Part 1 (1/2)

Timewyrm: Genesys.

by John Peel.

PROLOGUE.

The stars.h.i.+p shuddered. Another bolt lashed through the ether and ripped at the s.h.i.+p's exposed flank. Somewhere a klaxon sounded, unheeded and unceasing. Smoke drifted through the darkened corridors. In the blood-red emergency lighting the creeping smoke was surreal, a living creature crawling towards the remnant of the crew.

Hissing to herself in fury, she surveyed the scene in the control room through the dying eyes of the pilot. Struggling to obey her and to stay alive, he fought back the clutching fingers of death. The pain in his chest subsided, and he tried to reach the screens with his right hand. In a haze, he realized that he no longer had a right hand. Using his left he finally managed to hit the controls.

”You cannot die yet!” Her command thundered through his fading brain.

”Focus on the readings! Focus, d.a.m.n you!” He finally forced his head to turn far enough to see the figures on the screen. Dimly, he knew that they meant that the s.h.i.+elds about most of the craft had collapsed. Several sections had been gutted, and whoever had been in them had been either fried or sucked into the void. Their attacker had finished this pa.s.s, and was returning to make another. It would undoubtedly be the final one. Already the crippled stars.h.i.+p was hanging together almost entirely through the force of her mind.

”Imbeciles!” she screamed, and within their minds they all felt her contempt and fury - those that were still alive. She could sense no more than a dozen left to her now. In a spasm of rage she wrenched her mind away from the pilot, and felt him die. Normally she would have hovered nearby, licking mentally at his death-throes. Now there was no time to enjoy herself. In moments she, too, might be dead.

She slipped into the mind of the navigator. He was still almost whole and began the scans that she had ordered. This far out from the hub of Mutters spiral there were very few possible havens for her. The figures scrolled upwards. Only one planet that could sustain humanoid life in the small sun system ahead of them. Not that she needed such an environment to live in, but her slaves would. The other worlds showed up as totally unsuitable for her purposes. No life of any kind. As for the third planet...

She cursed at the results. Life, yes - but no intelligence! No radio waves, no radioactivity, no sign of industrialization! Useless, completely useless! The captain's panicked thoughts broke through her waves of fury, and she burrowed into his mind. He was once again becoming frantic with fear as their attacker swung about to begin the final a.s.sault - the barrage that they could never survive.

She forced herself to become calm. Well, this third world would have to do.

Without technology she would be trapped there, but if there was life, then she could feed and survive. In time, what she needed might become available - if she managed to escape this attack.

Enclosed within her life-pod, she started the launch sequence. But she would need to camouflage her escape. If they knew she was baling out, the others would hunt her down. She had to do this very carefully indeed...

She reinforced her grip on the navigator's mind, and made him change the s.h.i.+p's heading. Dropping the remaining, useless s.h.i.+elds, she had the hands she controlled start the overload sequence on the reactor core. The countdown began. Her thought turned to the captain, and she made him manoeuvre the s.h.i.+p about. Then she triggered the drive units - and propelled her dying s.h.i.+p directly into the path of the oncoming aggressor.

”Taste this!” she screamed mentally, in defiance, at her old foes. One of her slender talons hovered over the trigger. There was just one final act to perform...

The last eleven crewmembers were barely clinging to their foolish lives.

Well, there was still something that they could do for her. They could die.

She sent the command, feeding off their final energies, feeling her own mind grow slightly stronger with each death. There was no time to savour the feasting, so she was forced to rush. She had no idea when she might be able to feed again.

When they were dead, she hit the release.

s.p.a.ce surrounded her. She barely had time to register the bulk of her tattered s.h.i.+p rus.h.i.+ng past her before it exploded, showering slivers of debris across her field of vision. The explosion would have blanked her attackers” sensors long enough for them to have missed her escape. She switched from drive to standard, slipping back into normal s.p.a.ce-time. The wreckage faded from about her tiny craft. With luck the blast would have damaged the attacking s.h.i.+p.

The third planet hung below her. It was half-lit by the light of its sun, and gleamed blue and white. It was almost like home. She began a closer scan, and cursed as each of the indications confirmed what she had read from the main s.h.i.+p. No concentrations of electro-magnetic power; no emissions of exhaust gases; no transport systems; no communication signals.

Whatever life was here was so primitive as to be totally useless to her. She needed intelligence, not simply animal life. She couldn't feed from uncomprehending beasts. Without minds to plunder, she would die. That pretty little globe below would become her tomb.

Abruptly, an alarm sounded. Glancing at the screens again, she saw that the pod had been damaged. She had left her escape too late. The thrusters were almost empty of fuel, and she was losing control of the small vessel.

Gravity was pulling her into the planet's embrace.

She found herself enjoying the irony of the situation. Having escaped, and taken control of the stars.h.i.+p, and fled across s.p.a.ce, she was going to die in this barren, lifeless wasteland. It would all end here... Was it better to die in the flames of planetary entry or later, alone and starving for the only food she could eat? After all of her efforts - to die like this, in solitude, in this wretched spot, this wasteland planet of blue and white and green...

1: SERPENT IN THE GARDEN.

”Gilgames.h.!.+” The voice was a whisper on the breeze, but Gilgamesh heard it clearly. Frowning, he glanced about the wooded slopes. Now there was no sign of the strange white antelope he had followed from the plains below. That idiot calling his name had scared it away before he had been able to find a clear shot with his spear.

”Gilgames.h.!.+” There is was again, and louder this time ”O fool, shut up!”

hissed the hunter, annoyed. s.h.i.+elding his eyes from the glare of the sun, Gilgamesh darted his gaze about the copse. It was most strange - he had seen the white deer enter this grove, and yet there were no tracks on the ground, and no movements in the bushes. And, now that he thought of it, no sign of the owner of that mysterious voice.

”Gilgamesh,” the voice called again. ”This way, O man.”

Gilgamesh flung his spear down in disgust. He might as well try and fight a fly in the market place as hunt a deer with that idiot yelling. Then, thinking better of it, he retrieved the spear. There were still brigands in these border hills, and it was best to be safe, although he was carrying no valuables and it was unlikely that any common robber would recognize him as the king of Uruk. He looked nothing like a king at the moment all he wore for the hunt was a knotted loincloth, a pair of sandals, and a couple of armbands. He had reluctantly left his regal clothing in the palace of Uruk before he had embarked on this spying mission.

It hadn't been his idea, initially. He hated spying. Dirty, underhanded and devious, those were the ways of the spy. Gilgamesh preferred honest, open warfare - the thrust of the spear, the well-aimed arrow from the bow, the war-club crus.h.i.+ng the skull of some opponent. Those were deeds of which men could sing. But to skulk about, prying and spying -G.o.ds, it set his teeth on edge. But his advisers had insisted that more information was needed before any warfare could be considered. Gilgamesh had bowed to their collective wisdom when his trusted friend Enkidu had agreed with them.

The strain of silent slinking had soon proved too much for Gilgamesh.

Having left the plains of his own kingdom to venture into the realm of the ruler of Kish, he had rapidly lost all patience with his mission. The flight of the white deer ahead of him into the hills had been all the excuse he had needed to leave the rest of the patrol in Enkidu's capable - if hairy -hands, and to make his way up the slopes in pursuit of the fleeing hart.

His leather sandals made no noise as he crept toward the source of that irritating voice. His bronze skin, burnt by the eternal sun, rippled over his muscles. His huge fist held the spear, his only weapon. For a fleeting moment he wondered if it had been a wise move to leave the patrol and his friends to hunt this weird deer alone. Then he buried the thought; was he not Gilgamesh, mightiest of the sons of men? Was he to be shamed into running by some perplexing voice? He broke through the ring of trees and halted in amazement. When he had led a hunt through this spot barely two seasons ago trees had filled the crown of the hill. Now the branches lay burnt and broken. In the centre of the s.p.a.ce was a pit. The evidence suggested it had been recently dug. But who would dig a pit up here, on a hill that no one normally visited? And for what purpose? Gilgamesh moved forward, cautiously. Again, the voice called his name, and this time he could tell that the owner of the voice must be within the pit.

Perhaps someone had fallen into the pit and needed his help to climb out?

Hardly likely - for who could not see such a large hole in the earth? Except perhaps at night - but the voice was not calling for help, but for him... If it were someone trapped within the pit, how could they know that it was Gilgamesh pa.s.sing by, and not some other man? Standing on the lip of the pit, his spear held firmly before him, Gilgamesh stared down into the depths.

It was like the mountain of the G.o.ds down there! Smoke rose from the blackness, fading as it curled into the sunlight. Gilgamesh could not imagine what might have caused this. Then he recalled - two nights ago, during the feast of Shamash, one of the priests had seen a star falling from the sky! Gilgamesh had a.s.sumed that the priest had taken a little too much of the new beer, but what if the man had indeed told the truth? Could this be where the star had fallen? The idea appealed to him. No one in human knowledge had ever found a fallen star. It was well known that stars changed into common rock when they fell from their appointed places in the sky. Yet Gilgamesh could see the brightness of something that lay within the pit. If he could be the first man to bring back to Uruk a star still burning, it would be yet another triumph for them to add to the songs about him! With hope growing, but still with care, he started down the slope into the pit.

Once out of the glare of the sun, he could see more clearly, and he paused yet again. Jagged pieces of something that glinted littered the walls of the pit. He bent to touch his spear to a piece of it. The object rang when struck, as copper would. But this was certainly not copper. Carefully, he picked up the object. It felt like copper, but it looked a little like dull silver. It was hard and polished like metal, but what could it be? ”Gilgames.h.!.+” The voice was back, whispering from ahead of him. ”Do not be afraid.”

”I am not afraid, O voice,” he said, annoyed. ”No man calls Gilgamesh afraid.”

”I am sorry, Gilgamesh,” the voice murmured, but it sounded more amused than ashamed. ”But I am no man, as you will see if you come further forward.”

Warily, Gilgamesh stood his ground. ”Well, O voice that belongs to no man, why should I come forward? I am the king of this hill. I think that you should come to me, not me to you.”

”Ahhh.” It was a long, drawn-out sigh. ”If I could come to you, I should. But I am not able to move that far.”

”What are you, then, that can sound like a man, but not move like one?”

”Come and see,” the voice suggested. Although it was still the same as he had been hearing all along, it now seemed to have taken on further qualities. Now it sounded definitely female. Gilgamesh knew that he had nothing to fear from any woman, and moved further into the pit.

He saw where the jagged pieces of the not-metal he had found had come from. In the heart of the pit lay a large shape, something like that of the immense ziggurat that was at the heart of Uruk itself. But this ziggurat's shape was broken, the perfect pyramid form marred by shattered holes. It was from these holes that the spirals of smoke and steam were issuing, in slow, hissing spurts. One hole, more regular than the rest, looked almost like a normal door - but who would build a ziggurat with a door like that?

And, who would build a ziggurat of this size and then hide it in a pit on the top of a hill in the wilderness?

Gilgamesh could see within the regular-shaped hole the creature that had been calling him. Whatever it was, it had told the truth: it was no man.