The Fallen

Images of the previous night began to return slowly as Carly rested her head gently on the soft pelt folded up behind her and pulled her blanket skin closer around her body. She recalled the men cheerfully feasting on their catch, cutting strip after strip of meat from its sizzling body and washing it down with big swigs on the rich, dark wine.

When the feast was over Roal had run out of the building shouting merrily and returned with a large ceramic decanter, laughing and waving it around madly in a manner which caused a combination of cheers and groans from the group. He poured the liquid into small cups and handed them out, laughing his wild laugh as he did so. Carly recalled nervously taking the small cup and holding it aloft, imitating the men’s salute. Already feeling the carefree buzz of alcohol in her bloodstream, Carly had thrown the entire contents of the glass down her throat when the rest of the group had done so. She could still remember the searing heat and the earthy taste as the liquid scorched down her throat and into whatever numb device held her water and processed it, and after that she remembered nothing.

The old wooden door rattled a few times then swung slowly open, causing the smoky air to stir. Holman peered into the haze then stepped in slowly, closing the door behind him and locking it with a sliding metal bolt. Almost immediately Carly became afraid – what motive would Holman have for locking himself in the room with her?

Holman stepped towards Carly then knelt down quickly over her, straddling her body and pinning her upper arms down with his knees. Carly struggled and tried to scream as he stuck two fingers into her mouth and grabbed her tongue painfully, yanking her mouth open. Choked wails of pain left Carly’s mouth as she writhed to free herself, unable to lift Holman’s weight from her.

Holman reached down to his belt and pulled free a long set of tongs, forcing them into Carly’s mouth despite her struggled cries. He yanked and twisted at the tongs, levering Carly’s head back until he could force the tongs straight down her gullet where he began tugging at something lodged inside her.

After a short struggle Holman carefully withdrew the tongs, releasing Carly’s mouth when they were clear. Carly remained quiet and still, breathing as slowly as she could, inspecting the creature on the end of the tongs with terrified awe. It was about two inches long, a dull red fleshy grub dripping fresh blood. Eight long metal legs curled up underneath it, attached to its body by three metal bands around the grub; they moved very slowly as if the thing was dying.

“What is that?” Carly whispered slowly, unable to take her eyes from the vile thing.

“It’s a sentinel.” Holman stood up quickly and placed the dying alien onto the table in the middle of the room. Carly sat up, breathing heavily from her exertion. “It’s an alien implanted into every slave, it monitors everything you do, stores it up inside its body, which is a kind of organic memory brain. If it doesn’t receive a signal from a local alien computer within a given timeframe it sends the entire data log since the last signal. That means it can avoid detection until it’s too late – by the time you detect the signal it’s already sent the data log. Usually the timeframe is set to five local days, so it shouldn’t have sent anything yet.”

“Why didn’t you get it out when I was unconscious? When I got here?” Carly asked, astonished at the little alien creature/device as well as Holman’s treatment of her.

“We had to get it into your saliva catch-tank first. We put a chemical in your nutrient pack that it doesn’t like so it hides there. Then we have to disable it, otherwise it would have killed you when I pulled it out.” Holman said matter-of-factly.

“Disable it? You got it drunk?”

“Alcohol kills them. Especially Roal’s whiskey, hell that stuff could kill a donkey. I don’t know why he doesn’t pour it in the lake and save the fishermen the trouble – maybe the fish would even taste better.” He laughed quietly; Carly forced a chuckle from her mouth, trying to cheer herself up. She still felt groggy from the alcohol, and a little stiff from sleeping on the hard floor, and something else inside her felt a little uncomfortable. Perhaps it was just the shock of seeing the alien pulled from her throat and the knowledge that it could have killed her at any time since her enslavement. “That reminds me – we’d better get you drained, you’ll be overflowing by now.”

“What?”

“Your fluid level. You drank a lot of fluid and it’s got nowhere to go – the nutrient pack can only store so much.”

“So where is it now? The… fluid, I mean?”

“You have a, a kind of reserve bladder which expands when your fluids overflow. The aliens would have drained it if it filled before, but since all your fluid comes from the nutrient packs it’s pretty redundant. Come with me and I’ll show you how to drain it.”

Carly and Holman walked back across the village to the stores – a small hut with no windows. Carly marvelled at how empty the place was; only the feasting hall, the hut she had slept in and the stores seemed to be in use. The rest of the buildings were still mostly intact, but empty through their open windows – the wooden tables bare, no rugs or pots or ash in the fire grates.

The stores were dark and dusty inside – shelves lined the walls, stacked with all manner of things from blocks of soap and small animal skins and pots of fruit preserve to tools and weapons. Big vats stood on the floor, covered with animal skins tied tight so that they looked like drums. Carly tiptoed gingerly around them as she followed Holman to the rear wall where he picked up one of a number of battered recharge canisters from a shelf and pulled a plug from one end. He filled it from a decanter of sweet-smelling juice, re-stoppered it and turned to face Carly. She shied away as he reached out towards her with his empty hand, stopping only when he whispered “It’s OK.” He delicately ran his hand over the contoured metal panel on her flank and it popped open, ejecting her nutrient canister in its sliding tray.

“I thought that was remote controlled.” Carly said, looking down at what Holman was doing as he unclipped the canister.

“Ah, tricks of the trade.” He replied, winking. “Emergency access – any time your control chip isn’t functioning you can open the hatch by running your fingers down the panel until you reach the contour depression, then push gently and it’ll fall open.” He upended the spent canister over an empty bucket and, using a tool that looked as if it had been hand-made from a paperclip, twisted open a tiny valve in the end of the canister and a stream of yellow fluid poured out. “We’ll flush this with water later. The cylinder has a Teflon-type coating so pretty much nothing will stick to it, so a quick flush and it’s sanitised. Now let’s empty your overflow before you burst.”

Carly shyly twisted herself so that Holman could peer into her, although it was not as gruesome as she might have imagined – the canister tray slid into a metal housing that completely sealed away her insides. He carefully stuck his fingers into the housing and felt around, mumbling when he found what he was searching for. “Here it is.”

Holman pulled out a thin rubbery pipe between his fingers. “OK, here it is – now give me your hand and I’ll show you what to do.” Carly stretched her good hand around herself to touch the pipe, holding it delicately. “Now, this is usually tucked away back in here. Good, that’s it, now feel up the pipe ‘til you find the little valve. That’s it, now pull it open.” Carly pulled on the little lever inside herself and felt a sudden tension inside her begin to release as a stream of warm fluid poured out of the thin pipe into the bucket. She blushed a little as she realised it looked and smelled a bit like urine – what did Holman think of this? What should she think of it? She supposed it was kind of like peeing in front of a strange man – embarrassing, degrading, in some way even humiliating – but then again it was just a function that he was trying to help her with. Without his help the reservoir would no doubt have burst eventually, which she imagined would be fatal without immediate treatment. “You can do this yourself from now on, if you drink any more. The doctors in the city may want you to drink some nutritional supplements.”

“Am I going to see them soon?” Carly asked as the flow stopped. She flicked the pipe dry, blushing harder when she suddenly realised she was waving around a tiny lifeless analogue of a penis in a pattern that must be as old as human life itself; she closed the valve and stowed the pipe back inside herself.

“Yeah, I’ll take you underground in a while. Now that we’ve got the sentinel out there’s no risk. You can say what you need to say to the leaders. Here, take this.” Holman handed her the refilled nutrient pack and she clipped it into the tray protruding from her side, slid it back inside herself and shut the hatch, noticing for a moment how perfectly the contours matched the shape of her body.

Slowly she felt herself calming down; she was still a little shaken from her rough awakening by Holman. And at last she would get to see Sanctuary, meet those in charge, try to find some way of freeing Lonnie from the Medea, and possibly get the natives off the planet in the process.

***

“The man you see there is Besaron. He’s the leader by general consensus, although most of the ruling is done by his council.” Holman indicated towards a group of people standing in the low round cave. Light orbs hung from the ceiling, casting a dull yellow glow over the large wooden table that Carly sat at next to Commander Holman and a wide open ‘window’ hole in one side of the room looked out over a huge cavern.

Holman had taken Carly down a long tunnel barred by security doors at each end, deep underground to Sanctuary. Once into the reception chamber Holman had led the way down a narrow side-corridor and into what he described as the council’s meeting room. The room was one of a long row of offices made out of an empty magma chamber that clung like a worm to the roof of Sanctuary’s main cavern.

As the council approached to take their seats at the table, Carly realised her mental labelling of the native people as ‘ferals’ was incorrect, a little unfair perhaps. Besaron and his council were not like the men on the surface and Carly began to understand the reason – they were businessmen and civic leaders, not hunters and sentries. Besaron was quite short – about Carly’s height, and thicker set than Zuka and his band. The extra fat on his face disguised the forward-pushing jawbone and the slight ledge under his nose, and widened his features to look more like the people Carly had grown up with.

The council was arguing amongst itself over something, perhaps Carly’s presence, she thought. Eventually they turned their attention to her and sat down in a manner that reminded Carly of an official court-martial. She felt herself becoming tense when she realised she would have to explain everything to them again, and if she wanted to help Lonnie she would have to tell them about her and the Medea.

“Welcome.” Besaron said with a smile. “You must have a lot on your mind. I hope you understand that we have a lot we need to ask you.” He continued. His voice was soft and friendly but his expression implied he was deadly serious – it seemed that she was going to be questioned severely, whatever she chose to say or hide. She wondered how much Holman had already told Besaron; would she be judged depending on the accuracy of her story on its second telling?

When the group had settled down Besaron asked Carly to explain her story. She told them everything that she had told Holman – from the drop-ship crash-landing to the escape from the soldiers at the transport depot. She kept the same information disguised, describing the Medea again as ‘an alien general’ in a grand fort. She said a little more about Lonnie – explaining that she had a companion assigned to her at the transport depot who accompanied her to the general’s fort and lived with her in her cell.

The group listened intently, barely saying a word as she recounted her experiences. When she was finished they sat back and began to talk quietly amongst themselves in their foreign tongue. Holman glanced at her coolly, nodding his approval and indicating subtly with his left hand that she should remain quiet while they discussed.

“They’ll want to consider if they’re in any risk.” He whispered. “They might be worried that…” He was cut off by a cough from Besaron.

“Thank you, Lieutenant.” He said loudly, the room hushing at the sound of his voice. “With our agent captured we may be in… Some danger. Any, eh, information you can provide will be helpful.”

Carly nodded her agreement. “Yes.” She said quietly. She rifled through her memory, wondering if there were any important details that she should tell the council. Suddenly she remembered the dried blood symbol inside the computer in the Medea’s palace and realised it could be vital. “Does a… ‘Q’ symbol mean anything to you?”

Besaron looked confused. He turned to Holman for an explanation, mouthing “Q?” Holman turned to Carly inquisitively, his expression a mixture of uncertainty and confusion. She hadn’t told him about the symbol: could that have angered him?

Seeing their confusion, Carly leant over and picked up a small stone from the rough floor. She stood and walked over to a flattish part of the cave wall and, with the sharp tip of the stone, scratched a rough copy of the symbol onto the slab face. She stood back to clear the image, moving around the nearest light orb so that she was not casting a shadow across it. She felt her heart chill when she heard a gasp from the group behind her.

Carly turned slowly to look at the council; they were all deathly silent, transfixed. Even Holman looked at her with a dull, unpleasant expression. Carly began to wonder, what had she done? Eventually Besaron spoke quietly. “Where did you see that symbol?”

“It was scrawled inside a computer system in… In the General’s fort. In blood.” She replied, looking around the room; the council broke their silence, quietly turning to whisper in a number of small huddles.

“Do you know the, ah, name of this General?” Besaron asked after one of his council whispered something in his ear.

“She is…” Carly paused as the group began to shuffle, mumbling amongst themselves. “She is known as the Medea.”

Immediately the council erupted in shouts – some seemed angry and some pleased; it was apparent there were a number of mixed feelings in the room – perhaps over Carly’s presence in Sanctuary at all, perhaps over the accuracy of her story, but mostly it seemed over the mention of the Medea. Besaron stood from his seat and turned to his council, who were now stood in the space behind the table shouting in each other’s faces again. A loud rapping on the desk came from his knuckles and quickly the group quietened down, sitting back in their seats and mumbling quietly again. Besaron snapped something at his council and they began to argue again for a moment. Carly caught sight of Holman looking at her angrily. He mouthed exaggeratedly at her: Why didn’t you tell me?

Carly gazed around the hall at the native people. She realised why Holman had difficulty describing the ‘Whites’ – they weren’t really white, not like white people on Earth. They weren’t black; but then again ‘brown’ didn’t seem to fit either. The more she thought about it, the more pointless she realised the description really was. White people aren’t white, she told herself, and black people aren’t black. Japanese are sometimes called yellow but even that’s not right. No, white was probably the best description to fit these people – all apart from their facial appearance, which was not really that of any human she had seen before.

Sure, they were definitely human – eyes, nose, mouth, ears, facial hair in the right place on the right sex… But there was a subtle difference in the shape of their faces – their cheekbones seemed to push forward very slightly, and their foreheads began to curve backwards sooner than that of an Earthman. Very small differences indeed, in the grand scale of things, like the difference between a Japanese and a European. Carly remembered one of her History and Society classes at school: put ten random humans from across the globe together and ask an alien to tell the difference. They are all much the same, it would reply, or it would pick out differences that a human would not even consider – some have thicker shoulders, some are taller than others, some have protrusions on their chests and some have appendages between their legs. The native people would fit very well into that analogue, but on Earth they would always look different. Earthmen would notice.

Holman had taken Carly down a set of wide steps from the room she had been taken straight to on her arrival, and down into the heart of Sanctuary – one vast cave lit from a number of large light orbs hanging from the distant ceiling. From the high staircase Carly had seen the jumbled rows of streets at ground level, one small section marked out by small light orbs atop tall poles at each intersection, the rest of the floor space dark and deserted. Tents occupied most of the floor space, with some open clearings dotted here and there – most in darkness; some lit by bright spotlamps.

The light in the cavern made Carly feel a little claustrophobic. It wasn’t quiet like the crude dinginess of the transport depot, which had been both dark and spacious – the granite walls reflected grey-brown light from the huge orbs on the ceiling, which seemed to give everything in the room an odd yellow tint. Carly began to feel as if she was wearing dark sunglasses in a cathedral, and was feeling a little uncomfortable as they rounded curve the last of the great curving staircase that had taken them around half of the great cavern.

Eventually Carly stepped off of the last stair and into what looked like a narrow street-market, quiet and semi-deserted, only a few people walking along the alleys between the tent-stalls. Holman steered expertly through the narrow stalls, nodding at one or two natives sitting in the open tents or walking the other way as he moved with Carly skipping to keep up. The natives she passed stopped and stared, turning to look at her back as she walked on, nervously glancing around – making eye contact for only a split second before they looked away. Holman stopped at a stall with stacks of clothing made from animal skins piled on the floor and took a long thin robe, laughing and quickly conversing with the stall-keeper in the foreign tongue. He laughed again as he turned to Carly, handing her the robe and helping her to wrap it around her body.

“There’s no trade here.” He explained as they turned and continued their passage through the tents. “All the stalls here, they’re city stores. You take what you need and nothing more, and when you no longer need it you hand it back. Everyone works, everyone takes their turn.”

“There’s no possession?” Carly asked, thinking back to her History and Society lessons, communism and socialism coming to her mind.

“It hasn’t been like this for very long. There used to be thousands of people here, long ago, and then there was trade. Now there’s only a few hundred here, they can’t run a trade system with so few people, so everything gets shared.”

“There’s no crime?”

“There’s always crime. Petty theft, dishonesty… But since everyone knows everyone, and there’s no place to hide, there’s no point in stealing anything. Food can get short, and then so do tempers – then food goes missing from time to time, but what else can you expect?”