Sister Ships and Alastair - Chapter 14

14. Leshiy

The TV screen showed glistening, glassy smooth blackness, like a pool of tar. Beyond the tar pool, and dimly reflected in it, glowed the street lights of the Potemkinsk settlement. The camera was sweeping back and forth repeatedly, as if searching frantically for something. In the other direction, over a massif of blood-coloured slag, could be seen the alien treetops of the outside world.

"What you're l-looking at is Sergeant Crawshaw's h-helmet cam", said Jenkins. "As you'll s-see when he looks down, he's s-standing on a p-pile of furnace sinter from the steel mill. And as you can see from his f-forward view, it seems we g-greatly underestimated the amount of g-gunge hiding around in the s-settlement."

Now that Cleo knew what she was looking at, her skin went as cold as if the blue slime were still sliding along it, inching inexorably towards an opening. The slag heap underneath Crawshaw was surrounded by a living lake of the alien organism.

"We think it has some sort of p-primitive c-collective intelligence", said Jenkins. "L-like ants, individual or, or, organisms acting as one. S-satellite photos of the s-settlement show s-smaller pools of the stuff c-coalescing into bigger ones, f-flowing t-towards this corner of the steel mills."

"Who's in trouble?" said Cleo, though she already knew the answer.

Jenkins hesitated briefly. Then he said: "Well, S-Sergeant Crawshaw, obviously. And L-Lieutenant Farthing."

"We're all right up here, Cleo", said Penelope's voice. "It's still a good few yards away from us."

"And about t-twenty yards c-closer than it was", pointed out Jenkins. "It h-has them completely s-surrounded. I d-do not think this is a coincidence."

The helmet cam swept all round the slag hill. Crawshaw and Penelope were standing right on the hill's summit. It looked as tall as a church. Gigantic, silent structures of metal sheeting surrounded it in all directions. Below it, in all directions, the tar pool was flowing uphill.

"That much?" said Cleo. "There can't be that much of it."

"W-we th-think it may have been h-hiding out in s-sewers and s-storm drains b-below the surface", said Jenkins. "Attracted to the s-surface by the v-vibration of a sh-ship landing, by the s-sound of footsteps and v-voices."

"Don't worry", said Penelope. "We have enough anti-goo spray to deal with it if it comes any closer."

"Th-they have a couple of small s-sanitary spray guns loaded with s-sodium compounds", said Jenkins quietly to Cleo. "If th-they'd had enough to d-deal with it, th-they'd have used them already. She's just trying to m-make you f-feel better. I, on the other h-hand, have no s-such limitations -"

One of the crewmen watching the helmet cam picture shouted in alarm. "Hey! Out of the ground! It just came clear out of the ground!" A black, lethargic geyser of goop was bubbling out of the slag heap close to Crawshaw's boots. Crawshaw jumped back sharply, yelling and causing the screen to blur.

"I was a, a, afraid of that", said Jenkins. "Just b-because th-that slag heap l-looks solid, d-doesn't mean it isn't blue g-goo on the inside."

Cleo dashed forward to the console microphone. "PENELOPE! PUT YOUR SPACE SUIT HELMET ON! PUT IT ON NOW!"

Crawshaw's voice said: "It's all right, it's still nowhere near us."

Cleo turned round to Jenkins. "The suits insulate. They insulate well. He could have a patch of goop a yard wide crawling around on him and he wouldn't know."

Jenkins said: "S-Sergeant, p-put your h-helmet on now. Th-that's an order."

Penelope's voice, now echoing and muffled, said: "Okay. I got the helmet on now."

Cleo looked at the screen desperately. The tide of tar was creeping higher.

"Your boots!" she said suddenly. "Penelope, spray your boots! And all up your suit legs!"

"I've got my helmet on now", said Crawshaw's voice. "Why should I spray my boots?"

"Spraying my boots", said Penelope. "I think I know what you have in mind."

The muffled, distant sound of a spray gun could be heard through the microphone.

"Okay", said Penelope. "I'm done...I'll do Sergeant Crawshaw now."

"I CAN'T LIFT MY LEGS." Crawshaw's voice was suddenly panicked. His camera angle dipped. His suit legs were a mass of black. "IT'S ALL UP MY LEGS. MY LEGS ARE STUCK TO THE GROUND, LIKE THEY'RE SUPERGLUED -"

He tried to raise his feet; strong blue tendrils held them down. His leg muscles were quivering with the effort.

"Keep still, I'll spray you -"

Crawshaw managed to tear his foot free, and with the extra leverage this gave him, freed his other foot. "I'M GETTING OUT OF HERE -"

"DON'T RUN! WALK!"

Encumbered by the heavy suit, he ran off ponderously into the lake of tar. At first, he ran reasonably quickly - then his steps became slower and shorter. "CHRIST, IT'S DEEP."

His camera angle dipped to look at himself again. His legs were knee-deep in the tar, and the black tide had risen even higher, beyond his waist.

"CRAWSHAW! USE THE SPRAY GUN!"

"I KNOW! I'LL USE THE SPRAY GUN!"

There was a brief period of frantic struggling, and then:

"IT'S GOT MY ARMS! I CAN'T MOVE MY ARMS!"

"HANG ON! I'LL COME TO YOU!"

Crawshaw's voice was growing muffled. "NO, DON'T, IT'S TOO DEEP, YOU'LL JUST GET DRAGGED UNDER TOO -"

Then, horribly, a black shadow begun rising over the camera.

"Switch c-cameras", said Jenkins suddenly, snapping himself and everyone else out of dumbstruck paralysis. "Switch to L-Lieutenant Farthing."

"But he's still safe, isn't he?" said Callaway. "It can't get into the suit."

The screen changed to an image of a man in a space suit, perfectly moulded in black living treacle. The space suit was still, the man within unable to move a muscle.

Then a clearly audible clicking sound came over the console speaker.

"H-his h-helmet seals", said Jenkins in horror. "It's p-popping his suit open."

Crawshaw began shouting incoherently, his arms wafting feebly inside a thick shell of goop. Then the shouting became screaming, and the screaming became muffled, and then was finally cut off as the arms on the TV image went limp.

"What is it doing to him?" said Cleo.

"I have absolutely n-no idea", said Jenkins. "But I'll h-hazard a guess that his doctor wouldn't r-recommend it."

"Maybe it's some sort of predator", said Callaway. "One that spreads from world to world on infected starships..."

"Or a b-biological weapon", said Jenkins.

On the screen, Crawshaw's suit began suddenly, eerily, to move.

"Sergeant? Are you okay?"

The suit was moving clumsily, lurching as if it had only just discovered how to walk. It was lurching towards Penelope.

Cleo spoke into the microphone. "Penelope, get away from him."

"But he's moving! He's still alive!"

"Penelope, that is not Sergeant Crawshaw any more. We were asking ourselves how this stuff managed to take over an entire armed human settlement, right? Well, this is how. Get away from it. Don't let it touch you. Walk across the goop to that bigger hill behind you. It can't live on your boots right now. You've sprayed them."

"Erm. Right." The camera swept round and began moving down the slope into shallow goop, looking at Penelope's boots. The goop recoiled from them as if magnetized. Her footsteps opened up a passage between her slag hill and the next, like Moses walking the Red Sea.

"Ye gods, this stuff is deep. I'm going to have to respray myself -"

"NO! Don't STOP! Keep MOVING!"

"It's beginning to cling to the sides of my boots -"

Jenkins yelled into the microphone as loudly as Cleo. "Penelope, it kn-knows you're there! It'll only d-deepen itself and f-flow over you like it did over S-Sergeant Crawshaw! K-KEEP M-MOVING!"

Cleo could hear fear in Penelope's voice now. "Hard to keep going - hard to pull my legs out of this muck -"

Suddenly, the whole landscape went a brilliant oceanic blue. A bright white light had blazed down from the sky, illuminating everything as clearly as if it had been daylight on a proper planet that had the right sort of sun.

Penelope looked up. Her helmet visor went black immediately in the glare, like a pair of polarized sunglasses. Two huge circular light sources hung directly over her head.

An urgent voice crackled over the radio: "GRAB HOLD OF THE HOOK, LIEUTENANT." In between Penelope and the light, something huge and heavy swung. There was a distant sound of chain clanking, and a roar of powerful machinery.

"CAREFUL!" yelled Jenkins. "IF YOU B-BASH IN HER F-FACEPLATE, THE G-GUNGE WILL F-FIND A WAY IN!"

"- BEING AS CAREFUL AS I CAN, GODDAMMIT -" came Alastair's voice. "Которую кнопку я нажимаю?"

"Квадратная кнопка", said the Russian girl.

"Спасибо."

The huge heavy thing swung randomly on the end of a much larger structure high above. It could now be seen that it ended in a massive, solid crane hook. The hook swung directly into Penelope, clearly knocking the breath out of her - the could be heard on Black Prince's bridge - and the engine sound rose till the console speaker began to shriek.

"IT'S NOT LETTING GO OF ME!"

"HOLD ON!"

All around Cleo in the bridge, crewmen were yelling at the screen.

"COME ON!"

"HOLD ON, GIRL!"

"HOLD ON, PENELOPE!"

The sound of motors rose and fell, rose and fell, and across the dead moonscape of the slag piles Cleo could see Alastair in a tiny, electrically lit crane control cabin, flipping switches and pulling levers with all the determination of an angler trying to land the biggest catch he'd ever made.

"IT'S GIVING - IT'S GIVING -"

Slowly but unmistakeably, Penelope began to rise into the air. The whole glittering blue mass of gunge, like a lake of sapphire, sank below her.

"LET'S SEE HOW FAR IT STRETCHES!" The motors bellowed again; Penelope began to move sideways in the air.

"NOT FAR IF I CAN HELP IT." Penelope's helmet cam looked down at her feet, which were still encased in a lengthening pseudopod of goo. One of her hands moved down; a spray gun held in it hissed. The goo shrivelled and shrank from the spray; the pseudopod broke and tumbled back down into the mass of gunge. Spontaneously, the bridge broke into a cheer and erupted in a frenzy of backslapping. One of the crewmen hugged Cleo.

"GO PENELOPE!"

"ONE MR. DRAGUE! THERE'S ONLY ONE MR. DRAGUE! ONE MR. DRAAAAGUE...THERE'S ONLY ONE MR. DRAAAGUE..."

Penelope's boots touched down on the slag. The Russian girl's greatcoat moved in front of the helmet cam. "You wyill not move plyease. I wyill chyeck your syuit for Yorganyism." Cleo saw Alastair's spray gun in her hand.

"You are wearing a sergeant's coat, Vladlena Matveyevna", said Penelope.

"Is not my coat", said Vladlena Matveyevna. "Is coat of Matvei."

"Who is Matvei, Vladlena Matveyevna? What happened to Matvei?"

Alastair's voice cut in. "Uh, Lieutenant, the clue is in Vladlena's name. Matveyevna means 'daughter of Matvei'. I think Matvei was her father, and I strongly suggest you stop asking questions at this point."

"You have no Yorganyism on syelf", announced Vladlena. "Thyis is good Yantibacterial Chyemical, cyompound of syodium. We lyeave plyanet now. You have shyip. We lyeave."

Penelope nodded. "Yes. Yes, we leave. You know a good deal about chemistry, Vladlena."

"My mother was byiologyical chyemist." A bone-white hand pointed across the settlement to a tall, featureless concrete tower on the southern horizon. "In there. Lysenko Yinstitute. Was head of Yinstitute."

"Why do none of your buildings have windows?" said Penelope to Vladlena as they approached the tower.

"What we see yout of wyindows?" said Vladlena bitterly. "Styinkying pryison plyanet."

"This is all fascinating", said Cleo. "Shouldn't you really be getting away from the hostile alien organism?"

"I agree", said Penelope. "If there is anyone else alive down here, they're hiding really, really well." She began picking her way down the slag scree back toward the steel mills. The others moved with her, not needing encouragement.

"You h-have my authority to r-return to Black Prince", said Jenkins.

"When I want your authority I'll ask for it. It is far too dangerous to be down here any longer. We've just about run out of sodium compound. Our sprayers are almost empty."

Nearby, growing out of the slag, was a twisted, spine-branched plant about a metre in height. Vladlena kicked it and spat on it as she passed. The plant bounced back upright like a top and rattled its branches at her aggressively. The ends of the branches had claws.

"They byegin to grow already", she said bitterly. "Yin two months, this whole plyace, Леший! Yas if we nyever here!"

"What does Леший mean?" said Penelope. The word had sounded like 'Leshiy'.

Alastair sounded confused. "Erm...a Leshiy is a Russian forest spirit."

Penelope avoided a line of manholes that spontaneously burped up bright blue slime from under their metal covers, one by one, as she passed them. Her helmet cam looked back toward the blue goo, which was spreading over the slag hills like malignant jam. Cleo noticed, however, that it smartly diverted around the spiny-branched shrub, as if the bush tasted nasty...

"Hurry! Is more sodium in lyaboratories", said Vladlena. "In Yinstitute."

Penelope looked up at the massive concrete structure. "We can stop off there to refill. But there can only be so much sodium in one town."

"Not in thyis town", agreed Vladlena. "Though one hyundred kyilometres south of here is gulag salt mine."

"What's a gulag?" said Cleo to the console. On the screen, the front doors of the Institute stood wide open, pushed out into the dirt outside as if a great many people had been in a great hurry to leave.

"A gulag is a prison camp", said Alastair, playing his torch nervously around the walls. "For people who criticize the government."

"Or pyeople who bryeak law", said Vladlena. "Or pyeople who live nyext to pyeople who write lyetter to authoryities that say 'Hey, authorityies, than man who lyive next to me is cyapitalist saboteur'. Or prisoner of war. Or christian, jew or moslem. Or Pole. Or Chechen. Or German. Or brother or sister of person who is taken to gulag last week. Or person who Myinistry of Secyurity commissar dyislike. Or Меньшевики. Or Кулаки. Or hep cat beatnik crazy persons -" She pushed open a door labelled Лаборатория.

"Gosh", said Cleo. "Do you have many people left who aren't in gulags?"

Vladlena, though her face was only side-on to the camera, could clearly be seen to be startled by the question. "Potemkinsk is gulag", she explained. "Whole plyanet is gulag."

Лаборатория appeared to mean 'laboratory'. The room beyond the door was huge and lined with chemical glassware. Some of the larger glass vessels had preserved zoological and botanical specimens in them. It was difficult to tell the difference between the zoological and the botanical. One glass cylinder two metres in height held a single disembodied, jointed limb. The limb terminated in a vicious-looking claw.

"Your whole world is a prison?" said Cleo, shocked.

"Not surprising", said Alastair. "Krasnaya 3 would have been colonized in the very last years of Stalin. A single anonymous accusation sent to the secret police could get a man shot or transported to Siberia. They probably sent people out here in their thousands. And once they had been sent here, even after the completion of their sentences, there would be no free ticket home."

"Great gryandfather die on tryansport shyip", said Vladlena, counting along rows of identical-looking bottles of white powder with a practised eye. "Was yoxygen shyortage, not yenough yoxygen cylinder for pyassenger compartment arrive from factory. Great gryandfather is big man, need much yoxygen. Great grandmyother is small woman, need only very lyittle yoxygen, she survive."

"What did he do?" said Penelope. "What did he do to get sent out here to Krasnaya?"

"He have nyame Abelev, was first nyame in tyelephone diryectory", shrugged Vladlena. "Myinistry of Security gyive arrest quota of two hyundred Yenemies of Styate to commissars in town of Sverdlovsk. Commissars cyan only fyind one hyundred ninety-nine, and yis nyearly weekend, so they go through tyelephone dyirectory, arryest great grandfyather. He is good man, yartillery sergeant, Hero of Soviet Union. They tyake all his myedals, myake hyim sign confyession that say he betray country to Yamerican Cyapitalists, spit on picture of Lenin, drink blood of Soviet chyildren, chyange shape and fly through air like bat."

"Erm, Mr. Jenkins, sir", said Callaway. "I'm picking up a large mass dropping into normal space. Higher orbit than ours, but still on the ecliptic."

"How b-big?" said Jenkins.

"Big. It's right out near the two gas giants, Plyaneta Kommunizma and North Rostov Tractor Factory."

"North Rostov Tractor Factory?" said Cleo. "That's the name of a planet?"

"The Russians have a l-lot of s-similar s-sounding planets", said Jenkins. "Whenever they f-find a n-new one, they g-give it the n-name of whichever factory b-beat its production target by the highest m-margin in that week."

"North Rostov Tractor Factory is a very big planet, twice the mass of Jupiter", explained Callaway. "Makes it difficult to tell just how big a mass we're dealing with. Looking for a starship's mass next to a planet it like looking for a candle flame someone's nailed to the sun. Their captain almost certainly did that deliberately. If so, it was a clever move, sir. He's a veteran."

"G-go to alert", said Jenkins. "S-silent running. Dim all interior lighting. R-reduce output of main reactor -"

"Too late, sir", said Callaway. "We're getting a message. Radio. Directional radio. They know our position."

"P-patch it through."

"- IS HERE BYEAUTIFUL SOVIET VYESSEL ZINOVIY KOLOBANOV. YOU WYILL CYEASE TO VYIOLATE SOVIET SPYACE WITH YINFERIOR YAMERICAN TYECHNOLOGY. WE LAUGH AT YOUR TYINY PYARTICLE ACCYELERATORS. YOU WILL COMPLY OR WE WILL BLOW YOU OUT OF SPYACE YANKEE COWBOY OVER."

"Switch off the feed to the p-planet", said Jenkins. "This sounds, uh, more urgent."

"No kidding", muttered Callaway.

"Well, we always knew there was a second Beria floating around out there", said Kay.

"The Zinoviy Kolobanov isn't a Beria", said Jenkins. "She's a Voroshilov-class s-super heavy c-cruiser. She has charged p-particle b-beam weapons, anti-p-planet c-capability, and a w-wing of F-Fantasm f-f-fighters."

"Anti-planet capability", said Cleo. "Does that mean what I think it does?"

"If you m-mean 'the ability to d-destroy planets', then yes."

"Cobalt weapons", said Cleo. Various members of the crew nodded.

"I hate to confirm your suspicions, sir", said Callaway, "but there's a Fantasm on the screen. The drive trail's unmistakeable. And the neutrino output from the cruiser's power plant is in the right range for a Voroshilov. They're not powering weapons yet, though. Their reactor's barely ticking over."

"D-do we have a v-visual confirmation?"

Callaway flicked a switch on the console; a barely visible grey ellipse appeared on the wide screen TV.

"That's her. The image is grainy no matter how much I blow it up. It's a whole nineteen astronomical units away. But you can see her saucer's over a hundred metres across. She's a big bad bird."

Cleo whispered to Jenkins. "What's a neutrino?"

"A s-subatomic particle g-given off by n-nuclear reactors. If you can d-detect them, you can p-pinpoint a sh-ship's position. As l-long as it has a reactor. And m-most have."

"Oh." Cleo opened her mouth a second time. "What -"

"An astronomical unit is the distance between the Earth and the Sun. The Voroshilov is as f-far away as Uranus."

Cleo opened her mouth a third time.

"That was not a f-feed line", said Jenkins, "but a reference to the next planet out from Saturn."

Cleo's mouth shut.

Aloud, Jenkins said, "Return h-hailing on the s-same f-f-frequency."

"Open", said Callaway. "Fire away, sir."

"R-R-Russian cruiser", began Jenkins in a brittle voice, drawing himself up to his full unimposing height, "th-this is the United Kingdom c-cruiser Black Prince. We are h-here in response to a d-distress call. A h-hostile alien force has attacked your P-Potemkinsk colony. We have d-dispatched c-crewmembers down to Krasnaya 3's surface to s-search for survivors. We apologize for the v-violation of s-sovereignty -"

"We hyave no soveryeign, Blyack Pryince. We are enlightened Commyunist socyiety over."

"- of t-t-territory; and we await instructions as to h-how you wish us to proceed in p-providing you with all possible assistance at this d-difficult time."

There was a brief pause. Then the radio answered:

"YOU ARE HYOLDING PRYISONER FOUR YINDIVIDUALS UNDER PROTYECTION OF SOVIET STYATE. FYIRST IS SURVYIVOR OF CYOWARDLY AND DYESPICABLE ATTYACK ON POTEMKINSK COLONY. SYECOND AND THYIRD ARE CLEOPATRA SHAKESPEARE AND PYENYELOPYE FARTHYING, YUNITED STATES OF ZODIAC CYITIZENS IMPRYISONED WITHOUT TRIAL. FOURTH IS YALASTAIR DRAGUE, LONG TYIME UNDERGROUND MOLE FOR SOVIET YESPIONAGE SERVICES, SYEEKING ASYLUM IN BYEAUTIFUL SOVIET UNION."

The crew fell silent.

"You s-seem remarkably well informed", said Jenkins. "M-may I ask how?"

"YINFORMATION YIS SUPPLIED BY YEXCELLENT SOVIET YINTELLIGENCE NYETWORK."

Jenkins made a throat cutting gesture at Callaway. Callaway flicked a switch and the connection died. He rounded on Cleo.

"It would appear you are v-very important to the Soviets", he said.

"I once stole a Fantasm off them", shrugged Cleo. "They're probably still mad."

The entire room goggled at her.

"What?" said Jenkins.

"Their latest front-line space fighter? I stole one off them. Give me over to them and the result will be a death sentence."

"You", said Jenkins, "who have to be t-told what a n-neutrino is, stole a h-high performance fighter."

"I had help", said Cleo. "I have to say, you're taking the news that Alastair is a Soviet mole relatively well."

"It's quite obvious where they're getting their information from, sir", said Callaway. "They're tapping in to our broadcasts down to the surface. I did say they wouldn't be encrypted."

Jenkins blinked. Then, he said:

"Yes. Yes. Th-that makes s-sense." He pointed a trembling finger accusingly at Cleo. He was breathing heavily, almost spasmodically. "But s-somehow, s-somehow they know who you two people are. They kn-know your names. They kn-knew you would be here in advance! This is a all a s-s-SETUP. This is a t-TRAP."

"I thought Alastair made that perfectly clear", said Cleo. "Everything is a trap."

"Shall I order them confined to quarters, sir?" said Kay.

Jenkins reached into a pocket for an inhaler and took a long draw on it until he stopped shaking and his breath came in steady gasps.

"Th-they -"

He was cut off by a crewman pelting in from the starboard corridor. "MR. KAY, SIR! UH, AND LIEUTENANT JENKINS! CAPTAIN JENKINS!"

The crewman stood pouting in front of Kay and Jenkins, eyes wide.

"Well, out with it", snapped Kay irritably.

"It's the Captain, sir. Someone's tried to kill the Captain."