Lethal Planet (6 page)

‘I might have known that you would find a way in first,’ Jason said. ‘How did you do it? Some clever trick with the bionoids?’

Brandon shook his head. At that moment, the lights came on, and Jason realised that they were surrounded. Lining the gantries and edges of the room were dozens of zelfs. All of them were wearing pink and purple body armour, and all of them had laser rifles pointed at Jason and Doo.

‘Nope, no tricks,’ Brandon said. ‘I just walked up to the front gate and surrendered.’

10—
PREDICANT

Jason, Brandon and Doo were marched under guard through the streets of Perazim. The wide avenues and open plazas were deserted. The building all looked the same: featureless steel and concrete blocks that looked as empty of life and purpose as the streets did. The city was cold, brutal and terrifying; the only sound was the sound of the zelf soldiers’ boots, which echoed around the skyscrapers’ facades like a hundred drums all beating at once.

But the city concealed history and secrets behind its blank face. Jason remembered the story that Brandon’s father, Talem Tarsus, had told them. Perazim, he had said, had risen around one ancient temple to Zaal—a stone pyramid, down the steps of which the blood of sacrifices flowed. As the city grew in size and power, the temple was raised up to into the sky. Now it perched on top of the highest building: the Tower of the Moons. Jason looked up; he could just about make out the temple glowing above them.

The zelf captain noticed him looking. ‘Don’t worry,
alien scum
, you’ll be seeing the pyramid a whole lot closer soon. The Arch Predicant wants to see you right away.’

The zelf’s voice was civilised, like a lot of upper class poshos Jason had known in London, and it dripped with cruel superiority. And this guy was just a soldier! Were they all like this? Talem and Paran—Brandon’s mother—had fled the planet twenty years to escape this self-righteous zealotry, and Jason imagined things must be a lot, lot worse now.

He wiped the blood away from his nose. It was bleeding from where one of the guards had hit him with the butt his laser rifle. That was after Jason had punched Brandon in the face. Jason looked across to where Brandon was walking, also closely surrounded by soldiers. His nose was bleeding too. Jason didn’t understand why he didn’t use the bionoids to fix it, but then he didn’t understand anything that Brandon did or said anymore.

It started to rain. Up above, another storm was raging outside the protective force field, but only a light drizzle managed to make it through to the city.
They try to keep the real world out
, Jason thought,
but it still creeps in
. He wondered if he would have chance to get a message out to the balaks, telling them about his rubber blanket brainwave. There was no way he was letting
that
idea go to waste!

The party entered a wide concourse, where a spaceship was waiting for them. It was ugly and dangerous-looking. The zelfs themselves might have been quite elegant and handsome by human standards, but their vehicles were brutal. This one crouched like an insect, and it was loaded with guns and cannons where an insect might bristle with hairs. It glistened black in the rain.

Jason, Doo and Brandon were pushed up a ramp at the side, and locked in a cramped compartment with only two narrow windows for decoration: one that looked out, and one opposite that was blacked out. Jason guessed that this was an observation panel, seeing that this was clearly a prisoner transport ship. They were unlikely to get a chance to speak privately in the city.

Well, the fact that they were probably watching wasn’t going to stop him having it out with Brandon. ‘What the hell were you thinking?’ he said angrily. ‘Surrendering? Of all the cowardly things to do!’

Brandon shook his head sadly. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m not a coward. You didn’t see what happened at the stronghold.’

All Jason and Doo had seen was the smoke. ‘Where’s Kat?’ he suddenly said. ‘Don’t tell me you abandoned her when you ran here crying for mercy!’

‘No,’ Brandon said again. ‘I didn’t. I …’

‘Brandon,’ Doo said. The ship was obviously equipped with translators. ‘Just tell us what happened after the wedding.’

Brandon looked dejectedly out of the window as the ship began to rise. Jason had never seen him look so miserable.

‘It was a massacre,’ he said. ‘There were hundreds of dragons stampeding through the jungle. The zelfs were flying low over the canopy, using electron beams to antagonise the dragons and herd them towards the stronghold. The balaks who tried to divert the dragons just got trampled or burned alive. I saved as many as I could; at one point I had the bionoids treating over a hundred injured balaks at the same time.’

Doo put her hand on Brandon’s shoulder in silent thanks.

‘But that was when the second attack came. The balaks were fleeing the stronghold and heading for the safety of some ancient caves. But it was a trap; I used the bionoids to read the zelfs’ minds, and found that they had found out about the caves several months ago, and had panted villaxx eggs deep inside. The cave network is now a massive nest, and the balaks were running from one danger to another. I managed to warn them before too many died …’

Jason punched the solid wall of their prison with his fist. ‘But if you had just done something about the zelfs in the first place …’

‘I promised that I’d never use the bionoids as a weapon. I promised my father! I … I …’

Brandon broke down completely, which was a bit awkward in such an enclosed space. Jason turned away and looked out of the window. They were rising past construction zones and spaceship docks. Other vehicles passed them, either flying, or travelling on roads suspended between the buildings. The city was coming to life the higher they went, and Jason realised that whereas on Earth, a city’s centre was its focal point, here in Perazim it was the summit that was the nucleus.

‘But you broke your promise,’ Doo said.

Jason didn’t understand when she meant, but when he looked back, Brandon was nodding.

‘I can see it in your eyes,’ Doo told him. ‘Our warriors have that look when they are fresh from their first kill. It will fade, but never disappear.’

‘I couldn’t stand it any longer,’ Brandon said. ‘So many people were dying all around me: balaks and humans. I had lost Kat somewhere in the jungle, and I couldn’t bear that thought that at any moment she might be next to be die.’

‘So you
did
kill the zelfs,’ Jason said. ‘Well, well, well. Maybe there’s hope for you yet. So why did you have to go and ruin it all by giving yourself up?’

‘There was a moment where I could have gone further,’ Brandon admitted. ‘I stopped the hearts of twenty zelfs, and brought their ships crashing down in the jungle. Then I ran all the way here to the city, the bionoids powering my body. There was a moment when I could have killed them all—unleashed a devastating attack, just like my father did here twenty years ago, except this time it would have been upon the zelfs. That would have been a fitting payback.’

‘A claw for a claw,’ Doo agreed. ‘Zaal would have been pleased.’

Jason had seen what Brandon was capable of when fully powered by the bionoids: incredible physical strength, enhanced senses, the ability to manipulate the surrounding environment. The zelfs would not have stood a chance.

‘It would have been too easy,’ Jason said to Doo. ‘Zaal may have been pleased, but it would be Brandon who would have had to live with it.’

He shook his head. ‘But damn it, Bran, you didn’t have to give yourself up.’

‘It’s the only way to stop this war before anyone else gets killed,’ Brandon said. ‘I agreed to give myself and the bionoids up to the Arch Predicant if they immediately ceased hostilities.’

‘What!’ Jason groaned. ‘You can’t give the zelfs control of the bionoids!’

‘Don’t worry,’ Brandon said. ‘I will always have the last word on what the bionoids are used for. Hopefully, the Arch Predicant will agree to a settlement that lets zelfs and balaks can live in peace. Your brother will be set free, Doo, and I will stay here and use the bionoids for the good of everyone on the planet.’

That would be too good true, Jason thought. Something was bound to go wrong.

‘Have you met him yet? The Arch Predicant?’

‘No,’ Brandon said. ‘Not yet. Looks like we will all be meeting him together.’

* * *

The prison transport ship had risen up through the busiest parts of the city, where crowds of nightlife bustled through arcades and plazas, and spaceships of all shapes and sizes whizzed between the buildings, following routes through the air than ran vertically as well as horizontally. A lot of the spaceships were sleek sporty civilian vehicles, and Jason wondered if the jungle, let alone the war with the balaks, had any effect at all on the lives of the people living here in this fantastic futuristic city. Most people just went about their daily lives, with their trivial, insignificant problems, he guessed, just like everyone did back on Earth.

Soon though, they left the city behind, and travelled up the side of the Tower of the Moons. It was the oldest building in the city, and the final few hundred metres were like the tower of an old gothic cathedral: strange alien stone carvings and columns, and dark ominous windows. The spaceship ducked inside a low arched entrance just below the pyramid at the tower’s pinnacle.

When the door to their compartment opened, Jason, Doo and Brandon walked down the ramp into a crypt-like vaulted chamber. The spaceship made a swift exit, as if it was in a hurry to leave, and the prisoners were left in the care of new guards: bare-chested zelfs wielding spears. There was no sign of any technology in this part of the tower.

The temple guards wordlessly directed the way with their spear tips. A flight of stone steps led upwards, and Jason could feel wind and rain coming down from above. The top of the Tower of the Moons was obviously open to the elements.

Jason wiped his bloody face. ‘Fix my nose before we go up?’ he said to Brandon.

‘Can’t. The zelfs have sensors that can detect the use of bionoids inside the city, and using them breaks the ceasefire.’

‘Fine,’ Jason said. ‘Let’s go up.’ He smiled at Doo.  ‘I hope that this time, Zaal doesn’t intervene and order another trial by combat again.’

‘The zelfs do worse things than that in the name of Zaal,’ Doo said ominously.

They ascended the steps. The guards didn’t follow, and when they reached the top they found out why: there was nowhere for them to run or escape to. They came out at the base of a massive stone pyramid, and unless they jumped off the edge, the only option was to keep going up to the very top. There was no safety barrier, and the wind threatened to blow them away.

They climbed the well-worn steps up the pyramid. Talem Tarsus had walked these steps before his escape from the city. Remembering his story, Jason looked down, and sure enough he could see the channels either side of steps where the blood of sacrifices once ran down.

At the apex of the pyramid was the zelfs’ temple to Zaal, a simple square roof held up by a ten-by-ten grid of stone columns. There was no statue of Zaal here; only a simple stone that seated the man who presumed to rule the city, and the planet, on the god’s behalf: the Arch Predicant of Perazim.

He was dressed in skin-tight fibrous armour like his soldiers, and his features were hidden behind a beaked mask. The whole get-up was polished black, and put Jason in mind of a villaxx. But the gleaming amber eyes behind the mask hinted at a cruel intelligence that made the Arch Predicant a lot more terrifying than the beasts of the jungle.

He sat almost motionless on his throne. In his lap were two items: a sword and a small bundle wrapped in white cloth.

Jason starting running scenarios through his head. The Arch Predicant was alone and unarmed. Okay, so he had a sword, but Jason guessed that it was Catron’s Claw—the bionoids—and that there was no way that Brandon would allow
that
to be raised in anger. The Arch Predicant had a pretty funky suit of armour, but Jason had his bionic arm … so he reckoned the chances of a win if he attacked right now were …

He struggled with his thoughts. Maths was never his strong point …

Well, he was either going to win or he was going to lose …

So it was about fifty-fifty! He prepared himself for an attack. It was probably the only chance he was going to get.

But then the bundle of cloth made a gurgling noise.

Doo stepped forward. ‘Grok!’ she exclaimed.

Grok? Jason was rooted to the spot in confusion. The little bundle shifted, and a grey-green face peeped out. It was Doo’s brother. The king of the balaks was a baby.

‘Don’t you worry,’ the Arch Predicant said to Doo. ‘He’s safe with me. He’s a little sleepy now. We were playing earlier. Grok has a favourite toy: a stuffed catron he calls Mumpty.’

The Arch Predicant spoke in hollow emotionless tones. The yellow eyes stared out of the mask without expression. It was the creepiest thing Jason had seen since … No, it was the creepiest thing he had
ever
seen.

He took a deep breath. ‘If you hurt the baby, I’ll kill you. I swear it. Brandon may have surrendered, but I never will. I will die fighting.’

Doo moved a touch closer to Jason. ‘What he said,’ she added.

The Arch Predicant gave a sinister chuckle. ‘Nobody is going to die. I have no wish to hurt innocent infants.’ He passed a slow gaze across the three of them. ‘Or indeed
children
.’