Ten Little Aliens Page 24

  ‘And what can you do?’ Creben asks. Smug basket.

  It’s not actually a bad question. But we don’t have to answer it, because suddenly Haunt’s screaming in our head:

  ‘Do all you can.’ We glimpse heavy stone. ‘Work together.’

  Hooked grey talons reaching out for our face. ‘Keep the neural network open. That’s an order.’

  Her voice just stops.

  ‘She’s out of the web,’ Creben mutters.

  ‘Dead?’ He doesn’t reply, and there’s my answer. ‘But the Doctor was with her!’

  ‘I’m still here, my boy.’ Thank God.’ Marshal Haunt ran on ahead, we saw someone

  ‘Denni?’ we ask.

  The Doctor’s thinking stuff through, we can tell. ‘It seems highly likely, yes,’ he says.

  Wonderful. Still out there, still psycho. Haunt’s dead, now.

  ‘Thought this network thing was meant to help us watch out for each other?’

  ‘And through each other.’

  That’s Tovel. For a second we look at our communicator, like he’s talking through that, but of course, he’s banging on inside our ears.

  ‘You all right, Tovel?’ We’re still looking at the communicator. Maybe it might boost our voice or something, make us less faint.

  ‘Comes and goes,’ breathes Tovel. At least he’s not just staring into mid-air. Stay on side, mate. You can do it. ‘Now listen,’ he says. ‘Forget Haunt, you have to. Concentrate on the circuit display. If the Doctor’s right, it’ll take two of you to make the repairs on that thing.’

  ‘Tell us what to do,’ says Creben quietly. He’s staring at the glowing red maze, dead intently, like it’s some group palm and he’s reading all our lifelines.

  He’s got that prissy little smile of his back on his face.

  If you have not yet witnessed Marshal Haunt’s severance from the network, select section 11 on page 215-Then return here and select another viewpoint

  To witness these events from Creben’s viewpoint, select section 18

  on page 227

  To switch to Polly’s viewpoint, select section 7 on page 206

  To switch to Shade’s viewpoint, select section 8 on page 207

  15

  Creben

  The work is routine. The repair process is perfectly logical.

  Once you express the sum of the integers as a -

  ‘Whoever done this knew what they were doing,’ says Ben.

  ‘They did,’ we agree. They knew they had to make it simple enough even for the likes of him. ‘They certainly did.’

  We take the last fizzing bundle of cables from his sweaty hands. ‘This should be the last of the links.’

  Before we can make the final repair, the Doctor’s voice sounds in our skull. ‘Good news, my friends. Polly and Shade have the crystals. We can reset the coordinates and steer ourselves far from Morphiea’s noisome influence.’

  We hesitate, unsure how to react. To us, this scarcely seems possible.

  ‘We should not make this known to all in our network,’ the Doctor goes on.

  ‘As we saw the Schirr through Roba’s eyes,’ we say, ‘you think they can see through his?’

  ‘And Tovel, and Frog, too, are no longer dependable,’

  mutters the Doctor.

  Not just them.

  ‘I think we were allowed to complete these repairs,’ we say.

  ‘Denni could have sent a hundred angels to take us here.

  She’s been waiting for something... Just keeping us busy...’

  ‘Perhaps so,’ the Doctor concedes. ‘But Denni won’t have expected us to find those crystals. Hidden most ingeniously, most ingeniously, yes.’ He chuckles. It’s strange, we can hear an echo of his voice in our mind, but the words are different.

  We wonder how many conversations he’s having at once.

  ‘Those little gems may yet give us the advantage in this struggle. Once you’ve finished here, head for the control room. Be on your guard. I shall join you.’

  We plant our handful of red vines deep in a misty circle of amber light. They glow contentedly. The last of the harm is undone.

  ‘All done and dusted,’ the boy says strangely. ‘Let’s get back to the control room, meet the others.’

  We start to agree. Then the voice of a Schirr purrs out to us. A voice we know straight away from a dozen gloating broadcasts system-wide after the dust has settled on each new ruined world he’s left behind.

  To witness these events from Ben’s viewpoint, select section 10 on page 214

  To switch to Polly’s viewpoint, select section 19 on page 229

  To switch to Tovel’s viewpoint, select section 23 on page 235

  To switch to Shade’s viewpoint, select section 26 on page 241

  Or you may withdraw from the neural net - but only after experiencing Frog’s perspective. Select section 27 on page 241

  16

  Frog

  Thank you and goodnight, Dax Roba. He’s still there, you know, his head bubbling quietly away. Like us. We had the same kinda story bubbling under a while back. Some other Schirr’s view. Same kind of ending though.

  Can still feel how it was to have our guts blasted open. If we could lift our head, see over our chins, we imagine we’d find that hole gaping there now. All the life, just slipping away.

  You know we seemed happy before, when the others were gathered round? You probably think we’re such a flake. One minute we’ve got the knives out ready to carve us right up, and the next we’re giggling like a kid on her first date.

  Well, we’ve been making sense of stuff, or trying to. A part of us was thinking, we had our voice taken away ten years ago and now it’s come right back. Luck, see. The kind of luck we’ve never had in our life. So, we might be changing but so’s our luck. And we ain’t never had looks neither, so losing them ain’t so bad.

  Weird thing is, all this time we’ve wished we was Denni, or Lindey, or anyone ‘cept us... the moment we started to change it seemed all right. But we want to hold on to us now.

  We’re not a frog. Not now we can speak. So we don’t wanna croak now.

  We remember... we remember when we came down on some dead village on a sun-scorched world in the outer Argentines. Forget its name. But the Schirr had done a good number on the place when Empire hadn’t pulled out of Idaho by the deadline, and there was nothing there alive when our squad scooted down in the shuttles to check it out. Nothing

  ‘cept this stupid bird.

  It was all white, white all over. Sturdy looking thing, too. A swan, or a goose maybe, can’t remember which, we ain’t been on too many nature trails in our time. But the damned thing kept following us around, and honking and stuff, and there was no one round any more to feed it and water it, and it’d be alone once we’d buried the dead and shipped out. We kind of felt sorry for it.

  And the bird kept following us around and making this stupid bird noise. So in the end we shot it.

  Just a reflex, that was all. Put it out of its misery. But it didn’t know nothing about misery. Maybe it might’ve stayed alive somehow if we’d not been around down there, and all sick with the stuff we’d seen. You know, we can still see it now plain as a hot clear day. That beautiful white bird turned all red and messy. Regretted the shot as soon as we fired it, but what can anyone do? What’s done is done. One hit.

  We was gonna kill ourself but we didn’t. Haunt saw to that.

  Why she’s a marshal and we ain’t making Elite in a hurry, we guess. We feel like that white bird now. Except we bled, and then we got healed. A second chance.

  So we lie here and we hold on. We’re holding on. We’re gonna keep on honking like that swan-goose thing. Only, it’s a sweet songbird voice now.

  No one to hear it now, in this empty place. No one to see us neither, to tell us what we look like. Floating above the floor on our little bubble looking up at the glass on the ceiling.

  Holding on.

  What you still doing her
e? I just got the verbal craps. Get out of here.

  To switch to Creben’s viewpoint, select section 2 on page 198

  To switch to Roba’s viewpoint, select section 22 on page 234

  - then return here

  17

  Haunt

  We snap out of Roba. Clutch hold of ourselves, to know we’re still here. Still us.

  ‘Well, well,’ says the Doctor.

  ‘We should kill him now,’ we say.

  ‘He’s truly becoming one of those Schirr,’ the Doctor says, as if he’s impressed or something. ‘I’ve seen cultures where consumption of a person’s flesh resulted in the eater taking on certain memories, certain characteristics... but this is an altogether more invasive process. The subject is helpless to resist.’

  ‘So we’re all going to turn this way?’ we ask, though we know it’s true anyway. ‘Each of us into one of them?’

  The Doctor nods grimly. ‘And I think DeCaster wants us to know. He wants to feed our fear, to keep us off our guard. To stop us from thinking clearly...’ He gestures at Roba’s bloated, distorted body beneath the fleas. Hence this somewhat graphic demonstration of possession.’

  ‘Then we should kill Roba, shouldn’t we?’ Creben’s voice sounds over the communicator. Now we can feel him, trying to watch through our eyes. He’s learned to use the network quickly and well. An adept. We can feel the strength of his mind.

  ‘We should just kill him,’ he says again, spare him all this.

  Stop DeCaster’s plan.’

  ‘I agree,’ we say.

  ‘But what is DeCaster’s plan, hmm?’ The Doctor addresses his question to our wrist for want of something better to focus on. ‘What will killing this poor man achieve?’ The Doctor shakes his head. ‘And where should we stop? Should we take our own lives now, simply give up?’

  Creben remains silent. We feel him sulking at the back of our mind.

  ‘OK,’ we say. ‘Then let’s move on. He lives. But we leave his webset on so we know what he’s doing.’

  A wise precaution,’ the Doctor agrees. ‘You know, I feel quite distracted and disorientated after that experience. I wonder how the others are getting on, hmm?’

  To switch to Creben’s viewpoint, select section 2 on page 198

  To switch to Frog’s viewpoint, select section 16 on page 224

  18

  Creben

  We feel we’ve been here for an age, body pressed hard back against the rock, trying to conceal ourself. But the glow bleeding from the stare of the carved eyes makes everything too bright.

  We’re noticed the moment the furtive figure rounds the corner.

  It’s Ben.

  He’s relieved. ‘Creben. I’m glad to see you.’ He frowns at the schematic. ‘You all right? What’s all this?’

  ‘It’s what we came here to fix. That’s all.’

  ‘That’s all?’ he says. ‘This is it! We’ll be all right!’

  ‘We’ll be able to breathe for a while longer, certainly. But since Denni brought us here with the intention of changing us into something else, it was never likely we were going to suffocate before that happened, was it?’

  He glares at us, mutters something we don’t understand.

  We realise he’s alone. ‘Where’s Tovel? Weren’t you with him?’

  ‘He’s not good. I had to leave him.’

  We look at him suspiciously. ‘Did you now.’

  ‘Yes, I did. He can’t move, Creben, all right? He’s half-turned into one of them.’

  He’s indignant. We feel it’s genuine.

  ‘Anyway,’ he carries on. He even closes his eyes like he might start crying. We believe he actually feels guilty. ‘The Doctor said I should leave him. S’pose it makes sense. You know, try and help the rest of us before going back to help him.’

  ‘And what can you do?’ we ask politely.

  It’s Haunt’s voice that answers. Screams at us.

  ‘Do all you can. Work together. Keep the neural network open. That’s an order.’

  We catch a whiff of something old and decaying. Glimpse the cold empty face of an angel. As we do so, Haunt’s voice spirals off into nothing.

  ‘She’s out of the web,’ we say quietly.

  ‘Dead?’ We don’t answer him. ‘But the Doctor was with her!’

  ‘I’m still here, my boy,’ comes the Doctor’s answer. He sounds troubled. ‘Marshal Haunt ran on ahead, we saw someone...’

  ‘Denni?’ Ben asks.

  ‘It seems highly likely, yes.’

  Ben laughs, a brief and bitter sound. ‘Thought this network thing was meant to help us watch out for each other?’

  ‘And through each other.’

  Now we hear Tovel. Whispering inside our head. Perhaps the communicator has snapped off his bulging wrist? No. It’s there on the boy’s arm. He seems a little self-conscious about it for some reason.

  You all right, Tovel?’ asks Ben. He’s half-talking into his wrist, the idiot, forgetting whose gear it is. The pressure’s getting to him.

  ‘Comes and goes,’ breathes Tovel. Now listen. Forget Haunt, you have to. Concentrate on the circuit display. If the Doctor’s right, it’ll take two of you to make the repairs on that thing.’

  ‘Tell us what to do,’ we say. We want to get this over with.

  So we can breathe again, until we figure out what to do next.

  We’re taking Tovel’s orders again. The irony is, it’s almost easier to swallow now he’s no longer competition. Now he’s becoming a Schirr.

  The situation’s quite ludicrous. Absurd. And here we are, stuck in it up to our necks.

  If you have not yet witnessed Marshal Haunt’s severance from the network, select section 11 on page 215.

  Then return here and select another viewpoint

  To witness these events from Ben’s viewpoint, select section 14 on page 221

  To switch to Polly’s viewpoint, select section 7 on page 206

  To switch to Shade’s viewpoint, select section 8 on page 207

  19

  Polly

  We set off back down the passage. It wasn’t so far from here we took the blue-lit tunnel. The tunnel that led to the place where Joiks –

  Our thoughts crash up against a voice.

  It’s high like a woman’s but there’s a harshness, an anger, that puts us in mind of a man.

  Dimly we feel Shade grab hold of us, his arm round our waist, dragging us along.

  There’s nothing special about the contact now.

  We can’t feel a thing, except that voice there deep inside us.

  The crystals in our hand rattle together as we start to shake.

  To witness these events from Shade’s viewpoint, select section 26 on page 241

  To switch to Ben’s viewpoint, select section 10 on page 214

  To switch to Creben’s viewpoint, select section 15 on page 223

  To switch to Tovel’s viewpoint, select section 23 on page 235

  Or you may withdraw from the neural net - but only after experiencing Frog’s perspective. Select section 27 on page 241

  20

  Creben

  We trek along these tedious tunnels, endure the jumping touch of the fleas as they swarm in great clouds around the weed above, the great dull lamp we see by. We can feel others trying to get into our head. They can’t reason things out so they want our answers. They want to use our mind to light

  their way. We prefer not to listen.

  People always seek to use us. It’s been the same all our life.

  Our parents gained licence to have a further child once they’d made us demonstrate our prodigal intellect. Our university’s reputation was so enhanced by our achievements that its Chancellor received special commendation from the Paris authorities and a bursary. We were not rewarded.

  Cheats do not prosper. Our mother miscarried twice before our brother was born. He grew up a criminal and a stupid one. He got caught burning down the Chancellor’s library.


  He tried to protest it was our idea.

  Always used. We’re thinking this through now because we’re trying to work out if Haunt’s used us. We don’t think she ever has. Brains arc a disadvantage in her scheme of things, we suppose. Adaptability, that is what the modern soldier needs. Haunt couldn’t adapt so they threw her out under the guise of honouring her, and left her to train others according to programmes and guidelines and principles that weren’t her own. An insult. She must’ve seen it for that. And still she stayed. Because she believed in the Army, even after all it did to her.

  We were honestly just another person to Haunt back at the Academy. She couldn’t fathom us, so she stuck to her job.

  Trained us. Gave to us, or tried to.

  Now we’re all she’s got.

  When the time comes, we hope it’s us who kills Denni.

  We stop. We hear Haunt’s voice in our head. Something’s happened.

  Switch to Haunt’s viewpoint. Select section 5 on page 202

  21

  Shade

  So Haunt’s put us with Polly. That’s good. We need to talk with her.

  We can’t believe we told her all that stuff. That was when we thought we were going to die. It’s like we’ve given away everything we own because we thought it was the end of the world, and now there’s been a stay of execution.

  Except that she can still end the world for us now, any time she wants.

  She doesn’t look so happy to be with us.

  We hope it’s the location and not the company; the usual flea-ridden shadows abound here, masking the jagged slates piled up to the soft-glowing ceiling. The dead weight of the grenade launcher on our back is actually a comfort.

  As we lead the way, we narrow our eyes. Try out this web, try to dip a toe in her head. She’s on edge. Stuff’s going round and round, but one thing we read loud and clear.