Killer Planet

Chapter Eight

Side by side, they climbed the low wall and dropped down to the path which ran around the perimeter of the ruined building. It may have been a trick of the imagination, but it seemed that the mechanical uproar from the war machines had increased as soon as they came into the open.

“Perhaps there’s another bridge at the opposite side of the hill.” Petra kept her voice firm, giving no indication of the fresh fears that had begun to seethe within her.

“Let’s see!”

As they sprinted to the other side of the knoll it became apparent that the noise from the lumbering machines actually was louder and more insistent. The implication was that the alien being, in spite of being two kilometres away, knew exactly where its human adversaries were at any given moment and was able to direct its mechanical slaves to them.

“The monster knows where we are,” Petra said. “I wonder how it does that.”

“All I can think of is that it must be some kind of electrical trick,” Jan breathed, struggling to keep pace with Petra on the narrow path. “The alien’s nervous system might act a bit like a radar set, spreading some kind of electrical field out for kilometres on all sides.”

“I see! Our brains work with electrical impulses, don’t they? That could cause a local disturbance in the alien’s own field, letting it pinpoint where we are at any…” Petra broke off as they stumbled to a halt at the rear of the knoll, their hopes of finding another bridge abruptly shattered. The moat’s implacable dark waters barred their way.

A thunderous booming vibration was suddenly added to the sounds coming from behind them, and they knew only too well what it meant. The military bridge had been completed and the tanks had already begun to cross it. “We’ll have to swim for it,” Jan said tersely.

“That’s what I was thinking,” Petra replied. “Are you ready?”

“Ready!”

Aware that they had only seconds in hand, they scrambled down the steep slope towards the moat. Jan was slightly in the lead as they reached the edge. He took a deep breath in preparation for the two-metre dive into the water, and had actually begun the forward plunge when he saw something which contorted his face with dread.

The water of the moat was alive with glistening black shapes which were cruising like sharks just below the surface.

“The fish!” Petra cried. “Watch out for the…”

Jan pulled back, fighting to retain his balance, but his feet slipped on the slimy rock. As he fell he twisted in the air and grabbed with both hands at the vines which seemed to grow everywhere on Verdia. His fingers clamped on the ropy foliage, which perversely tore away from the rock, but by then Petra had leaned down and gripped one of his wrists, checking his descent. He found a foothold and was able to work his way on to a ledge just above the water.

He signalled for Petra to join him and she immediately lowered herself over the stony edge. Bodies taut with urgency, they looked down and Petra got her first look at the hideous denizens of the moat. This close to the water they could see more detail of the creatures which swarmed just below the surface. They were black, several metres in length, and seemed to combine the attributes of shark and squid—torpedo-shaped forebodies terminating in clusters of tentacles. As Jan and Petra gazed down at the creatures with repugnance, one of them momentarily opened its mouth to reveal rows of jagged teeth. The sight left no doubt at all that a plunge into the murky waters of the moat would mean near-instantaneous death.

“Ugh!” Petra shuddered in revulsion. “We’ll have to forget about swimming.”

“I know,” Jan replied, trying not to show his despair. “But we have to do something—and soon!”

The ledge on which they were perched began to vibrate and a few pebbles bounced down past them, dislodged from the path above. At least one tank was nearing their position, and all it had to do was blunder down the slope above them to bring their lives to a sudden and very violent conclusion. Is this really the end? Petra thought, her mind chilled with fear. Are we about to be crushed by a driver less tank, or become food for a pack of…?

“Food!” she cried out. “That’s it—food!”

Jan stared at her in bafflement.

“Look how many of the horrors are packed into the moat. It can’t possibly provide enough food for them—so they must be cannibals!”

“What does…?” Jan’s brow cleared. “If we cut some of them…start them eating each other…it might distract them enough to let us swim across.”

“It’s our only hope.”

Moving with controlled urgency, aware of the rock face trembling with the weight of the approaching tank, Jan and Petra unsheathed their swords and stabbed down at one of the cruising black shapes. The incredibly sharp plastic blades sliced into the dark flesh, releasing swirls of inky fluid.

The result was immediate, dramatic and appalling.

Almost before they were able to withdraw their swords there was a convergent surge of glistening black bodies which completely overwhelmed the wounded creature. Within a few seconds it had disappeared, torn apart by dozens of its fellows, some of which—in a primal frenzy of blood lust—blindly attacked each other. Hundreds of others, drawn by the scent of food, swarmed into the area with incredible speed, turning the surface of the moat into a heaving, threshing mass of scaly bodies and tentacles.

Jan and Petra knew at once that there was no hope of swimming across the moat. They glanced at each other, wide-eyed, as the same desperate idea was born in their minds. In that instant of near-telepathic communion, both knew exactly what had to be done, and they rose to their feet as the menacing shape of a tank blotted out the light from above them. Not daring to think about what might happen, they launched themselves out from the rocky ledge—on to the living surface.

With three superhuman, fear-boosted strides—moving in perfect unison—they crossed the moat and gained the opposite bank. Jaws snapped loudly at their heels.

Reaching firm ground, driven by all the forces of nightmare, they ran for the jungle without looking back. Behind them there was a sliding rumble followed by a crash, and Jan knew the tank had careered down into the moat.

“That’s the third time we’ve been lucky,” he said, feeling thankful simply to be alive.

Petra shot him a sideways glance. “Yes, but there has to be a limit…”

As if to confirm her words, the pattern of events changed immediately. On previous occasions when one of the pursuing machines had been put out of action there had been a blessed lull in the activity, as though the effort of propelling the juggernaut by remote control had tired the malign alien. This time, however, they were not to be granted a breathing space. As they neared the wall of trees and foliage the mechanical screeching behind them abruptly increased in volume, going into a crescendo. The shrieking of rusted metal wheels and tracks, forced into motion for the first time in two years, made the air hideous.

Jan and Petra glanced back and their spirits quailed when they saw that every intact war machine and vehicle in the cleared area was stirring into life.

It was obvious that the alien monster was going all out for the kill!

With the clamour of the pursuing armour ringing in their ears, they reached the edge of the jungle and plunged into it. Before they had covered more than a few metres they were forced to use their swords to hack a path through tough undergrowth. They consoled themselves with the thought that the jungle was a natural barrier which was helping to save their lives. It was possible for them to slip in between the closely spaced tree trunks, whereas the bulky vehicles were forced to make detours.

As Petra was hacking at a barrier of tough vines it occurred to her that the tanks might be able to do the same thing on a vastly larger scale with their weapons. She put the idea to Jan and was relieved when he shook his head.

“The tanks’ laser cannon and flame throwers would have been able to blast a path through the jungle if they had been in working order,” he said. “But two years of rain and rust are bound to have put them out of action.”

That was one factor in their favour, they knew, but was it enough to enable them to negotiate safely the two horrendously difficult kilometres to the planet’s north pole?

As they struggled to cut their way step by step through the impeding masses of foliage, Jan was forced to admit to himself that he was rapidly running out of strength. He glanced at Petra. Her hair had straggled down from under her jungle hat and, though she was keeping up the pace and wielding her sword as effectively as any man, her face was taut with weariness and strain. She had displayed boundless courage and loyalty—and he knew she was prepared to go with him into the alien’s lair itself—but their growing exhaustion was a major cause for concern…

Jan ceased his battle against the resilient vegetation, and on seeing him pause Petra did likewise.

“Are you all right?” she said, taking deep draughts of the humid air.

He shook his head, chest heaving as he laboured for breath. “I’m having second thoughts. This is killing us. Even if we manage to reach the tower that Major Haines talked about, we’re bound to be on the point of exhaustion—and the tanks might still be on our trail.”

“We can’t let the monster get away with everything it has done.”

“No, but I’m beginning to think that the sensible thing to do—and also the surest way to finish the monster off—would be for us to head back to the Seeker and get away from this hellhole. As soon as we get into orbit we’re bound to be picked up by a police vessel.”

“That’s…” Petra paused as an unusually fierce bolt of lightning was followed by an ear-punishing thunderclap. “That’s all very well—we’d be scolded and packed off home—but what about the monster?”

Jan wiped sweat from his brow. “That’s the whole point! We are the only two human beings who know of the monster’s existence. But when what we have learned is passed on to the Council of Empire our armed forces will easily be able to deal with the alien. It calls all the shots when it’s dealing with ground forces, but just one nuclear bomb lobbed down from orbit would blast it to hell.”

“You’re forgetting the Council has closed the book on this planet,” Petra said. “They just aren’t interested in it.”

“That was when they thought they were up against the natural forces of the whole planet,” Jan insisted. “But when they learn they’re dealing with a single alien entity—a murderous invader—everything will be different. When they realise they can have an entire world for the cost of a single bomb they’ll have a rush of patriotism to the head. That’s the way those people think.”

“You could be right,” Petra said, tilting her head as she weighed up the idea. “There’s going to be a problem in getting them to believe us, though—we should have taken Major Haines’ recorder.”

“Damn!” Jan slashed at a visibly moving creeper. “It’s too late now—we’ll just have to convince everybody by our own efforts. What do you say? Do we head back to the Seeker?”

“Suits me.” Petra gave him a tired smile. “This is hardly my idea of a perfect day, you know.”

“That’s it decided then.” Jan gave a sigh of relief. “We head back to the Seeker.”

Now moving at a less tiring pace, and with a great load lifted from their minds, Jan and Petra renewed their attack on the tangled vegetation, clearing the way with smooth sweeps of their grey blades. Relying on their sense of direction, they veered their course to the south. Once they had neared the site where the development team had landed they knew they would soon be able to find their way to the Seeker. And within seconds of reaching the rocket ship they would be soaring up through the clouds, on their way to safety.

A few minutes after the change of course they reached a clear, shallow stream which flowed in a generally southerly direction. Mindful of how dangerous the waters of the dark moat had been, they inspected the stream carefully, but it looked as innocuous as a similar waterway on Earth.

Reassured by what they saw as a good omen, Jan stepped into the stream. “Come on in—the water’s lovely.”

“Very original remark,” Petra said as she stepped down into the stream.

“It was the best I could do in the current circumstances,” Jan replied. “Do you get it? Water…current…”

“I got it, but I didn’t want it.” Petra was glad to see that Jan was regaining something of his boisterous spirit, and she also enjoyed the coolness of the water as it seeped through her boots. Now that they no longer had to slash their way through dense vegetation progress was much easier and faster, but they had been following the course of the stream for only ten minutes or so when she thought she heard a disturbing sound. She stopped, frowning, and cupped a hand to her ear.

“What’s the matter?” Jan said, moving closer to her.

Petra signalled for him to stop swishing his feet through the water. “Listen!”

Jan halted, straining his ears, and immediately identified the source of Petra’s alarm. The sound of the tanks and other vehicles battering at the jungle’s defences had been steadily fading—but now it appeared to be increasing in volume again.

Baffled by this new development, they turned their heads this way and that. An extra-loud series of crashes told them that some large trees had been brought down by sheer mechanical brute force. Birds squawked raucously in the distance as their habitats were destroyed.

A second later Jan and Petra heard the now-familiar clanking and shrieking of unlubricated machinery in motion.

“I’ll try to have a look.” Jan stepped out of the stream, ran to a tall yellow-leaved tree and swarmed up its trunk until he could see a considerable distance through the mist and gloom to the south.

What he saw brought a painful prickling of cold sweat to his forehead.

“Can you see anything?” Petra shouted.

Jan nodded silently, not yet trusting himself to speak. All the bulldozers and earth-movers which had belonged to the development team were ranged line abreast and were heading towards Petra and him!

“Jan!” Her voice was insistent. “Have I got to climb up there as well? What can you see?”

“The bulldozers…and all the other machines…they’re coming this way…they’re battering down the trees.”

“But we thought they couldn’t do that.”

“We were wrong,” Jan said, gazing at the scene with grim fascination.

The vast machines—each weighing many thousands of tonnes—were travelling fast, driven by the fearsome alien power, and were flattening the jungle before them. Together they formed an irresistible force which nothing could halt. The continuous rank they formed barred the way back to the Seeker.

Lightning flickered through the murk on all sides as though trapdoors to hell were being opened, emphasising the demonic nature of the energies which were being unleashed by the juggernauts’ alien overlord.

Jan worked his way down to the ground, sagged against the tree trunk and gave Petra a troubled stare. “The rotten bloody monster has us beaten. I don’t see how we’re going to get out of this.”

“We’re bound to be able…” Petra let the sentence tail off, aware of how hollow words of optimism would have sounded. In spite of her resilient spirit she was beginning to feel overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the forces opposing them.

This was yet another cruel reversal of their fortunes. Each time it had seemed that events were going to swing in their favour, a malignant Fate had stepped in and turned the tables against them. It looked to her as though they had only been given hope so that the subsequent despair would be all the greater. The difference this time was that the reversal was final. The alien adversary was making its ultimate move against them—and there was no prospect of escape.

Jan bowed his head and remained in the attitude of defeat for several seconds, unable to face a continuation of the unequal struggle—then a private miracle occurred.

Hatred—pure, cold, unadulterated hatred—came to his aid.

The alien invader lurking at Verdia’s north pole might have physical superiority over any human being, but he was never going to give in to it—not ever\—because that would be betraying his own brother and all the others who had perished on this world. It was tragic that Petra too was almost certainly doomed—but it was beyond his power to do anything about that—and the thought of her death served only to strengthen his resolve. If he and Petra had to die anyway, they were going to die in one last act of defiance against the alien monster.

And the message to it would be: Enjoy your triumph while you can, alien, because our kind will not tolerate your existence. Sooner or later—we will destroy you.

Jan raised his head and saw Petra gazing at him with a peculiar, bleak-eyed intensity. Again there was a moment of near-telepathic understanding, and he knew at once that her thoughts had been running in the same direction as his.

“We’ve decided, haven’t we?” she said in a deceptively casual voice. “We go for the kill.”

Jan nodded slowly. Together they stepped into the stream and began to retrace their footsteps—heading due north.