Alien Velocity (5 page)

New life was no joke.

Treading water bought him a few moments to clear his head. The buoyant container helped keep him afloat. But he was tired and dizzy and he needed dry land. He knew he was not meant for water. While he squinted enough to see waves thumping against a leathery-yellow verge, and the semblance of a solid orange slope rising upward a fair distance beyond, he rejoined the race.

Only this one had a slightly different objective.

Survival, somehow.

Four suns—one large, three small—fed the planet’s perpetual day. Even though its spin kept one half hidden from the bigger, brighter sun, the other suns enthralled the planet in a constant gloaming. After many fitful hours’ sleep on the riverbank, Charlie rose with a vague determination, his hope and his perspective seesawing over the farthest rocky hills. He had to pick a direction, and the more he studied the horizon, the surer he felt that there were two promising choices.

The first, the giant blue tree covering an area the size of North Africa, was more than a hundred miles away. Vast and dense, its lower branches and leaves drooped to ground like myriad sapphire waterfalls. No sign of the trunk, or the several trunks, supporting this arboreal phenomenon. Charlie guessed that a staggering ecosystem thrived inside, and that the majority of life on the planet existed there. The logical place to visit…if he wanted to find sustenance.

The alternative was intriguing but potentially more frightening. Charlie stood on top of the dusty verge, fists on hips, sparring with the possibilities. Above the western horizon, a solitary silver orb pulsed like a lighthouse in the pale orange sky. Its perfect rhythm told him it was unnatural. He could see nothing else in that direction save a range of deep orange mountains to the right of the orb. But the purple river coursed through that region, and the beacon denoted intelligence—two hints of a civilization.

Then there were the countless spacecraft in orbit. Did they know something he didn’t? What was this planet’s secret? If its inhabitants were truly intelligent, what was the nature of their intelligence? Could Charlie afford to trust a secretive civilization, or more pertinently, could he afford not to?

He kicked the dirt and decided to stay with the river. Somehow, the chance of reaching a civilization, however bizarre, seemed more palatable than braving alien nature. It occurred to him that that was what he was supposed to think, but he also knew a ship in fog must not second-guess a lighthouse.

The tip of the
Bluebird
’s nose gleamed above the water. When he left it behind, the dried yellow mud gave a little underfoot. It reeked of bad eggs—sulphur. He soon discovered he had a slight advantage over the planet’s gravity. Walking required less muscle power than on Earth, and was more in tune with the lower gravity at the rear of the
Bluebird,
where he had fallen back to rest between exertions.

This would come in handy if he needed to make a quick getaway. Indeed, his first trial run resulted in a series of powerful bounds. He found that if he kept low, he could reach his top speed and half as much again without much effort. Leaping through the air proved less fruitful. Human leg muscles simply weren’t designed for that. If pushed, his trainers could now clear a clumsy six feet at most. “Stick to running, jerk,” he said, rubbing a sore knee.

Where the river wound sharply to the right to flow downhill a few miles farther on, the yellow banks rose precipitously to form a miniature canyon. Here the purple water underwent a bizarre manipulation. The hairs on the back of Charlie’s neck bristled. The unprecedented effect took place in the middle of the channel, or rather above the channel. The water shot up vertically as two parallel fountains, a few inches apart, only to diverge at about twelve feet and arc apart like the curves of a small letter
M.
Then, just before touching the surface again, the streams would converge a few inches in midair. It was as though an intense magnetism were shaping a metallic element, moulding the water itself into a magnetic field pattern. The phenomenon wasn’t localised, though. For miles it resembled the parting of the Red Sea, continually, right along the river channel. Its sound never grew louder than a low fizz, a watery whisper to keep him company. He watched it for hours while he walked and sipped at his sports drink.

He arrived at a murky swamp in the yellow crust. Only its darker texture told it apart from the dry bed. As soon as he removed his foot and the sandy porridge tried to suck his trainer down, he knew he was going to have a tough time negotiating it. It covered hundreds of acres on the right-hand bank. To walk around it would be futile.

“Now what?”

He didn’t fancy another dip in the river, not with the magnetic
M
ready to mangle his molecules or God knew what else.

What if I take a run up and jump the bastard?

Hmm, the canyon was nearly twenty feet wide. With his advantage over gravity, he might make it, but was it worth the risk?

“You bet your arse,” he said. “Time to break another record.” He allowed himself a good thirty feet to accelerate before he leapt and…landed with both feet at once on the far side, allowing the momentum to careen him forward into a commando shoulder roll as he dropped the plastic container. Back on his feet, he threw a fist. “Yeah! Eat that, you son of a bitch!”

While it was drier on this bank, it certainly wasn’t as solid as the other had been during the hike, and he wondered what he’d do if this one turned into a quagmire as well.

Burn that bridge when we come to it.
He wiped a little sweat from his brow. The temperature remained balmy even after the giant sun set ahead, leaving its three dim sisters to drag the veil of magic hour over the planet. Ghosted in the pale orange, the swampland, distant mountains and the course of the river appeared tropical, restful, cousins to the cool wonders of Japan. To his right, the stupendous tree blotted out two of the three suns for a while, leaving him with one, a distant yawn of a star. In this light, the tree was utter shadow, a wall blacker than deepest space.

Charlie thought about giving the planet a name. Under the circumstances, he figured it might be prudent, karma and all that.
Respect your enemy if you want
…He couldn’t remember the rest of Sun Tzu’s bit of wisdom. But whatever secrets this twilight world held, it had at the very least gifted him hope. A gamble. One last turn of a card.

“Planet Baccarat,” he named it, after his favourite game at the casino. “A stitch in time saves nine. I hope.”

But you can win as many rounds as you like and you’ll still be the biggest loser in this house
…Sorcha’s quiet, pointed words stabbed him in tender places.

Neo Spitz tonic had bubbled in her glass. Her figure-hugging cocktail dress emitted nano-sparkles in diagonal sequences from low neckline to high hem. She was in an empty
salle
separate from the main casino. Away from the Sponsor’s Ball. He’d held the expensive event in his Cusco mansion that summer to celebrate his lucrative new deal with Latigo. Two more years of running the Tonne, hiding in plain sight as the sport’s poster boy, opening endless fitness academies, undersea biospheres, off-world colonies, Martian this and Martian that. All keeping him away from home. From Sorcha.

“Why the hell would you say that?” He reached down for the empty roulette table to steady himself. Missed. Staggered into her, spilling her drink over her dress. Laughed at her punch to his arm. Maybe he’d sucked one too many mouthfuls from his Magmalava vitamin pipe—vitamins, yeah, sure.

“I think you’d better get back to your guests.” She turned away in disgust, shrugged out of his attempt at a shoulder massage. “Before they run out of smoke to blow up your ass.”

“What’re you sayin’? That m’ friends can’t really be friends…just ’cause they’re rich? You need to spend less time teaching those illiterate locals, those suck-baits in their…in their crap-shacks. They’re born in dirt, eat dirt, take dirt naps. That’s all they ever know. Jealous, the lot of ’em.”

“You’re talking crazy.”

“Yeah? So why do they idolize me one minute and then burn me in effigy the next, unless they want what I’ve got?”

“
Jesus,
could you
be
any more conceited?” She spun round to face him, clasped her hands behind her head, still holding the empty glass against her auburn curls. She opened her mouth to blurt out a shocked laugh. Stopped short. “All this time and you still can’t see past your own two feet, can you? Can’t see what you’re running from, what you’re running for, only that you’re running.” She gazed at him with those famous piercing emerald eyes. “Wow, you really
are
that shallow.”

He snickered mirthlessly. A defence mechanism. Sorcha had twenty-odd IQ points on him
before
he was smogged, and she knew how and where to cut him. “Babe, others have tried to get inside my head. They’ve been trying for years. But none of them get it. I run because I have a God-given talent, and it’s—”

“Spare me the sound bites. Please. You run because you’re afraid to look back. Come on, Charlie, how dumb do you think I am? I’ve not lived with you all this time without knowing that much.”

“Oh yeah? So why
have
you lived with me all this time? If I’m such a piece of crap, why are you still here?” A swell of rage burned his throat. “You money-grubbing… If
that’s
the only reason—”

“Why, you dirty son of a…” She hurled her glass at him. Missed. It shattered on the edge of the Cydonia Face table.

He stared at her, his mind a blank.

“Get out,” she yelled to the casino manager who’d run in to see what had happened. Charlie had never seen her eyes so wide or so wild. It scared him, like the time in primary school he’d watched his sweet junior class teacher erupt in anger and slap a girl for spreading malicious rumours about her.

Sorcha? Had he done this to his lovely, winsome Sorcha, who spent much of her free time educating underprivileged Amazonian children? Had
he
made her like this?

“I…I’m…how can I make it up to you?” He started toward her, but she kept him at bay with an outstretched hand. She trembled. Flushed red. Choked back tears. “What did I do?” he asked. Pathetic.

“Charlie, I love you. Always have.”

“But…?”

“But we were kids when we met. I’ve grown up. You haven’t. And you want to know something else?” A tear wiped away like years of hidden sorrow. Sorrow he’d given her, never seen until now. “You never will. You’ll never win enough races, Charlie.” Again she’d used his name—not like her. “You’ve just signed a sponsorship deal with the devil so that you can keep running, and for what? Latigo doesn’t care whose lives they ruin as long as they can keep going, keep their position at the top where no one can touch them. Remind you of anyone?”

“You’re saying I’ve ruined lives?”

“No, not until right now. Right this very day. This party, this announcement, this deal with Latigo…is a deal-breaker, Charlie.” She wiped both eyes, unwittingly smearing mascara into streaks of tribal war paint. “I’m not going to leave you. Not yet. But I’m warning you—” an icy forefinger thrust in his direction, “—if you don’t find another sponsor but quick, you’ll never see me again.”

“But darling, I—”

“No more. Leave. Back to your party. We’ll talk it over tomorrow when you’re not smogged to the gills.”

“Yeah. Yeah, okay. Tomorrow we’ll talk. I can put this right, Sorcha. Believe me, I can.”

She turned and left. Icy. Unforgiving. It felt as though a huge chunk of him had broken free and was floating away on an arctic current—deeply beyond his control—to a sea of perpetual night.

* * *

It was much brighter when he woke. Hunger gnawed at his stomach, while the ground ahead seemed rather more…

“What the hell?”

The footprints were unlike anything he’d ever seen. Crosses in the dust, thousands of them close together, denoted a tiny stride. He couldn’t tell how many legs the creature had. Two, four, six? Hell, a centipede? It had to be a multiple of two. The steps were so equidistant, so straight, he thought it might be a machine of some kind, but whatever it was, it had come a long way to see him. The tracks stopped inches from where he’d slept.

What did it want?

That he was unharmed and the thing had not even seen fit to disturb him suggested curiosity more than threat. He pouted for a moment, then scrubbed his face to fully wake himself. This was worth investigating. His feet were still sore after so much running and walking, but otherwise he felt tiptop. Another few swigs of Lucozade lifted his spirits further. The sulphur smell had dissipated. He took in a lungful of Baccarat air and let it settle. Not bad. The midrise of the biggest sun shone through a cluster of white clouds behind him. His long faint shadow preceded him as he set out.

Less than an hour later, he halted at the top of a steep rise. Myriad lights in the hollow below flickered up at him. He ducked for cover. “Christ,” he whispered, “I’m gonna have to run for it.” He peered again. The lights had not moved.

“No, do not run. Please stay and help us.”

Alarmed, he spun round, dropped his container. The disembodied voice sounded right next to him. “What? Who…” There was no one there. He frowned. His mind scrabbled at the problem.

“Charles Thorpe-Campbell, we wish to be your friends. We are lost, like you. Will you help us?”

Again. The monotone voice was so close—almost in his ear. There could be no other explanation. The voice was in his ear! And it spoke English? How? It had to be some kind of implant, though exactly where they had attached it and how dangerous it was… He felt sick, violated and horribly vulnerable.

“Who the hell are you?” He didn’t wait for a response. The bastards had sneaked up and probed him while he’d slept—alien abduction style. Grounds for a violent response if ever he’d heard it. His frustration blurred into fury, gaining the better of him. He tore up the slope, fully ready to trade fisticuffs with whatever it was.

His temper lasted seconds. He stopped and stared. Cringed at his own behaviour. The things were cowering. Hundreds of green eyes huddled together in the dark hollow, hiding from the outside world. He considered they might be subterranean creatures, or photosensitive, but at least one had ventured out not long ago, with three suns still in the sky.

“Who are you?” he asked between gulps.

One of them stepped tentatively into the light. “I am the third. We are the children. We wish to be your friends.”