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androids deftly put the finishing touches to their meticulously careful
treatment of Telson's injury, she had an idea that she considered nothing
short of brilliant.
* * * *
Astra turned and came face to face with one of the creatures that had
kidnapped her and Darv.
She screamed.
Darv quickly pulled off the grotesque breathing mask and held it out
apologetically for Astra's inspection. "Sorry," he said sheepishly.
"You stupid, crazy idiot!" she raged.
"I said, I'm sorry."
Astra calmed down and looked curiously at the mask Darv was holding. It
had two bulging eyepieces and a hideous proboscis instead of the simple
exhaust outlet of their own breathing masks.
"No wonder they looked so frightening," said Darv ruefully.
"Maybe they're just like us underneath?"
"Where did you find it?"
Darv gestured to an open locker. It was the only storage space in the
cramped cabin that the creatures had bundled them into. Above the locker was a
small wash basin with an outlet that ejected a thin stream of warm water when
hands were placed under it. The toilet facilities, like the little they had
seen so far of the alien ship's interior, were simple but efficient.
Still trembling with anger rather than fear, Astra turned back to the
view port while Darv opened the flap set into a bulkhead to see if their
captors had provided them with more food. The compartment was empty. He sighed
and fiddled with the breathing mask. Thirty hours had passed since the alien
ship had taken off from Kyros. They had spent the entire time locked in the
tiny cabin. Their initial shock at being frog-marched aboard the tiny ship by
the creatures had worn off and now they were bored. In truth, Astra was more
concerned about Sharna and Telson, trapped aboard the Challenger for eternity,
than she was for her own safety.
"I suppose," Darv mused, idly toying with the breathing mask, "that they
could be human -- survivors of the Solaric Empire who weren't evacuated when
the Earth left the solar system?"
"They didn't understand when you spoke to them," Astra pointed out.
"They didn't answer when I spoke to them. It's not the same thing."
Astra continued to stare out of the view port. Something caught her eye.
She pressed her cheek against the clear plastic in an attempt to see sideways.
"Darv -- come here a minute and look."
Darv went to the view port and saw a giant planet emerging. The visible
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crescent of the massive oblate sphere was divided into a series of richly
coloured bands that ran parallel to the equator. It was one of the most
distinctive planets he had ever seen and one that he recognised immediately
from the holograms in the Challenger's library.
"It's Zelda isn't it?" Astra asked.
Darv nodded.
"Surely they can't be thinking of landing there. It's nothing but methane
and ammonia."
Darv continued to watch the outer planet for some minutes and realised
that the ship was performing a series of intricate manoeuvres. Suddenly Zelda
was eclipsed by a grey horizon embracing a barren, crater-scarred airless
landscape less than a hundred miles beneath the ship. The terrain was similar
to the moon but the ugly, gnarled mountain ranges were covered in a layer of
frozen carbon dioxide.
"It's one of the moons of Zelda," said Darv.
"Which one?"
Darv shrugged and continued gazing down at the bleak landscape that was
racing towards the ship. The remains of what had been a remarkable multi-
domed city came into view as the ship passed over a mountain range and turned.
It continued to lose height and details of the city became clearer. At ten
thousand feet it filled the view port. Darv and Astra could see the
architectural similarities with First Footprint City on the moon. The
difference was, that whereas the city on the moon was relatively undamaged,
all the domes of this place had either collapsed or seemed to have been
subjected to some sort of bombardment. Apart from a small cluster of domes
that the ship was heading for, none were intact nor did it look as if any
attempt had been made to repair them. Some of the domes on the outskirts of
the once-proud city appeared to have been deliberately torn apart and the
interconnecting trackways ripped up.
Darv and Astra simultaneously sensed that something was behind them. They
wheeled around. One of the creatures was standing in the cabin's open doorway.
Except that he wasn't a creature: he was tall and slender with finely
chiselled features and humourless grey eyes that were watching them carefully.
He was wearing a black skin-tight suit like the others had worn. It was made
from the same material as the grotesque masks.
Darv tried to outstare the stranger but was deterred by the hard,
unblinking grey eyes.
"So they are human," he said to Astra.
The stranger spoke. His strange accent accentuated his vowels but Darv
and Astra had no difficulty in understanding him. He beckoned them out of the
cabin and said harshly:
"I am most certainly human. Exactly what you two are, and who taught you
our language, is something that we intend to find out."
Darv ignored the beckoning gesture. He caught hold of Astra's wrist and
stood his ground. "My name is Darv', he said, "and this is Astra. Now that you
know who we are, you might at least tell us who you are." he hoped that his
voice didn't betray his fear for the expression now in the stranger's eyes was
one of unbridled hatred.
"My name is Spegal. Commander of the Solaric Empire Space Corps. Come."
"And this place?"
Spegal took a step forward. "You insult my intelligence by pretending
that you don't know?" he rasped.
It took all Darv's self-control to force himself to meet Spegal's stare.
"We genuinely don't know," he said simply.
Spegal looked puzzled for a fleeting second and then the hatred was back.
"This is Zelda Five," he said. "The fifth moon of Zelda and the capital of the
Solaric Empire."
* * * *
Unaware of what Telson and Sharna were planning with two of the surgical
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androids on the excursion terminal, the guardian angels were rethinking their
entire strategy. Their conviction that they were the greatest intelligences in
the Universe was in no way diminished by the series of unexpected events that
had overtaken the Challenger; they still firmly believed that they could and
would conquer the Earth. The problem was finding it -- a problem that never be
resolved so long as the Challenger was marooned in orbit around Kyros with
insufficient crew members to man the starship's main control room. Therefore
the first step they had to take was to increase the numbers of the crew.
The complex program was set in motion: the automated food processing
centres, which had been working at a fraction of their capacity since the
Great Meteoroid Strike and the ensuing depletion of the crew's numbers, were [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]