Lethal Planet

by Rob May

  ‘Villaxx,’ Doo said. ‘Come on, let’s keep moving. It might be asleep. You can never tell; they don’t have eyelids.’

  ‘Okay, but hurry. I don’t want to lose another arm.’

  ‘Don’t panic,’ Doo whispered. ‘Follow me down, and take it slow.’

  It was hard not to panic, stuck up a tree trying to make a slow escape from a creature that could snip off a limb as easy as clipping a toenail. Still, Jason kept his cool until they were almost back at the junction of branches the balaks used as roads.

  As he lowered himself the final couple of metres, he lost his grip and landed on the branch below with a loud thump.

  ‘#&%$!’ he swore. The villaxx dropped down through the canopy and landed on the branch about twenty metres away. Its strange blue under-the-skin light show pulsed faster, sucking in Jason’s attention and holding him in a hypnotic trance.

  He was faintly aware of something behind him making odd chirruping noises. The villaxx’s colours dulled and it released Jason from its spell.

  He turned his head. It was Doo making the noises. ‘What are you doing?’ he said, trying to keep the fear out of his voice.

  ‘Imitating a villaxx chick,’ Doo said between chirps.

  The villaxx seems suddenly cautious, and was backing way down the branch, looking around as it did so.

  Jason was puzzled. ‘Are villaxx chicks dangerous?’

  ‘No,’ Doo said. ‘They are harmless until they learn how to hunt. But they are still pretty big, and they are extremely tasty …’

  ‘How would you know that? You don’t eat—’

  At that moment, and without warning, a massive catron launched itself up from somewhere below, and floated in a twisting arc over the wide branch of the lighting tree like it was doing the high jump. The tiger-like alien took the villaxx with it, clamped tightly in its immense jaws.

  ‘No,’ Doo said. ‘We don’t eat villaxx chicks. But he does.’

  Jason was too stunned to talk for a minute.

  ‘So catrons can climb trees,’ he eventually said. ‘You learn something every day.’

  ‘You learn or you die,’ Doo said. ‘Come on. Let’s get moving before the catron realises it’s been tricked into catching a stringy old adult villaxx. It’s going to take us a day to wark wrug knutz.’

  ‘Pardon?’ Jason said.

  ‘Bigga hoo druk wark wrug knutz! Oh Gubz!’

  Doo unclipped a small metal pin from her dress. Jason guessed it was the translator they had been using to understand each other. Probably a piece of zelf tech she had nabbed from somewhere, that now had run out of juice.

  ‘Gubz, gubz, gubz!’ Doo said. Then she shrugged. ‘Gnoot!’ she said, pointing along the branch and striding off.

  ‘Now who’s the savage,’ Jason muttered, walking after her.

  * * *

  Eight hours later, they made it to the last lightning tree before the city. They had snacked on nuts as they walked, taken from stashes left by other travellers in knot holes in the tree trunks. Jason would still kill for, or die for, a quarter pounder with cheese, but he kept his spirits up with the hope that there might be a few fast food restaurants in Perazim he could loot.

  They clambered down to the jungle floor, and crept through the undergrowth until they reached a demarcation line, where lush living plantlife became hard concrete. There was half a kilometre of flat grey nothingness between the jungle and the walls of Perazim, which were also featureless concrete, and fifty metres high. In front of the wall, and rising above it, a shimmering blue haze extended all the way up the length of the tallest tower, and curved over its top.

  Perazim was protected by a force field.

  Jason turned to Doo and spread his palms, the universal gesture of now what?

  She gave a brusk reply. Jason translated it as something like, You tell me. Taking the city was your idea!

  He thought for a minute. Tactics! Figure every problem as it presented itself. How did he usually approach a situation? Head on!

  At the base of the wall were a series of small metal squares. Service hatches? He could tear one of those open with his bionic arm … if it wasn’t for the force field covering everything. How Jason wished that Brandon was here—he would know some boring, obscure fact about the properties of electricity that they could exploit to get past the barrier.

  All Jason could think of was that a pair of rubber wellies would help if they wanted to kick through the force field. Or a pair of giant wellies that they could turn upside down and cover themselves with …

  ‘I’ve got an idea!’ he said, and led Doo back into the jungle. She stood and watched while he walked up a root to the trunk of the lightning tree. He held the fingers of his bionic hand out like he was going to do a karate chop … and then attacked the tree.

  The tree had a circumference of perhaps forty metres, so there was plenty to work with. Jason dug his fingers deep into the bark until he could feel the metal core underneath, and then dragged his hand along. It was as easy as peeling the skin off a satsuma. In no time at all, he had two large blankets of rubbery bark.

  Doo had figured out his plan before he had finished, and had helped him pull down the big floppy offcuts. They rolled them up and carried one each back to the city.

  ‘Ready?’ Jason said to Doo. ‘We’ll walk right up to the walls, smash our way through, then think of some way to let Brandon, Kat and the rest inside, when they eventually turn up.’

  Doo didn’t rely. She must have got the gist of what he said though; she gave him a peck on the cheek and started off across the concrete no man’s land.

  Jason followed. Five hundred metres of emptiness was like walking across the world’s biggest car park. He had never felt so exposed, but the city seemed indifferent to their approach. There were no weapon installations or guards on the wall. Did anyone even know they were here?

  As they got closer to the service hatch, Jason shook out his rubber sheet. There was a tingle of electricity in the air, even several metres away from the force field. This was going to be either the most brilliant thing Jason had ever done, or the stupidest …

  Then the small service hatch opened. The force field was pulled towards this new breach, creating a small tunnel leading to the square entrance. A voice called out from inside the darkness beyond:

  ‘Jason! Get in quick!’

  He recognised that voice. ‘Brandon?’

  ‘Yes, come on!’

  With Doo hot on his heels, Jason ran and dived into the small hole. He crawled through a tunnel that ran between the thick building blocks of the wall, and came out in a large, dark open space: an engineering room of some kind filled with lots of big humming machinery. Jason could just about make out Brandon standing in the shadows.

  ‘I might have known that you would find a way in first,’ Jason said. ‘How did you do it? Some clever trick with the bionoids?’

  Brandon shook his head. At that moment, the lights came on, and Jason realised that they were surrounded. Lining the gantries and edges of the room were dozens of zelfs. All of them were wearing pink and purple body armour, and all of them had laser rifles pointed at Jason and Doo.

  ‘Nope, no tricks,’ Brandon said. ‘I just walked up to the front gate and surrendered.’

  10—PREDICANT

  Jason, Brandon and Doo were marched under guard through the streets of Perazim. The wide avenues and open plazas were deserted. The building all looked the same: featureless steel and concrete blocks that looked as empty of life and purpose as the streets did. The city was cold, brutal and terrifying; the only sound was the sound of the zelf soldiers’ boots, which echoed around the skyscrapers’ facades like a hundred drums all beating at once.

  But the city concealed history and secrets behind its blank face. Jason remembered the story that Brandon’s father, Talem Tarsus, had told them. Perazim, he had said, had risen around one ancient temple to Zaal—a stone pyramid, down the steps of which the blood of sacrifices flowed. As the ci
ty grew in size and power, the temple was raised up to into the sky. Now it perched on top of the highest building: the Tower of the Moons. Jason looked up; he could just about make out the temple glowing above them.

  The zelf captain noticed him looking. ‘Don’t worry, alien scum, you’ll be seeing the pyramid a whole lot closer soon. The Arch Predicant wants to see you right away.’

  The zelf’s voice was civilised, like a lot of upper class poshos Jason had known in London, and it dripped with cruel superiority. And this guy was just a soldier! Were they all like this? Talem and Paran—Brandon’s mother—had fled the planet twenty years to escape this self-righteous zealotry, and Jason imagined things must be a lot, lot worse now.

  He wiped the blood away from his nose. It was bleeding from where one of the guards had hit him with the butt his laser rifle. That was after Jason had punched Brandon in the face. Jason looked across to where Brandon was walking, also closely surrounded by soldiers. His nose was bleeding too. Jason didn’t understand why he didn’t use the bionoids to fix it, but then he didn’t understand anything that Brandon did or said anymore.

  It started to rain. Up above, another storm was raging outside the protective force field, but only a light drizzle managed to make it through to the city. They try to keep the real world out, Jason thought, but it still creeps in. He wondered if he would have chance to get a message out to the balaks, telling them about his rubber blanket brainwave. There was no way he was letting that idea go to waste!

  The party entered a wide concourse, where a spaceship was waiting for them. It was ugly and dangerous-looking. The zelfs themselves might have been quite elegant and handsome by human standards, but their vehicles were brutal. This one crouched like an insect, and it was loaded with guns and cannons where an insect might bristle with hairs. It glistened black in the rain.

  Jason, Doo and Brandon were pushed up a ramp at the side, and locked in a cramped compartment with only two narrow windows for decoration: one that looked out, and one opposite that was blacked out. Jason guessed that this was an observation panel, seeing that this was clearly a prisoner transport ship. They were unlikely to get a chance to speak privately in the city.

  Well, the fact that they were probably watching wasn’t going to stop him having it out with Brandon. ‘What the hell were you thinking?’ he said angrily. ‘Surrendering? Of all the cowardly things to do!’

  Brandon shook his head sadly. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m not a coward. You didn’t see what happened at the stronghold.’

  All Jason and Doo had seen was the smoke. ‘Where’s Kat?’ he suddenly said. ‘Don’t tell me you abandoned her when you ran here crying for mercy!’

  ‘No,’ Brandon said again. ‘I didn’t. I …’

  ‘Brandon,’ Doo said. The ship was obviously equipped with translators. ‘Just tell us what happened after the wedding.’

  Brandon looked dejectedly out of the window as the ship began to rise. Jason had never seen him look so miserable.

  ‘It was a massacre,’ he said. ‘There were hundreds of dragons stampeding through the jungle. The zelfs were flying low over the canopy, using electron beams to antagonise the dragons and herd them towards the stronghold. The balaks who tried to divert the dragons just got trampled or burned alive. I saved as many as I could; at one point I had the bionoids treating over a hundred injured balaks at the same time.’

  Doo put her hand on Brandon’s shoulder in silent thanks.

  ‘But that was when the second attack came. The balaks were fleeing the stronghold and heading for the safety of some ancient caves. But it was a trap; I used the bionoids to read the zelfs’ minds, and found that they had found out about the caves several months ago, and had panted villaxx eggs deep inside. The cave network is now a massive nest, and the balaks were running from one danger to another. I managed to warn them before too many died …’

  Jason punched the solid wall of their prison with his fist. ‘But if you had just done something about the zelfs in the first place …’

  ‘I promised that I’d never use the bionoids as a weapon. I promised my father! I … I …’

  Brandon broke down completely, which was a bit awkward in such an enclosed space. Jason turned away and looked out of the window. They were rising past construction zones and spaceship docks. Other vehicles passed them, either flying, or travelling on roads suspended between the buildings. The city was coming to life the higher they went, and Jason realised that whereas on Earth, a city’s centre was its focal point, here in Perazim it was the summit that was the nucleus.

  ‘But you broke your promise,’ Doo said.

  Jason didn’t understand when she meant, but when he looked back, Brandon was nodding.

  ‘I can see it in your eyes,’ Doo told him. ‘Our warriors have that look when they are fresh from their first kill. It will fade, but never disappear.’

  ‘I couldn’t stand it any longer,’ Brandon said. ‘So many people were dying all around me: balaks and humans. I had lost Kat somewhere in the jungle, and I couldn’t bear that thought that at any moment she might be next to be die.’

  ‘So you did kill the zelfs,’ Jason said. ‘Well, well, well. Maybe there’s hope for you yet. So why did you have to go and ruin it all by giving yourself up?’

  ‘There was a moment where I could have gone further,’ Brandon admitted. ‘I stopped the hearts of twenty zelfs, and brought their ships crashing down in the jungle. Then I ran all the way here to the city, the bionoids powering my body. There was a moment when I could have killed them all—unleashed a devastating attack, just like my father did here twenty years ago, except this time it would have been upon the zelfs. That would have been a fitting payback.’

  ‘A claw for a claw,’ Doo agreed. ‘Zaal would have been pleased.’

  Jason had seen what Brandon was capable of when fully powered by the bionoids: incredible physical strength, enhanced senses, the ability to manipulate the surrounding environment. The zelfs would not have stood a chance.

  ‘It would have been too easy,’ Jason said to Doo. ‘Zaal may have been pleased, but it would be Brandon who would have had to live with it.’

  He shook his head. ‘But damn it, Bran, you didn’t have to give yourself up.’

  ‘It’s the only way to stop this war before anyone else gets killed,’ Brandon said. ‘I agreed to give myself and the bionoids up to the Arch Predicant if they immediately ceased hostilities.’

  ‘What!’ Jason groaned. ‘You can’t give the zelfs control of the bionoids!’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Brandon said. ‘I will always have the last word on what the bionoids are used for. Hopefully, the Arch Predicant will agree to a settlement that lets zelfs and balaks can live in peace. Your brother will be set free, Doo, and I will stay here and use the bionoids for the good of everyone on the planet.’

  That would be too good true, Jason thought. Something was bound to go wrong.

  ‘Have you met him yet? The Arch Predicant?’

  ‘No,’ Brandon said. ‘Not yet. Looks like we will all be meeting him together.’

  * * *

  The prison transport ship had risen up through the busiest parts of the city, where crowds of nightlife bustled through arcades and plazas, and spaceships of all shapes and sizes whizzed between the buildings, following routes through the air than ran vertically as well as horizontally. A lot of the spaceships were sleek sporty civilian vehicles, and Jason wondered if the jungle, let alone the war with the balaks, had any effect at all on the lives of the people living here in this fantastic futuristic city. Most people just went about their daily lives, with their trivial, insignificant problems, he guessed, just like everyone did back on Earth.

  Soon though, they left the city behind, and travelled up the side of the Tower of the Moons. It was the oldest building in the city, and the final few hundred metres were like the tower of an old gothic cathedral: strange alien stone carvings and columns, and dark ominous windows. The spaceship ducked inside a l
ow arched entrance just below the pyramid at the tower’s pinnacle.

  When the door to their compartment opened, Jason, Doo and Brandon walked down the ramp into a crypt-like vaulted chamber. The spaceship made a swift exit, as if it was in a hurry to leave, and the prisoners were left in the care of new guards: bare-chested zelfs wielding spears. There was no sign of any technology in this part of the tower.

  The temple guards wordlessly directed the way with their spear tips. A flight of stone steps led upwards, and Jason could feel wind and rain coming down from above. The top of the Tower of the Moons was obviously open to the elements.

  Jason wiped his bloody face. ‘Fix my nose before we go up?’ he said to Brandon.

  ‘Can’t. The zelfs have sensors that can detect the use of bionoids inside the city, and using them breaks the ceasefire.’

  ‘Fine,’ Jason said. ‘Let’s go up.’ He smiled at Doo. ‘I hope that this time, Zaal doesn’t intervene and order another trial by combat again.’

  ‘The zelfs do worse things than that in the name of Zaal,’ Doo said ominously.

  They ascended the steps. The guards didn’t follow, and when they reached the top they found out why: there was nowhere for them to run or escape to. They came out at the base of a massive stone pyramid, and unless they jumped off the edge, the only option was to keep going up to the very top. There was no safety barrier, and the wind threatened to blow them away.

  They climbed the well-worn steps up the pyramid. Talem Tarsus had walked these steps before his escape from the city. Remembering his story, Jason looked down, and sure enough he could see the channels either side of steps where the blood of sacrifices once ran down.

  At the apex of the pyramid was the zelfs’ temple to Zaal, a simple square roof held up by a ten-by-ten grid of stone columns. There was no statue of Zaal here; only a simple stone that seated the man who presumed to rule the city, and the planet, on the god’s behalf: the Arch Predicant of Perazim.