All The Frail Futures: A Science Fiction Box Set

by J Battle

  ‘Of course, your highness; how could you be otherwise? But perhaps…’

  ‘I don’t think so, Beschlick. No perhaps tonight, but your entertainment was much appreciated. Dismissed.’

  ‘But…My Lord…’

  The king leant forward to tickle one of his footstools.

  Beschlick stood rooted; his eyes on his king. When the tickling turned to something a little more intimate, he spun away.

  He couldn’t look at the courtiers as he dragged his wonderful weapons behind him towards the door. He forced himself to walk in a slow dignified manner, though he was desperate to get out of the audience chamber before the laughter started.

  He almost made it.

  Chapter 39

  D tore at the ground with his bare hands, his fingers bleeding as he ripped chunks of rock from the earth. He panted with the effort of maintaining a semblance of physical integrity, of holding the unnatural forces within his frail human body, of not just giving in and following his twin into the deep, dark grave.

  He barely noticed the soft hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Enough, Daniel. That’s enough. You can stop now. It doesn’t need to be any deeper.’

  He dropped his hands to his sides, his fingers dripping red flowers onto the dirt.

  ‘I can’t… How can I..?’

  Pi wrapped her arms around his shaking shoulders, in a gesture of comfort. But it was no more than a gesture; her real purpose was to discover how his body was responding. She could feel that the physical pain was lessened and, with a final squeeze, let go of him, confident that he would survive. His mental torment meant nothing to her.

  An hour later, with J’s body buried and the earth and rocks piled up above him, she led him away.

  ‘You must do this for Jason, now,‘ she said, gently, her eyes never leaving his face, ’he chose this path, and now you must walk where his feet would have walked, carry his burden together with your own. Can you do that, Daniel?’

  D stood up straight and took a deep breath.

  ‘How long do we have?’ The words came out slowly, as if ripped from him, syllable by syllable.

  ‘Not long, we think. They will reach our shores in a few days, and you have a lot to do before then. Be reassured, we do not expect you to do this alone. We are seeking out other candidates to support you in this task.’

  ‘To replace J?’

  ‘Yes, Daniel. I see how hard this is for you, and I will not hide the truth from you. It is right that you grieve for you brother, but you still have to fulfil the task you agreed to take on. And there is no time now for tears.’

  D turned to her. His eyes were dry and blank. But she could see the tension building inside him and took a step backwards, for safety’s sake. Then he closed his eyes and raised his clenched fists to his chest and somehow blocked her perception of him. She could no longer see what was going on inside his head; when she reached for him, the wall was as impregnable as the great Wall behind her.

  For a second she knew fear, then he opened his eyes and nodded at her.

  ‘Alright. What do you want me to do?’

  ‘Come with me. We have to travel to the land of the apes. It’s not far, perhaps five leagues from here.’

  D knelt and placed one hand on the dirt covering his brother. Then he straightened and nodded to Pi.

  Together they ran across the rough ground, their feet kicking up the dust in the dull evening light.

  A few minutes after they left, there was a click-clacking sound and a line of black discs marched from the wall to the new grave. Without pause, the clickerclackers began to dig through the earth, rolling the rocks to one side. They soon found the dead twin’s body and began to feed.

  Precious flesh was not to be wasted; not when The Wall’s very existence was in peril.

  **********

  Jones held his plasma gun in both hands, but he didn’t fire. There were too many targets. They piled up on top of each other, on both sides of the bridge, as if eager to be as close to them as possible. The clickerclackers were black, oval discs, with multiple legs that banged against each other as they moved, and heavy mandibles at each end, that clicked constantly.

  ‘Look!’ yelled Miles, and the hand that was not gripping Armstrong pointed at the edge of the street. A single clickerclacker had worked its way on to the pole. It wasn’t moving; it just sat there holding on with its many feet. Then another one climbed over its flat back and took up a position a little further along the pole. Another followed it. They were moving slowly, as if they were still working out the process.

  Jones shot all three of them before they had a chance to progress any further.

  ‘Oh no!’ Miles again. She’d spotted the attack from the other side.

  Jones ran across to that side of the bridge, his gun raised. He could already see the difference this time. They weren’t working it out anymore; they knew exactly what to do. Before the first one was settled, the next was already on its back, and the same with the next one. Three of them had already made it onto the bridge before he could start to blast them off.

  As soon as the last one fell, he spun around. He knew what he’d find. There were thirty or forty of the little monsters crowding the other end of the bridge, with more throwing themselves across every second, not caring how many of them fell.

  Yelling to everyone to get out of his way, he rushed to start firing at them, not wanting to think about what must be happening behind him. Then he stopped, the gun aimed, his finger on the trigger. They weren’t trying to attack them; they were staying close to the edge, climbing all over each other in their obvious desperation not to get any closer. It didn’t make sense; were they frightened of them? Or was it the plasma gun? What was stopping them from overrunning the bridge?

  He turned to Helen.

  ‘What do we do?’

  ‘Just keep your gun on them, for now.’ Without taking her eyes from them, she asked Perdus. ‘What’s going on here?’

  He didn’t get all the words, but it wasn’t hard to work out what she was asking.

  ‘This is as much a mystery to us as it is to you. We never come out when they are about, so we don’t know how they usually act. Still, I can’t imagine this is their normal behaviour.’

  ‘Kill them all now, whilst they are still, they’ll be easy targets for that weapon you have,’ urged Deylus; beginning to think about his exit plan.

  ‘Wait until the water washes the rest away, then we can deal with the remaining clickerclackers before the bridge flips,’ said Dutus, who already had his own exit strategy worked out and ready to go.

  ‘There is no need for further killing,‘ said Pi, her honeyed voice caressing their ears, ‘they will not harm you as long as I am here.’

  Armstrong let go of Jo, and found himself standing to attention, in more ways than one, as the beautiful blonde looked straight into his eyes.

  Helen brushed a stray stand of hair back behind her ears and moistened her lips, enthralled by the tall, ruggedly handsome man before her.

  Jo moved away from Armstrong and actually stepped in front of the captain, to be closer to this vision of masculinity.

  Pascal considered the beautiful woman before him, and nodded to himself. She was certainly striking; he’d give her that, though his clinical eye told him that her proportions were a little extravagant. However, his interest was no more than academic, as physical relationships were not really his thing.

  To protect himself from the instant surge of desire, Perdus tried to recite the seventeen Virtues of Adonna, but he couldn’t get past number three as he was so distracted by the beautiful and fragrant white female cat so close to him.

  Jones smiled with pleasure at the sight of her. Very nice, he thought, but she’s not the Captain.

  Deylus wondered if any of his companions would object if he had a quick rut with this gorgeous creature.

  Dutus sighed; nothing good was going to come from this, he thought.

  Chapter 40
r />   Aysus led the delegation from the river, towards the ape’s town. He was a little apprehensive; it was well past nightfall, and he never liked to be out this late. Everyone said that the clickerclackers didn’t cross the river, but you never knew.

  The party consisted of four other cats; three officials, resplendent in their collars of office, and a large lumpy black guard, who never said a word during the whole journey. Aysus was not entirely sure what the delegation was for, although he had heard about some treachery at the Riven Rock, and he guessed that this must have something to do with that. It didn’t matter to him; he was getting well paid as a guide, and it hadn’t rained since this morning.

  When they reached the walls of the town, they found the outer doors shut and bolted. After some considerable time knocking at the door with stones and paws, a small hatch opened high above their heads.

  ‘What d’you want?’ said the small brown head that had popped through.

  ‘I would have thought that was plain to see, young ape,’ said the leader of the delegation, a grey white, wiry old cat whose name Aysus had missed.

  ‘Nope. It’s not plain to me, old cat,’ the ape chuckled to itself.

  ‘Can you let us in?’ said the old cat, very slowly.

  ‘Of course I can. There’s this lever I push and the whole thing just swings open.’ The ape pulled its head back out of view.

  The group waited, but there was no corresponding movement of the door.

  After a moment, the head reappeared.

  ‘You still there?’

  ‘We are waiting for you to open the door.’

  ‘Good. Well, I’ll see you all in the morning then. Goodnight.’

  ‘Wait. Don’t go. Let us in first.’

  The ape sighed.

  ‘What time is it?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s night-time.’ Replied the leader, with a sigh of his own, as if he knew where this was going.

  ‘And what happens to the doors at night-time?’

  ‘I know what you are going to say, but we have an appointment with the King.’

  ‘Sh-shit! You should have said.’ The head disappeared and they immediately heard the doors’ mechanism thrown in to action.

  As they passed through open doorway, there was no sign of the ape. Aysus led them through the familiar streets of the old town, trying to avoid the less salubrious areas, although it was hard to find any street that was not lined with bars and thus filled with inebriate apes.

  At last they came to the gates of the palace. This time there was no delay in passing through as the guard was already aware of their appointment. Within minutes they were rushed through to the audience waiting room, where they spent a long hour waiting for the King to finish with his mid-evening amorous dalliance. When a naked ape called them to their audience, the old cat paused in the doorway before entering, taking the time to build up a head of steam on his righteous indignation. When he was ready, the party strode into the chamber.

  ‘Greetings, Lord….’ The king bent his massive head to listen to the whispered words of a tall, very thin grey ape.

  ‘Of course, Lord Felus. Greetings, indeed. I hope the delay was not too long; there was a batch of babies needed siring. It’s an onerous task, but I have to do my duty.’ The king laughed, and an echo ran through the assembled courtiers.

  ‘How is your much vaunted Mayor? Dealing well with yet another loss? Tell him we wish him better luck next time.’

  ‘Thank you, your gracious Highness. Your message will be received in the spirit it was meant.’ Felus stood upright on his hind legs as he spoke, his head held high.

  ‘What is the purpose of this sudden, urgent request for audience?’

  ‘Your Highness, at the end of your glorious victory, we naturally went to the fighting ground to collect our dead for their heroes’ burial ceremonies. And, of course, we also went to the Riven Rock to retrieve our Champion. There we found an unnecessary dismemberment, which was regrettable, and in poor taste, but that is not the reason we are here.’

  He turned to one of his companions. ‘Give it to me, Lingus.’ The small ginger passed a wrapped parcel to him. He turned back to the King.

  ‘This is what we found. We didn’t realise what it was at first, but our clergy found a reference to it in their scriptures. You will see that it is sharp at one end and that there are trimmed feathered flights at the other. It is an arrow and is shot from a bow to kill at a distance.’ He held the arrow high for the King to see.

  The King recognised it immediately of course; only a few hours earlier Beschlick had also been waving one in his face. And he also saw the implications, so he gave no reaction to the sight of the arrow,

  ‘Your regal Highness, I hold in my hand proof that your victory was not glorious, that it was treacherous, that it was not valid.’ He raised himself even higher with his final pronouncement.

  The King reached out for the offending object. He twirled it between his be-ringed fingers, then he sniffed it carefully with his wide nostrils, and licked it with his pale tongue.

  ‘This is not proof of treachery, my friend. It seems to me to be nothing more than a child’s toy. I have the right to take offence at the suggestion that we would not follow the rules of war to the letter. But don’t worry, I forgive you, Felus. I will allow you and your party to leave with my good wishes. Now, I will keep this arrow and have my senior advisors investigate everything fully. When they have finished their deliberations, we shall invite you back, to provide you with the evidence to show that your allegations are without foundation.’

  Felus stared at the king for a long moment, his head high and his eyes cold. Then he seemed to slump slightly, and dropped his head.

  ‘The generosity of your Highness is legendary. Thank you for your kindness.’ With that the party left the audience chamber.

  When the door was closed behind them, the King called his advisor to him.

  ‘Get me Beschlick,’ he snarled.

  Chapter 41

  Lus took careful aim, keeping his left foreleg absolutely steady as he balanced on his hind legs. When he released the arrow, it thudded into the trunk of the tree, close to all the others.

  ‘You are getting very good at this, master,’ said the little ape, standing well outside the target area.

  Lus tilted his head to one side, then he lowered the bow. He had one arrow left. Was now the time? Or was there more to be got from Aldrich? He set the arrow and took aim; perfect shot, right next to his previous arrow. As Aldrich collected the arrows, he considered his next move. He had to go back to the town and find somewhere with a view of the palace grounds. The palace walls were not high and there were taller buildings nearby. Did he really need the ape’s help any more, or would he be better carrying on alone? Could he trust Aldrich to help him find the best place? Or would he betray him as soon as they entered the town?

  These questions occupied his mind as they made their way back to Aldrich’s hovel.

  ‘Why don’t you live in the town?’ Lus had asked, when he first saw the little ape’s living accommodation.

  ‘It’s nice to be on my own,’ replied Aldrich.

  ‘But, is this the best you can do?’

  ‘What’s wrong with it?’

  Better to say what was right with it. At least it kept the rain off. There was not much else you could say in favour of it. It was basically a one room shack, made from a hodgepodge of mismatched pieces of timber, with some sort of heavy matting covering the roof, which was no more than four legs from the ground. Inside, the light that came from a hole in the wall revealed a dirt floor with a thick branch high in one corner supporting the ape’s primitive sleeping facility, and nothing more.

  Lus wasn’t at all happy about having to sleep on the uncomfortable floor that first night, and it hadn’t got any better since then.

  The morning following the archery practice, they set off for the town.

  **********

  He was still smarting from the embarras
sment at court when he received a visit from Handleck, a casual friend of his, which did nothing to help him feel any better about his situation. In fact, it was now much worse. Handleck had delighted in describing the King’s anger at whatever he had done, and what exactly was that? He queried.

  ‘Tell me what this is all about? Were you involved with those smelly cats? What is an arrow anyway?’

  ‘Can you take a message to the King for me? Tell him that I am preparing a full explanation that will exonerate me completely from this whole affair, and that I will appear before him between his early evening and late evening appointments. Can you do that for me?’

  ‘Is it the truth? You can hardly ask me to lie to the King.’

  ‘Handleck, my friend. How could you suggest that I would ask that of you? You can trust me on this, there is much more to this than meets the eye. You will hear the full story later, but let me just say that the fault I will be admitting to is no more than an over eagerness to serve my King and my people. The true treachery lies at the feet of another, and I will name him tonight.’

  ‘Who is it? Do I know him?’

  ‘I can say no more. Not at this time, it wouldn’t be appropriate.’

  ‘I wouldn’t stay here, if I were you. The king’s guards are probably on the way already.’

  Beschlick looked around his sumptuous apartment; his paintings, his collection of rare books. There was a relaxed, refined atmosphere about the place that he didn’t want spoilt by the King’s brutish guards. If they came and apehandled him here, would it ever feel the same again.

  ‘You’re are quite right, Handleck. I’ll leave immediately.’

  When Handleck had left, he paused to take down his favourite painting. It was called Rampant and featured a creature with the white body of a cat and the head and shoulders of an ape, reared up and clawing at the low black clouds above. He couldn’t say what particular aspect of the work appealed to him, but he was loath to leave it behind. If his plan didn’t work, he was unlikely to be returning anytime soon.