Barrington Bayley - The Garments of Caean

Wearing their new clothes, the four repaired to the cockpit where Mast proposed to initiate their return to Harlos. But before he could do so a warning gong sounded. Bending over the slanting control board, Mast studied a display screen with puzzlement.

‘There’s a ship heading our way,’ he announced finally. ‘A Caeanic ship.’

‘Coincidence?’ suggested Castor. ‘We are close to one of their trade routes.’

‘I don’t think so. It appears to be heading directly for Kyre.’ Mast frowned pettishly. ‘I don’t get it. They must know what sort of a planet Kyre is, even if the crew of the wreck didn’t. You wouldn’t think it would be worth the expense of making a baffle suit just to recover that cargo, not on the Caeanic market, anyway.’

Peder did not mention anything about Prossim, or the Frachonard suit. ‘We’d better leave,’ he urged.

‘They would see us if we headed for home now,’ Mast mused. ‘Yet we can’t stay in the open. We’ll have to hide somewhere.’

‘Down on the surface, boss?’ Grawn gawped.

‘Dolt, the Costa wouldn’t last ten minutes down there. And besides, they could probably still trace us. Wait a minute… Kyre has a sister planet. There she is!’

A larger, closer trace appeared on the display plate. The second planet inscribed Kyre’s orbit only a few million miles closer to the primary. Mast tapped out instructions on a set of keys, adding a verbal to the voice pick-up: ‘Land on the planet if safe, orbit as closely as possible if not.’

The Costa swung out of its orbit, slipped into overdrive and arrowed for the inner planet. ‘They’re not expecting anybody to be here,’ Mast remarked. ‘I doubt if they’ll spot us yet. After they get to Kyre we can slide away using the planet and then the primary for cover.’

‘What sort of a planet is it?’ Peder asked.

‘Diameter, five thousand miles.’ Mast shrugged. ‘That’s all I know. The expedition that came home from Kyre called it the Planet of the Flies. Don’t ask me why.’

On overdrive, the Costa took little more than half an hour to cover the thirty million miles to the Planet of the Flies. As they dived into its atmosphere and descended almost to ground level the reason for the name became abundantly clear.

A type of fly lived on the planet. It was almost all that did live there – little else could have survived the environment the flies themselves had created. The atmosphere was jammed almost solid with them to a height of about a mile. Evidently they bred prodigiously; they had achieved a density of about three per cubic centimetre, and the Costa ploughed through this black buzzing mass as if through a wall of sludge. Briefly the yacht set down on solid ground, but those within, looking with horror at what surrounded them, ordered the auto pilot to take off again.

They crept into the upper reaches of the atmosphere and were able to observe the recently arrived Caeanic ship take up orbit about Kyre. Then they slid guiltily around to the other side of the second planet and departed, making straight for the Ziode Cluster, Harlos and (they hoped) riches.

Alexei Verednyev swept on through a familiar environment. Far down-range was the glowing light of the central sun. To all quarters, a pointillist background at the limit of vision, shone the unreachable stars, but he ignored those. Surrounding him, the medium in which he lived and moved, was the warm, cavernous dark of interplanetary space.

Playfully fleeing from him, Lana Armasova was some five hundred miles down-range. He could sense her metal body with his radars and his spirits mounted as he realized that soon she would let him catch her. Already they were a long way from the gas giant’s girdle of rocks and masses that, to them, was Homebase. If they chased one another much farther sunwards they would stand in danger of coming within range of Shoji, the small arid world where the evil cyborgs lived.

Lana was breaking her speed, now. He saw her glinting in the starlight, and he called to her. She turned lazily, transmitting incidental signals of sexual excitement. He beamed his urgent demand; she responded quickly with rapid, vibrating love feelings.

Already their exchanges had passed beyond the range of ordinary speech; now those exchanges moved up to UHF, the only frequencies on which pure emotion could be directly conveyed. On rich high-frequency harmonies, tender, mutual sensitivities which words could never have handled passed freely to and fro. Alexei and Lana thrilled to one another’s presence, and as the distance between them closed the delirious sensations increased. Alexei, for his part, felt faint with the impact of sheer femaleness which the UHF transmissions were bringing to him.

Then, when their bodies clinked together, a merging of magnetic fields heightened the delirium still further and a long, thin steel prong slid automatically out from Alexei. He grappled with Lana, jockeying her into position and finding the orifice into which that prong plunged. Instantly, ecstasy overcame them both and they clung together while the probe ejaculated his sperm into her.

With a gentle hiss of jets they drew apart. Neither said anything at first; but suddenly Lana broke the post-coital peacefulness with a cry of alarm. A shadow crossed them; something had come between them and the sun.

He turned to see a long, quite huge shape bearing down on them. He did not really have to pick out its features, for only the starlight illuminated this, its eclipsed side, and it did not seem to shine as metal did.

‘What is it?’ Lana screamed.

He did not know. He had never known cyborgs to build anything like this, in fact they did not come into space very often.

‘Flee, Lana, flee!’

But she scarcely needed to be told. Her main propulsors burst into action, as did his, and they hurtled uprange.

The home rings were far away, and there was no cover here. Alexei veered away from Lana, ordering her to change course. His hope that he could draw the pursuer off Lana was fulfilled; it followed him, and he saw that its speed far outpaced his.

Something shot from the bow of the big object. Despite all his twistings and manoeuvrings Alexei could not escape it. Though little more than a flat platform with a dome set upon it, it was able to pace him easily, and soon was almost touching him. Alexei cursed desperately as strong, lash-like cilia extruded to entrap him, imprisoning his arms and dragging him inexorably towards the menacing black shape.

‘Should we bring it aboard?’ Estru asked. ‘It might be dangerous. A robot bomb, perhaps?’

The middle-aged woman with purple tinted hair glanced up at him from the table, where she was watching the events on the vidscreen. ‘You’re too suspicious,’ she reproved in a mature, controlled voice. ‘We’ll deep-sensor it in the lock before we bring it in any farther, but I don’t think it’s a bomb. What I’d like to know is, what were the two of them doing when we came upon them?’

Estru bent to look over her shoulder at the screen. The object being brought in was apparently metallic. It had arms, a bulky, interestingly accoutred main body incorporating a drive unit, and what looked like a helmetlike head section with tubes and antennae that presumably were sensors.

‘What does it look like to you, then, Amara?’

She tilted her head. ‘Well, it looks like some elaborate kind of spacesuit.’

‘Who needs a spacesuit as big as that? Unless there’s a giant inside. And anyway where’s their vehicle? We’re miles from anywhere out here.’

Amara shrugged. ‘Well, we’ll soon know.’ She flicked a switch. ‘Aspar, did you say those things were transmitting when we interrupted them?’