to the vertical blasting of the flames. As if something was stuck in the fire, trying to work itself free.
‘Lütt,’ Stoeckl whispered, ‘I know what you said, but ... are you sure nobody —’
‘Quiet,’ Lütt-Ebbins said edgily.
‘But there’s ... there’s something there.’
As Stoeckl spoke, something resembling a rocket cone began to ascend from the base; first tip, then mound, then the tip fell away and a smooth round naked head rose slowly from the burning depths like a monstrous phallus; a head as white and featureless as an alabaster dome. Moments later, a huge chalk-white hand raised up and brushed away the films of glass and metal that hung before it like they were strands of silk.
Stoeckl sucked in a breath. Lütt-Ebbins’ frown deepened into hatchet marks.
The hand looked gloved, like a blistered horn, something as featureless as the slowly ascending head until it flexed a little, the huge waxy fingers branching out like ribs as it planted them on the ground.
‘Look,’ Stoeckl hissed, as a second hand came up and crashed down smouldering beside the first, and as the hands flexed again, the huge white figur
e began to haul itself upwards. It climbed in slow, methodical stages, and before long it was leaning from the hole like a terrible forsaken statue escaping into the night.
For some time it simply swept its torso around, sightless, with ribbons of grey smoke flicking from a tiny mouth-hole it appeared to breathe through; then it tried to move again, but seemed unable to. Its hands were stuck, were melting, spitting like roasted fat as they clutched the turret rim. The giant’s response to this was to rock and shake itself, its nude white face contorting into a grimace of superhuman hatred and confusion. Then, with a violent wrench, it snapped its arms off at the wrist. It paused a moment, then turned as a nightmarish hydrant might turn, its shorn stumps pumping out a liquid that erupted over it in great sheeted sprays of fire. It was into this dreadful shower that it launched itself once more, and with a kind of awkward wrestling motion it managed to get itself out upon the surface. Once upright, it turned aside with the dirt smoking at its feet, its arms hanging like flaming torches.
It stood there leaking, dripping, one stump briefly raised, then it lumbered round to face the north. What it was attempting to determine was in no way clear, but a minute later it went striding away across the wilderness, silent and immense, a tall creature profiled strangely in its fires. About a quarter of a mile from the base it encountered a series of dunes, and the two men watched it climb among them and tour around for a while, searching uncertainly. Then it stopped again.
The next time it moved, it seemed to slump a little. It paused soon afterwards, turning one way and another, and this time when it strode away there was far less conviction in its stride. With each clumsy step it made, it slowed a little more, until finally it staggered over and in a great whoosh of orange sparks went crashing to the ground. For a short while it lay struggling and clawing wretchedly, entangled in flames and rising smoke, then it seemed to abandon itself, and with a small last kick it fell still.
Motionless, it remained there as a lone and perilous beacon, a figure slowly flickering away to nothing. Then it vanished, consumed by dust and darkness and a shroud of burying winds.
Stoeckl turned to Lütt-Ebbins and looked at him, his eyes like great moons reddening before the apocalypse. ‘What the hell ...?’ he gasped, but Lütt-Ebbins said nothing, merely looked on as before, the glass of his spectacles animating brightly as a second white head arose.
The head slowly rotated. Almost immediately afterwards a third head appeared, facing away from it. There seemed to be some trouble between the two heads’ owners and it took a little while for the men to realise that the colossi were coming up together. They were welded spine to spine, the larger carrying the smaller one reluctantly on its back. Somehow they managed to climb clear, each forced to lie flat during the process whilst the other swung its legs free of the hole, each of them moving slowly, like a crane transferring concrete slabs across a building. Then with a great effort they got up, burning, suppurating, the carrier so much the taller that the second one was left with its feet dangling well clear of the ground. What bad will existed between them was then exacerbated by the smaller one kicking and jabbing its elbows, a peevish gesture the larger colossus reacted to by reaching behind itself as if to detach the passenger from its person. Yet it seemed unable to, and upon giving up on this, it turned about and moved woodenly away, carrying the other like something it had no choice but to tolerate as it sought direction from the desert.
It strode off as the first giant had done, before eventually turning to the east, at which point it jarred to a stop and buckled over, the passenger sailing upwards with its feet kicking furiously overhead.
The carrier then quaked as if in sudden agony. As if convulsing. When it swung round a moment later its hands were stuck to its legs. It searched the night landscape once more, a flickering and ambiguous space, then swung back heavily the other way, and as it moved, so its passenger flailed its limbs about all the harder, kicking as might a gigantic clinging infant, its arms turning in dismal circles to begin with, before speeding up, whirring madly as if it was trying to fly away. As it lunged about, so the carrier grew wild with frustration, began stamping and rocking, leaning back and forth, and before long it was throwing itself about as if to hurl its unwanted twin across the wilderness. Finally it took to smashing backwards with its head, until both giant skulls were wetly, messily united, and then the pair of them tottered aside and fell away in flames.
As the colossi sank from view, the men saw yet more colossi stumbling out after them, moving in a series of grotesque elastic jerks. Soon there were a dozen flaming forms wandering around as though stunned at what was happening. More were to follow, all in apparent haste to get free of the terrible fire, and yet none able to do more than stride around for a minute or so before toppling aside.
Within the hour, the area surrounding the turret was filled with smoking bodies and raging figures limping about in circles or dragging themselves away in clouds of sparks. Some were making primitive attempts to gather together and communicate, their gestures despairing, unbalanced, oneiric, as if in pursuit of some organisational purpose that all had sense of but none were able to fulfil. One creature was simply nodding at the air, the liquids jetting from its wounds searing the night around it like clouds of superheated petroleum. As its brethren went cowering away from it, another rolled by with its limbs welded together like a crab dunked in boiling glue.
Out the colossi climbed and on they lumbered and fell, their massive physiques bunched in arrangements of obscene musculature, lost figures that entered the night landscape without hope or balance or eyes. The men watched them beating themselves in terrible scenes of conflict, stamping, recoiling, shaking their heads like rattles. Many stood motionless as the flames took hold, like figures of some inexplicable martyrdom, while others went lurching away into the dark with legs like malfunctioning pistons, jerking and convulsing, their mouths like blow-holes spouting gobs of steaming tissue as they spat their lives away.
‘Holy shit ...’ Stoeckl whispered as the bodies piled on top of each other, but Lütt-Ebbins did not reply.
The blue-tinged spear of fire had been burning steadily all this time, and those that ascended with it at this later stage showed signs of grievous deterioration and suffering. The additional time spent down in the furnaces of the base seemed to have damaged them beyond any chance of recovery. They were climbing out like things broken and crudely reassembled, figures of pained wrath attached to the shed limbs and body parts of others, shaking as they moved. Some had their casings burnt away to the point where slabs of tightly packed flesh had burst through, exposing what resembled lumps of sizzling meat, all of it shuddering, all blackened and raw.
The pair watched in silence as the grisly parade continued, and when the last smouldering body had dropped away there was little left to observe but the fire billowing skywards through the turret hole. The procession of the dying and the dead appeared to be over. Stoeckl was murmuring another question when Lütt-Ebbins pointed.
A figure even more imposing than the others was emerging. Rising boldly, its head erect, seemingly undaunted by the blistering flames enveloping it. It climbed strongly from the hole and stood upright, turning round until it appeared to have its bearings. Unlike the others it appeared able to see, and its white bellybutton eyes lifted towards the mountain as if it was filled with an emotion that only the great summit of Ansthalt could understand. Then it lurched into movement. It seemed to be embracing the night with its clawing arms, turning again in a full circle before redirecting its blackening mouth-hole towards Ansthalt.
‘Lütt ...?’
‘Shh. Just watch. It might see us.’
‘See us? Why ... why are we sitting here then?’
‘Shhhh.’
‘Why? Let’s get the hell out.’
‘Keep still. Moving’s the last thing we should do.’
The corners of Stoeckl’s eyes wrinkled as if he was grinning. ‘What does that mean?’ he hissed. ‘The last thing we
should do? Your gun, what about your gun?’
‘Damn it, Stoeckl, just sit tight and watch. You’ll get us killed.’
After a few more aggressive gestures, the colossus came striding towards the mountain as if driven by a fire of its own, one as tumultuous as that which stood raging and spitting at its back. Smoke poured from the sides of its head like ornamental scrolls, and as it strode closer, bypassing the smoking bodies, a hail of fiery projectiles sprayed out from it in a godlike aura. The men shrank back, gasping, and then, just when it seemed to be set on reaching them, it turned off towards the west, still striding majestically, the trail of its fires receding among the rocks of the rugged lower slopes. It continued like this for some time, then faltered. The night above it flickered briefly as it turned away once more, growing sluggish, disorientated at last, and then there was nothing, just a few tired rags of smoke.
When they looked back to Van Hagens they had to shield their eyes, for the fire stood as a fountain of burning light, a dazzling column that lit up the slopes below them and wrought deep waves of shadow across the wilderness floor. They searched the turret and its environs as well as they could, blinking, squinting, but no other colossi appeared, and nothing amidst the burning bodies stirred at all. Finally, it seemed they were alone.
‘... Lütt?’ Stoeckl said weakly.
‘Hmm?’
‘What ... I mean, what are they?’
Lütt-Ebbins continued looking out. ‘Not sure,’ he said. ‘But I know one thing.’
‘... What?’
‘When we said that things should be different, this is what we meant.’ He shook his head, appearing oddly subdued. ‘That was supposed to be us coming to the surface. Us. And look what they did. Look what we were working for.’
‘But who … where did they come from?’
‘My guess is they were brought in from somewhere. Piece by piece most likely. Or grown. Maybe that explains the Oxtranox. Maybe that was what it was for.’ He gazed out pensively, thinking of Tilsen’s smile. ‘Might even be there’s another batch somewhere. You never know, this could just be the start of something.’
