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NEW AUTHORS SHOWCASE |
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06-01-04 (p11) 12 m |
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Sighing Suns by Andrew Tilley |
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Synopsis When Tony discovers a large, bullet shaped cylinder lodged deep inside a Siberian oil well he has little idea of its function. The cylinder is in fact alien in origin, dispatched by an alien civilisation to transport biological matter across time and space with the intention of starting life on surrogate planets. It is also a beacon and whilst travelling home Tony is disturbed by an alien encounter. His mistrust of the object deepens further when Sue reveals it’s miraculous inner workings. They resolve to find out more but instead find Mike, a disillusioned vicar who is struggling with his faith. Brought together by fate the three are taken from Earth and delivered into the charge of Sangun. Sangun is a hellish, hybrid creature, created from the expectant womb of an astronaut found dying at the edge of a wormhole pinned deep inside his planet, Geordan. Sangun covets human hearts for he needs to renew his own in order to live. Understanding his origins, he uses the technology that Geordan wields to initiate life on Earth and so complete a circle of events that will see him ascend. He must veil his grizzly dependency until he has convinced Geordanian society of the value of human kind. Yagar is entrusted with the task of ensuring that Geordan accepts humanity. But Yagar is not what he seems. He has vowed to see Geordan s intervention with the natural order of things brought to an end. When his attempt to discredit humanity fails and his elders approve the retrieval of a human herd for integration into the Geordanian ecology, Yagar elects for a more direct course of action. He finds Sue on Earth only days before her abduction. Inside her heart, a heart that he knows Sangun will take, Yagar places a lethal device before returning to Geordan to trigger it. The plan works and Sangun is defeated. His corpse is cast into the wormhole where his dying, human mother waits. Disillusioned with the ethics of his society, Yagar resolves to return Mike home and once there, standing before Tony s vile on a primordial Earth, he presents Mike with a choice: create men or remove them from history. Maddened by the revelation that after all his angst he himself is God, Mike deactivates the vile and destroys the biology within. Incredibly though, he remains intact and in that moment finds his faith once more. It is Yagar who is forced to question everything that he believes in. As Mike lies in the slack surf of an ancient sea a shower of meteors enters the Earth s atmosphere. Amongst them are the bodies of Sangun and his mother who, as Fate has decreed, fall into the nutrient rich waters to begin life on Earth and close a circle that inextricably links the fortunes of Geordan and humanity.
Extract Hoarse whispers in the dark. “Tony, are you there ?” Sue was lying on her back being jogged slowly up and down. Her arms, legs, head and teeth were all aching intensely. She was completely spent, helpless and scared. Her eyes opened and closed slowly with her rise and fall. Above her a clear night sky was filled with stars in such numbers that their light paled the huge moon which was rising over her shoulder. The sky reminded her of a happy time when she was a girl, six or seven. She had been awoken then in her bed by the sound of a freight train clanging through the junction behind the tall fence at the bottom of the garden. Panting and scared in her waking she had bolted upright and cowered behind a huge stuffed gorilla. As she peeked out through her bedroom window she had cuddled Eric and together they had watched the ghost train pull through the night, wheels glinting and engine sparking. Only as the last wagon had slid into the shadows, taking all her bad dreams with it, had she relaxed and lain back on her bed leaving the curtains and window open. And she had seen it. For the first time in her life she had seen it; experienced the night sky. She remembered now how she hadn’t then been able to take it all in. How it had seemed to her that the longer she looked, the more she saw; layers of stars revealing themselves to her in wondrous designs, falling together and filling that blackest of blues. She remembered thinking that, if she stared long enough, then the sky would fill with stars. Now, jogging slowly up and down beneath an alien sky, calling hoarsely to her friend, she knew this to be true. Tony, where are we ? There was no answer. Sue just jogged up and down to the rhythm of her bearers and the night sky slid over her. Her arm fell from her side and her knuckles scraped dust. It felt good. A small white hand collected it and placed it across her chest. It s touch felt bad. Now she could hear soft padding feet in the dust and beyond that, light breaths being taken. Tony, where are you ? I don t know. I don t know. Tony s words rose and fell too, wishing him away. Sue didn’t think about responding. She was happy for a moment. Happy that Tony was alive and close by; happy under a night sky filled with stars and the memories of childhood. But the calming, padding noise suddenly sharpened, became a volley of bright slaps and the happy moment passed. Her anxiety built and her ghost train returned, laden with nightmares. Its thick black smoke smothered the sky and she screamed. Tony ! Tony ! Her cries rattled back from the stone walls that had come to surround her. She was in a tunnel and the only light now was a sinister, white glow that oozed from the backs and arms of the small figures that were carrying her. She screamed again and a small fist punched her cheek. “Sue, are you OK ?” Sue wouldn’t speak. She remembered flashes of discipline dealt a billion years ago by a similar small white hand, one that had smashed her jaw and nose into hard black steel. So she just whimpered a little and lifted her arm into the air. Now her knuckles scraped on a cold coarse ceiling and it felt bad. She dropped her arm and laid it across her nose and eyes feeling safe behind her arm; seeing nothing, smelling only her own clammy flesh. The regular sound of her breathing soothed and she began to calm once more, almost dosing when a new noise, deep and dreadful, ripped her shield away and extinguished the sparking footsteps which were carrying her. “Tony, can you hear it ? Tell me you can hear it Tony and that it isn’t in my head. Tell me that I m not going mad. I don t want this noise in my head Tony, I don t want…” Another white fist silenced her babble and this time she did sleep, concussed by the blow... |