Starship Spring (9 page)
Kee was explaining to Matt and Maddie. “The Yall came to Hawk, too,” she said in a quiet voice, “and told him to take this ship and fly it into the Golden Column, with the exit point at the Falls preset, so creating
this
column.”
“And now?” Maddie asked.
Kee smiled. “Now watch,” she said, gesturing towards the viewscreen.
We turned our attention to the golden column ascending from the Falls, and seconds later—like an optical illusion which leaves the observer baffled and incredulous—it vanished.
* * *
Hawk brought his ship down on the landing pad above the villa, and Kee led the way through the jungle to a hillock overlooking the waterfall. From this vantage point we could see across the broad swathe of water to the far bank—and the vast, circular pit whose darkness contrasted with the blue of the river and the vivid green of the forest. It was as if a great cheese-screw had been inserted into the land, turned and withdrawn, taking out a column of bedrock and all it contained and leaving a perfectly circular hole in its stead.
Already, fascinated tourists were making their way up the walkways and crossing the Falls to get closer to the pit. One or two small planes circled in the clear blue sky, their pilots no doubt incredulous at the inexplicable phenomenon far below.
“It’s gone, Daddy,” Ella said, voicing our collective amazement.
“What did the Yall say?” Maddie asked. “That the Skeath should be dispatched to a realm from which they would never be able to terrorise the innocent again…”
“I wonder where that might be?” Hawk said.
“Imagine the media interest in this,” I said. “I just hope we can keep our involvement a secret.”
Kee looked at me, seriously. “David, do not worry about that. My people, the Elders, will explain the threat of the Skeath to the authorities, and they will not mention your part in their banishment.”
As we turned from the river and made our way back through the rainforest, I realised that although much had been explained by the events of the last hour, there were many questions yet to be answered.
Not that I cared…
I carried Ella on my back, joyous at her safe return.
TEN
Three days later we were lounging beside the pool in the dappled sunlight filtering through the shola trees. Maddie emerged from the villa with a tray of drinks, followed by Hawk. Hannah sat up and removed her sunglasses, smiling across to where Ella was splashing in the pool.
Kee sat to one side, staring into the forest. She had been quiet since the day of the encounter with the Skeath, and as if in tacit agreement we had refrained from pressing her with questions relating to her involvement in the affair.
Matt wandered from the villa like a man in a daze. He was staring down at a softscreen, eyes wide as he read.
He dropped into a lounger beside mine and passed me the screen. “Well,” he announced. “News just in from Kallash, Antares… The entrepreneur and patron of the arts Dr Petronious… he’s been found dead in his penthouse suite in the capital. Took his own life, according to the report.”
I stared at the moving picture of Petronious opening some cultural event on his planet, filmed just days before his suicide. The report contained no more than Matt had already precised.
“I hope that doesn’t affect his purchase of your art, Matt,” Hannah said.
“All that was completed weeks ago. His Foundation will continue with the exhibitions.” He looked up. “I’ve been thinking about the money, anyway—even before all this blew up. I was thinking of donating most of it to some scheme to assist novice artists. I couldn’t keep what he paid me, after what happened.”
Kee stood up quickly and I became aware of a sudden charge in the air, as at the approach of a thunderstorm… which was absurd: the sun shone unremittingly; the temperature was in the high twenties.
We all looked around, aware at the same time of movement in the forest that enclosed the pool area on three sides. I caught glimpses of fleet bodies there, glimpsed the flash of observant eyes.
“Attention!” Kee sang out, rigid now and staring into the air between us.
Seconds later the air shimmered, and a faint figure took shape in the sunlight. The Yall apparition floated, regarding us.
My heart began a laboured pounding. I wanted to gauge the reaction of my friends, but I couldn’t tear my gaze from the spectre.
“This will be the last time we will come to you, my friends,” the Yall began. “The galaxy has the Golden Columns, but more importantly, the galaxy is no longer threatened by the evil of the Skeath. I—we—thank you for your assistance once again.”
Matt managed a question, “You knew this… the awakening of the Skeath… would occur one day?”
“We knew of the danger of its happening, yes. For millennia after what we thought was our final battle with the Skeath, we searched for their remnants. My people, the Yall, became withdrawn. We left behind us the way of technology; we inhabited planets across the galaxy, this one included, and took to the forests. We adapted ourselves genetically to suit conditions here: over time we changed, devolved, you could say. Only a thousand years ago was the retreat of the Skeath discovered on Chalcedony.
“Then we began the search for the key that would bring the army back to terrible life… But only when the Antarian, Dr Petronious, travelled here with the cone, did the Ashentay Elders understand.”
Matt said, “Petronious was a Skeath?”
The apparition gestured. “He was Antarian, but he knew the legend of the Skeath, and on behalf of his government he worked to bring the Skeath battalions from hibernation and, perhaps he dreamed of one day using their might on behalf of his planet. Little did he understand their evil; that they would fight for no one but themselves.”
I said, “And where are they now, the Skeath battalions?”
“We are not a violent people. We did not punish the Skeath with death. We merely banished them, without their ships or weapons, to a distant world where they will bother no one ever again. And the location of that planet shall remain a secret.”
I noticed Kee then. She was kneeling before the spectral Yall, her head bowed as if in supplication, and something the ghost had said returned to me.
“You said… you said that your people inhabited planets across the galaxy, including this one, and that you devolved…”
“Devolved”, said the figure, “is a cruel word. Perhaps the correct word would be
evolved
.”
Maddie said, “You became…?”
And before us, the apparition of the Yall began slowly to change. The attenuated green reptilian form lost its height, its jade colouration: it became, gradually, a slight, golden figure, lithe and athletic… and familiar.
The apparition said, “The Ashentay, my friends, are the descendants of the Yall.”
My head spinning, I said, “And you?”
I knew the answer, of course, before the spectre voiced the words.
“I… or rather the figure you see before you… am nothing more than a representation of the aggregate unconscious of the Ashentay people.”
And with these words the figure began to fade, and at the same time I became aware of movement in the forest around us as the Ashentay watchers departed, retreating with the fluid rapidity of their kind into the cool shadows of the forest.
The figure disappeared and I searched for the last vestiges of it above the patio; I convinced myself that I could see its face, smiling at me, but that might only have been my wishful thinking.
Ella jumped from the pool and ran into Hannah’s arms. A silence enveloped us as we took in the import of what the Yall had told us.
Hawk pulled Kee to him and held her, tight.
I looked around at my friends, at Matt and Maddie, holding hands, at Hawk and Kee—two very different souls, now one—and at my wife and daughter.
And I felt exalted.
Matt broke the spell. He raised his glass and in a hushed, reverential tone, proposed a toast.
“To the Yall,” he said.
“To the Yall…” we replied.
Starship Spring
Copyright © Eric Brown 2016
First published by PS Publishing in 2016. This eBook edition published in July 2016 by PS Publishing by arrangement with Eric Brown.
All rights reserved by Eric Brown. The right of Eric Brown to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ISBN 978-1-84863-376-6
PS Publishing Ltd
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Hornsea, HU18 1PG, England
www.pspublishing.co.uk
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