DAY 6

 

 

It was 4.30 a.m., and the New Amazonian sun was dawning.

Sheets of red fire curled among the leaves and branches of the tree canopies. The Flesh-Webs glittered as the dew melted off them. The night chorus of nocturnal birds and scurrying grubs with rattling thoraxes ebbed, and the dawn chorus of angry Godzillas and Bigfeet and Tritons and Forest Sharks roared their ownership of their territory, while the birds in the canopies screeched and shrilled and the insects in the Flesh-Webs howled as the sun woke them.

Six Scientists and five Soldiers were dead: all those in the AmRover that had been blown up, who had died instantly, and Margaret Lamarr. But Helms and Sorcha were now reunited with the others, after walking safely back out of the jungle.

All those who had died had been abandoned where they fell, but Helms felt it necessary to hold a brief memorial service in their honour.

Forty-one Scientists and Soldiers gathered in the clearing as Helms spoke calmly and precisely about honour and sacrifice and the randomness of death that comes to all of us, paraphrasing from the many evangelists he had mocked over the years. But his restraint and dignity were exemplary; and he managed to entirely hide the childish, solipsistic sense of relief he always felt when others died, and he had not.

Helms was aware of the many anxious looks that were cast at him. It was clear to everyone now that Sorcha was special to him, and that he would jeopardise everything to protect her.

This meant his authority was in the balance, but Helms didn’t care. He felt defined, and exalted, by his simple act of heroism.

“From now on,” he said, “if the Commander agrees” — he nodded at Sorcha and she nodded her assent — “we drive through the night. We have to reach the Depot before our enemies find us again.”

“Enemies!” snorted Ben Kirkham.

“The DRs,” clarified Helms.

“Why are they following us?” William Beebe asked bluntly. “The Quantum Beacon is gone, so it’s not the CSO any more, and it’s not the Earth Gamers. Why would stupid robots be so determined to kill us all?”

“Because the CSO’s people programmed them to do so,” Helms told him firmly. There was a pause; his power tottered in the balance.

William thought about what Helms had said. The logic was sound, but his intuition screamed “No”.

Furthermore, William had been quietly checking up on Helms on his implanted database.

And he was rapidly coming to the conclusion that there was something, indefinably, not quite right about Professor Richard Helms and his scientific career. Helms was a geologist whose specialism was terraforming. His job was to destroy the flora and fauna of New Amazon, not to study them. And yet, as they all knew, he had an encyclopedic knowledge of alien life-forms and taxonomic systems, and he supervised alien autopsies with extraordinary skill and expertise. William himself had, on many occasions, deferred to Helms’s judgement on areas on which he, William Beebe, was supposedly the authority.

Helms was in short a marvel — a leader, a genius, a fount of wisdom and insight, a scholar, a naturalist, a geologist, an expert in every field of study.

But how could that be? How could one relatively young man know so much, and be so damned good at everything?

“Why,” said William casually, “are you so reluctant to use the twenty-two-digit microbiological classification system, Professor Helms?”

There was a stunned silence.

“What?”

“I said —” William said stubbornly.

“This is neither the time nor the place,” said Helms, furiously. “Have you no sense of perspective, man?”

“I support Professor Helms on this issue,” said Hugo, loyally.

“Oh shut up, you fucking fool,” roared Helms.

“But I support you!” Hugo bleated. “It’s an important —”

“This is not the time or the place,” Helms said angrily. “Eleven of our colleagues died today. Hundreds more died a few days ago. Our priority is survival.”

“How old are you?” William asked.

“And that is relevant, how?”

“How old?”

“One hundred and forty elapsed years,” said Helms, huffily.

And William, with a jolt, realised that he was lying. Helms had to be older! For only quadruple centenarians still used the outmoded Kingdom system of classification.

“You know something,” said William Beebe, “that you’re not telling us.”

There was a further pained silence.

“What the fuck, if I may say so, are you on about?” Professor Helms countered.

Sheena heard the change in his tone of voice, and all her instincts told her that William was correct. Richard Helms was lying. But why? And what was he concealing?

“I’m talking about why the DRs ran amok at Xabar,” continued William, relentlessly.

“Yes, I do know something,” said Helms, and the silence was charged now.

“I know something,” said Helms, “about what the DRs do.” And he paused.

And he held the pause.

Then he continued, in calm chilling tones: “I was on Cambria, fifty years ago. And I also spent two years on Purgatory.” He let the words resonate. “I’ve travelled as a guest on Slaver Ships,” he continued, “carrying human embryos to the furthest reaches of human-occupied space. And I’m a student of history. I’ve seen film of the Times Square Massacre. I’ve downloaded DR snuffporn. So when you say to me: Why did the DRs run amok? then you’re asking, I’m afraid, the wrong question. The DRs have always run amok. It’s just that, until now, we’ve let them.”

“You’re blurring the issue,” protested William. “What I’m saying is —”

“Do you want to live or do you want to die?” Helms said bluntly.

The involuntary murmur was on everyone’s lips: “Live.”

“Then trust me,” said Helms. “So far, I’ve saved this many, against all odds. I destroyed Juno, remember. And I built a safe haven for all of us. It wasn’t easy, believe me, but I knew that one day we would need such a place. Without me, you’d all be doomed. With me, once we reach the Depot, you will be safe.” He smiled his nicest smile, always a danger signal. “So please, gentlemen and ladies, with all due respect, trust me. And then, I do believe, we’ll have a future together.”

“I just want to know —” William began stubbornly, but Helms cut him off, with a tone that brooked no interruption.

“Or, if you prefer, we could stay here,” he said savagely, “and debate idly for days, until our enemies find us and slay us, brutally!”

“Hmph,” said Mary Beebe loudly, with the clear subtext of: You’re absolutely right, and my idiot husband is wrong.

“I’m with you, Professor,” said Hugo Baal, loyally.

“Let’s just go,” complained Ben Kirkham.

“Fair enough,” said William brusquely. And the challenge was ended.

Helms nodded, and the nod was taken as an order. The convoy prepared itself. The crews began embarking into the AmRovers.

Helms took a deep breath; once again, by the skin of his teeth, he’d survived.

Sorcha lingered. She stood close to Helms, her body pumping out “I almost died” hormones, and Helms felt his pulse race.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” she asked, wonderingly. “To have taken a chance like that, just to rescue me?”

Helms almost grinned. Sorcha was a warrior, a killer, a servant of the Cheo. But she was also young, heartfelt, and a woman. Some things never change.

“I guess I must, you know, love you, or something,” he said, softly.

She looked astonished at his words. If he’d put a bullet through her temple, it would have shocked her less.

“Let’s move on out,” he told her, and she nodded.

From the diary of Dr Hugo Baal

June 27th

We are now spending all our available time travelling. After a scant five hours’ sleep I am back inside the AmRover being jostled along, with no way to perform dissections or study specimens under the microscope. However, I am at least able to work in my seat with the aid of a virtual screen and database. I have therefore spent the entire day revising my earlier findings and dissections and film footage and attempting to describe a fuller synthesis of our taxonomy of New Amazonian life.

Occasionally there is plasma gunfire outside the AmRover. Once we fell into a river and had to be towed out. On three occasions we have had to go into high-hover mode and speed away from some danger. But though I occasionally glance out of the side windows, I have managed to retain my focus sufficiently to ignore these extraneous distractions.

A scream! Is someone dead? I consult a colleague who informs me that Hydra have been dropping down out of the canopy and one of them managed to slither inside an AmRover. The situation has been dealt with, however, and there are no fatalities.¹

Let me deal first with the vexed issue of Kingdoms.

According to Professor Helms’s initial taxonomy, there are three Domains of life on New Amazon:

Eurkaryotes (all life forms that have a cell with a nucleus, including Fungi).²

Eubacteria (all life forms that have cells without a nucleus).³

Nucleara (all life forms that have cells in which the nucleus exists without any other cell elements, this form is unique to New Amazon).

As an aside: we now clearly have information to start categorising all life on New Amazon in microbiological terms, and it is of course standard practice on xeno-expeditions to use the Saunders microbiological grid-labelling system for life-forms, which allows every species to be defined with a mere 22 digits.

However, even though Professor Helms is a geologist and not a biologist, he has insisted on retaining and adapting the traditional and some would argue⁴ rather absurdly old-fashioned Kingdom system, though in fact some of us consider it to be still rather valuable.⁵ and on that basis he defines six Kingdoms of life on New Amazon:

 

Animalia

Plantae

Monera

Protista

Fungi

Nucleara

 

There are no viruses on New Amazon. And as stated above, the sixth kingdom, Nucleara, unknown on Earth, consists of organisms which are single or multicellular but consist entirely of nucleus or, sometimes, entirely of DNA or, rather, the New Amazonian version of DNA, namely RBX. (To see previous entry on RBX, click here.)

Many of us realised at a very early stage that this initial taxonomy, though commendably archaic, is also inadequate and narrow-minded and foolish and wrong.⁶ It gives a false sense of simplicity and rationality on a planet where plants can move and eat protein and where animals can be made of bark. As stated in a previous diary entry, I have evolved a new and better approach. Thus, after a healthy period of discussion, in which my views were bluntly put to a rather distracted Professor Helms (some hours after the destruction of Xabar), a compromise was achieved,⁷ which entailed dividing the life-forms into many more Kingdoms:

 

Animalia

Plantae

Animaliaplantae (aka “animalish”)

Plantaeanimalia (aka “plantish”)

Kingdomshifters (types A and B)

Monera (types A, B, C and D)

Protista (types A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H)

Nucleara (types A, B, C, D, E)

 

I also, more controversially, propose to add the following three new Kingdoms:

Nubesa. Cloud formations which demonstrate emergent behaviour, which I have been studying for some time.

Ignisa. Not “flame beasts” as such, but molten lava pools which are capable of purposeful locomotion and which in certain circumstances can emit a mournful sound which some of us⁸ consider to be a beautiful song of lament that can touch the very soul with its pathos and pitiless alienosity.⁹

Methanoesa. Methane- not carbon-based life-forms which haven’t yet been identified, or perceived, or deduced, but in the opinion of some members of the scientific team¹⁰ could quite possibly exist on a planet like this in which methane is found in abundance and lots of other really strange and weird things exist, and for pity’s sake, after all this time slogging my guts out on horrendous alien planets, wouldn’t it be a nice change for once to find a life-form that isn’t made of bloody carbon?

Sorcha looked up through the gaps in the canopy of trees, at the stars in the sky. She could identify the Satellite, in equatorial orbit around them. She missed having a moon; her home planet of Terra Firma had two.

Helms joined her, retracted his helmet, and enjoyed the view. “You look bushed,” he said.

“I am,” she admitted. She’d suffered third-degree burns over most of her body while clambering out of her red-hot armour, and it would be days before her skin lost its blistering. But at least her body armour had been restored and repaired; it clung to her now like a second skin.

“One more day, then we’ll be home and dry,” Helms said.

“Why was William Beebe asking all those questions?” Sorcha asked. It had been troubling her all day.

“I really don’t know,” Helms said.

“What does it matter how old you are?”

“It doesn’t.”

“Is he jealous? Because you’re two hundred years younger than he is, and you’re the boss?”

“That could be it,” Helms conceded.

“Though sometimes . . .” Sorcha sighed.

“Sometimes what?”

“Sometimes you do feel like a relic from another age,” she told him, smiling.

Helms’s smile did not reach his eyes. “That doesn’t sound a very nice thing to be.”

“It’s just you’re so . . . old-fashioned. Gallant.”

“I believe in treating a lady like a lady,” said Helms, stiffly.

“I like that.”

“Good.”

“Have you ever been to Earth, Richard?”

Helms paused. “Yes. Briefly. When Xabar was in power.”

“I had a poster of her in my bedroom.”

“Really?”

“Oh, she was long gone of course, by the time I was a girl. But she was a hero to us.”

“A hero to all of us,” Helms said, proudly, stifling nausea at the memory of that wicked old bitch.

Sorcha’s blond hair was growing out, and now formed a downy covering on her scalp. Her skin glowed. She was, Helms realised once more, so young, barely forty years old.

“What do we do when we reach the Depot?” Sorcha asked him.

“Have a bath!”

“You know what I mean.”

“Have sex?” said Helms, cautiously.

Sorcha smiled. “If you like. But I meant . . .”

“I know what you meant.”

“Are we trapped for ever, on this godforsaken planet?”

“You want to fly back home?”

Sorcha thought about it. “The Satellite has spaceflight capacity,” she pointed out, carefully. This is why she’d been staring up at the Satellite; it was a possible ride home.

“It’s not equipped as a colony ship.”

“Then what?”

“Stay here. Bring up kids,” suggested Helms.

Sorcha considered it. “Could we do that?”

“Why not? We’ve still got the solar panels out in space. And as many Bostock batteries as we need at the Depot. With those resources, we can build cities. Raise Earth animals, so we can eat fresh meat. Maybe do something about this acid rain, so we don’t have to wear body armour all the time when we’re outdoors.”

“What about rejuve? I don’t want to die young. Not unless — well, you know. In Glorious battle, that’s one thing. But old age?”

“There are rejuve facilities at the Depot. So we have time. We have centuries ahead of us.”

“I guess we do.” Sorcha smiled, cautiously, as if learning smiles. “Are you thinking we could, you know, get married?”

“Would that be so terrible?”

“Provided it is for the purposes of child-bearing, there is no shame in marriage.”

“What about marrying for love?”

“Don’t be absurd.”

“I’ll never understand you Soldiers,” said Helms, gently. “You’re not genetically distinct, like Lopers and Cat People, but you act like a species apart.”

“We believe that we are.”

“So how do you like being with Scientists?”

“I’d rather be with Soldiers.”

“We’re a pretty shambolic bunch, aren’t we?” he said, smiling.

“No discipline,” conceded Sorcha. “No self-restraint. Everyone grumbles. Lots of irony. Like that bastard Kirkham. Always being ironical! Never know what the fuck he’s really saying.”

“Irony is a common scientific trait.”

“Irony is dumb,” Sorcha informed him.

“Then I shall never be ironical again,” Helms replied, gravely.

“It is!” she persisted, vaguely aware he was teasing her. “It leads to ambiguity, bad feeling and it’s, well, extremely fucking dumb.”

“You’re very cute,” he informed her, and she glared at him.

“I’m a killing machine,” she pointed out.

“And cute.”

“Oh fuck you, Professor.”

“Don’t call me that. It makes me feel–” He winced. “Old.”

“We should sleep. Dawn in four hours.”

Helms breathed in the stale New Amazon air.

Sorcha felt the wind ruffle her downy scalp.

Then Helms kissed her gently on the cheek, and ran his tongue over her cheeks and eyes until she was damp with his warm spit. The spit steamed in the hot humid air, making her smooth skin billow tendrils of clear smoke.

Sorcha felt a desperate longing for this man. They couldn’t embrace, because of the body armour, but she stroked her cheek dry against his stubbly cheeks, and she kissed him on the lips, for a long long time.