Authors: Eric Brown
Cannak
slowed his pacing. His tread became deliberate as he said, “In that case I
shall endeavour from now on to speak plainly. While out on the ice, you made
contact with aliens. I suspect that the expedition to the western plains was
nothing more than an excuse to rendezvous with these creatures. I intend to
learn the truth of your contact. What do they want here, and how did you
establish first contact with them?”
Ehrin
shook his head. “You’re wrong, Cannak.”
“You
made an excuse to take the freighter across the ice, looking for whatever it
might have been that caused the thunderclap. You were gone for over two hours.
During that time, I suspect you contacted the aliens and directed them towards
Agstarn, for they were captured a day later by tribesmen, heading for the
mountain pass.”
Kahran
laughed. “This is ridiculous, man!”
Ehrin
heard a note of relief in his friend’s voice. If aliens had been discovered by
tribesmen, then perhaps the militia had not yet discovered Havor.
“What
I want to know,” Cannak said, his footfalls as regular as a metronome, “is what
they want in Agstarn? Why are they here? Are they the van of an invasion
force?”
“For
mercy’s sake,” Kahran said with infinite forbearance, “what aliens? I thought
Church tenets held that we were the one and only sentient race in creation? Or
did God get it wrong, Elder?”
This
had the effect of halting Cannak’s pacing. He was behind Ehrin, on Kahran’s
side of the room. Ehrin could well imagine the look upon his thin face as the
Elder said, “Oh, my dear Mr Shollay, you will live to regret your heresy,
indeed you will!”
Cannak
was silent for a time. He moved into Ehrin’s view, his receding chin lodged on
his chest in contemplation.
At
last he said, “You refuse to admit that you are in league with the aliens?”
Kahran
was silent, and Ehrin followed his lead.
“You
deny even making contact with the aliens upon the ice plain two evenings ago?”
Cannak
paced. The silence stretched.
“I
will leave you for five minutes, so that you might reconsider the wisdom of
your silence. When I return, I will not be alone. I shall be accompanied by two
Inquisitors. I will question you again. If you maintain your lies, they will
proceed to practise certain physical procedures upon your persons which might
persuade either one of you the benefit of candour.”
He
strode from the room and the timber door shut solidly behind him.
“Two
different races of aliens?” Ehrin could not keep the humour from his tone.
“Isn’t that an embarrassment of riches?”
“I
wonder what brings these second aliens to Agstarn?” Kahran said under his
breath.
“Perhaps
they heard about the famed hospitality and tolerance of the Church.”
Kahran
smiled. “No wonder Cannak is desperate to learn the truth, Ehrin! Imagine his
fear— everything he has ever held as true, subverted by the aliens’ arrival.
Oh, isn’t it wonderful?”
The
door rattled open. Suddenly serious, Kahran said, “Say nothing, my friend.”
Two
black uniformed Inquisitors strode into the cell, followed by Cannak. The
Inquisitors’ bulk seemed to fill the chamber. Ehrin wondered if they had been
selected because of their height and girth. Perhaps they were specially
recruited from the tribesmen of the plains.
His
idle speculation ended when Cannak said, “Well, gentlemen, have you had time
enough to reconsider your obdurate stance?”
Kahran
said, “What do you think, Elder?”
Cannak
paced, around and around. The Inquisitors had taken up positions on each side
of the door, staring straight ahead as if the prisoners did not exist.
Cannak
said, “Did you make contact with aliens on the ice plains on the evening of the
5th of St Belknap’s month 1280?”
Ehrin
said, “We saw no one. We returned to the dirigible after seeing nothing of—”
“When
you rendezvoused with the aliens, what were your instructions, and what do the
aliens want on Agstarn?”
“Go
to hell, Cannak!” Kahran cried.
Instantly
Cannak said, “Start on this one!”
Ehrin
closed his eyes. He heard the Inquisitors move from the door, and step around
him. Then he heard the sound of ripping material, and Kahran’s feeble grunting
as he tried to resist their attention.
Tears
had formed in his eyes, and he wanted to raise his hands to dash them away. The
manacles prevented movement. He opened his eyes, allowing the tears to track
down the fur of his cheeks.
Cannak
had taken a small folding chair and placed it before the door. He sat down,
positioning himself so that Ehrin was between him and Kahran as the Inquisitors
went about their business.
He
addressed Ehrin in little more than a murmur. “My friends will perform upon the
person of Kahran Shollay a procedure known in their trade as the Devil’s Wings.
Put simply, two lateral vents are opened in the back of the subject, between
the second and third ribs on each side of the spine. A rib is then removed,
snapped off, so allowing the entry of an expert hand which takes first the
right lung and pulls it through the opening so that it resembles, with a little
aesthetic licence, the wings of a devil. It is, I am assured, an exquisitely
painful process. The subject is conscious all the while and, when the second
lung is pulled through the ribcage, and punctured on the broken rib along with
the first lung, death is assured but slow in arriving. A suitable end for the
godless, my friends... However, if at any stage it comes over you to cease your
lies, you will survive with your lives.” He paused, then, and nodded to the
Inquisitors.
Kahran
yelled, “We know nothing, you bastards!” and Ehrin could only close his eyes
and sob.
Kahran
screamed as the Inquisitors sliced the flesh between his ribs. Ehrin heard a
snap then, like the breaking of a branch, and Kahran’s pained cries saved Ehrin
from hearing the second break.
Cannak
raised a hand, a signal for the Inquisitors to pause there.
“We
can bring an end to this business if you simply admit your complicity...”
Kahran
said, between racked breaths, “Cannak, may you burn slowly in your hell—”
Kahran
screamed. Ehrin heard a slushing, liquid sound—for all the world like the noise
his father’s hand had made when removing the giblets from the feast-day
fowl—and then an odd rushing of air as Kahran’s lung was pulled out and
punctured on the shattered rib. The old man yelled, and then panted, and then
coughed up what sounded like fluid, and Ehrin could only close his eyes and vow
one day to kill Cannak with his bare hands.
He
opened his mouth to say something, concoct some story about collusion with
aliens that would stay Kahran’s torture for a while—but too late.
Kahran’s
cries ended abruptly.
He
sensed movement behind him, as the Inquisitors stood up. He heard their
murmured report to Cannak, “Dead.”
Cannak
regarded the Inquisitors with rage. “You fools. You claimed that death would
come slowly!”
Ehrin
could not make out the Inquisitor’s murmured reply. Something turned to ice
within him, and then rage. He leapt forward, attempting to get at Cannak, hurt
him before the Inquisitors did their business on him too.
The
chair held solid, restraining him.
Cannak
merely smiled, then said, “You are either supremely foolish, Mr Telsa, or
entirely innocent. But I don’t think it’s the latter.” He hesitated, then said,
“Very well, there is another way we can go about this. We will evince the truth
from the aliens, shall we?” He nodded to the Inquisitors. They came into view
and unfastened the manacles, hauling Ehrin to his feet and dragging him towards
the door.
“Where
are you taking me?”
“Where
else, Mr Telsa, but to your friends? We will have them tell us whether or not
you are guilty as charged.”
He
was bundled from the cell, but not before squirming in his captors’ grip and
looking back at Kahran’s body. His lungs spilled from his shattered back, and
his head had slumped forward in death.
The
Inquisitors dragged him down a long corridor, turned into another, his feet
trailing, their fingers digging into the flesh of his armpits. He could feel
their desire to do to him what they had done to Kahran, their frustration at
this interruption of their bloody business.
He
thought of Sereth, then, and had the irrational urge to shout at her, to scream
that this was the logical extension of her Church’s authoritarian rule.
They
halted outside a tall timber door. Two guards stationed beside it turned and shot
six bolts, then stood back with rifles at the ready as the Inquisitors kicked
open the door and pushed Ehrin across the threshold.
They
followed him inside, along with Elder Cannak, and the door was secured behind
them.
They
were in a short corridor, on the other side of which was a barred cell.
Ehrin
had expected to find that the aliens were like Havor—having only Havor as a
guide to the appearance of aliens—but in that he was very wrong.
In
the cell before him were four huge creatures, their bald flesh an unnatural
pink—all except one, who was as black as Havor. They were perhaps half as tall
again as his people, and were watching him with small, animal-like eyes. But
the most offensive thing about these creatures was their stench, like turned
zeer milk and faeces combined.
One
of the aliens, a little less pink than the other two, though not as dark as the
fourth, stepped forward and stared through the bars. It had long fur upon its
head, and tiny, ugly facial features.
Then,
to Ehrin’s amazement, the creature spoke to him in the language of his people.
Sereth Jaspariot sat
on a window seat in her father’s study and stared out at the winter-gripped
city. The grey was darkening, and the mansion buildings on the far side of the
street were slowly merging with the night.
She
jumped and turned at a sound from across the room. Her father had stopped on
the threshold, surprised at finding her in his sanctum. She wanted to tell him
that this was where she had come as a little girl, when awoken by frightening
dreams. The solidity of his books, and what they represented, had always calmed
her.
Her
father, never tall even in his prime, looked even shorter tonight. He seemed
slumped, shrunken within himself.
“Sereth,
my dear.” He limped across the room, embraced her with frail arms and slumped
into his armchair. She saw, then, that he was weeping; globular tears had
caught in the fur of his cheeks.
“Father?”
“I
was at the penitentiary, Sereth. I sought out Governor Kaluka and asked him if
the vile rumours were just that, scandalmongering by the lower orders bent on
sedition. How could alien beings descend from the sky and step upon God’s
ground?”
She
knelt before him and laid a hand on his lap, as thin as the cloth-covered spar
of a scarecrow’s limb. “Father?”
“Kaluka
blustered at first, but I saw through him. At last he admitted it. Four strange
beings, animals, had indeed been captured beyond the western mountains.”
Sereth
opened her mouth, but words were beyond her.
“Animals?”
she said at last. “Not intelligent beings?”
“Animals
in that they resembled nothing I had ever seen before; but they were undeniably
intelligent.”
Sereth
gasped. “You saw them?”
“When
Kaluka admitted that he had them locked up in the western tower, I demanded as
the prison chaplain to visit the creatures. Being a mere civilian, he dared not
deny an official of the Church.”
Sereth
shook her head. “But did not God say that we of Agstarn were the chosen ones,
that no others beside ourselves should be granted the gift of sentience?”
He
returned her stare bleakly. “So it is written, my child.”
“And
yet you saw these creatures with your own eyes?”
“I
entered their cell. They were... they were appallingly ugly, Sereth. For the
most part they were furless, other than for tufts of hair upon their heads.
Three of them were as pink as a newborn’s anus, the other as black as night.
But most distressing was their size; Sereth they were fully half again as tall
as ourselves.”
She
swallowed; she felt nauseous, as if teetering on the edge of a bottomless
precipice.
“Did
you speak with these creatures?”
He
shook his head. “I admit that I was speechless in their company, though they
did communicate amongst themselves in deep, dull tones.”
“They
did not attempt to harm you?”
“They
were peaceable, and had been throughout their incarceration.”
She
shook her head. “But they might have been animals, still. What evidence have
you that they were sentient, reasoning beings?”