A stiff thread hung from the padded coat that he always wore, rain or shine. Slowly, he began to wind the thread around his fingers, drawing it tight. He’d known that he’d be glad of the coat someday.
Sedulus stood before the villagers. A small microphone was attached to his collar. It amplified his voice so that all could hear him easily.
“People of Durroch,” he said. “You may be aware that last night an Illyri shuttle went down south of here. Three Illyri died in the crash, but we believe that two survived and were picked up by humans, possibly members of the terrorist Resistance.”
Nobody spoke, but nobody looked away either. They remained standing in silence, their eyes fixed on the tall, thin Illyri in the expensive coat and the black, brilliantly shiny shoes.
“We believe that the captive Illyri passed this way. Our Agrons caught something of their scent, but the heavy rains made the trail impossible to follow accurately.”
Somebody snickered behind Tam. The Securitat wasn’t going to get much sympathy here for his lost trails.
Sedulus had clearly heard the laughter. He responded with a smile of his own as he walked to the war memorial and looked down on the granite slab with its four names.
“Your village is known to be sympathetic to the Resistance,” he said. “The Military has long had its suspicions about you, and the names of the Resistance dead are honored here.” He pointed at the slab. “I understand that this memorial has been destroyed in the past by the Illyri. I promise you that I do not intend to commit a similar act of desecration. It is important that the dead should be remembered, regardless of the cause for which they fought. Who is the stonemason?”
A few seconds went by before an elderly man moved from the back of the crowd to the front, his head held high. If he was resigned to being punished for what he had done, he was still determined to show no fear.
“I am,” he said. “My name is Lennox.”
“You don’t need to be afraid of me,” said Sedulus. “No harm will come to you.”
Lennox couldn’t hide his surprise at not being shot, even if he didn’t look quite sure that he believed what he was hearing. Two guards led him to one side and kept watch over him.
Now the Agrons were led toward the crowd, their handlers controlling them with their leashes. They sniffed at legs and feet and sleeves. Tam tried to show no fear as one drew near him and paused. He hadn’t touched the girl, or the Grand Consul, but he’d been in their presence. He knew that the Agrons were better than bloodhounds, and these were clearly on another level entirely, but he held his breath, and his nerve, as the Agron snuffled at his clothing, seemed to consider what it was picking up, and then moved on. Meanwhile, the Securitats collected the biometric identity cards that citizens were obliged by law to carry with them at all times. The cards were handed to Vena, who leafed through them with a bored expression on her face, as though they were someone else’s holiday snaps that had been forced upon her. She offered them to Sedulus, but he waved them aside.
“We believe that more than one person here knows the whereabouts of Resistance operatives in this area,” Sedulus continued. “We want the names of those operatives.”
Nobody moved. In the past, the Military had tried bribes and threats in an effort to force the villagers to betray the Resistance, but with no result. Durroch had even sacrificed some of its sons and daughters to the Illyri legions before those remaining had the good sense to make themselves harder to find. Everyone in the square knew the nearly as ruinous consequences for betraying the Resistance: at best they would be exiled from the village, their names dirt, forced to lose themselves in one of the cities to the south, hoping that their reputation for treachery wouldn’t follow them. Worse, in some places those who informed on the Resistance simply disappeared, especially if their betrayal led to loss of life. The Highlands had no shortage of bogs and marshes, and bodies that sank in them, weighted by stones, tended not to resurface.
But the villagers of Durroch stayed quiet now not out of fear of the Resistance, but out of loyalty to their own. They were human beings first, and they would not give away those who fought in their name.
Sedulus did not seem surprised by their lack of cooperation, merely disappointed. He turned to Vena.
“Pick ten,” he instructed. “Make sure there are children among them.”
Vena, with half a dozen Securitats at her heels, moved through the crowd and chose ten people randomly, tapping them on the shoulder with her electric baton. They were escorted to the northern end of the square, where the ruins of an old Catholic church stood, now little more than low walls with the remains of the ornate lancet windows still visible. The ten villagers consisted of five children—three girls, two boys, none older than ten or eleven—and five men and women, none of them younger than fifty. Among the chosen was False Ed, the pub landlord. He, like the other adults, tried to keep the children calm, even though the older villagers were just as frightened as the younger ones. There were cries and sobs from among those who had not been chosen as parents, husbands, and wives waited to see what might happen to their loved ones.
The door of the transporter opened again to reveal four mechanized support suits standing in the gap, unmoving. Tam squinted at the faceplates of their helmets. They appeared empty, but then the suits began to descend the walkway, and something like smoke swirled behind the glass as they made their way toward the ten villagers.
Don’t do this, thought Tam. Whatever it is, don’t do it. He felt an awful guilt. He could give himself up, but if he did, the Illyri would check his details and immediately head for the farm. He had to give Heather, Just Joe, and the rest time to get away, but at what cost? He could see some of the villagers glancing at him, willing him to do something, to stop whatever was about to occur, but he couldn’t, not yet.
Sedulus lifted his right hand. It contained a small black device no bigger than a key fob. All eyes fixed on it.
“Do you know why we were so interested in this world, why we chose to colonize it?” he asked. “Simple: because you looked so like us. When the Illyri Empire began to search the universe for signs of advanced life, we thought of it in terms of our own form. We wanted it to have two arms, two legs, one head. We wanted it to be carbon-based, to have languages that we could interpret. We hoped it would think like us. In the end, we were as surprised to find you as you were to be found.
“Because the truth is that there are all kinds of life-forms in the universe: some primitive, a few more advanced, and some strange beyond all knowing. If you think the Galateans are unusual, or the Agrons, or even ourselves, prepare to be astonished. You are about to witness something that few humans have ever seen.”
He pressed a button on the device in his hand, and the faceplates on the support suits slid up with the slightest of hisses.
At first, Tam thought that what came flooding out of the suits were swarms of black bees. They swirled in the air, creating complex patterns against the cloudy sky above, before compressing into four solid masses that faced the terrified villagers waiting against the ruined church. They still roiled and twisted, but now they resembled bodies covered in black insects, albeit bodies with only the suggestion of arms or legs, and heads without eyes or mouths. They were shadows given substance, a devil’s mimicry of the human form.
“Let us begin,” said Sedulus, pressing his thumb to the device for a second time.
The shapes fell upon the chosen villagers, circling them like tornadoes, their darkness forming coils that closed around the bodies of the ten. The villagers began to disappear; first their foreheads, then their eyes, then their gaping, agonized mouths. It was like a magic trick performed by conjurors from hell itself. No, Tam realized, they weren’t vanishing—they were being consumed from the head down, but so quickly that they barely had time to bleed, yet bleed they did, faster and faster, until they were reduced to red pools on the ground, and
then the dark beings consumed those too, every molecule, until there was nothing left of the villagers but the memory of them, and a few pieces of inorganic matter: plastic belts, metal buttons and badges, a single pacemaker. The beings became four swarms again, hovering beside their suits, waiting.
Waiting for more.
A woman in the crowd screamed a child’s name over and over and over again. Others joined in, swept on a wave of horror, and the Illyri and Galateans brought their weapons to bear to keep them at bay.
“Another ten,” said Sedulus, and Vena again stepped forward to make the choice.
“No.”
It was a woman’s voice. She stood between a boy and a girl, each of them strikingly similar. Her name was Morag, and her twin children were Colin and Catriona. Now she looked at Tam, and he gave her an almost imperceptible nod. He had been about to step forward anyway. He could not allow this atrocity to continue.
Sedulus looked at Morag.
“Well?” he said.
“If we tell you, will this end?” she said.
“Yes,” said Sedulus. “But I want a name. Now.”
It was Tam, not Morag, who spoke next.
“I’m the one you’re looking for,” he said.
“Take him,” said Sedulus, and Vena led the quartet of guards that pulled Tam from the crowd. “Put him in the transporter.”
Tam was led to the nearest of the transporters, away from the scene of the slaughter. As he walked, he heard Sedulus give his final instruction.
“Kill them all,” he said. “But spare the stonemason.”
Tam turned back as he heard Morag scream, “No! You promised! You said it would be the end of it!”
“And it will be.” Sedulus took the identity cards from Vena and handed them to the stonemason. “To help you remember the names.”
And before the crowd could react, the roiling black mass descended upon them all.
•••
Tam watched it happen. He tried to pull away, but he could not. More Securitats surrounded him, forcing him to retreat from the carnage, as he was dragged backward to the troop transporter. Already he was almost at its door. As he struggled, the sleeve of his coat tore in the hands of one of the Securitats, revealing not padding but a patch of high explosive, one of more than a dozen sewn into the garment.
The guard reacted, but not fast enough.
Oh well, thought Tam. I was hoping to take Sedulus and Vena with me, but you lot will just have to do.
He closed his right fist, and yanked at the threaded fuse.
And he, and everyone around him, ceased to exist.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
T
here was chaos in Durroch. The explosion had vaporized those closest to Tam, and reduced many of the Illyri in the immediate vicinity to pieces of meat. The angle of the heavy transporter had shielded the villagers from the worst of the blast, but some of them had also been injured, although the black swarms quickly put an end to their suffering. Some villagers had escaped in the confusion, and were now being hunted through the streets, but they were fighting back. The sound of pulsers was met with scattered gunfire, and Sedulus knew that he risked losing control of the situation. He did not have time to battle humans from house to house.
The explosion had also severely damaged the transporter: the big armored vehicles were particularly vulnerable when their doors were open, and this one had been gaping wide to receive Tam when he activated the device. It was now useless, but the inconvenience of its loss was reduced somewhat by the fact that most of its former occupants were now dead or seriously injured.
Of more concern to Sedulus was that a piece of shrapnel had blown apart one of the support suits. The three undamaged suits had been resealed, and their occupants pressed darkly against the faceplates, watching one of their kind dying. It circled uncertainly around the useless suit, its energy gradually dissipating, until at last it assumed the form of a kneeling, armless figure. The shape of a mouth opened in agony, and the creature came apart like ash rising into the air, the wind blowing all trace of it away.
Sedulus felt a mix of anger and grief—and fear. The creatures he had unleashed on the villagers—the “pets” of which Meia had her suspicions, and which had entirely wiped out villages in the past—had no name. Sedulus had found them marooned on a moon of Sarith when he was part of the Scientific Development Division—an innocent name that disguised the elite division’s true purpose, which was to seek out alien life-forms and technologies that might be used as weapons—and hence the creatures were known only as the Sarith Entities.
His ship had picked up signs of life on the barren moon, but they were difficult to pinpoint; at moments there seemed to be millions, at other times only five. When he led a team down to investigate, they tracked the life signs to a cave system. Outside the cave lay five shattered pods of alien design, unfamiliar to the Illyri and destined to remain so. Their origin had never been ascertained.
The three-member Illyri exploration team entered the caves warily. Their lights caught swirls of dust, but there was no wind to cause such a disturbance: the Sarith moon was a still, dead place. The dust began to thicken, assuming shapes that mimicked those of the Illyri in their spacesuits. There were five in all. One stepped forward and approached Sedulus.
Interesting, he thought. They identify me as the leader.
Later, back on the ship, he would wonder at what happened next. He reached out a hand, and the dark form simply restructured itself around it, so that it appeared as though Sedulus’s arm was buried in its chest. In that instant, he had a flash of what he could only think of as understanding, a revelation of the nature of the thing before him. They were five, but they were many in five; each a single consciousness formed of countless smaller entities. He sensed rage—incredible, boundless rage—and loneliness, for they had been marooned on this world for so very long.
But most of all he felt their hunger, and as the other four coiled around the members of his team, he knew what he must do. He carefully drew one of the small laser cutters designed for the collection of mineral samples. He stepped back and used the beam to slice through the scientists’ suits, exposing the man and woman who had been unfortunate enough to join him on the expedition. The entities poured through the holes in the material, and Sedulus had watched, enraptured, as they fed.
After that, they were his.
Now, in Durroch, two of the surviving Entities turned away from the empty suit and prepared to return to their transporter. One remained, and Sedulus saw himself reflected in the blank visage of its faceplate, giving him the uncomfortable sense of being trapped inside the support suit. The Securitat’s head was bleeding from the scalp, and his right cheek had been cut deeply by a fragment of stone. A medic approached to seal the wounds, but Sedulus waved him away as he faced down the Entity. A sacrifice would be required, Sedulus knew. The Sarith had already lost only one other of their kind since they had allied themselves to him; it was in the early days of the occupation, and the technology of the support suits was still in the process of being perfected. On that occasion, a malfunction had led to the Entity’s suffocating inside its suit. Sedulus had given the surviving Entities the small Norwegian town of Fagernes as recompense. He had wanted to make an example of it anyway, and the mystery of the disappearance of its citizens had suited his ends on that occasion.
But Durroch was different, for Sedulus wanted witnesses to its annihilation. It was why he had left the stonemason alive, and why the deaths of its inhabitants had been secretly filmed by the lens worn by Vena. Sedulus would ensure that the film was leaked to the Resistance, and not only on these islands. He wanted it to circulate. He wanted to sow terror, and the desire for vengeance. He wanted the Resistance to grow bolder, to be goaded into committing further atrocities against the Illyri.
He wanted Earth to damn itself.
He spo
ke to the Entity. “You will have revenge for this,” he said.
The Entity briefly produced the shape of a head. Two eyeholes appeared, and a mouth. The mouth silently repeated one word.
Revenge.
•••
The Illyri dead and injured were placed in the undamaged transporter to be taken to one of the other cruisers, for Sedulus did not want the dead stinking up his personal craft. Time had been wasted, but the delay had been relatively minor. The bomber’s biometric identity card had revealed the location of his home. Even without it, the Agrons already had his scent.
Sedulus gave the order to attack and seize the farm.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
T
he drone came in low, scanning for life-forms. It detected the heat signatures of four humans in the main house, but no signs of life elsewhere. The drone remained close to the house while the three cruisers roared out of the clouds. Two landed in fields just outside the walls of the farm while the third hovered above the main farmhouse, scanning the entire area for movement, a skimmer beside it. The Resistance were known to use tunnels as escape routes and hiding places, and Sedulus did not want his troops on the ground to be taken unawares as they moved in on the farmhouse. The hovering skimmer spat out dozens of tiny seismic detectors, each of which penetrated the dirt with probes as soon as they hit the ground. The probes were capable of detecting evidence of excavation, as well as human speech patterns and any movement larger than that of a small mammal. They revealed no sign of human activity. Meanwhile, the figures in the house remained motionless.
A squad of Securitats moved in on the farmhouse, the cruiser and the skimmer now hovering barely a few feet above its roof. All pulsers were set to hard stun. Sedulus desired information, and dead Resistance operatives were of no use to him. Gas grenades were fired through the windows of the house, and a hover ram fitted with a camera broke down the door and entered the building, just in case the entrances had been booby-trapped.