Prologue
The three robed figures approached each other and met in the centre of the atrium. They greeted each other cordially, yet with the air of people whose purpose was not to be seen in the light of day.
Their black silk robes glistened in the candle light, each robe adorned by their icon.
The female, her thin face sharpened by the shadows, looked stern. She lowered the hood of her robe and bowed her head. The other two, both men, did the same. They had about them an austerity that betrayed their innermost thoughts.
The man with the emblem of Earth afire, spoke first. ‘Are you ready?’
The other two nodded and they entered the room.
In contrast to the atrium, the lights of the room were blinding. They couldn’t see anything.
There was no breeze, but a constant whispering gave the illusion of wind fighting its way through the branches of trees or whipping at the ears of a field of corn. Deformed words were carried on the air, constantly muttering, moving on, never settling in the ear long enough to make sense, but enough to give the listener pause and, with that pause, perhaps give the words a way in through the ear and into the soul. After a few minutes the three didn’t hear it, even though the murmuring constantly battered at their ears.
Thirty minutes later they left the room and returned to the atrium. The air of superiority with which they had entered the room had clearly been diminished, their confidence shaken.
‘You know what we must do?’ asked one of the men.
‘Yes,’ said the female. ‘I will liaise with the inquisition and between us we will hunt out any of the infection.’
The man nodded. ‘And you, Chancellor, how goes Project Enhancement?’
‘It has had its troubles Archdeacon, but we are on the verge of perfection.’
‘The failed attempts?’
The chancellor tilted his head and pursed his lips. ‘Being kept under…observation, under the tightest security. There have been some escape attempts, but none of significance.’
‘Very well. Keep me informed.’
The Chancellor bowed deferentially.
A secretary walked up to the Archdeacon. ‘A missive for you, Archdeacon,’ he said. The Archdeacon waved the communiqué away, so the Sister Superior took it and read it. She smiled at the Chancellor and took the Archdeacon by the crook of his elbow. ‘Archdeacon, a word if you please.’ Taking this as a cue to leave, the Chancellor walked away.
‘We have a problem.’ She handed the Archdeacon the document.
The Archdeacon’s face gave little away as he read. ‘I wondered when this would happen. The frailties of humanity hit everyone at some time. Very well I will act on this.’
‘You will eliminate M…’
The Archdeacon put his hand to the Sister Superior’s lips. ‘Be quiet! We don’t know who could be listening. Rest assured, Sister Superior, I will see to it that this problem disappears.’
‘Thank you, your Grace.’ She bowed and walked away.
The Archdeacon smiled; he really did enjoy the long game.
Chapter One
The twin suns, though past their zenith, still breathed ferociously upon the land. The long grasses danced in the pitiless, hot breeze and shimmied in the heatwave. The irrigation ditches broke up the sun and threw it back as diamonds. Small, distant figures worked the fields, their heads shielded by broad-brimmed hats, some planting, some picking. Come the rains, they would still be there, sowing and gathering, different crops but the same routine, forever toiling at the endless cycle.
Katyiana put a hand up to shield her eyes and surveyed the lands. It was Heaven and Hell. Without the sun and rain, there would be no crops; without the crops...well, they bought them their privilege and rank and their wealth, but sometimes it was difficult to enjoy.
When she was here, alone, on top of her hill, she could see all they owned and, for a moment, she would feel free, untouchable, the queen of all she saw. She would feel proud and, yes, noble, but always in the back of her mind was that thought, that one jolt of electricity, that told her their freedom had a price.
Katyiana put her hand on her son's shoulder. ‘There’s nothing like the view at mid-afternoon. It feels so peaceful. Look at the way the shadows start to lengthen as the suns begin to descend; the way everything has a golden warmth. It feels...safe.’
She moved to a stone bench. Remi followed in silence. He always did. He was her shadow. He sat beside her. He had to jump a little to get onto the bench. At five years old, everything seemed big.
The white stone of the pavilion gleamed around them. She had had it built before Remi was born. It was her retreat, her thinking place. It was a sign of opulence, of power, of spirituality. It was her. Her husband, her own precious king, could have his throne, but this? This was hers.
She held Remi’s hand and pulled him closer. How little his hand looked, even beside her small hands.
She felt nauseated. She took a breath and held it. Unspilled tears blurred her vision. She willed them away, suppressed them.
‘I wish you could stay, my only son, but your Father insists we do our duty, hold fast to tradition. The Earth is calling for you, demanding you, commanding you.’ She paused and released a long, stuttered breath. ‘Remember, no matter where you are my child you’ll always be little Remi to me. Please remember.’
‘Mother, I'm going be the toughest Wounded Son there is.’ Remi puffed up his chest and held an imaginary rifle to his chest. ‘I will kill the enemy for the Supremacy. I will be brave and I will never cry, no matter how much they try to hurt me.’
Katyiana hugged him. ‘I know. You’ll be the biggest and the bravest and the best. And maybe one day...’
‘Yes?’
‘Oh, nothing. It’s not important. You just be the best. Make us proud. Keep still a moment.’
‘Ow!’ Remi rubbed at his head. ‘Why did you pull my hair, Mother?’
Katyiana put the hair strands in a locket attached to her necklace ‘It’s so I have something of you when I’m scared. A keepsake. I will hold this locket, think of you and all my fears will drift away.’ She smiled wistfully and brushed Remi’s hair from out of his eyes. ‘Now go. Your father has something for you before the big ship takes you.’
Remi jumped down from the bench and ran back towards the palace. He didn’t look back.
It was as if it was all nothing to him. An adventure. She had feared this moment from the day he was born. It had never left her thoughts. She had tried to prepare herself for it, had tried to reason with herself, scold herself, to divert her thoughts to something frivolous, to work harder and submerge her fears, but nothing had worked. ‘Oh, my boy,’ she said. ‘My darling boy. I will miss you so very much.’
A tear rolled down her cheek.
*
As Remi approached the main ballroom of his Father’s Palace, he could hear voices and chamber music intermingle to create a cacophony. There were many dignitaries here, stern jawed men and crying women. He didn’t know who they were, but he knew they were important because they wore uniforms or dressed smartly, held their chins up and bared their necks, strutted like peacocks, so aware of themselves. He had been to these functions before, when the big ships had come to take other children away to fight for the glory of Earth, for the Supremacy.
From somewhere in the hubbub, Remi heard his father’s voice, stern and yet still jovial and warm. ‘Ah, Remi. There you are, boy. Come here.’
Remi marched briskly to the small crowd that enveloped his father. He always ran to his mother, yet had always walked to his father.
‘I would like you to meet Fleet Admiral J'ktai. He is in charge of the ships taking all you boys to your new lives.’
Remi saluted a tall, wiry man. He had a bionic where his left eye should be. It made him stare unblinkingly, like an owl. Remi could smell the starch of his uniform and the sharp creases looked as though they could cut a man.
The Admiral leered at him. ‘So you’re the boy who will be joining the honourable Wounded Sons, eh? You do know what’s ahead of you, boy? The trials that will be set before you, hmm?’ He smiled at Remi, at least Remi thought he did, but in truth, the crusty old man’s face never changed, never moved. It seemed to simply flicker a smile and then dissolve in to something thin, hard and cruel. He bent to whisper in Remi's ear. ‘I give you six weeks before you quit and want your dear sweet Mummy. Your whole family are quitters boy and bought nobility doesn’t buy your way into becoming a Wounded Son!’
He straightened up and almost-smiled at Remi’s father. ‘A fine lad if ever I saw one, Alessaunder. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have others I must meet.’ He bowed and evaporated into the crowd.
Alessaunder rested a hand on his son’s shoulder. ‘That man is your ticket to success. Mark him well, boy. You’re shaking. What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing, Father. I didn’t know I was shaking. I’ll control myself.’
‘Good, now is not the time to show emotion. You’re being ascended, my boy. It’s a great honour for you and the family. We will not show weakness to our honoured guests. Come, I’ll have you meet your training sergeant.’
He steered Remi through the crowd of diplomats and dignitaries, to an area where a huge man was holding court, all eyes upon him, his solid arms gesticulating wildly as he acted out his words, his eyes picking out individuals, hypnotising them, their fascination and awe etched upon their faces. He wore a simple cream smock fastened at the neck by a thick golden brooch depicting Earth.
Alessaunder watched and waited. He would not dare to interrupt. He did not want to interrupt. This was a great soldier, a revered warrior, his reputation founded upon glory, his temper and his loyalty, his valour and his military genius. He had created victory from certain defeat and his conquests had gone from truth, to legend, to myth. To simply stand and listen to him was an honour.
Eventually, the sergeant wound down, his story coming to an end, his onlookers far more exhausted by his tale than he ever was in the living of it.
Alessaunder stepped forward. ‘Sergeant Mendad, I would like you to meet my son and your new prospect.’
Remi looked up until his neck hurt. He had never seen a man so big, not even the cage wrestlers he secretly watched on the video transmissions were this big. The sergeant smiled, a genuine, affectionate smile that spoke of more than war and the lust to kill, but of the realisation that, if war had its place, then so did the hearts of men. Tightly cropped grey hair at his temples gave him an austere air. The crows’ feet that seeped like tributaries of wisdom from his eyes spoke of experience and survival.
He made Remi feel safe. The boy liked him at once.
Mendad went down on one knee, and inclined his head. ‘Pleasure to meet you young Master Orthesian.’ He held out his hand. Remi took it and found his entire hand engulfed by work-hardened, calloused flesh. ‘I’m sure you’ll do well. Your uncle has. He’s currently fighting valiantly for the Wounded Sons in the wars against the enemies of the Terran Supremacy. Someday you may even be in his platoon. What do you say to that?’
Remi looked Sergeant Mendad in the eye. ‘One day, sir, I will have my own platoon.’
Sergeant Mendad roared with laughter. ‘I’m sure you will. I’m sure you will.’
*
The landing pad heaved with activity; menials ran between boxes, weighted down like ants, determined to reach their goal. The normally quiet, pristine area was littered with boxes of supplies, each labelled, each echoing the destiny of its owner. Chancery menials checked off passengers and cargo as they embarked or were loaded on to the waiting transport. Trucks darted to and fro in an effort to load the cargo on time. Delays were unacceptable. Anxious, tearful parents wished their loved ones farewell. Fathers stood with their hands behind their back as if they were holding themselves from any show of emotion. The women, as if compensating for their husbands, knelt next to their children and held them, wept upon their shoulders, ran their hands across their faces as if to get a final image of their child set in their mind, perhaps to leave a final residue, a scent, of their child upon their hands and clothes.
The landing ramp opened and revealed the yawning chasm of the ship’s interior. Five Wounded Sons either side of the ramp formed an honour guard. Their armour gleamed. The maroon of the plasitech weave contrasted heavily with the white piping of their armour. They stood to attention as Sergeant Mendad made his way to the landing platform.
Remi stood with his mother and father. Katyiana fussed, yet tried not to dissolve as the other mothers had. Her boy deserved a better memory of her than that. ‘You have everything you need?’
Alessaunder gently tried to ease her away. ‘Let the boy breathe, my dear.’
Alessaunder unclenched the whitened fingers behind his back and reached into a pocket. ‘I have something for you my boy.’ He handed Remi a velvet package. His father never gave him things. Birthdays were his mother’s prerogative. In that second, he didn’t care what it was; a pip from a fruit or a passport to eternal life, he didn’t care, because it came from him.
With shaking hands Remi unfolded the velvet cloth. His eyes widened as he saw an antique made pistol, its barrel encrusted with ivory inlays showing the family crest. Its grip was made from the finest leather.
Alessaunder knelt down next to him. ‘My father gave that to me. He had aspirations for me. He wanted me to join the officer cadre of the Supreme Guard, but this put paid to that...’ He hit his left leg and dull metallic clang was heard. It was no secret that in his youth he had lost leg in a skimmer accident. ‘So I pass it on to you. Treat her well and she will protect you.’
Alessaunder stood and looked down at his boy. Had he stayed down there he would have held onto him and never let him go. He placed his hand on his head. ‘Goodbye, my only son. I am and always will be proud of you.’ He stroked Remi’s head and then strode away without looking back.
Katyriana knelt down and hugged him. ‘Your father loves you, you know.’ She kissed his forehead and smelled his hair. ‘Go, my son. Make me proud. Be a good marine. I will always love you. Please remember.’
Remi frowned. ‘I’ll remember, Mother. I will. Always.’
She gently pushed him forward to where Sergeant Mendad was waiting. She started to shake and turned away. She didn’t want Remi to see her cry.
‘Are you ready young Orthesian? Go now up the ramp and your squad leader will billet you. Today you embark on the greatest adventure you could ever have, serving the Supremacy.’
She saw him embark and then watched the transport ship gently heave itself into the sky and gradually disappear.
She stayed long after everybody else had gone.
Chapter Two
Sybelle V – 300 Years Later
From afar, to anyone who knew of the world long gone, that dead world of old languages and ancient superstitions, this place would have seemed warm, would have reminded them of the days of the ecclesia, the locis cultus, the sanctis, the holy sites that bound man and God, into which a man could step with the sins of the world upon his shoulders and leave cleansed as if born again.
Villages and towns, countries and continents, rose and fell to the sound of their bells. In the name of their God, men grew rich and powerful, held themselves high above those who fell at their feet. In the name of their God, men killed without discrimination, driven on by blood-lust and the cause of the just. In the name of their God men died, never to be reborn.
Yet in all this mayhem, faith held. These Towers of Babel stood strong as sanctuary and symbol, but like that great Tower, their one God came down and scattered them upon the face of the Earth and confused their languages, so that they would not be able to return to each other, would no longer understand each other’s ways or each other’s words. Their common goal, the elevation of their God, deformed into the elevation of themselves and somewhere, in the chaos that ensued, God was slain and Man lost his soul.
All that was left were dusty, silent icons, echoes of worship, great stone memorials to myth and legend and man.
In such gothic halls walked the millions; unthinking, unaware, there only to do what they were programmed to do, to worship a new transcendence – the Chancery.
*
Elmond, for some unknown reason, enjoyed his life. He felt a deep contentment when he awoke at the start of the day and this feeling rarely deserted him to the cusp of sleep.
He took pleasure in the journey to his pinpoint place in this giant honeycomb of toil. He revelled in the scent of parchment that clung to the air like the skin of dead time. He closed his eyes and smelled the almost subliminal whiff of electricity that burned through invisible strands in the walls and in the ground. He loved the velvet silence, especially when it was broken by the ricochet of footsteps or the distant creak of a door or the hum of machinery that vibrated minutely through the floor and up through his feet and almost thrilled his diminished brain into life.
He was at one with his world.
Yet he should not have been. There should have been no thrill, no contentment, no pleasure, no oneness. No feelings at all.
Sometimes he would feel the small scar on his head and wonder at the significance of it. They all had it, like a badge, a birthmark; one small, oval pockmark at the back of his head, as if someone had at one time drilled through his skull. Sometimes, when he was tired, it hurt. If he pressed it, massaged it, the pain would subside.
By observing those around him, he could see the difference between him and them. Never did their fingers circle that small hole on their head until the pain drained away and the sheer relief from it replenished their depleted reserves. Never did he see them stop to stare at the great arched, stained-glass windows or look towards the pencil thin shaft of light that shone like Hope through a minuscule gap in the paintwork. Never did he see them lift a head towards the door that creaked. Never did he see them walk as if there was a lightness in each step that could only come from a desire to be at their destination and start all over again. Never did they hurry home to taste forbidden fruit.
Never, he was certain, did they feel the same ecstasy as he did when he was cataloguing the old data or running his thin fingers over parchment, feeling for the wrinkle of ink that stained it and trying to imagine, to touch, the hand that set down those words that so excited him, made him feel so alive.
Yet, they must never know. He must never show his...what? What was this he felt? How did he feel? It was certain death to be caught feeling, questioning, knowing. Yet he did and it scared him and filled him with terror and he knew that he must suppress these thoughts, these feelings and keep them to himself. No one must know that he knows.
If it was from a drill, this hole in his head, did they not go deep enough? Or did the fact that they all had the hole mean that they were all his brothers, that they had the same genes and the same scars? Was he genetically deformed? Was he a monster, hidden in its shell, waiting for the quietest of days when he could explode from his shell and taunt and maim and take the world?
There was shame in such thoughts. There was a sensuous delight.
Down here among the old dusty parchments of the old world and the electronic data slates of this new world, he felt he belonged.
The parchments were in a language that no one but the most senior of civil servants could, or were permitted, to understand; yet he understood them. For years he assumed that everyone did. He never mentioned that he understood them, because he thought it was normal. Then, gradually, he noticed that no one lingered over the slates and parchments; their dead eyes merely passed over them like dark clouds across an empty land. They filed them and moved on. Elmond had never mentioned it because, quite simply, they never talked to each other. The lack of social awareness to which they had been adapted was his good fortune, had probably saved his life.
He didn’t know where he had acquired this ability to translate old languages, to interpret them, but he knew it was some sort of gift. Or curse.
He had learned many things about the Supremacy and its history. Some of the documents he guessed were thousands of years old. Compared to the boring routine data slates which consisted mainly of Terran taxes for food, ore and manpower, these musty parchments actually told him about the system in which he lived.
Elmond was a menial in this governmental web. Every day he plugged his cranial implants into the colossal computers and input the relentless flow of data slates. He had figured out the minimum he had to do daily without causing suspicion. This left him time to enjoy reading the old texts and learning.
If he was ever caught doing this he would be mem wiped and put to work in a foundry where his life expectancy would be months, but there was an indescribable pleasure in reading about the flora and fauna of different worlds, of the lives of other races, of their habitats and their place within the Supremacy’s universe. He read of the exploits of the legendary Enhanced and dreamed of what it would be like to hunt foul aliens and heretics, to be something, someone; to make a difference.
Only one other had gained access to his secretive world and in that moment, when she had declared herself, he had believed himself to be as good as dead.
At end of day, with a parchment concealed down each arm and one other hidden beneath his cloak, he had left upon the orderly tide that carried them all away from their work into the tributaries of their non-work lives.
The further from work they went, the thinner the great river became until it was little more than a trickle.
Elmond had sensed that someone had stayed close to him since they had left their computers. He knew they were there because they had fallen out of step. Everybody in the mechanised outpouring from work had the same monotonous walk. Out of necessity, to keep the throng moving, they all fell into the same pattern - left, right, left, right. Those who fell out first were on the outside of the torrent so that their leaving did not disrupt the flow; the closer to the middle you were, the further you had to walk. It made sense.
Yet Elmond had heard this trippety-trip behind him, as if someone was changing pace and place to keep up with him. Twice he had felt the softest nudge against his back as whoever it was had failed to keep in time.
Eventually, few remained.
‘I know what you did.’
A whispered, female voice.
Elmond walked on, his pace unchanged, willing himself to do what he thought would be the natural thing. Ignore it. Nobody talked to the likes of him, therefore, logically, this voice was not for him.
‘I saw you. First your left arm, then your right and the final one...well. I can only think how uncomfortable that must be.’
Now his heart-rate rose. Now he felt beads of sweat ooze from him like worms. Now he felt light-headed and wanted to run, to disappear, to wake up and feel the damp, cold relief of a nightmare.
His steps faltered. If this was a test, he had failed. They would sense his sweat, hear his heartbeat, know that the misstep was an admission of guilt. This was his trial. His journey home had been his trial and his last stumbling steps had been his guilty plea.
Somehow, he reached his sparse quarters, which lay within one of the grey, imposing monoliths into which the workers darted at the end of their day. The footsteps behind had fallen in time, but had never left. At the entrance he stopped. He hung his head, defeated. He wished that he didn’t have to go to the foundry, that whoever it was would shoot him now and leave, so that his body could be taken away and disposed of by the cleaners and it could be as if he had never existed.
‘Well?’ she said. ‘Aren’t you going to invite me in?’
*
The truth had been a little more prosaic. He had been followed home. He had been followed home by a woman. He had been followed home by a woman who had seen him slide the parchments under his robes. That, however, was about as sinister as it had been.
Chrysanne, as he had found her name to be, was actually little more than uncertain of her way back to her quarters. She had recognised Elmond as her new neighbour and had made up her mind to follow him so that she did not get lost. What she didn’t know was the manner in which that mighty river ran and she had been dragged to and fro in its current until she had seen him and eventually managed to settle in behind him.
Yes, she had seen him take the parchments, but she didn’t care. As long as she could control the pains that she occasionally got where the scar was on her head, she didn’t care about anything. As long as she could carry on as she was, content, maybe different, but enjoying that difference, she would happily go with the flow.
She freely shared these thoughts with Elmond as if she had been kept bound and gagged for years. She talked as if she would never stop and Elmond found himself transfixed by her. At last, he had someone with whom he could share his life, his thoughts, his secrets. It was as if the pleasure he gained from the parchments had, in a heady flash of delight, been doubled. To share, to teach and by teaching to have his eyes opened further still seemed to open a whole new window upon his life.
She listened intently as he showed her the parchments and related the tales that were hidden within them. She encouraged him, pushed him, to divulge more and more. Her hunger for knowledge seemed insatiable.
So each night, two menials would come together and, in fear and joy, share thoughts and deeds and journey into the new worlds that had been buried by time and political control.
Each day they would rejoin the salmon rush, oblivious to each other, do their allotted tasks and wait for the end of day, for the regulation eight hour rest, when they could once again find freedom within their confinement.
From this confinement, their friendship blossomed and they grew to look forward, not just to the deciphering of the parchments, but to being with each other. Elmond had never known companionship, he had never shared. To interact with another and find that it was indeed second nature to do so was simple joy.
In this effortless way they carried on for day after day, season after season, year after year.
They developed a routine. When their allotted deadline came to finish for the day, they would join the crowd and allow themselves to be carried along towards home. She would stand in front of Elmond to disguise any untoward bulge and to ensure that prying eyes had reason to hover upon him.
Sometimes, they would veer off early and head for the lower depths of the Chancery, to where the sub-basements were that held the history of eternity.
They both had a right to be there; they were, after all, clerks of the Chancery and as such were required to go anywhere to get anything at any time. The fact that it was out of hours was perhaps a cause for suspicion, but so lax had the Chancery become, so confident in its power through fear, so sure of its ability to manipulate and construct these creatures from the second of their birth, that there was an assumption that out of all the millions of clerks who worked there, not a one was capable of, or would dare to, veer away from the line that represented their ordained lives.
*
‘No, no, no. This won’t do.’
Elmond tutted and ran his fingers over the dry parchment edges. They passed across his fingers with tiny rasps. Randomly, he would pull one out and scan the page. If it looked promising, he would glance furtively around, then secrete it about him. The majority of the time he simply shook his head, refilled the parchment with the look of an old woman whose cakes had turned out less than satisfactorily, and carried on plucking papers. Even this held a deep fulfilment for him. The anticipation of discovery was half the battle, half the victory. With every flicked edge came a flurry of dust and with each flurry of dust came that beautiful smell of wisdom and age. Some of the parchments had been filed and refiled so often that the words upon them had almost disappeared, rendering them illegible. It was so disappointing to see such knowledge fade away. Sometimes he would take one that was clearly beyond saving, just to see if he could save it.
He stopped. ‘Oh. This is new.’ His eyes narrowed and homed in upon something. ‘Oh, yes. Most certainly. Most certainly.’
He pulled out a time-worn leather bound parchment. The ancient, yellowed paper inside shone like gold. Unusually, the parchment was fastened with a solid titanium lock.
Elmond moved away from the enormous stack of parchments and held it up to the meagre light. The lock had a stylised ‘I’ on it.
‘I wonder...what this is...exactly.’
He placed the book, for that is what it essentially was, upon a nearby table, pulled out the rickety chair beneath it and sat.
Chrysanne came and stood next to him. ‘You don’t know what it is?’
‘No. You?’
‘Me? No.’
Elmond contemplated it some more, tutted and shook his head. He pulled a sleeve back and exposed his arm. His skin pulsated as something came to life beneath it and then from out of what looked like a vein, emerged a small, highly mobile metal tentacle. The emerging tentacle moved snake-like towards the book, almost sniffing the air, and probed the lock. It was to no avail.
He pursed his lips. ‘I'll work on this at my quarters.’
Chrysanne smiled, used to his way of 'borrowing' parchments so he could read them at home.
Elmond slipped the book beneath his robes, failing to notice a small red light start to blink from within the lock.
They tidied up the remaining parchments and headed to the stairwell leading up to the main floor and home.
Chrysanne went first as always, her eyes constantly darting about to make sure that they weren’t being unduly watched. Something told her that, this time, Elmond had stumbled onto something.
She beckoned him and he followed, clutching at the bulky book beneath his clothing. He didn’t look abnormal. He had got into the habit of walking with his hands across his body; to not do so would be considered suspicious.
He walked slowly, head down, contemplative, unthreatening, insignificant.
They stepped into the stairwell. Their footsteps upon the cold stone stairs echoed against the narrow walls.
As he fell, he thought he had tripped upon his cloak or had slipped upon the stairs, but something, a force, carried him back and up and slammed him hard against the wall. At the same time, his world became muffled, as if all he could hear was internalised, as if he had water in his ears.
He sunk to the floor, the wind knocked out of him. He rubbed his face, partly as a reaction to whatever it was that had pushed, but also to get whatever it was...a cobweb...sweet syrup...thick oil...from his face, out of his eyes.
In the dimness, he looked at his hand. It was dark, almost black. What was it? Machine oil? It looked like machine oil. Had there been an explosion of some sort?
He looked down, to see if he was injured, but all he saw was Chrysanne’s face, eyes closed, still, mouth slightly open, the same black oil trailing from her lacerated face.
He reached out. ‘Chrysanne? Are you okay? Chrysanne?’
He looked beyond her, up the stairs down which they had just been blown. Someone was slumped across the stairs. ‘Chrysanne?’
He looked again at her face, then back up the stairs and it dawned upon him that the body on the stairs belonged to the head at his feet.
He recoiled against the wall. He ran his hands over himself. He was uninjured. It was not machine oil. It was blood; Chrysanne’s blood. It pooled at his feet and dripped stickily down the stairs. It crept towards him as he backed away, instinctively kicked out at it to keep it at bay.
Then, in his near-deafness, he heard a high-pitched ‘clink-clink-clink’ as something small and metallic bounced down the stairs, over Chrysanne’s body, towards him.
He didn’t know what it was, but his instinct was to flee. As he dizzily tried to raise himself, the object exploded with another disorientating thump. He fell again and was enveloped in the smoke that saturated the air and filled his lungs.
He coughed and retched, unable to take in clean air. His lungs filled with fluid and he vomited.
Somewhere in the smoke, in the background of the chaos in which he was now enveloped, he heard two more ‘clink-clink-clink’s. He knew that there would be more smoke. He knew that when the explosions hit, the shockwaves from those alone would be enough to kill him, never mind drowning in the secretions that poured from his dying lungs.
There was nowhere to go. Chrysanne was dead. He would be too in just a moment. He fell down again, prepared to die.
As the first thunderclap burst in the stairwell, he felt a hand against his shoulder. Through oncoming blackness, with his innate desire to survive, he kicked out and punched the air.
He felt a large hand against his throat.
‘Stop fighting, damn you!’
Just feeling the hand against his throat was enough to drain what little strength he had left. He went limp and felt himself being dragged away. In the distance he heard the second bang. Something in him realised he was away from the stairwell. ‘Chrysanne,’ he said.
‘If that’s who was with you, she’s dead.’
He tried to open his eyes and failed.
As he felt himself being dragged along the floor, he gratefully passed out.
*
On the journey from unconsciousness to wakefulness, the first sense to return is the hearing. This is why, combined with pitch, the sound of a crying baby wakes its mother. Smell comes a very close second, which is why smelling salts and the cooking of certain foods can rouse a person.
It was the smell of antiseptic that first began to bring Elmond round. It was a vile stench; cheap and pungent, it stank of the earth, of decayed plant life, of sickness.
He wanted to vomit.
It wasn’t the smell that made him feel like this, although it was a free extra that he suspected came with the package, but dizziness, even lying down, as if someone had slapped their open palms against his ears and left him disorientated and deafened.
He tried to roll onto his side as the nausea swept over him.
‘Keep still.’
A pair of hands held him, not roughly, just enough to stop him moving.
‘Keep still. I need to finish this.’
Elmond opened his eyes. It was dark, indistinct. ‘Finish what? What are you doing?’
‘Keep still, let me finish and I’ll tell you.’ The voice, male, young, was firmly patient. It was clear that whoever it was had done whatever he was doing before.
A pain shot through Elmond’s shoulder as the young man pressed against it. He tried to pull away, but there was really nowhere to go.
With a sigh, the young man peeled off some gloves, put them back into his pocket and helped Elmond sit up against a wall. ‘You were shot.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ said Elmond. It really was such an absurd idea that he didn’t know what else to say.
‘You’re very chatty for a menial,’ said the young man. He had a soft voice that induced calm in the listener, edged, thought Elmond, with humour. ‘And clearly a little unwilling to accept facts when they’re presented to you. I believe the word is stubborn. Open your eyes fully and take a look around. Give your eyes time to adjust. You have good reasons for feeling the way you do. Trust me.’
Elmond forced his eyes to open. They felt so heavy. His head felt as if it was balanced on a pivot and likely to topple.
He looked around. He was on a mattress on the floor in a concrete room. Other than the young man who had tended to him, he was alone.
There was a single, inefficient light embedded in the wall next to what looked like the only door into the room. The pathetic illumination rendered the room little more than depthless shadow. He could have been in a hangar or a bedroom.
‘I was shot?’
‘Yes. It’s a laser injury. It cauterised the wound on the way through. Lucky. Very lucky. You could’ve lost a limb. I’ve dressed it to prevent any superficial infection. The pain’s just bruising, really. You can’t have a bunch of photons bump their way through you without a little pain.’
‘Where am I?’
‘Somewhere safe. That’s all you need to know for now.’
‘This is a cell of some sort. Am I a prisoner?’
Something shuffled in the shadows. ‘That’s enough. He’s your patient, Doctor, not your buddy. Now shut the hell up and move aside.’
The doctor backed away, head down, like a scolded child.
Elmond could roughly place the voice in the cell. If he squinted, he could just see a darker shadow among the other shadows, but even then, he wasn’t sure what was illusion and what was real.
‘It’s good to see you’ve regained your senses, menial. Well, you’re awake at least. As for your senses...’
The voice was a contrast to the doctor’s voice. There was no give in it, no compromise, no compassion. The man came forward from the shadows and stood over Elmond, half lit.
Elmond recognised the clothing. He was wearing the rough overalls of a foundry worker except, on his chest and shoulders, he wore what looked like guard issue plasitech armour.
His hair was close cropped grey. There were one or two bald patches, as if he had developed alopecia or some sort of worm infestation. Beneath that was the face of a guard dog; permanently snarling, lined, tough.
He lowered himself to Elmond’s level, balanced on his haunches like a vulture.
From his jacket he took a leather bound book with what looked like a titanium lock on it. He held it up so that he was sure Elmond could see it. ‘Know what this is?’
Elmond shook his head.
The guard-dog leaned forward. He placed his index finger against Elmond’s wound, then rolled forward on the balls of his feet until he had leaned all his weight against the injured shoulder.
Elmond screamed. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know.’
Guard-dog leaned back slightly and relieved the pressure on Elmond’s wound. ‘Sure you do. You had it tucked under your robes when we dragged you out of there. You wouldn’t have tucked it under your robes unless you thought something of it. Would you?’
He leaned forward again, not so far, just enough to let Elmond know what was coming.
Elmond tried to move his shoulder away, but the finger just followed. ‘Some sort of ancient document. I don’t know. I couldn’t get it open. The lock. The lock. I couldn’t open it.’
Guard-dog shook his head. ‘Boy, oh boy. You are either very, very stupid, very, very curious or a great liar.’
‘I tend towards curious.’
‘Well now, you know, the brother of Mr Curious is Señor Stupid. The two kind of go together. You’re curiosity just got you into a whole load of shit.’ He tapped the book. ‘I’ll tell you what this is, shall I?’
‘Okay.’
‘Well, as well as being your potential death-sentence, this is an Inquisitional document. I know that menials like you do not have clearance to read documents like this. I doubt you have clearance to even sniff at a document like this.’
Elmond stared at the book. He had heard of the Inquisition, of course; the holiest of holy men, the organisation that sought out heresy, infection, mutants and the enemies of the Supremacy. To people like him, they were nothing but fear. If you saw a member of the Inquisition, it’s because they wanted to see you.
‘I didn’t know...’ he said feebly. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know.’
Guard-dog smiled, but the smile was all teeth. ‘That much I believe. What you also didn’t know is that playing with the lock when you were in the archives set off a transponder. That, in turn, alerted a team to come and kill whoever it was trying to open this rather sensitive piece of documentation. That in turn, along with your damned curiosity, got my agent killed!’
‘What? Agent?’
‘The woman, dammit. The woman.’
‘Chrysanne?’
‘I don’t care what the hell you called her. She was killed because you were nosey. Nosey!’ Guard-dog punched him square on the nose. ‘Don’t cry. You earned it!’
Elmond held his face. He could feel blood pouring freely between his fingers, but he didn’t care. He didn’t know whether to feel betrayed or angry or sorry for himself.
Guard-dog sounded weary. ‘Can you tell me what the hell was so important that a kill-team was sent after the person that opened this? Can you tell me what was so important that our agent, who had spent so long befriending you and leeching information from you, had to die?’
Elmond shook his head. He couldn’t speak. His mouth was full of blood, his eyes full of tears, his head tortured by the idea that his hope had been dashed by duplicity.
Guard-dog leaned in towards Elmond until his face was barely a centimetre away. ‘What? You didn’t think she loved you, did you? Did you think you two menials, you two deformities, were going to get married and have cute, brainless babies? You were her job. That’s it. She cared more for the dead skin between her toes than she did for you.’
He put the book on Elmond’s lap. ‘This is your baby. From now on, that book is your family. Our specialist has disarmed the alarm and opened the lock. You have six hours to read it and translate it. If you even hint to me that you can’t do this, I’ll kill you. If it’s not done in six hours, I’ll kill you. Hell, I might kill you anyway. Do I make myself clear?’
Elmond nodded.
‘Brother Maynerd here will stay with you. If your shoulder gives you any pain, he will deal with it. If you need more light, food, drink, he will deal with it. And if you get any funny ideas about escaping, he’ll deal with that too.’
Brother Maynerd, a doctor no more, leaned against the wall opposite Elmond, a laser pistol in hand.
Guard-dog got up and went to the door. ‘The clock’s ticking, menial. Start reading.’
*
There was no concept of time. There was no passing sun or moon to see, no clock to watch, no second hand tick-ticking in some dark corner to confirm that time even existed. Even the temperature had remained constant.
As for the doctor, he sat unblinkingly opposite Elmond as if he had simply switched himself off.
At the start of the process, someone had brought a chair for the doctor, a table and chair for Elmond and some bread and water. There was enough to satisfy his immediate needs. The toilet, he was told, was ‘any dark corner’.
Gradually the high-pitched C note that had been in his ears had subsided and his muffled hearing had returned almost to normal.
He thought his nose was probably broken.
His mind was shattered.
It was hard to believe that Chrysanne had never really been a friend, merely someone in the employ of strangers, sent to weasel information from him and pass it on.
He didn’t know what love was; it was not a concept that he had experienced. Menials had no parents, no brothers and no sisters. His family was the billions of clones that were sent to all the departments under the stars and his parent, the Supremacy.
Yet he knew he would miss her. There had been a bond between them. Maybe it was the fact that they were not ordinary, not simply brainless deformities, which made the difference. What he knew was that where there had been something, there was now a hole, a chasm and it held pain of a kind he had never felt before and was unable to define.
He would hold onto that.
He had started on the bound parchment almost as soon as Guard-dog had closed the cell door. He needed to divert his thoughts from Chrysanne, but he also burned to know what was in the parchment. What could there possibly be on a piece of old paper that could make one being want to kill another? The thought made him smile. Ridiculous. All he ever found was information about acreage and growth times and weather systems and ship design. The weather on Mars or Jupiter was not a thing to die for, unless, to be honest, it was from boredom. Jupiter – Monday – Storms; Tuesday – Storms, ad infinitum.
Elmond released the catch in the titanium lock. He almost felt it breathe a sigh of relief as it sprang open. Before he opened it fully, he bent forward and smelled the pages. The scent of history. That musty, dusty odour of knowledge and time.
With as much reverence as he could muster, he pulled back the shiny, dry leather cover, opened the book and began to read.
*
The rusty metal door opened. Guard-dog entered the room.
‘Anything?’
Brother Maynerd shrugged and pointed at Elmond. ‘He was fine and then, about thirty minutes ago, he just started to sob. He didn’t say a word. Just started crying. It’s really annoying. Can I shoot him?’
‘Shut up.’
Guard-dog wandered over to Elmond and perched on the edge of the table. ‘What the hell is the matter with you?’
Elmond wiped a sleeve across his face.
‘Well, my little civil servant? What does it say?’
Elmond shook his head and ran his fingers over the pages of the book. Now it felt like dead skin. It felt like the skin of a million tortured souls.
‘Lies,’ he said. ‘It’s all lies.’ He shrugged. Whatever hope he had was now drained from him. ‘The Supremacy would not allow things like this. I worship its name. I bless its name and it would not allow things like this!’
Guard-dog jumped from the table and whipped the doctor’s chair from under him. The doctor slumped to the floor without a groan. He was clearly used to this.
Guard-dog put the chair opposite Elmond and sat, the table between them. ‘Allow what?’
‘Betrayal. A betrayal committed by men who are meant to keep us safe.’
‘Go on.’
‘No. I won’t go on. I will not. I will not talk of this travesty, this heinous crime. I know...I know what I am. I know what I have done is wrong. I know that I have learned of things far beyond my abilities and my standing in this great society of ours. I was wrong. And I would rather die than spread this filth about the Supremacy. The Supremacy does not allow harm. The Supremacy protects.’
Guard-dog leaned back and crossed his legs. Elmond could see the struggle within him cross his face. If Guard-dog didn’t kill him now, he never would.
‘Let me tell you about our Supremacy, my little man. Let me tell you how benevolent he is, how caring he is, how honest he is, how he loves his billions of subjects across the galaxies.’
Now Elmond knew he was safe. His written translation was in front of him. They could have killed him and taken them and left his body to rot; only they didn’t. Why not?
‘Let me tell you about Brother Maynerd. Tell me why, in its magnificence, the Supremacy allowed his mother, father, brother and sister to be executed, then made him watch while they killed his wife and children. They waited for him to return home and before his unbelieving eyes, butchered his family.’
‘They must have broken the law. The Supremacy doesn’t kill for no reason. They must have broken the law.’
‘Their crime, if that is what you wish to call it, was eating the leftovers from the Governor’s table. They had to scrabble about on their hands and knees and through bins and half-empty plates because of the conditions that our mighty, munificent Supremacy has forced upon certain sections of our society.’
‘I don’t have to listen to this,’ protested Elmond. He put his hands over his ears, cowered in the bombardment of lies that echoed around the room. ‘I will not listen.’
Guard-dog leaned across, pulled Elmond’s hands away from the side of his head and pinned them to the table. ‘You will listen. You will hear. You know why? Because they were not just his wife and his children. They were my sister, my niece and nephew. My blood!’
‘They broke the law! They must have been mutants. Mutants should not survive. They don’t add to society, they take away. They broke the law.’
‘She was three years old! My niece was three years old. Her brother was five. Their crime was to be born into poverty and to try to survive. You broke the law! You stole. You stuffed parchments in your clothing as if they were yours. Then you stole the knowledge within them. You didn’t need that knowledge to survive. You could not chew that knowledge. You could not gain physical strength from that knowledge. You could not survive until the next dawn on that knowledge. You stole something you did not need. Should I now kill you for your theft?’
He pushed Elmond’s hands away and watched him curl into a ball on his seat, hands back over his ears, face hidden in his knees.
‘Mutants? You talk of mutants? You weren’t born with computer slots in your head or a tentacle in your arm. You are mutated. Should you die for that? What about the Enhanced? They’re genetically altered to be the ultimate soldier. Are they not mutants?’
‘We serve a purpose through our mutations.’
‘Does that mean that if you had no mutations you would have no purpose? Should we kill you then? Every living thing has a purpose. Mutant or non-mutant. They have a right to life.’
Elmond lifted his head. ‘No one has a right to life. Only a duty to serve.’
‘Let me tell you about our world. Even you with all your reading may not know this. A millennia ago this was a fertile world. We had cattle, plants, harvests, a successful agriculture, a successful world. Then miners found ore, ore that was needed by the Supremacy, so what did your Supremacy do? It sent mining ships. It sent half-men to mine for him. It turned our world into a polluted waste ground. It mined all the ore until this planet was no more than a husk, useful for nothing more than storing records. So, tell me, just how is the Supremacy protecting us?’
Elmond didn’t, couldn’t, reply. In him, they had found their man. They had found the one in millions who they knew would understand what this man said.
‘Now, tell me. Apart from your bleeding heart, what’s in this document?’
‘Read the translation.’
‘I don’t want to read the translation. I want you to tell me.’
‘No.’
Guard-dog punched him in his wounded shoulder. It felt like an electric shock had been passed through his body. He fell from his chair and landed heavily on the floor.
‘Tell me.’
Elmond dragged himself up and planted himself back in the chair. ‘No.’
Guard-dog pulled his fist back. Elmond closed his eyes and prepared for the pain. It didn’t come. He opened his eyes. Guard-dog’s fist was down and rested in his lap.
‘Please.’
‘Please?’
Guard-dog nodded his head, but didn’t look up. ‘Please.’
Elmond took a deep breath. The man before him was plainly as exhausted as he was, possibly more so. He looked haunted.
Elmond relented. ‘It’s a journal from Inquisitor Mordeen. In it, Mordeen explains that a star system fallen into rebellion and become infected. Most of the system was made up of ore and ocean worlds. They had small populations and were generally insignificant. However, there was one planet, a largely agricultural one, called Orthese. I’m not sure of the details of it, but there was a whisper that this was the seat of rebellion. This longevity was enough to draw the Supremacy’s attention and the Inquisitors commenced an investigation. The planet, the people, were found by the investigation to be infected. I’m not sure on what basis or what evidence. I haven’t had enough chance to find that yet. The Inquisitors ordered the whole system purged. Over forty billion souls were sacrificed to the Supremacy.’
Guard-dog shook his head. ‘It’s awful, but it’s the nature of the inquisition. They kill quietly and quickly. They commit genocide for the Supremacy every hour of every day.’
Elmond put up a hand. ‘Oh, there’s more. They discovered that Orthese was the main recruitment centre for the Wounded Sons clan and ordered the clan to report. The Wounded Sons never came. Maybe they didn’t get the message, maybe they chose to ignore it. Either way, the Inquisitors branded them as traitors and issued an order to kill-on-sight. Those brave men, those marines who every day risk their lives for the good of this great Supremacy, are now being hunted by everyone who has read this and by anyone who has seen the warrants issued for them.’
Guard-dog looked perplexed. ‘What the hell happened to those marines? Brother Maynerd, use our contacts to find out about this clan. Why didn’t they turn up? Were they warned? Maybe the Inquisitors aren’t as arse-tight in their security as they think they are.’
‘I don’t believe this,’ said Elmond. ‘Things like this don’t happen in the Supremacy.’
‘Don’t be so damned naïve, scribe. The atrocities committed in the name of the Supremacy are beyond number. There’s more to this than the suppression of rebellion. I sense it.’
Guard-dog stood up and stretched his aching body. He felt like he hadn’t slept in a decade. ‘For your own safety and ours, you’ll remain here. False papers will be released stating you died in a terrible accident in the sub-basement of your work section. As of now, you no longer exist. My name’s Captain Framke.’ He held out his hand. ‘Welcome to the resistance’