Hunting The Slarque

By Eric Brown

H

unter opened his eyes and dimly registered a crystal dome above him. Beyond, he made out a thousand rainbows vaulting through the sky like the ribs of a cathedral ceiling. Below the rainbows, as if supporting them, mile-high trees rose, dwellings of various design lodged within their branches. Large insects, on closer inspection Hunter recognised them as Vespula Vulgaris Denebian, shuttled back and forth between the trees. He guessed he was on Deneb XVII, The-World-of-a-Million-Wonders.

He was on Million? He was alive? It was a miracle. Or was this a dream? Was he dying, was this some cruel jest played by his embattled consciousness as he slipped into oblivion? Would this vision soon cease, to be replaced by total nothingness? The concept frightened him, even though he told himself that he had nothing to fear: dead, he would not have the awareness with which to apprehend the terrible fact of his extinction.

Now, however, he had. He tried to scream.

He could not open his mouth. Nor for that matter, he realised, could he move any other part of his body. Come to that, he could feel nothing. He tried to move his head, shift his gaze. He remained staring through the dome at the rainbow sky.

Following his pang of mental turmoil, he seemed to sense his surroundings with greater clarity. The prismatic parabolas overhead struck him like visual blows, and for the first time he made out sound: the strummed music of troubadours, the cool laughter of a waterfall, and muted chatter, as contented crowds promenaded far below.

Such fidelity could not be the product of a dwindling consciousness, surely? But the alternative, that he was indeed alive, was almost as hard to believe.

How could anyone have survived an attack of such ferocity?

In his mind’s eye, dimly, like a half-remembered image from a dream, he recalled the attack: claws and teeth and stingers; he had experienced pain both physical - he had been torn savagely limb from limb - and mental, as he had known he was going to die.

And beyond that instant of mental terror?

Where had the attack taken place. How long ago? Had he been alone, or … ?

He wanted more than anything to call her name, less to verify the fact of his own existence than to seek assurance of her safety.

‘Sam!’ But the sound would not form.

He felt his grasp on reality slacken. The colours faded, the sounds ebbed. He fell away, slipped - not into oblivion, as he had feared - but into an ocean of unconsciousness inhabited by the great dim shapes of half-remembered visions, like basking cetaceans. Hunter dreamed.

At length he felt himself resurface. The rainbows again, the stringed music and babble of water. He still could not shift his vision, not that this overly troubled him. He was more occupied by trying to shuffle into some semblance of order the images revealed in his dream.

He had been on Tartarus Major, he recalled - that great, ancient, smouldering world sentenced to death by the mutinous primary which for millennia had granted the planet its very life. He had been commissioned to catalogue and holopix Tartarean fauna, much of which had never been registered by the Galactic Zoological Centre, Paris, Earth - in the hope that some of the unique examples of the planet’s wildlife might be saved from extinction, removed off-world, before the supernova blew.

He had been with Sam, his wife, his life and joy - Sam, carrying his child. He recalled her warning scream, and he had turned, too late to lift his laser. A charging nightmare: teeth and claws, and pain … Oh, the pain!

And, above everything, Sam’s screams.

And his fear, as he died, for her safety.

Now he wanted to sob, but he had not the physical wherewithal to do so; he felt as though his soul were sobbing for what might have become of Sam.

Unconsciousness claimed him, mercifully.

When next he awoke, what seemed like aeons later, the trapezoid lozenges of sky between the cross-hatched rainbows were cerise with sunset, and marked with early stars. The achingly beautiful notes of a musical instrument, perhaps a clariphone, floated up from the thoroughfares below.

He tried to shift his gaze, move his head, but it was impossible. He had absolutely no sensation in any part of his body.

A cold dread surged through his mind like liquid nitrogen.

He had no body - that was the answer. He was but a brain, a pair of eyes. Only that much of him had survived the attack. He was the guinea pig of some diabolical experiment, his eyes fixed forever on the heavens, the stars he would never again visit.

Hunter. He was Hunter. For as long as he recalled, he had gone by that simple appellation. He had roved the stars, hunting down the more bizarre examples of galactic fauna, amassing a vast holo-library, as well as extensive case-notes, that were regarded as invaluable by the legion of zoologists and biologists from Earth to Zigma-Zeta. He was a scholar, an intrepid adventurer nonpareil. He had often gone where lesser men feared to go, like Tartarus … He wondered how his death had been taken by the galaxy at large, how his friends had mourned, jealous colleagues smiled that at last his need to prove himself had instead proved to be his undoing.

Tartarus, a double danger: to go among beasts unknown, on a world in imminent danger of stellar annihilation. He should have swallowed his pride and left well alone. Instead, he had dragged Sam along with him.

He recalled, with a keening melancholy deep within him like a dying scream, that Sam had tried to talk him out of the trip. He recalled his stubbornness. ‘I can’t be seen to back out now, Samantha.’

He recalled her insistence that, if he did make the journey, then she would accompany him. He recalled his smug, self-righteous satisfaction at her decision.

As unconsciousness took him once again, he was aware of a stabbing pain within his heart.

Someone was watching him, peering down at where he was imprisoned. He had no idea how long he had been staring up at the lattice of rainbows, mulling over his memories and regrets, before he noticed the blue, piercing eyes, the odd bald head at the periphery of his vision.

The man obligingly centred himself in Hunter’s line of sight.

He stared at his tormentor, tried to order his outrage. He boiled with anger. Do you know who I am? he wanted to ask the man. I am Hunter, famed and feted the galaxy over! How dare you do this to me!

Hands braced on knees, the man looked down on him. Something about his foppish appearance sent a shiver of revulsion through Hunter. His captor wore the white cavaner boots of a nobleman, ballooning pantaloons, and a sleeveless overcoat of some snow-white fur. His face was thin, bloodless - almost as pale as his vestments.

He reminded Hunter of an albino wasp: the concave chest, the slim waist, the soft abdomen swelling obscenely beneath it.

Without taking his gaze off Hunter, the man addressed whispered words to someone out of sight. Hunter made out a muttered reply. The man nodded.

‘My name is Alvarez,’ he said. ‘Do not be alarmed. You are in no danger. We are looking after you.’

Oddly, far from reassuring him, the words put an end to the notion that he might still be dreaming, and convinced him of the reality of this situation.

He tried to speak but could not.

Alvarez was addressing his companion again, who had moved into Hunter’s view: a fat man garbed in robes of gold and crimson.

Alvarez disappeared, returned seconds later with a rectangular, opaqued screen on castors. He positioned it before Hunter, so that it eclipsed his view of the sky. Hunter judged, from the position of the screen and his captors, that he was lying on the floor, Alvarez and the fat man standing on a platform above him.

He stared at the screen as Alvarez flicked a switch on its side.

A work of art? A macabre hologram that might have had some significance to the jaded citizens of The-World-of-a-Million-Wonders, who had seen everything before?

The ‘gram showed the figure of a man, suspended - but the figure of a man as Hunter had never before witnessed. It was as if the unfortunate subject of the artwork had been flayed alive, skinned to reveal purple and puce slabs of muscle shot through with filaments of tendons, veins and arteries - like some medical student’s computer graphic which built up, layer on layer, from skeleton to fully-fleshed human being.

At first, Hunter thought that the figure was a mere representation, a still hologram - then he saw a movement behind the figure, a bubble rising through the fluid in which it was suspended. And, then, he made out the slight ticking pulse at its throat.

He could not comprehend why they were showing him this monster.

Alvarez leaned forward. ‘You have no reason to worry,’ he said. ‘You are progressing well, Mr Hunter, considering the condition you were in when you arrived.’

Realisation crashed through Hunter. He stared again at the reflection of himself, at the monstrosity he had become.

Alvarez opaqued the screen, wheeled it away. He returned and leaned forward. ‘We are delighted with your progress, Mr Hunter.’ He nodded to his fat companion. ‘Dr Fischer.’

The doctor touched some control in his hand and Hunter slipped into blessed oblivion.

When he came to his senses it took him some minutes before he realised that his circumstances were radically altered. The view through the dome was substantially the same - rainbows, towering trees - but shifted slightly, moved a few degrees to the right.

He watched a vast, majestic star-galleon edge slowly past the dome, its dozen angled, multicoloured sails bellying in the breeze. He monitored its royal progress through the evening sky until it was lost to sight - and then he realised that he had, in order to track its passage, moved his head.

For the first time he became aware of his immediate surroundings.

He was in a small, comfortable room formed from a slice of the dome: two walls hung with tapestries, the third the outer wall of diamond facets.

With trepidation, he raised his head and peered down the length of his body. He was naked, but not as naked as he had been on the last occasion when he had seen himself. This time he was covered with skin - tanned, healthy looking skin over well-developed muscles. He remembered the attack in the southern jungle of Tartarus, relived the terrible awareness of being riven limb from limb.

And now he was whole again.

He was in a rejuvenation pod, its canoe-shaped length supporting a web of finely woven fibres which cradled him with the lightest of touches. It was as if he were floating on air. Leads and electrodes covered him, snaking over the side of the pod and disappearing into monitors underneath.

He tried to sit up, but it was all he could do to raise his arm. The slightest exertion filled him with exhaustion. But what did he expect, having newly risen from the dead?

He experienced then a strange ambivalence of emotion. Of course he was grateful to be alive - the fear of oblivion he had experienced upon first awakening was still fresh enough in his memory to fill him with an odd, retrospective dread, and a profound gratitude for his new lease of life. But something, some nagging insistence at the back of his mind, hectored him with the improbability of his being resurrected.

Very well - he was famous, was respected in his field, but even he had to admit that his death would have been no great loss to the galaxy at large. So why had Alvarez, or the people for whom Alvarez worked, seen fit to outlay millions on bringing him back to life? For certain, Sam could not have raised the funds to finance the procedure, even if she had realised their joint assets. He was rich, but not that rich. Why, the very sailship journey from the rim world of Tartarus to the Core planet of Million would have bankrupted him.

He was alive, but why he was alive worried him.

He felt himself drifting as a sedative sluiced through his system.

Hunter opened his eyes.

He was in a room much larger than the first, a full quadrant of the dome this time. He was no longer attached to the rejuvenation pod, but lying in a bed. Apart from a slight ache in his chest, a tightness, he felt well. Tentatively, he sat up, swung his legs from the bed. He wore a short white gown like a kimono. He examined his legs, his arms. They seemed to be as he remembered them, but curiously younger, without the marks of age, the discolorations and small scars he’d picked up during a lifetime of tracking fauna through every imaginable landscape. He filled his chest with a deep breath, exhaled. He felt good.

He stood and crossed to the wall of the dome, climbed the three steps and paused on the raised gallery. A magnificent star-galleon sailed by outside, so close that Hunter could make out figures on the deck, a curious assortment of humans and aliens. A few stopped work to look at him. One young girl even waved. Hunter raised his arm in salute and watched the ship sail away, conscious of the gesture, the blood pumping through his veins. In that instant, he was suddenly aware of the possibilities, of the wondrous gift of life renewed.

‘Mr Hunter,’ the voice called from behind him. ‘I’m so pleased to see you up and about.’

Alvarez stood on the threshold, smiling across the room at him. He seemed smaller than before, somehow reduced.

Within the swaddles of his fine clothing - rich gold robes, frilled shirts - he was even more insect-like than Hunter recalled.

‘I have so many questions I don’t really know where to begin,’ Hunter said.

Alvarez waved, the cuff of his gown hanging a good half-metre from his stick-like wrist. ‘All in good time, my dear Mr Hunter. Perhaps you would care for a drink?’ He moved to a table beneath the curve of the dome, its surface marked with a press-select panel of beverages.

‘A fruit juice.’

‘I’ll join you,’ Alvarez said, and seconds later passed Hunter a tall glass of yellow liquid.

His thoughts returned to the jungle of Tartarus. ‘My wife … ?’ he began.

Alvarez was quick to reassure him. ‘Samantha is fit and well. No need to worry yourself on that score.’

‘I’d like to see her.’

‘That is being arranged. Within the next three or four days, you should be reunited.’

Hunter nodded, reluctant to show Alvarez his relief or gratitude. His wife was well, he was blessed with a new body, renewed life … so why did he experience a pang of apprehension like a shadow cast across his soul?

‘Mr Hunter,’ Alvarez asked, ‘what are your last recollections before awakening here?’

Hunter looked from Alvarez to the tall trees receding into the distance. ‘Tartarus,’ he said. ‘The jungle.’

‘Can you recall the … the actual attack?’

‘I remember, but vaguely. I can’t recall what led up to it, just the attack itself. It’s as if it happened years ago.’

Alvarez was staring at him. ‘It did, Mr Hunter. Three years ago, to be precise.’

Again, Hunter did not allow his reaction to show: shock, this time. Three years! But Sam had been carrying their child, his daughter. He had missed her birth, the first years of her life …

‘You owe your survival to your wife,’ Alvarez continued. ‘She fired flares to frighten the beast that killed you, then gathered your remains.’ He made an expression of distaste. ‘There was not much left. Your head, torso … She stored them in the freeze-unit at your camp, then returned through the jungle to Apollinaire, and from there to the port at Baudelaire, where she arranged passage off-planet.’

Hunter closed his eyes. He imagined Sam’s terror, her despair, her frantic hope. It should have been enough to drive her mad.

Alvarez went on, ‘She applied for aid to a number of resurrection foundations. My company examined you. They reported your case to me. I decided to sanction your rebirth.’

Hunter was shaking his head. ‘But how did Sam raise the fare to Million?’ he asked. ‘And the cost of the resurrection itself? There’s just no way …’ What, he wondered, had she done to finance his recovery?

‘She had to arrange a loan to get the both of you here. She arrived virtually penniless.’

‘Then how—?’

Alvarez raised a hand. There was something about the man that Hunter did not like: his swift, imperious gestures, his thin face which combined the aspects of asceticism and superiority. In an age when everyone enjoyed the means to ensure perfect health, Alvarez’s affectation of ill health was macabre.

‘Your situation interested me, Mr Hunter. I knew of you. I followed your work, admired your success. I cannot claim to be a naturalist in the same league as yourself, but I dabble …

‘I run many novel enterprises on Million,’ Alvarez went on. ‘My very favourite, indeed the most popular and lucrative, is my Xeno-biological Exhibit Centre, here in the capital. It attracts millions of visitors every year from all across the galaxy. Perhaps you have heard of it, Mr Hunter?’

Hunter shook his head, minimally. ‘I have no interest in, nor sympathy with, zoos, Mr Alvarez.’

‘Such an outdated, crude description, I do think. My Exhibit Centre is quite unlike the zoos of old. The centre furnishes species from around the galaxy with a realistic simulacra of their native habitats, often extending for kilometres. Where the species exhibited are endangered on their own worlds, we have instituted successful breeding programmes. In more than one instance I have saved species from certain extinction.’ He paused, staring at Hunter. ‘Although usually I hire operators from the planet in question to capture and transport the animals I require to update my exhibit, on this occasion—’

Hunter laid his drink aside, untouched. ‘I am a cameraman, Mr Alvarez. I hunt animals in order to film them. I have no expertise in capturing animals.’

‘What I need is someone skilled in the tracking of a certain animal. My team will perform the actual physical capture. On the planet in question, there are no resident experts, and as you are already au fait with the terrain …’

Hunter interrupted. ‘Where?’ he asked.

‘Where else?’ Alvarez smiled. ‘Tartarus, of course.’

It took some seconds for his words to sink in. Hunter stared across the room at the dandified zoo-keeper. ‘Tartarus?’ He almost laughed. ‘Madness. Three years ago the scientists were forecasting the explosion of the supernova in two to three years at the latest.’

Alvarez responded evenly. ‘The scientists have revised their estimates. They now think the planet is safe for another year.’

Hunter sat down on the steps that curved around the room. He shook his head, looked up. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Alvarez. Tartarus holds too many bad memories for me. And anyway, it would be insane to go there with the supernova so imminent.’

‘I think you fail to understand the situation in which you find yourself, Mr Hunter. You and your wife are in debt to me to the tune of some five million credits. You are now, legally, in my employ—’

‘I didn’t ask to be resurrected. I signed nothing!’

Alvarez smiled. ‘Your wife signed all the relevant papers. She wanted you resurrected. She agreed to work for me.’

Hunter experienced a strange plummeting sensation deep within him. He whispered, ‘Where is she?’

‘Six months ago, when it was obvious that your resurrection would be successful, she left for Tartarus to do some field-work, investigations and preliminary tracking.’

Hunter closed his eyes. Alvarez had him.

He thought of his child. Surely Sam would not take an infant to Tartarus. ‘Who’s looking after our child while Sam is on Tartarus?’ he asked.

Alvarez shook his head apologetically. ‘I never actually met your wife. Our negotiations were conducted via intermediaries. I know nothing of your wife’s personal arrangements.’

Hunter stood and contemplated the view, the tall trees marching away into the mist, the canopy of rainbows and the star-galleons. It was against everything that Hunter believed in to hunt and trap an animal for captivity. How many lucrative commissions had he turned down in the past?

But there was one obvious difference in this case. If the animal that Alvarez wanted capturing was not tracked and taken from Tartarus, then it faced annihilation come the supernova.

And there was the added incentive that soon he would be reunited with Sam.

‘I seem to have little choice but to agree to your demands.’

Alvarez smiled thinly. ‘Excellent. I knew you would see sense, eventually. We need a man of your calibre in order to track the creature I require as the prize of my collection.’

‘Which is?’ Hunter asked.

Alvarez paused for a second, as if for dramatic emphasis. ‘The Slarque,’ he said.

Hunter mouthed the word to himself in disbelief. Millennia ago, long before humankind colonised Tartarus, a sentient alien race known as the Slarque was pre-eminent on the planet. They built cities on every continent, sailed ships across the oceans, and reached a stage of civilisation comparable to that of humanity in the sixteenth century. Then, over the period of a few hundred years, they became extinct - or so some theorists posited. Others, a crank minority, held that the Slarque still existed in some devolved form, sequestered in the mountainous jungle terrain of the southern continent. There had been reports of sightings, dubious ‘eye-witness’ accounts of brief meetings with the fearsome, bipedal creatures, but no actual concrete evidence.

‘Mr Hunter,’ Alvarez was saying, ‘do you have any idea what kind of creature was responsible for your death?’

Hunter gestured. ‘Of course not. It happened so fast. I didn’t have a chance—’ He stopped.

Alvarez crossed the room to a wall-screen. He inserted a small disc, adjusted dials. He turned to Hunter. ‘Your wife was filming at the time of your death. This is what she filmed.’

The screen flared. Hunter took half a dozen paces forward, then stopped, as if transfixed by what he saw. The picture sent memories, emotions, flooding through his mind. He stared at the jungle scene, and he could almost smell the stringent, putrescent reek peculiar to Tartarus, the stench of vegetable matter rotting in the vastly increased heat of the southern climes. He heard the cries and screams of a hundred uncatalogued birds and beasts. He experienced again the mixture of anxiety and exhilaration at being in the unexplored jungle of a planet which at any moment might be ripped apart by its exploding sun.

‘Watch closely, Mr Hunter,’ Alvarez said.

He saw himself, a small figure in the background, centre-screen. This was an establishing shot, which Sam would edit into the documentary she always made about their field-trips.

It was over in five seconds.

One instant he was gesturing at the blood-red sky through a rent in the jungle canopy - and the next something emerged through the undergrowth behind him, leapt upon his back and began tearing him apart.

Hunter peered at the grainy film, trying to make out his assailant. The attack was taking place in the undergrowth, largely obscured from the camera. All that could be seen was the rearing, curving tail of the animal - for all the world like that of a scorpion - flailing and thrashing and coming down again and again on the body of its victim …

The film finished there, as Sam fired flares to scare away the animal. The screen blanked.

‘We have reason to believe,’ Alvarez said, ‘that this creature was the female of the last surviving pair of Slarque on Tartarus—’

‘Ridiculous!’ Hunter cried.

‘They are devolved,’ Alvarez went on, ‘and living like wild animals.’ He paused. ‘Do you see what an opportunity this is, Mr Hunter? If we can capture, and save from certain extinction, the very last pair of a sentient alien race?’

Hunter gestured, aware that his hand was trembling. ‘This is hardly proof of its existence,’ he objected.

‘The stinger corresponds to anatomical remains which are known to be of the Slarque. Which other species on Tartarus has such a distinctive feature?’ Alvarez paused. ‘Also, your wife has been working hard on Tartarus. She has come up with some very interesting information.’

From a pocket in his robe, he pulled out what Hunter recognised as an ear-phone. ‘A couple of months ago she dispatched this report of her progress. I’ll leave it with you.’ He placed it on the table top beside the bed. ‘We embark for Tartarus in a little under three days, Mr Hunter. For now, farewell.’

When Alvarez had left the room, Hunter quickly crossed to the bed and took up the ‘phone. His heart leapt at the thought of listening to his wife’s voice. He inserted the ‘phone in his right ear, activated it.

Tears came to his eyes. Her words brought back a slew of poignant memories. He saw her before him, her calm oval face, dark hair drawn back, green eyes staring into space as she spoke into the recorder.

Hunter lay on the bed and closed his eyes.

Apollinaire Town. Mary’s day, 33rd St Jerome’s month, 1720 - Tartarean calendar.

By Galactic Standard it’s … I don’t know. I know I’ve been here for months, but it seems like years. Sometimes I find it hard to believe that anything exists beyond this damned planet. The sun dominates everything. During the day it fills the sky, bloated and festering. Even at night the sky is crimson with its light. It’s strange to think that everything around me, the everyday reality of Tartarus I take for granted, will be incinerated in less than a year. This fact overwhelms life here, affecting everyone. There’s a strange air of apathy and lassitude about the place, as people go about their business, marking time before the wholesale evacuation begins. The crime rate has increased; violence is commonplace. Bizarre cults have sprung up - and I mean even weirder than the official Church of the Ultimate Sacrifice.

Alvarez, I want you to pass this recording on to Hunter when he’s fit and well. I know you want a progress report, and you’ll get one. But I want to talk to my husband, if you don’t mind.

I’m staying at the Halbeck House hotel, Hunter - in the double room overlooking the canal. I’m dictating this on the balcony where we did the editing for the last film. I’m watching the sun set as I speak. It’s unpleasantly hot, but at least there’s a slight breeze starting up. In the trees beside the canal, a flock of nightgulls are gathering. You’ll be able to hear their songs a little later, when night falls. A troupe of Leverfre’s mandrills are watching me from the far balcony rail. I know you never liked the creatures, Hunter - but I find something inexpressibly melancholy in their eyes. Do you think they know their time is almost up?

(Oh, by the way, the hotel still serves the most superb lemon beer in Apollinaire. Mmm.)

Okay, Alvarez, I know - you want to hear how I’m progressing.

Three days ago I got back from a month-long trip into the interior. I’d been getting nowhere in either Apollinaire or Baudelaire. The leads I wanted to follow up all ran out - people were reluctant to talk. A couple of people I wanted to interview - the freelance film-maker who recorded something ten years ago, and the uranium prospector who claimed he’d seen a Slarque … well, the film-maker left Tartarus a couple of years back, and the prospector is dead. I tried to make an appointment with the Director of the Natural History museum, but he was away and wasn’t due back for a week. I left a message for him, then decided to take a trek into the interior.

Hunter, the ornithopter service no longer runs from Apollinaire. Gabriella’s sold up and left the planet, and the new owner has resited the operation in Baudelaire. It’s understandable, of course. These days there are few naturalists, geologists, or prospectors interested in the southern interior. The only visitors to the area are the members of one of the crackpot cults I mentioned, the so-called Slarquists, who come here on their way to the alien temples down the coast. I don’t know what they do there. There are rumours that they make sacrifices to the all-powerful God of the Slarque. Don’t ask me what kind of sacrifices.

Anyway, with no ornithopters flying, I hired a tracked bison and two armed guards, and set off inland.

It took four days to reach the site of our first camp, Hunter - the rock pool beneath the waterfall, remember? From there it was another two days to the foot of the plateau, to the place where you … where the attack happened. It was just how I remembered it - the opening in the smaller salse trees, the taller, surrounding trees providing a high level canopy that blotted out the sun … I left the guards in the bison and just stood on the edge of the clearing and relived the horror of what happened three years ago.

I can hear you asking why I went back there, why did I torture myself? Well, if you recall, I’d set up a few remote cameras to record some of the more timorous examples of the area’s wildlife while we went trekking. After the attack … I’d left the cameras and equipment in my haste to get to Baudelaire. It struck me that perhaps if the Slarque - if Slarque they were - had returned, then they might be captured on film.

That night in the clearing I viewed all the considerable footage. Plenty of shots of nocturnal fauna and grazing quadrupeds, but no Slarque.

The following day I took forensic samples from the area where the attack happened - broken undergrowth, disturbed soil, etc, for Alvarez’s people to examine when they get here. Then I set up more cameras, this time fixed to relay images back to my base in Apollinaire.

I decided to make a few exploratory forays into the surrounding jungle. We had food and water for a couple of weeks, and as the guards were being paid by the hour they had no reason to complain. Every other day we made circular treks into the jungle, finishing back at the campsite in the evening. I reckon we covered a good two hundred square kilometres like this. I filmed constantly, took dung samples, samples of hair and bone … Needless to say, I didn’t come across the Slarque.

Just short of a month after leaving Apollinaire, we made the journey back. I felt depressed. I’d achieved nothing, not even laid the terror of that terrible day. It’s strange, but I returned to Tartarus on this mission for Alvarez with extreme reluctance - if not for the fact that I was working for him to cover the cost of your treatment, I would have been happy to leave Tartarus well alone and let the Slarque fry when the sun blew. That was then. Now, and even after just a few days on the planet, I wanted to know what had killed you, if it were a Slarque. I wanted to find out more about this strange, devolved race.

I left the interior having found out nothing, and that hurt.

When I got back to Halbeck House, there was a message for me from the Director of the Natural History Museum at Apollinaire. He’d seen and enjoyed a couple of our films and agreed to meet me.

Monsieur Dernier was in his early eighties, so learned and dignified I felt like a kid in his company. I told him about the attack, that I was eager to trace the animal responsible. It happened that he’d heard about the incident on the newscasts - he was happy to help me. Now that it came to it, I was reluctant to broach the subject of the Slarque, in case Dernier thought me a complete crank - one of the many crazy cultists abroad in Apollinaire. I edged around the issue for a time, mentioned at last that some people, on viewing the film, had commented on how the beast did bear a certain superficial resemblance to fossil remains of the Slarque. Of course, I hastened to add, I didn’t believe this myself.

He gave me a strange look, told me that he himself subscribed to the belief, unpopular though it was, that devolved descendants of the Slarque still inhabited the interior of the southern continent.

He’d paused there, then asked me if I’d ever heard of Rogers and Codey? I admitted that I hadn’t.

Dernier told me that they had been starship pilots back in the eighties. Their shuttle had suffered engine failure and come down in the central mountains, crash-landed in a remote snowbound valley and never been discovered. They were given up for dead - until a year later when Rogers staggered into Apollinaire, half-delirious and severely frostbitten. The only survivor of the crash, he’d crossed a high mountain pass and half the continent - it made big news even on Earth, thirty years ago. When he was sufficiently recovered to leave hospital, Rogers had sought out M. Dernier, a well-known advocate of the extant Slarque theory.

Lieutenant Rogers claimed to have had contact with the Slarque in their interior mountain fastness.

Apparently, Rogers had repeated, over and over, that he had seen the Slarque, and that the meeting had been terrible - and he would say no more. Rogers had needed to confess, Dernier felt, but, when he came to do so, the burden of his experience had been too harrowing to relive.

I asked Dernier if he believed Rogers’ story.

He told me that he did. Rogers hadn’t sought to publicise his claim, to gain from it. He had no reason to lie about meeting the creatures. Whatever had happened in the interior had clearly left the lieutenant in a weakened mental state.

I asked him if he knew what had become of Lt Rogers, if he was still on Tartarus.

‘Thirty years ago,’ Dernier said, ‘Lt Rogers converted, became a novice in the Church of the Ultimate Sacrifice. If he’s survived this long in the bloody organisation, then he’ll still be on Tartarus. You might try the monastery at Barabas, along the coast.’

So yesterday I took the barge on the inland waterway, then a pony and trap up to the clifftop Monastery of St Cyprian of Carthage.

I was met inside the ornate main gate by a blind monk. He listened to my explanations in silence. I said that I wished to talk to a certain Anthony Rogers, formerly Lt Rogers of the Tartarean Space Fleet. The monk told me that father Rogers would be pleased to see me. He was taking his last visitors this week. Three days ago he had undergone extensive penitent surgery, preparatory to total withdrawal.

The monk led me through ancient cloisters. I was more than a little apprehensive. I’d seen devotees of the Ultimate Sacrifice only at a distance before. You know how squeamish I am, Hunter.

The monk left me in a beautiful garden overlooking the ocean. I sat on a wooden bench and stared out across the waters. The sky was white hot, the sun huge above the horizon as it made its long fall towards evening.

The monk returned, pushing a … a bundle in a crude wooden wheelchair. Its occupant, without arms or legs, jogged from side to side as he was trundled down the incline, prevented from falling forwards by a leather strap buckled around his midriff.

The monk positioned the carriage before me and murmured that he’d leave us to talk.

I … even now I find it difficult to express what I thought, or rather felt, on meeting Father Rogers in the monastery garden. His physical degradation, the voluntary amputation of his limbs, gave him the unthreatening and pathetic appearance of a swaddled infant - so perhaps the reason I felt threatened was that I could not bring myself to intellectually understand the degree of his commitment in undergoing such mutilation.

Also what troubled me was that I could still see, in his crew-cut, his deep tan and keen blue eyes, the astronaut that he had once been.

We exchanged guarded pleasantries for a time, he suspicious of my motives, myself unsure as to how to begin to broach the subject of his purported meeting with the aliens.

I recorded our conversation. I’ve edited it into this report. I’ve cut the section where Fr Rogers rambled - he’s in his nineties now and he seemed much of the time to be elsewhere. From time to time he’d stop talking altogether, stare into the distance, as if reliving the ordeal he’d survived in the mountains. In the following account I’ve included a few of my own comments and explanations.

I began by telling him that, almost three years ago, I lost my husband in what I suspect was a Slarque attack.

Fr Rogers: Slarque? Did you say Slarque?

Sam: I wasn’t one hundred per cent sure. I might be mistaken. I’ve been trying to find someone with first-hand experience of …

Fr Rogers: The Slarque … Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on their wayward souls. It’s such a long time ago, such a long time. I sometimes wonder … No, I know it happened. It can’t have been a dream, a nightmare. It happened. It’s the reason I’m here. If not for what happened out there in the mountains, I might never have seen the light.

Sam: What happened, Father?

Fr Rogers: Mmm? What happened? What happened? You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. You’d be like all the others, disbelievers all—

Sam: I have seen a Slarque, too.

Fr Rogers: So you say, so you say … I haven’t told anyone for a long time. Became tired of being disbelieved, you see. They thought I’d gone mad … But I didn’t tell anyone what really happened. I didn’t want the authorities to go and find Codey, arrest him.

Sam: Codey, your co-pilot? But I thought he died in the crash-landing?

Fr Rogers: That’s what I told everyone. Easier that way. He wanted people to think he hadn’t survived, the sinner.

Sam: Father, can you tell me what happened?

Fr Rogers: It’s … how long ago? Thirty years? More? There’s little chance Codey will still be alive. Oh, he had supplies aplenty, but up here … up here he was sick and getting worse. He made me promise that I’d keep quiet about what he did - and until now I have. But what harm can it do now, with Codey surely long dead?

(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.

The rest of their party, other than himself, Alvarez and the Doctor, consisted of a team of four drivers-cum-guards, men from Million in the employ of the Alvarez Foundation. They tended to keep to themselves, indeed were congregated at the far end of the table now, leaving the others to talk together.

Alvarez was saying: ‘I made a trip out to the St Cyprian monastery this afternoon, to see if I could get anything more from Rogers.’

Hunter looked up from his plate of cold meat and salad. ‘And?’ He winced as a stabbing pain lanced through his lungs.

The entrepreneur was leaning back in his chair, turning a glass of wine in his fingers. He was dressed in a light-weight white suit of extravagantly flamboyant design. ‘I found Rogers, and a number of the other monks.’

Dr Fischer asked, ‘Did you learn anything more?’

Alvarez shook his head. ‘A couple of the monks were dead. Rogers was still alive, but only just. They were strapped to great wooden stakes on the clifftop greensward, naked, reduced to torsos. Many had had their eyes and facial features removed. They were chanting. I must admit that in a perverse kind of way, there was something almost beautiful in the tableau.’

‘As an atheist,’ Hunter said, ‘I could not look upon such depredation with sufficient objectivity to appreciate any beauty. As far as I’m concerned, their cult is a sick tragedy.’

‘They could be helped,’ Dr Fischer said tentatively.

Hunter grunted a laugh. ‘I somehow doubt that your ministrations would meet with their approval.’

The three men drank on in silence. At length, talk turned to the expedition.

Alvarez indicated the huge tracked bison he had transported from Million. The vehicle sat in the drive beside the hotel, loaded with provisions — food, water, weapons and, Hunter noticed, a collapsible cage lashed to the side.

‘All is ready,’ Alvarez said. ‘We set off at dawn. Your wife’s radio beacons are transmitting, and all we have to do is follow them. Our progress should be considerably quicker than hers. We’ll be following the route she has carved through the jungle, and as we have four drivers working in shifts we’ll be able to journey throughout the night. I estimate that, if all goes well, we should arrive at the valley of the crash-landing within two weeks. Then you take over, Mr Hunter, and with luck on our side we should bring about the salvation of the Slarque.’

Hunter restrained himself from commenting. The pain in his chest was mounting. He told himself that he should not worry - Dr Fischer had brought him back to life once; he could no doubt do so again, should it be necessary - but something instinctive deep within him brought Hunter out in hot and cold sweats of fear.

Alvarez leaned forward. ‘Hunter? Are you—?’

Hunter clasped his chest. Pain filled his lungs, constricting his breathing. Dr Fischer, with surprising agility for a man his size, rounded the table and bent over Hunter. He slipped an injector from a wallet and sank it into Hunter’s neck. The cool spread of the drug down through his chest brought instant relief. He regained his breath little by little as the pain ebbed.

Dr Fischer said, ‘You’ve undergone a rapid resurrection programme, Mr Hunter. Some minor problems are to be expected. At the first sign of the slightest pain, please consult me.’ The Doctor exchanged a quick glance with Alvarez, who nodded.

Hunter excused himself and retired to his room.

He lay on his bed for a long time, unable to sleep. The night sky flared with bright pulses of orange and magenta light, sending shadows flagging across the walls of the room. He thought of Sam, and the daughter he had yet to meet, somewhere out there in the interior. He cursed the day he had first heard of Tartarus Major, regretted the three years it had robbed from his life, that long away from his daughter. He slept fitfully that night, troubled by dreams in which Sam was running from the teeth and claws of the creature that had killed him.

He was woken at dawn, after what seemed like the briefest of sleeps, by the ugly klaxon of the tracked bison. The vehicle was equipped to sleep eight - in small compartments little wider than the individual bunks they contained. It was invitation enough for Hunter. He spent the first six hours of the journey catching up on the sleep he’d lost during the night. He was eventually awoken by the bucketing yaw of the bison as it made the transition from the relatively smooth surface of a road to rough terrain.

Hunter washed the sweat from his face in the basin above his bunk, then staggered through the sliding door. A narrow corridor ran the length of the vehicle to the control cabin, where a driver wrestled with the wheel, accompanied by a navigator. A ladder lead up to a hatch in the roof. He climbed into the fierce, actinic sunlight and a blow-torch breeze. Alvarez and Fischer were seated on a bench, swaying with the motion of the truck.

Hunter exchanged brief greetings and settled to quietly watching the passing landscape. They had moved from the cultivated littoral to an indeterminate area of characterless scrubland, and were fast approaching the jungle-covered foothills that folded away, ever hazier, to a point in the distance where the crags of the central mountains seemed to float on a sea of cloud.

They were following a route through the scrub which he and Sam had pioneered years ago in their own bison. The landmarks, such as they were - towering insects’ nests, and stunted, sun-warped trees - brought back memories that should have cheered him but which served only to remind him of Sam’s absence.

As the huge sun surged overhead and the heat became furnace-like, Alvarez and Dr Fischer erected a heat-reflective awning. The three men sat in silence and drank iced beers.

They left the scrubland behind and accelerated into the jungle, barrelling down the narrow defile torn through the dense undergrowth by Sam’s vehicle before them. It was minimally cooler in the shade of the jungle, out of the direct sunlight, but the absence of even a hot wind to stir the air served only to increase the humidity.

Around sunset they broke out the pre-packaged trays of food and bulbs of wine, and ate to the serenade of calls and cries from the surrounding jungle. Hunter recognised many of them, matching physical descriptions to the dozens of songs that shrilled through the twilight. When he tired of this he said goodnight to Alvarez and the Doctor and turned in. He lay awake for a long time until exhaustion, and the motion of the truck, sent him to sleep.

This routine set the pattern for the rest of the journey. Hunter would wake late, join Alvarez and the Doctor for a few beers, eat as the sun set, then retire and lie with his chaotic thoughts and fears until sleep pounced, unannounced. His chest pains continued, but, as Dr Fischer ordered, he reported them early, received the quelling injection and suffered no more.

To counter boredom, he pointed out various examples of Tartarean wildlife to his fellow travellers, giving accounts of the habits and peculiarities of the unique birds and beasts. Even this pastime, though, reminded him of Sam’s absence: she would have told him to stop being so damned sententious.

Seven days out of Apollinaire, they came to the clearing where Hunter had lost his life. Alvarez called a halt for a couple of hours, as they’d made good time so far. The driver slewed the bison to a sudden stop. The comparative silence of the clearing, after the incessant noise of the engine, was like a balm.

Hunter jumped down and walked away from Alvarez and the others, wanting to be alone with his thoughts. The encampment was as Sam had left it on the day of the attack; the dome-tent located centrally, the battery of cameras set up peripherally to record the teeming wildlife. His heart pounding, Hunter crossed to where he judged the attack had taken place. There was nothing to distinguish the area; the disturbed earth had scabbed over with moss and plants, and the broken undergrowth in the margin of the jungle had regrown. He looked down the length of his new body, for the first time fully apprehending the miracle of his renewed existence. Overcome by an awareness of the danger, he hurried back to the truck.

Sam had been this way - the tracks of her bison had patterned the floor of the clearing - but if she had left; any recorded message there was no sign, only the ubiquitous radio transmitter which she had dropped at intervals of a hundred kilometres along her route.

They ate their evening meal in the clearing - a novelty after having to contend with the constant bucking motion of the truck at mealtimes so far. No sooner had the sun set, flooding the jungle with an eerie crimson night light, than they were aboard the bison again and surging through the jungle into territory new to Hunter.

Over the next six days, the tracked bison climbed through the increasingly dense jungle, traversing steep inclines that would have defeated lesser vehicles. They halted once more, two days short of their destination, at a natural pass in the mountainside which had been blocked, obviously since Sam’s passage, by a small rockfall.

While Alvarez’s men cleared the obstruction, Hunter walked back along the track and stared out over the continent they had crossed. They were at a high elevation now, and the jungle falling away, the distant flat scrubland and cultivated seaboard margin, was set out below him like a planetary surveyor’s scale model. Over the sea, the nebulous sphere of the dying sun was like a baleful eye, watching him, daring their mission to succeed before the inevitable explosion.

Alvarez called to Hunter, and they boarded the truck on the last leg of the journey.

The night before they reached the valley where the starship had crash-landed, Hunter dreamed of Sam. The nightmare was vague and surreal, lacking events and incidents but overburdened with mood. He experienced the weight of some inexpressible depression, saw again and again the distant image of Sam, calling for him.

He awoke suddenly, alerted by something. He lay on his back, blinking up at the ceiling. Then he realised what was wrong. The truck was no longer in motion; the engine was quiet. He splashed his face with cold water and pulled on his coverall. He left his cabin and climbed down into the fierce sunlight, his mood affected by some residual depression from the nightmare. He joined the others, gathered around the nose of the bison, and stared without a word into the valley spread out below.

In Father Rogers’ story the valley had been snow-filled, inhospitable, but over the intervening years the snow had melted, evaporated by the increased temperature, and plant life in abundance had returned to this high region. A carpet of grass covered the valley floor, dotted with a colourful display of wild flowers. Over the edges of the lower peaks which surrounded the valley, vines and creepers were encroaching like invaders over a battlement.

Hunter was suddenly aware of his heartbeat as he stared into the valley and made out the sleek, broken-backed shape of a starship, its nose buried in a semi-circular mound it had ploughed all those years ago, grassed over now like some ancient earthwork. Little of the original paintwork was observable through the cocoon of grass and creepers that had captured the ship since the thaw.

Then he made out, in the short meadow grass of the valley, the tracks of Sam’s vehicle leading to the ship. Of her bison there was no sign. He set off at a walk, then began running towards the stranded starship.

He paused before the ramp that led up to the entrance, then cautiously climbed inside. Creepers and moss had penetrated a good way into the main corridor. He called his wife’s name, his voice echoing in the silence. The ship seemed deserted. He returned outside, into the dazzling sunlight, and made a complete circuit of the ship. Sam’s truck wasn’t there - but he did see, leading away up the valley, to a distant, higher valley, the parallel imprint of vehicle tracks in the grass.

Beside the ramp was a radio beacon. Tied to the end of its aerial was Sam’s red-and-white polka-dotted bandanna. Hunter untied it and discovered an ear-phone.

Up the valley, the others were approaching in the bison. Before they reached him, Hunter sat on the ramp, activated the ‘phone and held it to his ear.

The sound of Sam’s voice filled him with joy at first, then a swift, stabbing sadness that he had only her voice.

Somewhere in the interior … Luke’s day, 26th, St Bede’s month, 1720, Tartarean Calendar.

I’ve decided to keep a regular record of my journey, more for something to do before I sleep each night than anything else.

I set off from Apollinaire three days ago and made good time, driving for ten, twelve hours a day. I preferred the days, even though the driving was difficult - the nights seemed to go on forever. It didn’t occur to me until I stopped on that first evening that I’d never camped alone in the interior before. It was a long time before I got to sleep -what with all the noise, the animal cries. The following nights were a bit better, as I got used to being alone. On the morning of the fourth day I was awoken by a great flare from the sun. I nearly panicked. I thought this was it, the supernova. Then I recalled all the other times it’d done that, when you were with me, Hunter. It wasn’t the end, then - but perhaps it was some kind of warning. Nothing much else to report at the moment. Long, hot days. Difficult driving. I stopped yesterday at the clearing where … it happened. It brings back terrible memories, Hunter. I’m missing you. I can’t wait till you’re with me again. Freya is well.

The interior. Mary’s day, 34th, St Bede’s month.

I’ve spent the last few days trying to find the best route through the damned foothills. The map’s useless. I’ve tried three different routes and I’ve had to turn back three times, wasting hours. Now I think I’ve found the best way through.

The Central Mountains. Mathew’s day, 6th, St Botolph’s month.

Well, I’m in the mountains now. The going is slow. What with a map that’s no damned good at all, and the terrain clogged with new jungle since the thaw … I’m making precious little progress. Sometimes just ten kays a day. I haven’t had a proper wash for ages, but I’m eating and sleeping well. I’m okay.

Central Mountains. John’s day, 13th, St Botolph’s month.

Another frustrating week. I suppose it’s a miracle that I’ve been able to get this far, but the bison’s a remarkable vehicle. It just keeps on going. I reckon I’m three weeks from Codey’s Valley, as I’ve started to think of it. At this rate you won’t be far behind me. I’ve decided to leave the recording on one of the radio beacons somewhere, so you’ll know in advance that I’m okay. So is Freya.

Central Mountains. Mark’s day, 22nd, St Botolph’s month.

I’ve been making good progress, putting in sometimes fourteen hours at the wheel. I’ve had some good luck. Found navigable passes first time. I should make Codey’s Valley in a week, if all goes well.

Central Mountains. Mary’s day, 27th, St Botolph’s month.

I’m just two or three days from Codey’s Valley, and whatever I’ll find there. I must admit, I haven’t really thought about what might be awaiting me - I’ve had too much to concentrate on just getting here, never mind worrying about the future. It’ll probably just be a big anticlimax, whatever. I’ll wait for you there, at the ship.

It’s dark outside. I’m beneath a great overhanging shelf of rock that’s blocking out the night sky’s lights. I can’t hear or see a single thing out there. I might be the only living soul for kilometres … I just want all this to be over. I want to get away from this damned planet. Promise me we’ll go on a long, relaxing holiday when all this is over, Hunter, okay?

Codey’s Valley. I don’t know what date, St Cyprian’s month.

I … A lot has happened over the past couple of weeks. I hardly know where to begin. I’ve spent maybe ten, eleven days in a rejuvenation pod - but I’m not really sure how long. It seemed like ages. I’m okay, but still a bit woozy… I’m getting ahead of myself. I’ll go back a bit - to the 28th, I think, when it happened.

I was a day away from the valley, according to the map. I was feeling elated that I was nearly there, but at the same time … I don’t know, I was apprehensive. I could think of nothing else but the Slarque, what they’d done to you. What they might do to me if they chose to … Anyway, perhaps I wasn’t concentrating for thinking about this. I was driving up a ravine, crossing the steep slope. I’d had little trouble with the bison until then, so I think what happened was my fault. I lost control. You know how you feel in that terrible split second when you realise something life-threatening is about to happen, well … the truck rolled and I couldn’t do a thing about it. I was knocked unconscious.

I don’t know how long I was out, maybe a day or two. The pain brought me around a few times, then put me under again, it was that bad. I thought I’d cracked my skull, and there was something wrong with my pelvis. I couldn’t move. The bison was on its side, with all the loose contents of the cab piled up around me. I knew that if only I could get to the controls, I’d be able to right the bison and set off again. But when I tried to move - the pain! Then wonderful oblivion.

When I came to my senses, the truck was no longer on its side. It was upright again - and I wasn’t where I’d been, in the cab. I was stretched out in the corridor, something soft cradling my head.

Then the truck started up and roared off up the side of the ravine, the motion wracking me with pain. I was delirious. I didn’t know what the hell was happening. I cried out for the truck to stop, but I couldn’t make myself heard over the noise of the engine.

When I regained consciousness again, night was falling. I’d been out for hours. The truck was moving, but along a flat surface that didn’t cause me pain. I tried to look down the length of my body, into the cab, and as I did so the driver turned in his seat and peered down at me.

I knew it was Codey.

Spacers never lose that look. He was short and thickset, crop-headed. I reckoned he was about seventy - Codey’s age - and though his body looked younger, that of someone half his age, his face was old and lined, as if he’d lived through a hundred years of hardship.

I passed out again. When I came to, I thought I’d dreamed of Codey. The truck was stopped, its engine ticking in the silence. Then the side door opened and Codey, wearing old Fleet regulation silvers, climbed up and knelt beside me. He held an injector.

He told me not to worry, that he was going to take me to the ship, where he had a rejuvenation pod. My pelvis was broken, but I’d soon be okay … He placed the cold nozzle to my bicep and plunged.

I felt nothing as he lifted me and carried me from the bison, across to the ship. He eased me down long corridors, into a chamber I recognised as an astrodome - the glass all covered and cloaked with creepers - and lay me in the rejuvenation pod. As I slipped into sleep, he stared down at me. He looked worried and unsure.

Yesterday, I awoke feeling … well, rejuvenated. The pelvis was fine. Codey assisted me from the pod and led me to a small room containing a bunk, told me to make myself at home. The first thing I did was to hurry out to the truck and root around among its tumbled contents until I found the container, then carried it back to my new quarters. Codey watched me closely, asked me what it was. I didn’t tell him.

I remembered what Fr Rogers had said about him, that he thought Codey had flipped. And that was then. For the past thirty years he’d lived up here, alone. When I looked into his face I saw the consequence of that ordeal in his eyes.

Codey’s Valley. Mark’s day, 16th, St Cyprian’s month.

Early this morning I left my cabin, went out to the truck and armed myself. If the story Father Rogers had told me in the monastery garden was true, about Codey and the Slarque …

I remained outside the ship, trying to admire the beauty of the valley.

Later, Codey came out carrying a preheated tray of food. He offered it to me and said that he’d grown the vegetables in his own garden. I sat on the ramp and ate, Codey watching me. He seemed nervous, avoided eye contact. He’d not known human company in thirty years.

We’d hardly spoken until that point. Codey hadn’t seemed curious about me or why I was here, and I hadn’t worked out the best way to go about verifying Father Rogers’ story.

I said that Rogers had told me about the crash-landing.

I recorded the following dialogue:

CODEY: Rogers? He survived? He made it to Apollinaire?

SAM: He made it. He’s still there—

CODEY: I didn’t give him a chance of surviving … They monitored him as far as the next valley down, then lost him—

SAM: They?

CODEY: The Slarque, who else? Didn’t Rogers tell you they were in contact with me?

SAM: Yes - yes, he did. I didn’t know whether to believe him. Are you … are you still in contact?

CODEY: They’re in contact with me …You don’t believe me, girl?

SAM: I … I don’t know—

CODEY: How the hell you think I found you, ten klicks down the next valley? They read your presence.

SAM: They can read my mind?

CODEY: Well, let’s just say that they’re sympathetic to your thoughts, shall we?

SAM: Then they know why I’m here?

CODEY: Of course.

SAM: So … If they’re in contact with you, you’ll know why I’m here …

(Codey stood up suddenly and strode off, as if I’d angered him. He stood with his back to me, his head in his hands. I thought he was sobbing. When he turned around, he was grinning … insanely.)

CODEY: They told me. They told me why you’re here!

SAM: … They did’?

CODEY: They don’t want your help. They don’t want to be saved. They have no wish to leave Tartarus. They belong here. This is their home. They believe that only if they die with their planet will their souls be saved.

SAM: But … but we can offer them a habitat identical to Tartarus - practically unbounded freedom—

CODEY: Their religious beliefs would not allow them to leave. It’d be an act of disgrace in the eyes of their forefathers if they fled the planet now.

SAM: They … they have a religion? But I thought they were animals …

CODEY: They might have devolved, but they’re still intelligent. Their kind have worshipped the supernova for generations. They await the day of glory with hope …

SAM: And you?

CODEY: I … I belong here, too. I couldn’t live among humans again. I belong with the Slarque.

SAM: Why? Why do they tolerate you? One … one of them killed my husband—

CODEY: I performed a service for them, thirty years ago, the first of two such. In return they keep me company … in my head … and sometimes bring me food.

SAM: Thirty years ago … ? You gave them the prisoner?

CODEY: They commanded me to do it! If I’d refused … Don’t you see, they would have taken me or Rogers. I had no choice, don’t you understand?

SAM: My God. Three years ago … my husband? Did you … ?

CODEY: I … please … I was monitoring your broadcasts, the footage you beamed to Apollinaire. You were out of range of the Slarque up here, and they were desperate. I had to do it, don’t you see? If not … they would have taken me.

SAM: But why? Why? If they bring you food, then why do they need humans?

Codey broke down then. He fled sobbing up the ramp and into the ship. I didn’t know whether to go after him, comfort him, try to learn the truth. In the event I remained where I was, too emotionally drained to make a move.

It’s evening now. I’ve locked myself in my cabin. I don’t trust Codey - and I don’t trust the Slarque. I’m armed and ready, but I don’t know if I can keep awake all night.

Oh my God. Oh, Jesus. I don’t believe it. I can’t—

He must have overridden the locking system, got in during the night as I slept. But how did he know? The Slarque, of course. If they read my mind, knew my secret …

I didn’t tell you, Hunter. I wanted it to be a surprise.

I wanted you to be there when Freya was growing up. I wanted you to see her develop from birth, to share with you her infancy, her growth, to cherish her with you.

Two and a half years ago, Hunter, I gave birth to our daughter. Immediately I had her suspended. For the past two years I’ve carried her everywhere I’ve been, in a stasis container. When we were reunited, we would cease the suspension, watch our daughter grow.

Last night, Codey stole Freya. Took the stasis container. I’m so sorry, Hunter. I’m so …

I’ve got to think straight. Codey took his crawler and headed up the valley to the next one. I can see the tracks in the grass.

I’m going to follow him in my truck. I’m going to get our daughter back.

I’ll leave this recording here, for when you come. Forgive me, Hunter … Please, forgive me.

He sat on the ramp of the starship with his head in his hands, the sound of his pulse surging in his ears as Alvarez passed Sam’s recording to Dr Fischer. Hunter was aware of a mounting pain in his chest. He found himself on the verge of hysterical laughter at the irony of crossing the galaxy to meet his daughter, only to have her snatched from his grasp at the very last minute.

He looked up at Alvarez. ‘But why … ? What can they want with her?’

Alvarez avoided his gaze. ‘I wish I knew—’

‘We’ve got to go after them!’

Alvarez nodded, turned and addressed his men. Hunter watched, removed from the reality of the scene before him, as Alvarez’s minions armed themselves with lasers and stun rifles and boarded the truck.

Hunter rode on the roof with Alvarez and Dr Fischer. As they raced up the incline of the valley, towards the v-shaped cutting perhaps a kilometre distant, he scanned the rocky horizon for any sign of the vehicles belonging to Sam or Codey.

His wife’s words rang in his ears, the consequences of what she’d told him filling him with dread. For whatever reasons, Codey had supplied the Slarque with humans on two other occasions. Obviously Sam had failed to see that she had been led into a trap, with Freya as the bait.

They passed from the lower valley, accelerated into one almost identical, but smaller and enclosed by steep battlements of jagged rock.

There, located in the centre of the greensward, were Codey’s crawler and Sam’s truck.

They motored cautiously towards the immobile vehicles.

Twenty metres away, Hunter could wait no longer. He leapt from the truck and set off at a sprint, Alvarez calling after him to stop. The pain in his chest chose that second to bite, winding him.

Codey’s crawler was empty. He ran from the vehicle and hauled himself aboard Sam’s truck. It, too, was empty.

Alvarez’s men had caught up with him. One took his upper arm in a strong yet gentle grip, led him back to Alvarez who was standing on the greensward, peering up at the surrounding peaks.

Two of his men had erected the collapsible cage, then joined the others at strategic positions around the valley. They knelt behind the cover of rocks, stun rifles ready.

An amplified voice rang through the air. ‘Hunter!’

‘Codey …’ Alvarez said.

‘Step forward, Hunter. Show yourself.’ The command echoed around the valley, but seemed to issue from high in the peaks straight ahead.

Hunter walked forward ten paces, paused and called through cupped hands, ‘What do you want, Codey? Where’s Sam and my daughter?’

‘The Slarque want you, Hunter,’ Codey’s voice boomed. ‘They want what is theirs.’

Hunter turned to Alvarez, as if for explanation.

‘Believe me,’ Alvarez said, ‘It was the only foolproof way we had of luring the Slarque—’

Hunter was aware of the heat of the sun, ringing blows down on his head. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘Why me? What do they want?’

Alvarez stared at Hunter. ‘Three years ago,’ he said, ‘when the Slarque attacked and killed you, it laid the embryos of its young within your remains, as has been their way since time immemorial. The primates they used in times past began to die out millennia ago; hence the fall of the Slarque. It so happened that humans are also a suitable repository … Of course, when Sam rescued your remains and had them suspended, the embryos too were frozen. We discovered them when we examined your remains on Million.’

Hunter was shaking his head. ‘You used me …’

‘It was part of the deal, Hunter. For your resurrection, you would lead us to the Slarque.’

‘But if you wanted the Slarque, you had them! Why didn’t you raise the embryos for your exhibition?’

‘The young would not survive more than a few months. We examined the embryos and found they’d been weakened by inbreeding, by cumulative genetic defects. I suspect that the brood incubated in the body of the prisoner thirty years ago did not survive. We need the only existing pair of adult Slarque.’

Something moved within Hunter’s chest. He winced.

Dr Fischer approached. ‘A pain-killer.’

Hunter was unable to move, horrified at what Alvarez had told him and at the same time in need of the analgesic to quell the slicing pain. He just stood as Fischer plunged the injector into his neck.

Codey’s voice rang out again. ‘Step forward, Hunter! Approach the south end of the valley. A simple trade: for the Slarque young, your wife and daughter.’

Hunter stepped forward, began walking.

Behind him, Alvarez said, ‘Stop right there, Hunter. Let the Slarque come to you … Remember our deal?’

Hunter hesitated, caught between obeying the one man capable of granting him life, and the demands of the Slarque who held his wife and daughter.

The pain in his chest was almost unbearable, as if his innards were being lacerated by swift slashes of a razor blade. My God, if this was the pain with the sedative …

He cried out, staggered forward.

‘Hunter!’ Alvarez cried.

He turned. He saw Alvarez raise the laser to his shoulder, take aim. He dived as Alvarez fired, the cobalt bolt lancing past him with a scream of ionised air.

He looked up the valley, detecting movement. Two figures emerged from behind a jagged rock. They were at once grotesquely alien and oddly humanoid: scaled, silver creatures with evil, Scorpion tails. What invested them with humanity, Hunter thought, was their simple desire to rescue their young. And even as he realised this, he was overcome by the terror of their initial attack, three years ago.

Behind him, he heard Alvarez give the order to his men. He turned in time to see them raise their stun-guns and take aim at the Slarque.

‘No!’ he cried.

A quick volley of laser fire issued from a single point in the rocks high above. The first vector hit Alvarez, reducing him to a charred corpse. The succeeding blasts accounted for the others, picking them off one by one.

Only Dr Fischer remained, hands in the air, terrified.

Hunter hauled himself to his feet and cried Sam’s name, trying to ignore the pain in his chest.

The Slarque approached him. As they advanced, Hunter tried to tell himself that he should not feel fear: their interest in him was entirely understandable.

‘Sam!’ he cried again.

In his last few seconds of consciousness, Hunter saw his wife run from the cover of the rocks and dash past the Slarque. He was suddenly struck by the improbable juxtaposition of ugliness and extreme beauty. Behind her, he saw a thin, bedraggled human figure - the madman Codey, hefting a rifle. In that second he remembered the death of Alvarez, and wondered if Codey’s action in killing the doctor meant that he, Hunter, would die on this infernal planet without hope of resurrection.

He keeled over before Sam reached him, and then she was cradling him, repeating his name. Hunter lay in her arms, stared up at her face eclipsing the swollen sun.

He felt the life forms within him begin to struggle, a sharp, painful tugging as they writhed from his chest and through his entrails, the tissue of his stomach an easier exit point than his ribcage.

‘Sam,’ he said weakly. ‘Freya… ?’

Sam smiled reassurance through her tears. Behind her, Hunter saw the monstrous heads of the Slarque as they waited. He tried to raise his face to Sam’s, but he was losing consciousness, fading fast. He was aware of a sudden loosening of his stomach muscles as the alien litter fought to be free.

The he cried out, and died for the second time.

*

Aboard the Angel of Mercy, orbiting Tartarus Major, 1st, May, 23,210 — Galactic Reckoning.

I need to make this last entry, to round things off, to talk.

With Dr Fischer I collected the remains - the bodies of Alvarez and his men - and your body, Hunter. Fischer claims he’ll be able to resurrect Alvarez and the other men lasered by Codey, but he didn’t sound so sure. Personally, I hope he fails with Alvarez, after what he put you through. The man doesn’t deserve to live.

I’ve negotiated a price for our story with NewsCorp - they’ve promised enough to pay for your resurrection. It’ll be another three years before you’re alive again. It’s a long time to wait, and I’ll miss you, but I guess I shouldn’t complain. Of course, I’ll keep Freya suspended. I look forward to the day when together we can watch her grow.

The final exodus has begun. I can look through the view-screen of my cabin and see Tartarus and the giant sphere of the sun, looming over it. Against the sun, a hundred dark specks rise like ashes - the ships that carry the citizens to safety. There’s something sad and ugly about the scene, but at the same time there’s something achingly beautiful about it, too.

By the time we’re together again, Hunter, Tartarus will be no more. But the exploding star will be in the heavens still, marking the place in space where the Slarque and poor Codey, and the other lost souls who wished for whatever reasons to stay on Tartarus, perished in the apocalypse.

I can’t erase from my mind the thought of the Slarque, those sad, desperate creatures who wanted only the right to die with their young in the supernova, and who, thanks to Codey and you, will now be able to do so.

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