Six Against the Stars Omnibus 1 & 2, page 23
Horatio pulled against the slaves pinning him down.
‘These fit into the three levels: heaven, which is the mind that controls waist, back and head; kingdom, which is the hands that control shoulders, elbow and fingers, and lastly man, which is the feet that controls thighs, knees and legs.’
Fingers gouged his eyes open.
‘That is the alphabet you must draw from to bring your adversary back into the song of the universe. Now I shall teach you how to speak in words beyond beauty and form. I will make a poet of you, trustlander, and your compositions will be written in the entrails of the unworthy. Your applause will be mortals’ dying screams of joy as the unity of cosmic joining penetrates their weak, bodily vessels. You will make mountains of corpses and feel only pleasure that their forms have evolved away from the terrible bondage and weaknesses of flesh.’
Strong fingers forced his head to turn to face Cane.
‘Watch. This is Falcon Swoops On Hare, use it to kill two opponents standing on either side of you. Think, trustlander, on your world the bones of once mighty and giant lizards ended up in packs of children’s chalk. Isn’t it better that way?’
Cane’s hands became scythes.
‘Watch. This is Turtle Pierces Egg, use it to shatter a ribcage or punch through a heart. Life is a travesty. The mistake of an underachieving, uncaring God, the hubris of a cosmic rapist. Only by its components becoming pure flow will the totality of life heal its wounds and know the peace of a purer way.’
Cane’s arms melted out and speared through an imaginary target.
‘Watch. This is Crane Stands High, use it to dislocate a neck or disarm an opponent of a bladed weapon. Look at the sheer mockery of the foodchain, life preying on other life, blindly killing and maiming to survive. The cruelty of existence. Starvation, disasters, war, race-hatred, species- hatred, self-hatred. Is that the gift of a loving creator or the final curse of a jealous monster? Our passing is the universe’s benevolence to us, it’s offering of love, the only constant.’
Horatio’s eyes swam with sweat and the salty tears of what the monk was turning him into. How the hell am I ever going to bed another man’s wife if my first instinct on being discovered is to stop his heart with my fist? What’s that going to do to my reputation back home?
‘Watch. This is Snake Coils Out, use it to smash a knee bone and incapacitate your foe. I have launched you on a holy mission, trustlander, to heal the torment of a festering and crippled universe.’
The gladiators clasped Horatio against the wall for what seemed an eternity, the old Earther listening to the unbalanced Martian spout his nauseating anti-life rhetoric, the whispering crack of Cane’s sleeves as he spun about, forcing Horatio to watch the fluid, effortless Slowzen forms. Every twist of Cane’s fingers stabbing nerves and snapping bones, every kick and sweep of his feet perforating and maiming the vital organs of an invisible opponent. Listening to the monk’s abhorrent voice and his lifeless monotone, Horatio knew his robot’s speculations about the Martian sect had to be true. Something had designed this religion as a cancer, before injecting it into Martian society, intending to weaken or destroy the priesthood on mankind’s second oldest world. Cane’s humanity had been eaten away by the design of an ancient virus no sophistication of modern medical technology short of a brainwipe could cure. Made torpid by the cell’s unbearable heat, Horatio felt nothing. Not a headache, not lethargy, but somewhere inside his body he knew Ensor’s ghost was working his optic nerves, storing every artifice of slaughter, before spinning as false chains of memory within the deepest recesses of his mind. Between the two of you, just what the fuck are you doing to me? At last it was over and the arena fighters let him fall to the floor, Horatio’s shirt soaked with sweat as if he had spent the last hour swimming rather than watching a madman demonstrate his cruel killing arts.
Cane pointed to a fighter. ‘You. Kick him in the head.’
Obeying, the gladiator Cane had pointed at stepped forward and swung his boot at Horatio’s skull, but the trustlander had the foot in his hand and the fighter’s leg was moving up in a blur of flesh, spinning him like a Catherine wheel to the ground.
The giant Martian nodded, satisfied. ‘As you can see, life is a filthy thing, Earther, it squirms to survive and will do much to ensure the odour of its pollution remains to foul existence. Your feebleminded notions of non-violence are nothing before the hardness of this fact, not now that you have been shown the clarity of the Slowzen way. I have made you the only pure thing in a universe of vacuum. Remember, now you survive only as a vehicle of the righteous path.’
***
Horatio woke up suffocating, a memory of Zulu drums fading into an air so thick he could have sliced it with a sword. Cane’s volcanic red eyes were fixed on Horatio, the monk sitting in a lotus position as though he might have been like that all night. ‘Soon you will be called to fight. I do not know how many you will face, but given the aliens’ high estimation of your abilities, I doubt if it will be more than a single fighter.’
‘Was that a joke, Cane?’
‘The joke is on you, son of the home world. The jest combat is for amusement. If your adversary is sentient, the pulbar will expect them to make a game of you, to toy with your death. I have checked and your foe is not from our cell, so your newly found martial prowess will come as quite a surprise to your opponent.’
‘I told you, Cane,’ insisted Horatio. ‘I’m not going to kill anyone for the pulbars’ pleasure. I’ll let them murder me first.’ I’ll run. You haven’t taken the use of my legs away from me yet.
‘Your reflexes will betray you, trustlander. You walk within the Slowzen Way now. Your appetite to live is an engine in a garden, belching out black smoke over flowers and lawn. I can see into your polluted heart, Earther, and you have no wish to embrace the universe yet. You will fight to preserve your life. Mark my words, you will bathe your hands in your adversary’s blood and feel rapture in doing so.’
‘No one will die by my hand.’
‘We shall see.’
When the pulbar were ready, they sent a robot for Horatio, a dumb vehicle-like thing with six rubber wheels and a cage built into its rear. It backed up to the cell and when it was in position, their bars hissed up into the ceiling. The musician didn’t ask what would happen if he refused to get in. The answer would not, he suspected, be of comfort to him. Trundling away, the robot left with Horatio trapped inside its pen, his new prison so small he had to crouch to fit within. They passed other cells crammed with gladiators, human and alien, even some pulbar who had obviously fallen on hard times, their normally bulky bodies shrunken on a diet of protein paste and water. Jolting onto a ramp, the robot passed through a curtain of heat and came into a hall, a pulbar guardpost built into the wall. Two of the aliens left the blockhouse to check below the robot’s chassis for escapees from the fighting pit.
Thick armoured gates rolled out of the way and the robot drove down a long dark corridor, stopping when a small lozenge of light became visible at the far end. His cell door clanged open and the floor tilted him out into the corridor. Horatio suddenly realised how thirsty he felt, his throat as dry as leather. On the floor was a variable sword and a round shield made of heavy transparent ceramic. He wavered for a second, bending to pick the weapon up before changing his mind. What the hell would I do with a sword anyway? Use it to pick my teeth. Horatio’s will was set now. Even if he was facing that gargantuan spider out in the circle of death, he would not abet the pulbar in their inhuman amusements, he would not give Barbarus an ounce of satisfaction from his death. Horatio walked tall into the arena, unarmed. All noise expired as Horatio came out onto the sand. Glancing slowly at each tier of seats, the trustlander showed his silent contempt for the slavers. He watched amused at the confusion inside the adjudicators’ bay. This was an armed combat. Had the drone left the weapons at the wrong entrance? Heads will roll. Literally.
Shielding his eyes from the bright light, Horatio raised one hand towards the distant private box of the warlord. ‘Barbarus, you whore’s whelp! Barbarus, you ugly tuskless abortion, you haven’t got the wit to appreciate my genius. I thank you for giving me to the arena, if it means I’ll never have to pander again to your excruciating taste in slave music.’ Horatio imagined with satisfaction the effect his words would be having among the warlord’s sycophants. ‘You’re like those worms you enjoy eating, Barbarus, except they just might have more honour! You and your poltroons cower in the shadow of the Ebb because you know if you ever came near alliance space, our fleet would carve your worthless hide into so many strips of bacon. I saw your corridor of victories, you filthy coward, Barbarus the great warrior... Barbarus the slayer of old men and cubs and weaponless herbivores would be more accurate! You thought I spoiled your holy mat because I wanted to steal your honour? Wrong, you brainless tusker. There was so little honour in it, I just mistook it for something to wipe my arse on after I had an attack of the runs.’ Horatio roared his laughter at the pulbar. There was no answer save for a slow grinding of a gate at the opposite end of the arena. It was not the place of an eminent warlord to answer a slave, to do so would be to bestow equality of position on mere chattel. But how Barbarus would be fuming. Horatio’s death was growing near enough to taste on his parched heat-swollen lips, but at least he would have some mischief while waiting for it. ‘I’ll show you how an Earther dies, you broken-tusked filth. But before I go, let me share with you my predictions for your demise. You’ll die showing the rear end of your ample breeches to the alliance fleet, one of our expeditionary forces chasing you and your race from the receding Ebb. One of our marines will stand over your piss-stained body and say: shit, but this crack-ugly monster really did squeal like a dying pig before I sliced its throat.’
As the gate pulled back, Horatio fell into a startled silence. Waiting there was Lalya Volpone.
She looked at him with surprise, the sword in her hand slumping down in bewilderment. In the warlord’s balcony, Horatio thought he could hear Nemo’s deranged giggling, although with the riot of shaking ivory erupting across the arena that might have been his imagination. Of course, Nemo had found out about the woman he had first been captured with, and by suggesting this cruel game to Barbarus he was ensuring he would be in the warlord’s favour for a good few months.
‘Lalya! We’re not going to fight. Don’t give them the pleasure.’
‘Horatio,’ Lalya called back. ‘Lords of Earth, Horatio, the adjudicators only allow one survivor out of the arena. They’ve got snipers on the walls to ensure it.’
‘Let them kill me, then!’ He was almost shocked by the words as they emerged from his throat. Surely he hadn’t just offered his life for hers? Maybe this is another possession by Ensor. Is that it, professor? Have you got some crafty plan to see me safe out of here?
‘It doesn’t work like that. If we refuse to act out the combat, they’ll shoot us both.’
‘How can I fight you? I wasn’t planning to battle anyone here, least of all you.’
Lalya stalked closer. ‘One of us can live, Horatio. Just pretend to fight me, I’ll let you put a blade through my heart, make the slip realistic. You can come out of here alive.’
‘I’m not even armed.’
Throwing him her spare blade, the assassin closed in. ‘There’s no need for us both to die, Horatio. You can live. I was trained for this. Trained to face death. My house has a complete copy of my DNA back in Africa. I’m a good model, they’ve grown plenty more of me.’
He’d caught her blade automatically. ‘That would never be you to me. It wouldn’t even be like knowing your twin. I’m the trustlander here, I can’t hurt you. Let me be the one to die. Even if you allow me to win, Barbarus is going to have me murdered in the next combat anyway. He hates me, he thinks he’s lost honour to me.’
‘You’ll still have a chance, Horatio. You must know what I felt for you from the first moment I saw you. I say it is you that is to live!’
She ran ahead, throwing her sword forward. Horatio’s borrowed dagger moved up to meet it. ‘Stop it! Lalya, the ghost inside my implant has done something to me. Cane’s wired my responses to duplicate his. If you attack me I’ll react like a saronnin monk, I can’t help it.’
‘Then react,’ Lalya’s leg lashed up. ‘Kill me so that you may live.’
Horatio blocked her leg and ducked a thrust of the assassin’s humming blade. ‘No! This is madness.’
‘Sorry, Horatio.’ She fluttered her empty left hand and struck out with the tip of her blade, its surface vibrating so fast it appeared to shimmer in the heat. The musician arched into the mode of the Dancing Bear and flipped backwards, jumping like a springbok, his reflexes working him as if he was no more than a puppet. So far he had been sticking to the defensive elements and fuck knows, there were few enough of them in the Martian killer’s repertory. In seconds he would run out of them and Ensor Volpone’s ghost would make a murderer of him again. From the distance came the sound of a howling animal. It sounded like a siren crashing into life in the corridors beyond the arena. Some of the pulbar stood up along the seats and looked about like animals sniffing the air for danger. Concentrate, the part of his mind that wasn’t his said. Damn your concentration, professor, let me lose here. What kind of trustlander was he going to be if he emerged from the arena as a conquering gladiator? None of his friends back home would ever talk to him again.
Lalya kicked out high, converted it into a roll and lunged for his stomach. Her future movements were doppler images appearing across his consciousness and Horatio found his body imposing itself below the arc of her sword’s killing path, his dagger rising to gut the woman from belly to throat. The shout of agony detonated from Horatio’s throat as Lalya spread forward to meet his blade with her stomach.
CHAPTER 11. What every generation needs.
Jack Lockwood was drawn reluctantly from his sleep by a werewolf clamour. A siren again, this time accompanied by the guttural voice of the ship crackling from speakers, the artificial voice flat and lifeless. Blinking the weight of sleep and exhaustion away, Jack saw the slaves on the wheel had stopped moving, the guards just standing, listening. Why aren’t the mopes applying their flays to us?
‘Evacuate. Evacuate. This sector has been breached,’ the ship barked in answer to his question. ‘Environmental integrity has been compromised by a meteorite strike. Repair foam is exhausted and emergency seals are leaking. Disaster compartment locks will activate in four minutes. Explosive decompression may follow in this chamber. Evacuate. Evacuate.’
Jack came alive and pulled at the manacles shackling him to the wall. Rommel was by the agent’s side, waving at the guards.
‘Our chains. Come on, you alien devils, you’ll still need us to drive the pumps when the hull is repaired.’
The chamber was full of hundreds of shouting slaves beating at their manacles, but the pulbar guards and their human trustees were running for the door. Reaching out, Lockwood tried to grab a fleeing slaver.
‘Leave us your keys, we’ll all die here if you abandon us.’
‘You am die, then,’ the guard called back. ‘Not losing life for stinking slave.’
‘Come back, you gutless bastard!’ Jack shouted. ‘God curse you to hell, you’ve still got time to save us.’
‘Your gods am saving you, then, if strong enough.’
‘Save your breath,’ Rommel laid his hard ceramic fingers on the agent’s shoulder. ‘It’s not just a matter of time. If one of the pulbar stopped to release us, by their way of thinking it would be admitting our lives are as important to them than their own – a rescuer would be announcing to his comrades that he only has the same honour as a slave.’
‘They’re condemning us all to death just because they don’t want to lose face?’ Jack was incredulous. ‘I swear, I get out of here, I’m going to see every one of these tusker mutts gets made extinct.’
‘Not all of us will die, my friend. I can seal my body, recycle what little oxygen I require. I can stay in vacuum for a month if necessary. You will be revenged, Jack Lockwood. You have my word on it.’
‘Great.’ Lockwood smashed the shackles that bound him to the wall. ‘That’s beautiful, now I can kiss my ass goodbye with—’
Shoving Jack back, Rommel snatched a tumbling ventilation grill from the air before it brained the agent’s skull. ‘What is this?’
Above them, Lord Mycroft peered out of a ventilation tunnel, his single eye scanning the chamber for guards. There were none, only frantic slaves struggling at the pumping station’s wheel. In the background, the ship was still looping the decompression warning.
‘Away below, there’s a sack coming down.’
Catching the shiny plastic bag that was tossed, Jack helped the robot down to the floor, the distant red starfields blanching Lord Mycroft’s bodywork with an alien light.
‘We’re breaking out of here, laddie.’ Lord Mycroft spilled the contents of the sack onto the floor. Pistols scattered across the deck. ‘The guns the pulbar thieved from our supplies. Aye, but I could only find a set of .550s.’
Jack cradled one. ‘Reckon they’ll do.’
‘This is your doing, robot?’ asked Rommel, pointing up at the spitting alarms.
‘Bloody dafties. The pulbar catch one of the alliance’s top expert on artificial intelligence and what do they do? They drop him straight into their computer vault. They’re vicious buggers, but they’ve not got too much up top, have they?’
‘The doctor? He made it? Jesus, but things are looking up.’
‘That they are. We have to make speed, agent. I’ll explain everything later, but Horatio is in a whole mess of trouble. Hold still, and pray this enzyme I cooked up unlocks your manacles.’
