Vin of Venus Read online

  Multiple shouts. The bracelet pinged a warning just as a now-familiar humming drew close. I threw myself flat against the strider's back. A poisoned beetle shot overhead. It tried to arc around for another pass, but hit the canyon's stone wall and dropped.

  I slammed my heel against the strider's flank. It crouched, all six spindly legs quivering, and then night air was rushing past us at dizzying speed. We landed halfway up the stone ramp leading into the canyon. Another leap and we were clear.

  To my left rose the jungle, black in the starlight. To my right the old lava plains rolled and heaved. Luckily, I had a clear marker to steer towards. The stone tower of Siroth Hadz, bold against the horizon like a pointing finger. I urged the strider towards it. Behind us came the chittering and scraping of at least a half-dozen riders, hot for pursuit.

  * * *

  How long it took me to affect a full escape from Black Gorge Creche I cannot recall. The chase seemed to last all night. Whenever I glanced behind me, the black-furred silhouettes were only a leap away. I'd dodged enough poisoned beetles to wonder when my luck would finally drain out. All the while, the stone tower grew larger.

  At some point the terrain leveled into stretches of purple-black sand. I glimpsed the bleached white of skeletons, lashed to boulders. My pursuers dropped off. One moment they were close enough for me to hear the clatter of their armor, the next, they were bounding away in the opposite direction. My relief was quickly replaced by a sense of foreboding. Siroth's tower seemed to cast a cold shadow in the predawn light.

  I slowed the strider's pace. The skeleton-warnings were becoming more frequent. Ahead, what looked like a fence of thick iron posts jutted from the sand, each at least triple the height of a tall man. But there was nothing to fill the broad spaces between the posts. What kind of barrier was that? And why waste so much precious metal on its construction?

  Years of depending on the ruby bracelet for warnings had winnowed my own natural instincts. But now they screamed at me something was wrong. I brought the strider to a halt. Dismounted. A hint of ozone, like the smell of an approaching thunderhead, struck my nostrils. It grew stronger the closer I came to the metal posts.

  A voice seemed to crackle from nowhere: "Stay where you are."

  I whirled. There was no one for miles. The posts weren't thick enough for someone to hide behind.

  "Is that you, Siroth Hadz?" I shouted, my hand reaching instinctively for the sword's hilt. "Show yourself."

  Wheezing laughter. This time, I thought I could hear it echoing from the bar closest to me. I started to take a step forward—

  "I said stop! If you fry yourself, Vin of the Sea Clans, it won't be on my conscience." The voice rang harsh and metallic.

  "You know my name."

  "Indeed. I've been watching your escape from those silly insect-lovers."

  "Why won't you show yourself?"

  "I can't. I'm talking to you from inside the tower."

  "That's impossible."

  A chuckle. "To your limited intellect, I suppose."

  "I came all the way from the north to see you. Gann Lorci has been defeated, in part because of the radium cannons you showed my people how to build. We have questions—"

  "Where is the warlord's head?"

  I tried to keep my shoulders from slumping. "Back at Black Gorge Creche. I had to leave it behind in my escape."

  "Pah. Excuses."

  "But Lorci has been defeated. I killed him myself."

  "I have my own ways of confirming that."

  "Will you not see me?"

  "I can see you just fine."

  "I mean ... can't we speak, face to face?"

  "Hold a moment. You've got something around your wrist. Step a little closer to the post in front of you. Not too close. There."

  Now that the sun was coming up, I could see the post had a small hole covered by wire mesh. Just above the hole winked a tiny glass bead.

  "That's better. Yes. You possess one of the bracelets of Abbadox. Impressive. And your physical form seems different. Not the normal Venusian stock. I suppose I should have you come in and run a few tests."

  The voice was coming from the mesh-covered hole. I saw the wires vibrating a little, every time it spoke. But no one could be slender enough to hide inside the post. How was this possible?

  "I'm going to shut the current off," said the voice. "Leave the strider here. When I tell you to, walk between the posts. You'd better toss your sword through first, though. I don't want the metal drawing any stray charge."

  Wary, I readied to throw the blade as instructed.

  "A moment. There. The current's down."

  Faint violet sparks danced down the sword's length as it tumbled between the posts. It landed point-first in the sand. I followed. There was a brief sensation of pain lancing through my bones, but it passed as quick as it came. I was through. I grabbed up the sword and felt a pleasant tingle course from the hilt.

  "Keep walking," cracked the voice behind me. "Approach the tower."

  Up close, the structure bulked like a small mountain. I couldn't make out any masonry lines, giving the impression it had been carved from a single piece of basalt. No windows or openings. I'd seen similar ruins on the northern continent, but not to the same scale. No one knew who the builders had been. A race of giants? Certainly not men.

  I stopped before the tower's broad base. It spanned at least three times the length of the sailing ship that had brought me across the Singular Sea. But there was nothing resembling a door or a gate.

  Not at first.

  With a flash, a rectangular seam appeared in the expanse of stone wall. White light limned the edges. Slowly, the rectangle swung open as if hinged. I had to squint against the glare spilling out.

  A tall silhouette stood in the opening. The figure was at least seven feet, and would've been taller still if it wasn't stooped. Robes of checkered black and gray covered the lanky frame. It wore a bell-shaped helm of smooth bronze, without openings for eyes or mouth. The figure tottered forward a few steps and settled its hands on hips.

  "Don't try anything," rasped a voice from under the helmet, the same one I'd heard coming from the post. Siroth gestured at an iron rod thrust through his robe's sash. One end looked melted. "This thing's accurate out to a hundred yards."

  I showed him my empty hands. "I'm not here to take your life."

  "Ha. 'Take my life.' I like that. Attempt, you mean." The helm rotated left to right, as if scanning the area. "Let's get inside. Never can tell on this goddamn planet when something will come swooping down out of the sky."

  He backed through the doorway and beckoned. The sleeve of his robe fell away, and I saw a golden bracelet similar to my own, though studded with sapphires.

  "Come," he said, impatient.

  I followed him into a cylindrical chamber, walled with silver metal. Light streamed down from a panel in the ceiling.

  The 'door' closed behind us. Siroth waved his hand and the chamber shuddered with sudden movement. My stomach lurched; the same sensation of leaping upwards on a strider.

  Siroth indicated his bracelet. "The first of the series. You possess the third. A telepathic, extra-dimensional sentience is trapped within the matrix of gem facets, attuned to human emotions. It draws partially on your own life-force, and thus has a vested interest in keeping you alive. Magnificent objects. The science behind their construction has been lost, though I'm making my own modest gains in the field."

  His words made no sense to me. I nodded so as not to appear ignorant.

  The chamber shuddered again and the lurching sensation ceased. A section of wall slid back, revealing a vast, domed room, lit by floating globes of phosphorescence.

  I gaped.

  So many mystifying objects cluttered that space my mind reeled trying to identify them. The largest was a great golden sphere hovering just beneath the dome's apex. Around it swam a number of smaller spheres; silver, green, blue, and red. They moved at varying speeds, but all in a
slow circle.

  "This world's piss-poor for astronomy," Siroth said, as if in explanation. "It's the cloud cover. And it's only going to get worse."

  He led me down a steeply-angled staircase, onto the chamber's floor. We passed a row of radium cannons lying in wooden cradles. The designs were much more complex than the simple bronze cylinders cast by the Sea Clans. A rainbow of different-colored liquids bubbled through spiraling glass tubes. Purple flame arced between posts wrapped with wire. I smelled ozone, sulfur, copper, ash, and a dozen odd scents I couldn't recognize.

  "Let me show you where I would've put Gann," Siroth said, stopping in front of a metal cabinet. He swung the doors back. Arranged on the shelves inside was an assortment of heads encased in thick glass. Not all were human. I counted three of the goggle-eyed Deep Folk, as well as some insectoid creature.

  "You're looking at a history of Venus's greatest rulers," Siroth said. "Despots, all. I collect them. Up on the top shelf; that's Vass'k, of the Deep Folk. Eight centuries ago he united all the clans of the sea bottom and made war with the mainlanders."

  He said it like he'd been around at the time. And he just might have.

  "Eventually, despots such as these weld together empires, which in turn threaten my quiet repose. Gann Lorci was close to doing so. Not that it matters much, now. There are changes coming to do this world. I suspect we've seen the last of any would-be conquerors."

  "Changes?" My pulse quickened.

  "The Sea Clans have noticed them, have they not?"

  "Yes. That's why I was sent to speak with you. The seas are—"

  "I know what's happening to the ocean."

  "But why?"

  "Perhaps I can explain. If you're able to stretch your mind a bit."

  He shut the cabinet doors. We walked deeper into the chamber, until the golden sphere floated directly overhead. Its surface shimmered as if made from freshly-poured bronze. "This represents our sun," Siroth said, pointing upwards. "These other objects swirling about it are balls of rock and gas called 'planets.' We live on the surface of such a planet—Venus, the second orb out. It's the green one. You'll notice Venus turns on its axis, even as it moves around the Sun. This causes the cycle of day and night. Do you understand so far?"

  "I think so."

  "Good. For several centuries this rotation has been slowing down. Likely, it will become much slower still. This lack of motion has been rendering our planet vulnerable to certain emanations from the sun. Vital substances called 'volatiles,' among which water is one, float up into the atmosphere and are torn away by solar radiation."

  "This process alone would destroy all Venusian life. But there is another threat, even more imminent. The volcanoes that created both the northern and southern continents will erupt again soon, spewing heavy gasses into our already thick atmosphere. Heat radiating from the sun will pass down through these gasses, but not be able to escape. Temperature and pressure will soar."

  I did not understand his predictions completely, but the general message was clear. "You're saying we're doomed."

  "Our planet is doomed, yes." Siroth pointed to the third orb out, colored blue and swirling white. "This crude world, however, shows promise. It has water, in abundance. Breathable gasses. And interestingly, the same celestial wanderers that struck our world and seeded it with life have struck there as well. Ice covers most of the surface now, but my calculations show it will be quite comfortable in a couple millennia."

  "What do you call this world?"

  Siroth paused for effect. "'Dirt.'"

  I frowned. "Even if it were possible to somehow reach this Dirt ... a couple millennia? Do we have that long to wait, here on Venus?"

  "No."

  "Then we are doomed."

  "Not quite. In the chambers below I have preserved certain examples of ancient technology. One of them is a tunnel that penetrates both space and time. I have yet to thoroughly test the mechanism, but in theory it should allow travel to Dirt several thousand years into the future."

  "How many people can this tunnel accommodate?"

  "One person at a time."

  My thoughts flashed to Rhadma and our unborn child.

  "You're wondering if I intend to save anyone from Venus," Siroth said. "Besides myself, of course. The answer is: perhaps. I suspect you would have some suggestions, along those lines."

  I nodded.

  "Ah, but would you be willing to perform a task for me in return? You seem able-bodied and competent. Your successful journey here proves that."

  "What do you ask?"

  Siroth reached up and slid the bronze helm from his head. I had a moment of shock, for in many ways the visage staring at me was like my own. Hairless. Similar features, though on a larger scale. His broad mouth stretched into a smile.

  "I want you to test out my tunnel."

  PART III

  Vin set the paperback with the cracked and yellowed spine down.

  His heart pounded. The walls of Dr. Muroc's small but comfortable living room seemed to recede into the distance.

  Revelation.

  Hours before, he'd stretched out with a blanket and a cup of tea. Marta had just brought all his worldly possessions over from his Kensington flat. They fit into a cardboard box: electric kettle, socks and underwear, the black sweat-suit Dr. Krol had given him, raincoat, brown envelope stuffed with his Warsaw reward money, and two slim paperbacks. Scion of the Evening Star and Blades of the Evening Star. Marta had bought them from a used bookstore in Croydon. On a whim, he'd cracked Scion and started reading.

  Now, with his eyes blurred and a mild headache, he'd just finished Blades.

  Every vision he'd had about Venus was described in the flaking pages of those two books. Even the parts in the story he hadn't remembered seemed familiar. And the hero was a hairless man named Vin. With a ruby bracelet that warned him of danger.

  What did it mean?

  The lantern carriage clock above the mantle read 8:20 p.m. Muroc was out for the evening, but he'd asked Doyle, his groundskeeper, to stay late and keep a watch. The battle between Tony the Paki and Dr. Dorian had raged less than 24 hours before.

  Vin slipped on a pair of crutches and hobbled over to the sliding glass door. Doyle sat on the other side, a silhouette reclining in a rattan chair. A low stone wall rose behind him, bordering the gardens where Muroc's two Bullmastiffs roamed. Beyond that, in the failing light, curved the gentle green of Hampstead Heath.

  Vin slid the door back. Light from the house played over the long barrels of a shotgun, resting across Doyle's lap.

  "Watcha want, then?" Doyle said.

  "Does Dr. Muroc have internet access?"

  "'Course he does." Though difficult to tell in the darkness, Vin thought he saw the man's eyes glimmer. "You're not wanting to watch video nasties, are you? I've got today's Sun right here, you want to look at some tits."

  "That's not what I was thinking."

  "The computer's in the study, then. If there's a password or some such, you're out of luck."

  "Thanks." Vin made his way to the dark oak paneled study. Like the doctor's waiting room, it was stuffed with antiques. Swords and scalpels predominated, each neatly labeled as to its origins. A writing desk stood next to a rack of 18th century Flemish rapiers. He found a laptop inside, with the internet connection still open.

  Fingers shaking, he typed "Scion of the Evening Star," "Vincent Smith," and "Tordaw Books" into a search engine.

  Several hits came up. He clicked on the first, a site dedicated to obscure sci-fi novels from the '60s and '70s. After scrolling down, he read the entry.

  'Vincent Smith' was the pseudonym of an unknown British (some speculated Welsh) author, who wrote two novels of the Planetary Romance, or Sword-and-Planet genre: Scion of the Evening Star and Blades of the Evening Star (Tordaw books, copyright 1974 and 1976, respectively). Both novels describe the ongoing adventures of Vin, a sort of bald Conan, who wanders Venus's steamy jungles. Though generally considered an uninspire
d Edgar Rice Burroughs pastiche, the novels generated some interest with fans. In 1977, there was talk of a comic book adaptation, and a third novel, Exodus from the Evening Star. Speaking before a panel at the World Fantasy Convention that year, Mr. Smith joked he hadn't finished the latest installment "because it hasn't happened to me yet."

  The troubled Tordaw publishing house filed for bankruptcy in 1979, and shortly thereafter Vincent Smith fell back into obscurity. Some hardcore fans claimed to have tracked him down to a writing studio in Oxford, but nothing else has been heard from or about the author since.

  Beneath the entry was a black and white photo depicting a bald man wearing a corduroy blazer, speaking before a small gathering. From the hairstyles and clothing, the picture had been taken during the '70s.

  The bald man, though thicker around the shoulders, looked exactly like Vin.

  * * *

  "I don't see how any of this disproves Marta's original theory," Muroc said, before pausing to take a sip of lager. "In fact, it seems to confirm it."

  The doctor had returned a little after nine with an armful of takeaways. Curry, Nan, and Tandoori chicken. He and Vin sat in the dining room, shoveling food straight from the Styrofoam containers. Doyle had already been sent home for the night.

  "She thought I read the books before my amnesia," Vin said, "absorbed them, so what I took to be flashbacks were actually memories of certain scenes."

  "Exactly. And if you wrote those scenes, instead of just reading them, they'd be all the more vivid."

  Vin set his drumstick down. "How about this: I lived those scenes, then wrote them later, from memory."