Martyn Vaughan - The Cave of Shadows

Jon felt that there was no longer any need for silence.

‘Shoot them!’ he yelled, ‘Now!’

It was then that the bulkhead next to them, weakened by the endless flexing and bending that it had endured in the stellar encounter, decided to give way. With a terrible blast of screams of tortured metal tearing, a great, jagged hole appeared within which electrical arcs crackled and danced, striking this way and that like blazing serpents.

The intruders were flung to the floor, the weapons falling from their grasp.

As they lay there stunned and dazed they saw mechanical legs approaching and, sitting up, found themselves surrounded by the arachnoid guardians of the Room. They stared at disc-shaped bodies supported by spindly legs and found ruby-coloured eyes staring back at them. And they also saw various unpleasant jointed appendages being extended towards them.

‘You are too close to the Generation Tubes,’ a thin voice intoned, ‘You may not approach within two metres.’

Jon stared at the creature standing over him. It was illuminated by leaping arcs of electrical death that were darting and flashing in all directions. Sooner or later one of them would strike either him or the creature.

But he could not wait.

He rolled over and grasped the automatic rifle which had fallen from his fingers, lifted it with trembling hands and fired.

The creature disintegrated into little flying pieces of metal accompanied by blinding electrical shorts that added to the hellish mayhem into which the Generation Room had descended. The flashes of the bolts of electricity seeking to ground themselves produced a dizzying, stroboscopic effect as the others staggered to their feet and unleashed a salvo of bullets on the guardian arachnoids. One by one they approached, uttering the same warning and one by one they were blown apart. Choking smoke and metallic dust filled the room, stinging eyes already half-blinded by the hissing electric arcs.

Jon tried to gather his forces again and raised his voice as high as he could so the others could hear him above the electrical hurricane.

‘Shoot the cylinders! The cylinders!’

But they did not.

They stood motionless in grotesque rigidity as horror seized their muscles, their volition.

A section of wall had slid open and something had emerged.

Something that looked like an arachnoid but one designed and built by a crazed sadist.

It stood nearly three metres tall topped by an elliptical head with two large crimson eyes. And coming from its torso were four arms giving it the impression of a mechanical imagining of a Hindu god.

But if it was a god, it was a god of death for each arm terminated in some kind of blade. Blades that were whirling; blades that were cutting across each other like those of huge scissors. Blades that would inflict sudden death or endless pain.

Then came a voice. Unlike the simple arachnoids this head had jaws which moved as the words were uttered.

And the voice was like the sound of great boulders, smashing each other into splinters.

‘I am the Lord Korok,’ the metal head said, ‘I am very pleased by your fighting spirit. You have given me great sport. I have of course been fully aware of all your plans despite your childish efforts at subterfuge but I needed you to stabilise the flight of this vessel. That is now done.

‘But I must move on now to new challenges. And I must now kill you.’

No-one moved. Totally awed they simply looked up at the metal monstrosity that was about to kill them.

Then Jon shook off the fear that this thing had engendered. He remembered all that had happened on the Hill under Korok’s rule. He remembered the horrific death of Jarz51.

And hatred replaced fear.

‘Korok!’ he cried, ‘you have not won and you cannot win. Shev and I found the code that creates your self-awareness, your consciousness, the emulation of the original Korok. And we firewalled it off from the basic part of the ship’s operating system. Now you’ve downloaded your mind into this machine the version of you that is in there is the only one with volition. The original of you is imprisoned in the Control Computer, in solitary confinement, unable to act. Only observe.

‘And when this copy is deleted – so are you.’

The Korok machine was silent and motionless for a few moments.

Jon knew that he was trying to communicate with the original version of himself in the Control Computer.

But there would be no reply – he and Shev had seen to that.

Suddenly the thing lurched forward with arms outstretched.

‘Clever. But the cowardly way of the Degenerate – I had expected better. Now die like a Degenerate.’

Together the entire group fired their automatic weapons in a single thunderous fusillade at their terrible enemy. Every bullet found its mark: the head, the torso, the arms; Korok shuddered and swayed under that relentless storm of impacts but still he came on. Spent bullets ricocheted in all directions, rebounding from the walls, plunging into the hissing electrical arcs to be volatilised.

Towering over Jon, Korok flicked his gun away as if it were a matchstick and picked him up with sharp metal fingers. He held him dangling there for some moments so Jon was forced to stare into hellish crimson eyes and then Korok flung him against a wall. Jon felt the lower part of his left leg snap an instant before his lacerated body crashed to the floor.

Korok whirled around to face the others and made two steps towards them. Where he lay Jon could see the two Shanas, Shev and Jarm through the swirling blue-grey smoke, looking like helpless mannequins below the metal monstrosity. Jorl was nowhere to be seen.

Korok lifted one leg to step over a mass of disintegrated arachnoids.

And Jarm and the Shanas acted as one and leapt for that leg as the creature was momentarily unbalanced.

Korok was flung backwards, lost his balance completely and in a whirling pirouette he went down – into the most massive of the crackling, darting electric arcs. It encased his entire form in blue, leaping discharges, sending black smoke curling upwards from his joints.

And also convulsed and charred the body of one of the Shanas whom he had grabbed as he fell.

No ! Jon screamed inwardly , Shana! Which Shana were you!

After it was finally certain that Korok would move no more, they came to Jon and using two of the automatic rifles they splinted his broken leg. They could do nothing for the cuts but transhumans heal quickly.

Shana stood over him and kissed him.

Who are you ? he thought, who are you!

They took him to the charred body of the other Shana and he looked down on the carbonised thing, still with little wisps of grey smoke rising from it. Surely no-one had ever faced a situation like this before, grieving for his lost love when, perhaps, she was standing next to him, alive, vibrant, triumphant.

Who are you ! he thought to himself, who are you?

They soon found a way of discharging the contents of the cylinders into space and did that for the first four. The others could wait.

Thus the substances which could have been made into new bodies for Gang Jianguo, Rocha, Maroun and Korok became insignificant components of the interplanetary medium.

They then took Jon back to the Control Room, passing hordes of arachnoids toiling to heal the Fatal Scimitar , and Jon began his own healing.

But one question kept burning in his mind.

Jon and Shana stood side by side on the hillside looking out over the domes of the new settlement.

Time had not touched them very severely as yet, even though it had taken eight wearisome years of shuttling back and forth between the giant planets before sufficient velocity had been shed in order for them to establish a stable orbit around the system’s one terrestrial planet.