Blighted Star (19 page)

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Athena
patched through to the populace of the threatened town once more. Speaking from
her heart, and without trying to disguise the gravity of the situation, she
explained what had happened, and what they should do to protect themselves. By
the time she had finished speaking, she could see that the last of the green
dots was leaving Heartlake, even as the red dots advanced on the town from the
east. At the crossroads, a small green cluster marked the position of the
soldiers. The red dots came close to them, and slowed, thickening as the front
line of them was engaged and the following elements caught up. The thickened
line began to advance and the squad dropped back into the town. Again the
process was repeated, but this time Raoul had to intervene through the comms to
order an early withdrawal. To the north, and to the south, the red dots had
advanced relatively rapidly, and the unit was in danger of being cut off. They
dropped back to the last houses in town. The townsfolk had not got very far.
Athena watched another stand being taken, then the small green cluster moved
again, this time merging with the larger body of green. Raoul beside her tapped
on his keyboard, and the soldiers’ green dots turned to blue.

“Sorry,”
said Raoul, vaguely, “should have done that before.”

Now
the red dots extended far to the sides. The trailing end of the green mass, now
tipped with blue, was gradually overhauled on either side. The Southern horn of
the red dots moved in, and to Athena’s horror, the green mass reacted, losing
its forward momentum, and dispersing to the North, where more of the red dots
were waiting. It was like watching a predator pack hunting; first the feint,
then the ambush. A bulge of green dots, despite her frantic warnings, crashed
into the waiting line of red dots to the North. They retracted again, but not
until half a dozen of them had been turned red.

Raoul
wiped his hand across his mouth, he was sweating heavily. “I really need to get
out there.” he turned frightened eyes to hers “We’re losing it.”

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The
plains were now entirely empty of life and the skies were swept clear of flying
things. The many ponds and lakes had become sealed traps in which the swimmers
had been hunted down remorselessly, and now the organism was itself dying out, a
victim of its own success. It had burned its way across the surface of the
planet in a few hundred thousand years since its emergence, and now, like a
fire burning beyond control, it had used up all its fuel, almost the entire
biosphere was extinct.. With so few new hosts to infect, it was only a matter
of time before the organism itself became extinct.  There was one last
strategy for it to employ, coded in its genes were the patterns it had
inherited from its fungal ancestors, yet to activate those patterns it would
need mass, a great deal of flesh which it could convert. The last scraps of it
were trapped in an arid corner of the world to which it had been drawn by its
sense of living tissue.

Here
in this flat semi desert was one place where a significant meteor strike had
thrown up a bony ring of rocks, a kilometre in diameter. In the centre of this
was a shallow lake in which the water had become quite saline with the waste of
a species of large and bulky fish. These fish survived precariously on a diet
of the slime which scummed the lake’s surface. Until now, their presence had
gone overlooked by the poisoned senses of the organism’s victims, but now, they
stood out clearly to the infected agents around the crater.

The
organism had a long task ahead of it though. The soil around the crater was
infertile and in consequence only sparsely populated by the worms which were
its final refuge with all the other animals gone. Each time it infected another
host, it had the choice to make of climbing the steep rocky slope and working
its way to the shore of the lake within, or to find a new host closer to hand
and thereby ensure its own survival albeit at a lowly level.

For
several centuries the impasse held: the fish in their little lake contained
within its fortress of rock, lived out their long lives oblivious to the doom
which patiently circled them. Outside the organism clung to life, never
obtaining more than a dozen hosts at one time, never succeeding in breaching
the wall of rock.

It
is in the nature of life that different years bring gluts of different species.
And so it was that an unusually wet season in the area around the crater gave
rise to a superabundant flourishing of the small bushes which grew among the
rocks. The heavy harvest of berries, with no grazers to eat them, piled on the
ground, and the worms moved in, themselves enjoying a glut. Every rotting pile
of fruit covered a wriggling mass of little worms. The organism moved in and
possessed the tiny corpses, recruiting a veritable army. The worms moved up the
slope throughout the night, and the dawn saw a few hundred at the top. The
coming of day eradicated those who could find no shelter from the sun’s rays,
but a handful persisted beneath a flat rock. When night time came once more
they moved down the inside slope towards the lake shore, the arid dust and sand
taking a further toll on the bodies, drying them out so that their movements
became slower and slower. More burned out on the flat crater floor.

If
the same rain which had caused the harvest of berries had not also swollen the
lake in the crater bed to nearly twice its normal size, the fish would have
remained safe and the assault would have come to an end in the dry dust as the
sun slowly rose. But the last surviving worms inched into the shallows just as
the light struck the lip of the crater above them. The wrecked bodies revived a
little in the brine. They sought refuge in the soft mud of the lake bed to wait
out the long day. Above them the fish moved through the water, each one a giant
beacon of life after the tiny sparks the worms had represented.

When
night came, the worms rose out of the mud, and wriggling through the water like
so many serpents harvested the flesh of the fish, a total weight of nearly two
tonnes, ample to fuel the latent phase in the organism’s makeup.  After
its long wait here in this arid corner of the planet, the organism got the
chance to make the final cast of the dice which would ensure its survival down
the ages.

Christel
was surprised at her own coolness. Everyone around her was panicking, but
though she felt concerned at the danger, part of her was thrilling to the
adrenalin in her bloodstream. She had joined the expansion program in the hope
of excitement, and her profiling must have shown that she was a seeker after
novelty and sensation. Yet so far she had spent two boring years sealed up in a
space ship, and then had made a landing on what had to be the galaxy’s most
boring planet. At least, it had been ‘til now. Even the emergencies before this
one had been boring, restrictive Saunder’s World emergencies. The plasma breach
at the quarry had been a perfect example of this; it hadn’t meant any exciting,
desperate adventures, or even any pulling together of the colony in a spirit of
camaraderie. it had just meant that the supply of raw materials had been
interrupted, and that she had lost her lover for a week. Even contacting him
had been too risky, the comm link they had given him had been a public one, far
too easy to monitor. Especially if your ex was chief of security.

Now
of course, there was this “Lake Monster” crisis, and everyone was running
around acting like some slimy green crittur was about to grab them.

Huh,
Goldilocks
? Not “Just Right” anymore, was it?

She
decided to go out to the landing field to see what was going on. The soldiers
had been pretty freaked out earlier, and had been going to check on the
suspected tracer malfunction over at Heart Lake. Maybe there’d be some news
about Grad…

Outside,
the shuttle had just landed and the second squad, led by Sgt Raoul, were
clambering aboard. A small, silent crowd was escorting three stretchers in the
direction of the access to the sickbay. as she approached, a uniformed hand
lifted up a respirator, and Jackson’s voice, sounding weak croaked out the wish
that it should be put on the shuttle, because someone might need it. Willing
hands took the respirator away. She couldn’t make out who was on the other
stretchers, so she pushed through the crowd, just in time to see Grad’s pale
features above the cover as he was taken inside. He looked dead.

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Lana
was bone tired; she had never been as tired as this in her life, yet she knew
that she had a long night ahead as they lifted off from Cassini and headed out
once more. She steeled herself, she was after all relatively safe up here in
the air. Down there on the ground being pursued by those things… She lifted up
the respirator, drawing in lungfuls of cool night air to waken herself. During
the flight back she’d forgotten about the mask and had worn it all the way. In
fact, it had only been when a young man had handed in Jackson’s breathing aid
that she had remembered she’d been wearing one. Now she caught a whiff of the
vile odour which had made her so sick, and she realised that it must be
clinging to the clothes she was wearing.

Watching
Grad being carried off the shuttle had been the worst moment of her life, but
now she had to find the strength to carry on, at least until her task was done
and the people of Crescent Waters were safe. Grad would be alright. He had to
be. The alternative was not a prospect she could contemplate for more than a
few seconds before the universe seemed to empty all around her, leaving her
life pointless. She shut her mind to the possibility of Grad dying and
concentrated instead on the job of flying the shuttle.

Above
five hundred metres, The night sky was full of fluky air, sudden gusts and
swirls as the storm system to the north exerted its pull. The stars above were
intermittently obscured by the racing wisps of cloud, purple - grey in the
starlight. The standing water below them was disturbed by cats – paws of wind.

Behind
her the troops were checking their equipment, readying themselves for the
battle ahead. Sgt Raoul, in contact with the squad already on the ground, was
quietly but firmly giving orders. They flew over the new mining site.
Evacuating the skeleton crew there was going to be just one of the tasks she
would have to perform later, when day broke. For now the panicking miners would
just have to hold tight

 
Not far ahead now, the flickers from the targe guns of the first squad could be
seen, zapping out like the intermittent lightning. She aimed for them and lost
height, dropping into stiller, warmer air.

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The
shuttle’s silent passage through the night sky allowed them to hear every
sound. They descended until they were coasting in twenty metres above the
ground. Shrieks and cries of warning rang out from every direction, confirming
what Raoul’s HUD was showing him, the two masses of dots were becoming
enmeshed. A small patch of blues showed where his men were keeping classic
arrow head formation, and the red dots seemed to be on the whole keeping back
from them. The enemy had become aware that there were easier pickings elsewhere
in the sodden landscape.

As
they dropped in, he formed a plan which he transmitted to the troops, they
would form into three groups, and would stage a fighting withdrawal. So far as
possible they would stay at the back of the retreating civilians, forming a
barrier between them and the advancing foe. He would control the battle from
the centre group, and the shuttle would zigzag overhead, providing heavy
support where it was needed with the remounted twenty. It was the best he could
do with no armour, no prepared fortifications, nothing bur twenty swinging
dicks and some very basic equipment. One decent piece of armour and this whole
thing would have been over in minutes.

They
arrived in the relatively open space near the troops on the ground, the
darkness all around them was full of stumbling figures. As soon as the twenty
was reattached, and Patel back on his mount, Lana dragged the shuttle back into
the air, this time keeping at the hover about ten metres up. Patel, his pupils wide
behind the respirator’s window, commenced firing immediately, pacing his double
shots so that the gun’s charge stayed midway between zero and full. The white
sears of light sliced through the darkness leaving green scars on the vision,
and the bang of the air burning each time he fired threatened to disorientate
her. Her taught nerves felt like at any moment they might snap, and each fresh
brace of shots made her flinch. Inside the hot respirator, a bead of sweat ran
down into her left eye, exacerbating the twitch which had just begun there. She
blinked and blinked, trying to stimulate tears to wash it clean.

The
three squads broke apart and walked into the darkness. Under Raoul’s skilful
direction they targeted the areas where the civilians were under the most
pressure, and their mere presence gave the panicking people a focus, like the
standards on an ancient battlefield. Slowly the groups of dots separated as the
living ran free from the pursuing dead. But the visual picture that the tagging
system put together gave no clue to the conditions on the ground. Here, semi
isolated groups of frightened refugees, old and young, were wading through the
tussocky grass, falling to their knees, being pulled upright and staggering on
through the chilling air. Children were sobbing as they clung to the hands of
grim faced adults, and every new form which appeared out of the gloom was a
potential deadly threat.