Weird Space 2: Satan's Reach (29 page)

The young man said, “Obviously the vakan are breaking with tradition and want more of us!”

Harper said, “Please believe us. We have nothing to do with the vakan.” He paused, then said, “A day ago, did you see or hear two starships pass overhead, or close by?”

The old woman inclined her head. “Yes, one after the other. The leading ship was damaged. They passed into the west, around the world and out of sight. Their appearance caused great commotion.” She smiled. “We thought that perhaps they had come to rescue us, at last.”

“We came from the leading ship,” Harper said. “We were being pursued by... by our enemies. We fear for our lives.”

The old woman asked, “Your enemies? The vakan?”

The young man said, “We know the vakan do not have ships of metal! Their star-boats are like themselves, organic, biological, grown.”

Harper said, “No, not the vakan. We know of no race called the vakan, and I can assure you that we were not sent by them.”

“They lie!” said the young man. “We know they can change their appearance, can assume any form they wish. And so they have – and they are here before us.”

“Silence!” the old woman commanded, and Harper was gratified to see the young man hang his head mutely.

Zeela said, “Yesterday, from the ridge, we looked down on the township and saw two vessels arrive. Then we saw strange creatures emerge and take six of your people.” She shook her head. “We were as horrified at what happened as you were.”

The old woman said, “The vakan are monsters, terrible beings from our worst nightmares. They come from beyond the mountains, where they have their lair.”

“They take you...” Harper said. “But why?”

“Every Kallastan month, which is almost two standard months, the vakan send their monsters to take six of my people back to the mountains, and we never see them again.”

“And how long has this been going on?”

“The vakan first appeared perhaps twenty years ago. They came from the mountains, from a great hole in a valley between Fishtail Peak. At first they did nothing, just watched us. Even so, many of my people were frightened. You saw how... how
alien
these creatures were. A year after their arrival, individual humans went missing. Many people fled off-world, blaming the vakan. As the years passed, so the vakan ranged far and wide across the equatorial regions of our planet, taking who they wished. We are a simple, peace-loving people. We do not believe in violence, and we do not fight back. My people, those who fled this world, vowed to inform the authorities of what was happening here... but we could only guess, as the years passed and help was not forthcoming, that the authorities of the Reach had other matters to consider rather than the plight of a few thousand pacifists on a backwater colony world.”

“The Reach has no real centralised authority, political or judicial,” Harper said. “I have no doubt that the pleas of those who fled Kallasta fell on deaf – or apathetic – ears.”

The old woman smiled sadly. “I surmised as much.”

“But the vakan... they have said nothing about why they take your people?”

The old woman looked from Zeela to Harper. “They do not communicate in any verbal way. ‘Vakan’ is not what they call themselves. The word vakan comes from old Kallastanian, a term meaning ‘monster’. The vakan come in many forms. We have seen smaller, spindly creatures like gargoyles, and things like great toads. Some say that they can change shape at will, but this is only rumour.” The old woman gestured. “No, we do not know why they take our people, but there are rumours.”

“They are experimented upon,” the young man said, “dissected, their brains removed, their organs laid out so that the vakan can see how we work!”

“This is speculation,” the old woman said calmly. “No one knows. No one has dared approach the mountain lair of the vakan.”

Harper looked at the young man, who was weeping now. “But I will make the trek there, if it is the last thing I do.” He stared at Harper. “Yesterday the vakan took my brother.”

Harper said, “I am sorry. Truly sorry. We saw what happened and we were horrified.” He paused, then went on, “I came here to bring my friend Zeela home. I can see now that Kallasta is no place for peaceable human beings. I would like to help you... but first I must explain my situation.”

“You can help us?” the old woman asked.

A susurrus of comment passed through the gathering behind her.

“There is a chance that, yes, I might be able to do something. But first I must explain how we came to be here.”

For the next fifteen minutes he detailed his meeting with Zeela and their flight from Ajanta, their trek across the Reach pursued by the Ajantans. He thought it best not to mention the fact that he was telepathic, and was being pursued by bounty hunters. He described their descent to Kallasta, fired upon by the Ajantans, and the damaged state of his ship.

“The situation is that we are in hiding from the Ajantans. My ship led them away from here. It is my hope to lie low, hide ourselves away, so that perhaps the aliens will give up their search and leave Kallasta.” He shrugged. “That is my hope, at any rate. If we were allowed to remain in the rainforest... in time I could contact my ship, and when the Ajantans leave, then I see no reason why we cannot take you and your people away from here.”

“All of us? We number almost a hundred souls. Your ship is big enough?”

“And you said it was damaged,” the young man said.

“It is big enough to accommodate everyone here,” Harper said. “And as for its state of repair... It can fly, though I suspect its progress will be slow.” He looked from the old woman to the young man. “But how many other colonists remain here on Kallasta?”

The old woman shook her head. “We don’t know the exact numbers. There are scattered bands, like ours, all across the equatorial region. We have not had contact with them for years.”

Zeela said, “If you would trust us, release us, then as my friend says we will hide ourselves in the rainforest and then, when the time is right, do our best to help you get away from here.”

The three bent and conferred in hushed tones.

Their deliberations were interrupted, seconds later, by the roar of a starship’s engines. Harper ducked instinctively; the ship sounded as if it were coming down directly on top of the long-house. It passed overhead and he heard the diminuendo of its engines: it was coming in to land.

Zeela looked at him. “
Judi
?”

He shook his head. “It’s the Ajantan ship,” he told her.

A Kallastanian jumped up and approached the door. He opened it a slit, peered out, then hurried back to the group. “A great ship has landed across the clearing,” he reported to the old woman, “and a dozen... creatures are approaching.”

“The Ajantans,” Harper said, “coming for us. Cut us free!”

The old woman snapped an order, and the young man hesitated for a split-second, looking from Zeela to Harper. At last he came to a decision, jumped to his feet and pulled a knife from his belt. He slashed the rope that bound Zeela’s ankles and wrists, then moved to Harper and cut the rope.

“Come with me,” he ordered. “There is a rear exit. We’ll use the cover of the long-house to move around the lake.”

Harper turned to the old woman. “The Ajantans should not harm you. Tell them that you saw us, and sent us back into the forest to the south.”

He followed Zeela and the young man to the rear of the long-house, watched all the way by the stunned gathering. They came to a small door and the young man pulled it open. They slipped through into the sunlight. “Quickly. This way.”

He crossed an open area between the long-house and the next building beside the lake, and Harper trusted they would not be observed from the ship. He sprinted after the Kallastanian, Zeela at his side. He looked over his shoulder. All that could be seen of the Ajantan ship was the bulge of its upper superstructure above the ridge of the long-house.

They passed into the cover of the building and paused, panting. He looked ahead. A string of buildings along the shore of the lake would provide excellent cover. If they moved from house to house around the lake they would soon come to the fringe of the rainforest. From there they could slip into its cover.

The young man was watching him, and pulled something from within his shirt. Harper saw that it was the pistol which Bjorn had given him.

He looked into the young man’s eyes, his stomach turning. Had it come to this: a flight of light years across the Reach, pursued by aliens and bounty hunters alike, only to be shot dead by one of Zeela’s own people?

The man smiled, then passed Harper the pistol. “I was wrong,” he said. “You are not vakan. You might be needing this.”

Harper inclined his head in thanks and took the pistol.

“This way.” The Kallastanian took off again, leading the way to the next building along the shore.

They crouched in the cover of the timber shack. Harper leaned around the corner and peered across the clearing. The Ajantan ship resembled a huge, squat creature sitting malignantly before the comparatively tiny long-house.

He made out three small Ajantans, armed with incendiary weapons, moving past the long-house and around the lake. They came to the first of the wooden buildings and peered inside. Finding them empty, they moved on.

Zeela said, “But how did they find us?”

“They haven’t,” he said. “They’ve merely homed in on the only inhabited township in the region – or that’s my best guess.”

He considered what to do next. They could dart towards the next building, using this one as cover, but they were still perhaps half a kilometre from the forest. Concealment in the buildings themselves was out of the question.

“Come on,” he said, taking Zeela’s hand and running for the next building, the Kallastanian following. They moved around the dilapidated, sun-scorched hut and sprinted for the next in line.

Zeela shrieked as she saw something up ahead and dragged Harper back around the corner. All three flattened themselves against the timber wall.

“What?” Harper gasped, his heart thumping in fright.

“I... I saw three Ajantans, coming from the opposite direction.”

“How far away?”

“About fifty metres, less. They were just beyond the next building.”

The Ajantans had caught the township in a pincer movement, leaving nothing to chance.

They stood against the timber wall, pinned in the sunlight, facing the building they had just fled. He judged that the Ajantans coming from the direction of the clearing would be upon them in a minute or less. He looked along the wall, saw the recess of a door and pulled Zeela towards it. He passed into the shadow of the bare room, the young man bringing up the rear.

“And now?” the Kallastanian asked.

Harper moved to an empty window frame at the rear of the building, pressed himself to the wall and peered out. He saw the trio of aliens move towards the neighbouring building; one remained outside, vigilant, while its fellows passed into the hut.

The young Kallastanian said, “What are we going to do?”

Harper looked around the room. There was nowhere to hide. He could always take out one of the advancing aliens, but that would leave the others – and they would be alerted to hostile presence.

The young man moved past Harper, saying. “There is only one thing to do. I’m going out there. I’ll claim that I saw you earlier in the forest. I’ll say that I can show them where you went, and try to lead them away.”

Harper gripped his arm. “You’d be endangering yourself.”

The young man held his gaze. “I’m in danger anyway, in here with you.”

Harper passed him the pistol. “Take this, in case...”

The Kallastanian hesitated, clearly torn by a lifetime’s inculcation against violence, but finally took the weapon and slipped it out of sight beneath his shirt. He climbed into the window opening and lowered himself to the ground outside.

Cautiously he stepped forward, into the line of sight of the approaching Ajantans, and raised his arms.

Harper pulled away from the opening, scanned the wall and found a slit in the timber. Zeela squatted next to him, pressing her fists into her eyes. “I can’t watch,” she whispered.

He knelt and put his face to the wood, squinting through the gap at the encounter outside.

The Kallastanian and the three aliens – soon joined by the second trio – stood five metres away. The aliens circled the human warily, weapons levelled – the young man the hub of a moving wheel with the Ajantans’ weapons as the spokes. He was speaking quietly to them, nodding towards the forest two hundred metres away.

Harper willed the aliens to believe him, to take off into the forest...

The Ajantans deliberated, passing comments back and forth in their own fluting language. At last they came to a decision and prodded the human forward with their weapons. He moved off towards the forest; four aliens trotted ahead, while two brought up the rear with the incendiary weapons trained on the young man’s back.

Harper allowed himself a surge of hope: he would give them time to disappear into the forest, then move on around the lake and take refuge in the forest further away.

Then one of the aliens called out in its own language, and the group came to a halt. The alien spoke to its fellows, and two of them looked up at the hut the young man had emerged from.

Harper’s stomach turned.

The Ajantan pair approached the hut, their weapons levelled.

Behind them, the Kallastanian said, “No, I told you! I saw them in the forest!”

The alien pair advanced regardless.

“Den...?” Zeela looked up at him, her expression pleading.

The Kallastanian shouted, “They’re not in there! I told you – I saw them in the forest.”

The Ajantans ignored him and approached the hut.

The young man acted, then. He reached into his shirt, pulled out the pistol, and fired at the advancing pair. One of the aliens fell, but the Ajantan closest to the Kallastanian raised its rifle and sent forth a roiling gout of flame. The human screamed as he was consumed in a blinding ball of fire.

Harper closed his eyes and Zeela sobbed, “What? Den, what happened?”