Helix (50 page)

Standing
before her was the reassuringly familiar figure of Elder Velkor Cannak.

Her
heart swelled with sudden joy, and then she experienced confusion. Perhaps this
was yet another illusion, sent down to plague her sanity.

The
Elder advanced, arms outstretched, and Sereth found herself rushing towards
him. He held her, and she luxuriated in his familiarity, the heady scent of his
fur, his reassuring words after the high warblings of the aliens.

“I...
I was taken, Elder. The great alien took me! I wanted nothing to do with their
scheme.”

Cannak
worked to soothe her. “Child, child, I know. You are blameless. We are beset by
evil working against all that is right and good. But, as we know, the truth
will prevail.”

She
drew her head away from him and gazed at his smiling face, feeling tears
welling in her eyes.

Behind
him, she made out others of her kind, Church militia in familiar uniforms—and
behind them, perched upon the mountain greensward, a great, black ship.

“Where
are we, Elder? What is this place?” She indicated the mountain, and then
pointed to the spectacular sweep of the helix high above. It dominated the
heavens like an abomination, where by all that was right a grey pall should
exist.

“The
dwelling place of evil creations, my child.” He took her shoulders. “Worry not,
for the end is in sight. When we trace Ehrin and the alien interlopers, and
bring them to justice, then we will return to Agstarn and all that is good.” He
looked into her eyes. “Where are they, child? Do they conceal themselves in
this unholy forest?”

She
shook her head. “They left this world in their ship, many hours ago.”

Cannak
snapped a command to one of the militia to power up the ship and ready it for immediate
departure, then turned to Sereth. “Do you know, child, where they were bound?”

She
felt her heart swell with joy, and something else. She would be instrumental in
bringing an end to Ehrin’s misguided quest; she felt the delight of revenge as
she said, “They are bound for the world above this one, Elder Cannak. They
intend to locate the beings they think created this evil illusion.”

Cannak’s
grip tightened on her shoulder. “
Directly
above this one, on the fourth
tier? Are you sure of this?”

She
nodded. “They told me. One of the aliens, the one that spoke our language. It
discovered where the Builders dwelt, and they set off to their world.”

Cannak
barked a laugh and reported Sereth’s words to a uniformed militiaman. Then he
turned to Sereth and said. “Board the ship. Settle yourself for the journey.
Soon, child, thanks to you, we will make Ehrin and his followers see the error
of their ways.”

She
hurried across the grass towards the ramp of the ship, hearing Elder Cannak
bark instructions to the militia. At this she stopped and turned. “Elder?”

She
looked past him at the small, silver insectile aliens who had gathered on the
margin of the sward and were staring at the visitors with their innocent pink
eyes.

Cannak
said, “They are an ungodly illusion, my child. Is it not written that all who
oppose the one truth shall perish?”

She
turned and hurried towards the ship, and on reaching the ramp cast one glance
back at the militia and the tiny aliens. Her people were drawing their rifles,
and taking aim, and she saw the spokesman of the aliens step forward and
address the leading militiaman.

Elder
Cannak gave the order to fire, and the militia swept their spitting weapons
across the phalanx of twittering insects, and she saw the spokesman raise his
arms in what might have been a defiant gesture, or one of joy at his ascension.
The aliens fell, then, and all was silent.

Sereth
hurried into the ship, recalling the Elder’s words of justification, and
wondered what punishment might in time be meted out to Ehrin and the other
godless aliens.

Hendry had often
thought that there was no finer sight than planet Earth as seen from high
orbit, the vast orb reflecting the light of the sun and the features of the
planet, familiar after a hundred shuttle runs, spread out silent and serene far
below. But he had to admit that the view of the fourth tier of the helix, the
string of worlds demarcated by sections of glittering oceans, would take some
beating.

They
had travelled for half a day through vacuum, not once entering the darkness of
space. Now they approached the fourth tier, the sun just visible above the
parabola of worlds before them.

The
comparison with Earth inevitably dragged Hendry’s thoughts back to the time he
had returned home after a long shift, to pick Chrissie up from boarding school
in France and spend precious time with her before duty dragged him away again.
They had been the best times of his life; simple days spent laughing with his
daughter, watching the changed child she had become in the weeks he had been
away and marvelling at his fortune in having her.

Before
melancholy set in, he felt Sissy squeeze his hand and he was catapulted back to
the present. She was smiling at him, her expression almost daring him to dwell
on his loss.

He
recalled his conversation in the clearing with Friday Olembe, and wondered what
his brother had done to make Sissy hate him with such a vengeance. If, that
was, he had surmised correctly in thinking that they must have encountered each
other at university in LA in ‘83.

He
would find some opportune time in the days ahead and ask her, and find some way
of telling her that her vitriol was misplaced, that Friday was innocent. For
the sake of the mission, as well as for their own sakes, a line had to be drawn
under their hostility.

He
smiled at her and enjoyed the show through the forward viewscreen.

A
while later, just as Hendry was beginning to doze, Carrelli swore.

Olembe
glanced across at her from the co-pilot’s couch. “What?”

“We’re
being followed. The ship’s not visible, but I’m picking up its signature. I
guess it’s around six hours behind us, and closing fast.”

“How
long before we reach the fourth tier?”

“I
estimate... around two hours.”

Kaluchek
leaned forward, restrained by her harness. “What do we do?”

Carrelli
shook her head grimly. “There’s very little we can do but continue onwards.”

Olembe
glanced at her. “The ship’s armed. We could make a fight of it if they get any
closer.”

Carrelli
looked at him. “I’m not familiar with the operating system, Friday.”

He
grinned. “What do you think I was doing while you were enjoying your jaunt in
the forest back there? I’m pretty sure I could give the bastards a shock or
two.”

Carrelli
thought about it, then said, “Only as a very last resort, Friday. Only if
there’s no other option. We don’t know our weapon’s capability. We might be
committing suicide if we open fire.”

Olembe
nodded. “Agreed. Only as a last resort.”

Carrelli
turned to Ehrin and relayed the gist of the information to the alien, who hung
in his harness and stared at her with his huge, inscrutable eyes, his mouth open
in what Hendry had come to interpret as apprehension.

Carrelli
looked back at Hendry and Kaluchek and said, “As a precaution, I’m not heading
for the Builder’s world. I’m sure they can look after themselves, but I’m not
taking the risk.”

“What’s
the plan?” Kaluchek asked.

“We
land on the neighbouring world and hide up for a while. Only when we think the
danger has passed, and the Church’s ship has given up its search, do we
proceed.” She looked round the small group. “Does that make sense?”

Hendry
nodded. “Sounds fine to me.”

Olembe
agreed. Kaluchek said, “It isn’t as if we’re in any rush.”

Carrelli
told Ehrin of her plan, and he responded with a single, sharp bark.

“That’s
agreed, then,” she said, and stared at the rapidly approaching band of worlds
strung out before them.

Hendry
glanced across at Sissy. She was staring through the viewscreen. He saw her as
she was in the forest clearing, two days ago, naked and smiling at him with
love and abandon. He closed his eyes, never fully sleeping but drifting in and
out of semiconsciousness as the ship roared through the void.

A
diminuendo in the pitch of the engine brought him upright with a start. Sissy
was yawning, stretching her arms. Carrelli and Olembe were muttering between
themselves.

The
architectural immensity of the helix was no longer visible through the
viewscreen. All that could be seen was land, over which they were flying at
speed. Hendry peered through a sidescreen, down at what looked like a mass of
some kind of vegetation, though like none he had ever seen before. It thrashed,
as if by its own volition or as if stirred by a fierce gale; individual
strands, pale tendrils without leaves or branches, whipped back and forth. All
was bathed in bright sunlight, and above the spaghetti-like vegetation were
what looked like... he called them spinnakers, as they resembled the bellying
sails on yachts he recalled from his youth, though these were vast diaphanous
membranes pushed at incredible speeds by the prevailing winds.

Kaluchek
said, “It’s...
alien
down there,” and laughed self-deprecatingly at the
inadequacy of her description.

Hendry
looked through the far sidescreen. They were lower now, and on the horizon to
the right he made out the scintillating expanse of an ocean. Beyond which, he
surmised, though not visible, was the world of the Builders.

Carrelli
said, “Okay, we’ll attempt to bring the ship down on the coast, in the cover of
whatever those things are down there.”

“Is
the Church ship still following?” Kaluchek asked.

“It
was until an hour ago, when we passed round the light side of the world. I cut
the main drive around then. With luck, it’ll have difficulty tracing us. And if
we can conceal the ship from view... Anyway, here goes. You ready, Friday?
Careful now, dampen the auxiliaries by half and ease her down.”

Hendry
watched the writhing mass of etiolated tendrils dance back and forth, as if
trying to grab the ship. Only now, with the vessel coming down along the coast
and the tendrils waving high above them and to their left, could he fully
appreciate their height. They towered over the ship by a hundred metres, each
one as thick as the bole of an oak, only supple and terminating in what looked
like a mass of smaller, equally agitated tendrils. This world made the forest
of Calique seem positively homely.

Carrelli
reported, “Telemetry says that it’s another breathable atmosphere down there,
though the gravity’s lighter.”

“Wonder
what kind of crazy aliens live on this world?” Olembe said.

Carrelli
pointed through a sidescreen. “Perhaps that’s your answer.”

She
indicated one of the spinnakers Hendry had seen earlier, a vast bellying sheet
heading out to sea.

“You
think that’s sentient?” Olembe asked.

“Who
knows?” Carrelli said. “We’re on a helix containing ten thousand-plus worlds.
Anything might be possible.”

In
seconds they crossed the terminator, twilight coming down almost instantly.
Stars appeared in the night sky above, and for a second Hendry could imagine he
was back on Earth, watching the stars from his seat outside the old Mars shuttle—until
he saw the waving fronds temporarily occluding the unfamiliar constellations.

“Hold
on,” Carrelli said. “We’re coming in to land. This might be...”

They
hit the ground with an extended squeal of metal on what might have been rock,
the ship slewing like a tea tray on ice. Hendry saw a mass of pale boles
rushing towards the viewscreen, and then their forward momentum was halted
abruptly as they sheared through the vegetation. The ship came to a halt, while
tendrils came down around them like felled trees. The ship rocked under the
impact, then settled. Silence descended.

Hendry
looked out through a sidescreen. The sea was perhaps a hundred metres away,
through a vista of rocking tendrils, dappled and lapping quietly in the
starlight. Above the ocean, the spinnaker things drifted with the wind, eerie
and majestic.

Olembe
unfastened himself from the couch, stood and stretched, peering through the
screen on three sides. “We couldn’t have concealed ourselves better, Gina.
We’re almost surrounded by the tendrils.”

Carrelli
said, “I stocked up on fruit back there. Help yourselves. I don’t know about
you, but I’m tired.”

Kaluchek
slipped from her couch. “I found some bunks back there,” she said, grinning at
Hendry. She took his hand and tugged him along the corridor to the rear lounge,
closed the door behind them and turned to him.

“Do
you think we’re safe in here, or will the others come barging in?”

He
laughed. “I think they might guess what we’re up to.”