The Fall of Tartarus (36 page)

(He
stopped here and stared off into the distance and the gothic monastery rearing
against the twilight sky. Tears appeared in his eyes. I felt sorry for him.
Part of me regretted what I was putting him through, but I was intrigued by the
little he’d told me so far. I
had
to find out what he’d experienced, all
those years ago.)

Sam:
Father . . . ?

Fr
Rogers: Eh? Oh, the crash-landing. We came down too soon. Don’t ask me why. I
can’t remember. Miracle we survived. We found ourselves in a high valley in the
central mountains, shut in by snow-covered peaks all around. We were a small
ship, a shuttle. The radio was wrecked and we had no other means of
communication with the outside world. We didn’t reckon the Fleet would waste
much time trying to find us. We had supplies enough for years, and the part of
the ship not completely stove in we used as living quarters. I made a few
expeditions into the surrounding hills, trying to find a way out, a navigable
pass that’d get us to the sea-level jungle below the central range . . . But
the going was too tough, the snow impassable.

It
was on one of these abortive expeditions that I saw the first Slarque. I was
coming back to the ship, wading through a waist-high snowdrift, frozen to the
bone and sick with the thought that I’d never get away from this frozen hell.

The
Slarque was on a spur of rock overlooking the valley. It was on all fours,
though later I saw them standing upright. It was watching me. It was a long way
off, and in silhouette, so I couldn’t really make out much detail. I recognised
the arched tail, though, whipping around above its back.

So
when I returned to the ship I told Codey what I’d seen. He just stared at me
for a long time - and I assumed he thought I’d gone mad - but then he began
nodding, and he said, ‘I know. They’ve been communicating with me for the past
three days.’ Then it was
my
turn to think
he’d
flipped.

(His
gaze slipped out of focus again. He no longer saw the monastery. He was back in
the mountain valley.)

Fr
Rogers: Codey was strangely calm, like a man blessed with a vision. I asked him
what he meant by ‘communicating’. Looking straight through me, he just pointed
to his head. ‘They put thoughts into here - not words, but thoughts: emotions,
facts . . .’

I
said, ‘Codey, you’ve finally gone, man. Don’t give me any of that shit!’ But
Codey just went on staring through me like I wasn’t there, and he began
talking, telling me about the Slarque, and there was so much of it, so many
details Codey just couldn’t have known or made up, that by the end of it all I
was scared, real scared, not wanting to believe a word of it, but at the same
time finding myself half-believing . . .

Codey
said that there were just two Slarque left. They were old, a couple of hundred
years old. They had lived near the coast in their early years, but with the
arrival of humans on the southern continent they’d retreated further south,
into the snowfields of the central mountains. Codey told me that the Slarque
had dwindled because a certain species of animal, on which they were dependent,
had become extinct long ago. Codey said that the female Slarque was bearing a litter
of young, that she was due to birth soon ... He told me many other things that
night, as the snow fell and the wind howled outside - but either I’ve forgotten
what else he said, or I never heard it at the time through fear ... I went
straight out into that gale and rigged up an electric fence around the ship,
and I didn’t stop work until I was sure it’d keep out the most fearsome
predator.

The
next day or two, I kept out of Codey’s way, like he was contaminated ... I ate
in my own cabin, tried not to dwell on what he’d told me.

One
night he came to my cabin, knocked on the door. He just stood there, staring at
me. ‘They want one of us,’ he told me. As soon as he spoke, it was as if this
was what I’d been fearing all along. I had no doubt who ‘they’ were. I think I
went berserk then. I attacked Codey, beat him back out of my cabin. I was
frightened. Oh, Christ was I frightened.

In
the morning he came to me again, strangely subdued, remote. He said he wanted
to show me something in the hold. I was wary, expecting a trick. I armed myself
and followed him down the corridor of the broken-backed ship and into the hold.
He crossed to a suspension unit, opened the lid and said, ‘Look.’

So
I looked. We were carrying a prisoner, a criminal suspended for the trip between
Tartarus and Earth, where he was due to go on trial for the assassination of a
Tartarean government official. I hadn’t known what we were carrying - I hadn’t
bothered to check the manifest before take-off. But Codey had.

He
said, ‘He’d only be executed on Earth.’

‘No,’
I said.

Codey
stared at me. ‘It’s either him or you, Rogers.’ He had his laser out and aimed
at my head. I lifted my own pistol, saw that the charge was empty. Codey just
smiled.

I
said, ‘But . . . but when they’ve done with him - how long will he keep them
satisfied? How long before they want one of us?’

Codey
shook his head. ‘Not for a long while, believe me.’

I
ranted and raved at him, cried and swore, but the terrible inevitability of his
logic wore me down - it was either the prisoner or me. And so at last I helped
him drag the suspension unit from the ship, through the snow to the far end of
the valley, where we left it with the lid open for the Slarque ... I - I have
never forgiven myself to this day. I wish now that I’d had the strength to
sacrifice myself.

(He
broke down then, bowed his head and wept. I soothed him as best I could,
murmured platitudes, my hand on the stump of his shoulder.)

Fr
Rogers: That night I watched two shadowy ghosts appear at the end of the
valley, haul the prisoner from the unit and drag him off through the snow. At
first light next morning I kitted up, took my share of provisions and told
Codey I was going to find a way out, that I’d rather die trying than remain
here with him. I reckoned that with the Slarque busy with the prisoner, I had a
slim chance of getting away from the valley. After that . . . who could tell?

Codey
didn’t say a word. I tried to persuade him to come with me, but he kept shaking
his head and saying that I didn’t understand, that they needed him ... So I
left him and trekked north, fearful of the aliens, the snow, the cold. All I
recall is getting clear of the valley and the Slarque, and the tremendous
feeling of relief when I did. I don’t remember much else. The terror of what I
was leaving was worse than the thought of dying alone in the mountains. They
tell me it’s one and a half thousand kilometres from the central range to the
coast. I don’t know. I just walked and kept on walking.

(He
was silent for a long, long time after that. At last he spoke, almost to
himself.)

Fr
Rogers: Poor Codey. Poor, poor Codey . . .

Sam:
And . . . then you joined the Church?

Fr
Rogers: Almost as soon as I got back. It seemed . . . the only thing to do. I
had to make amends, to thank God for my survival and at the same time to make
reparations for the fact that I did survive.

We
sat for a time in silence, Father Rogers contemplating the past while I
considered the future. I knew what I was going to do. I unfolded the map of the
southern continent I had brought with me and spread it across the arms of the
invalid carriage. I asked him where the shuttle had come down. He stared at the
map for a long time, frowning, and finally quoted an approximate grid reference
coordinate. I marked the valley with a cross.

I
sat and talked with Father Rogers for a while, and then left him sitting in the
garden overlooking the sea, and made my way back to Apollinaire.

That
was yesterday. Today I’ve been preparing for the expedition. Unfortunately I’ve
found no one willing to act as my bodyguard this time - because of the duration
of the planned trip and the sun’s lack of stability. I set off tomorrow in a
tracked bison, with plenty of food, water and arms. I’ve calculated that it’ll
take me a couple of months to cover the one and a half thousand kays to the
valley where the ship crash-landed. Fortunately, with the rise of the global
temperature, the snow on the high ground of the central mountains has melted,
so that leg of the journey should be relatively easy. With luck, the sun should
hold steady for a while yet, though it does seem to be getting hotter every
day. The latest forecast I’ve heard is that we’re safe for another six to nine
months . . .

I
don’t know what I’ll find when I get to the valley. Certainly not Codey. As
Father Rogers said, after thirty years he should be long dead. Maybe I’ll hit
lucky and find the Slarque? I’ll leave transmitter beacons along my route, so
you can follow me when you get here, whenever that might be.

Okay,
Alvarez, that’s about it. If you don’t mind, I’d like the next bit to remain
private, between Hunter and me, okay?

Hunter,
the thought that sooner or later we’ll be together again has kept me going.
Don’t worry about me, I have everything under control. Freya is with me; I’m
taking her into the interior tomorrow. And before you protest - don’t! She’s
perfectly safe. Hunter, I can’t wait until we’re reunited, until we can watch
our daughter grow, share her discoveries ... I love you, Hunter. Take care.

Hunter
sat on the balcony of Halbeck House, where weeks before Sam had made the
recording. He had tried to contact her by radio upon his arrival, but of course
the activity of the solar flares made such communication impossible.

He
sipped an iced lemon beer and stared out across what had once been a pretty
provincial town. Now the increased temperature of the past few months had taken
its toll. The trees lining the canal were scorched and dying, and the water in
the canal itself had evaporated, leaving a bed of evil-smelling mud. Even the three-storey
timber buildings of the town seemed weary, dried out and warped by the
incessant heat. Although the sun had set one hour ago, pulling in its wake a
gaudy, pyrotechnical display of flaring lights above the crowded rooftops, the
twilight song of the nightgulls was not to be heard. Nor was there any sign of
Leverfre’s mandrills, usually to be seen swinging crazily through the
wrought-ironwork of the balcony. An eerie silence hung in the air, a funereal
calm presaging the planet’s inevitable demise.

Hunter,
Alvarez and his entourage had arrived on Tartarus by the very last scheduled
sailship; they would entrust their departure to one of the illegal pirate lines
still ferrying adventurers, thrill-seekers, or just plain fools, to and from
the planet.

They
had arrived in Apollinaire that morning, to find the town deserted but for a
handful of citizens determined to leave their flight to the very last weeks.

Three
days ago, the sun had sent out a searing pulse of flame, a great flaring
tongue, as if in derision of the citizens who remained. The people of
Baudelaire and Apollinaire had panicked. There had been riots, much looting and
burning - and another great exodus off-world. The regular shipping lines had
been inundated by frantic souls desperate to flee, and the surplus had been
taken by the opportunistic pirate ships that had just happened to be orbiting
like flies around a corpse.

Technically,
Halbeck House was no longer open for business, but its proprietor had greeted
Hunter like a long-lost brother and insisted that he, Alvarez and the rest of
the team make themselves at home. Then he had taken the last boat to
Baudelaire, leaving a supply of iced beer and a table set for the evening meal.

Hunter
drank his beer and considered Father Rogers’ story, which he had listened to
again and again on the voyage to Tartarus. Although the old astronaut’s words
had about them a kind of insane veracity which suggested he believed his own
story, even if no one else did, it was stretching the limits of credulity to believe
that not only did a last pair of Slarque still exist in the central mountains,
but that they had been in mental contact with Codey. And the beast that had
attacked and killed Hunter? Sam’s footage of the incident was not conclusive
proof that the Slarque existed, despite Alvarez’s assumptions otherwise.

The
more he thought about it, the more he came to the conclusion that the trip into
the interior would prove fruitless. He looked forward to the time when he would
be reunited with Sam, and meet his daughter Freya for the very first time.

He
had expected Sam to have left some message for him at the hotel - maybe even a
pix of Freya. But nothing had awaited him, and when he asked the proprietor
about his daughter, the man had looked puzzled. ‘But your wife had no little
girl with her, Monsieur Hunter.’

Dinner
that evening was taken on the patio beside the empty canal. The meal was a
subdued affair, stifled by the oppressing humidity and the collective
realisation of the enormity of the mission they were about to embark upon.
Hunter ate sparingly and said little, speaking only to answer questions
concerning the planet’s natural history. The chest pains which had bothered him
on Million had increased in severity over the past few days; that afternoon he
had lain on his bed, racked with what he thought was a heart attack. Now he
felt the familiar tightness in his chest. He was reassured that Dr Fischer was
on hand.