FANTASTIC PLANET v2.0 (6 page)

'There you
are!' said Brave when he saw them arrive.

'He knocked
himself out falling over!' announced Valiant.

'I was
getting worried.
Anything broken?'

Terr
reassured him. Brave swiftly inspected his small gang. Most female Oms carried
babies. The males were loaded with all sorts of packages. Old Faithful was
leaning on a stick, still puffing from coming down the tree.

Brave was
thinking. His rudimentary reasoning was telling him to split his gang into
mobile and less noisy groups. But the fear of losing someone on the way caused
him to follow his feelings. Looking at the whole tribe he was overcome by a
false sense of security and a feeling of strength and warmth swept through him.
He gave the starting signal.

Walking in
single file the Oms followed the usual path for their pillaging raids. They
wound down amongst the palm leaves, forded the stream and left the park with no
difficulty.

They then
stood in the mud of a ditch which lined the road. Sudden sounds of falling and
swearing could be heard here and there, and Brave shouted out 'Quiet!' as
discreetly as possible.

Terr and
Valiant were supporting the old Faithful.

'Where are
we going?' whispered Valiant.

'I reckon
Brave wants us to go to the waste ground whilst waiting for somewhere better.
Hasn't he said anything?'

'No, but I
think you're right.'

The old man
was huffing too much to give an opinion. He was tumbling miserably on the
smallest of bumps and his breathing sounded more like a moan.

Suddenly
Brave gave the order to stop. A few shushes ran down the column. Everyone
stopped. Terr and Valiant helped Faithful sit down in the mud.

'Quiet!'
Brave's commanding voice whispered once again.

Footsteps
could be heard coming nearer.
Slow and heavy Traag footsteps.
The flabby steps hit the tarmac rhythmically like wet cloths. As the noise got
louder a certain gap could be heard in the rhythm.

'Two
Traags!' whispered Terr.

'What?' said
Valiant.

Terr showed
him two fingers... The low hum of a conversation could already be heard. The
Traags' words were disjointed as they spoke in their staccato style which was
so hard for Oms' throats to reproduce. Two giant silhouettes could be seen
pacing heavily on the road. Their red eyes were glowing in the night. Sentences
were taking shape:

'...
a
little tired, but this brings us closer to the earth.'

'Well, you
know, it is more in our nature to swim. Fve always wondered if the old Zarek
was right to make us mutate.'

'Don't be
silly,
in the water we'd reached a degree of evol...'

'Gosh!'

'What?'

'The place
reeks of Oms!'

The steps
stopped close by. Hearts were beating with fear in the Oms' chests.

'It must be
infested with them around here.'

'Vermin!
The Councillors should get it all cleaned up.
Having Oms at home is not a bad thing: it's entertaining. But all those wild
Oms: They pillage, they're dirty and they breed at a tremendous rate. Besides
these animals are unhappy in the wild, full of lice and skin diseases!'

'We are
dealing with it.'

'Not enough.
What is needed is a global deomisation.'

The two
Traags started walking again. A baby Om cried at that very moment. The steps
stopped.

'There is a
nest in the ditch, said one of the Traags. The noise came from there.'

'Let's take
a closer look.'

A light came
on, flooding the ditch and dazzling the Oms.

'Well!' said
one of the Traags. 'Come and have a look.
A real colony!'

'Let's
eliminate a few before the others run away. Jump in the ditch with both feet.'

Two massive
shapes darkened the stars and

toppled
towards the Oms, as Brave's voice was shouting:

'Fight!
Bite their legs, bite them everywhere!

Fight!'

Two muffled
thuds shook the ground amongst screams of terror.

'Trample all
over them', said a Traag's voice.
'Fight!'

The fast
beam swept across old Faithful's grey face as he was slumped next to Terr. The
teenager just had time to see the old man's body squashed to a bloody pulp. The
Traags' heavy voices dropped down from above:

'They bite!
But... rascals!'

'Trample,
trample!'

A flabby
crushing was levelling the bottom of the ditch. As if in a frightful dream Terr
leapt from the hole and came up against a Traag's hand leaning on the curb. He
bit it with all his strength, felt himself blown off towards the stars. His jaw
was shaken as he flew into the distance with a piece of flesh in his teeth.

He rolled on
the grass, wondered if he was dreaming as all around him screaming shadows were
charging towards the battle site.

'Jump on
them, bite! Come on you Oms!'

He
recognized the hoarse voice of the old lady from the bush and took fresh heart.
He ran limping to the bloody ditch and got lost in thunderous violence, biting
a throbbing mass collapsed across the embankment as the road shook with the
sound of running away, then further away, and further...

'Puncture
the eardrums! Bite! The other
one's

running
away! Come on you Oms!'

He bit fiercely
on a soft surface, his ears buzzing with murderous madness. He then felt
silence fall, a strange kind of silence, both victorious and horrifying.

'The Traag
is dead', a voice said. 'The other ran away!'

The Oms
looked for each other in the night, counting. Names were called out:

'Brave!
Where's Brave?'

He was found
in the mud, hardly recognizable. A voice, the old lady's, asked for silence.
All eyes turned towards the bent and wiry shape standing on the embankment.

'Big Tree
Oms', she said, 'without us you'd all be dead. Let's group together all of us.
But let's not forget we've just killed a Traag. We must leave now!'

Babies were
crying. A female Om was moaning over a small corpse.

'Quiet,
women!' the old lady shouted out. 'I too lost my son in this, but what is done
is done. Pick up your dead and let's clear off, come on!'

She crossed
the road followed by a group of wounded Oms. They disappeared into the night.

After a
hundred steps or so, Terr turned around. On the battlefield he saw the defeated
Traag's head tilted back and facing the stars. The two red eyes were slowly
losing their natural luminescence.

Terr caught
up with his people, his teeth chattering.

The First
Councillor for Continent
A
North stretched his
membranes. He cast an eye on his axillary dial and puffed impatiently. Leaving
the table he paced up and down his work loggia.

What a
strange visit. What could Master Singh want from him? He recalled the latter
had invoked urgency to get this appointment.

He had
barely paced the room twice when a voice came from the interphone, announcing
the eminent visitor.

'Let him
in!' the First Councillor ordered sharply.

He opened
the door to honour Master Singh, one of the continent's great naturalist
scientists.

When he
appeared, the Councillor greeted him respectfully.

'Happiness onto you, Master.
Come in and
make yourself comfortable.'

'Happiness
onto you, First Councillor, I am delighted to see you.'

Having
exchanged polite remarks, the two Traags lay down facing each other on comfortable
mattresses.

'You
mentioned urgency?' the First Councillor said slowly, anxious to mask his
nervousness.

He thought:
"Old madman, what elaborate idea could have formed in your brain?"

'Indeed',
the old man's horse throat groaned. 'I am not going to beat about the bush. I
demand immediate measures against the Oms.'

'The Oms?'
wondered the Councillor.

'Yes, the
situation is becoming worrying. Rest assured
,
I am not
encroaching on your remit. Meddling with the Continent's hygiene would not come
to my mind. But this is getting beyond hygiene. The Oms present a danger, a
danger which grows from day to day!'

He pulled
from his gown several documents and asked:

in
your opinion, how many Oms are there on Ygam?'

Dumbfounded,
the First Councillor waved evasively.

it
is hard for me to say precisely', he admitted. 'This year's census
mentions roughly ten million for Continent
A
North.'

He cut short
with his hand an interruption from the Master and added:

'Of course,
one or two million stray Oms must be counted in, but not many more. Every two
years urban deomisations put a stop to their incursions.'

'The figures
I have here', declared the Master, 'are much larger than the ones you have just
mentioned, although they are still not precise.'

He softened
his contradiction with an apologetic gesture and carried on:

'I do not
mean to offend you, but the Faculty's estimates undoubtedly come nearer to the
truth.'

He made
another reassuring gesture:

'The
Continental Council is faultless, dear First Councillor, exemplary in all respects.
And the measures it is taking are carried out with commendable frequency. But
unlike us, your colleagues have not had to study the issue closely.
Which, I may add, is absolutely customary.
Each to one's own field.'

He coughed a
little, embarrassed by his frankness, and said:

'I mentioned
fields. Our studies have led us to compile a register of stray Oms using new
methods, based on the number of tracks and the frequency of pillaging.'

The First
Councillor laughed.

'Pillage is
a big word!' he protested.
'A few minor thefts at the most!'

'Do not
laugh. The number of collarless Oms is reaching thirty million on our continent
alone. I contacted my colleagues on other continents, and they used the same
method. A simple calculation gives a total of one hundred and fifty million,
plus thirty five million properly registered by their masters. In other words
there are almost two hundred million Oms on our planet.'

The two
Traags remained quiet for a while. The First Councillor spoke first:

i
am astounded, I must admit. But since I have no reason to doubt your
scholarly claims, we will take action. Do you think ten deomisations a year
would be enough to check the invasion? I can also tighten the regulations for
luxury breeding. What do you think?'

The old
Traag shook his head.

'That is not
enough', he said. 'The issue is not only with the proliferation of the Oms, but
also with their evolution. The latter is more worrying than the former.'

'Their... evolution?
Please explain, Master.'

The
scientist sat up and clicked his membranes resolutely.

'I will have
to give you a lecture', he apologized. 'Oh! Rest assured I will not go into
details. Did you know the Oms were acclimatized on Ygam by our ancestors from
the Second Age?'

indeed
, they were brought from planet Earth.'

'Their planet of origin!
That's right... Well, do you
know how the Oms were organized on their planet?'

The First
Councillor was surprised.

'Organised,
did you say? But they're animals! They were roaming as families, I suppose, or
in wild herds!'

'Not at all!
They lived in large
conurbations of cemented alleys where each had a place of their own. They were
organized in societies numbering roughly one million. A flawless discipline was
kept by a strict hierarchical organization. Breeders were cherished and their
only work was to bear children. At birth, each baby was selected for breeding,
work or battle. They had a basic language.'

'A language!'

'Exactly.
Oh, just a few terms used for precise commands,
and always the same ones! Their organization's rigidity spared them from
improving their means of communication. Here is an interesting example, an
alarm call: "Ant!"