There’s no planet now, of course. The Frog God’s out past Pluto, always has been, always will be. The starscape isn’t empty, though. The Red Rocket is there. It’s still incomplete; in fact it’s less complete than before, still in the early stages of construction. There’s no sign of the Quixote, but then I wasn’t expecting it. Looks like Naish landed quite a proportion of the ship’s compliment at the brink of the Crypts, though, so either there was a skeleton crew left on the old girl or something bad happened to her and this was all they could save. I decide on the latter. After all, they’re determinedly building the Red Rocket rather than waiting for the Quixote to reappear. And then I realise the cruellest twist of fate in all of this. Why did Magda Proshkin have the fatal luck to cross my bloody path? If not for that ill chance, then she might have built the thing herself and fulfilled her own prophecies.
You seem bemused, Toto. Surely you understand that if something plays hob with space and gravity like the Crypts do, then they must necessarily play the same games with other dimensions? We thought the Artefact was as old as the universe, but it doesn’t need to be. It just needs to twist time about it until it can be seen and reached from forever and now, all at the same time. And I know there must be a way of going in and out without ending up your own grandfather or past the heat death of the cosmos, because I’ve seen plenty of aliens using this place as their personal galactic shortcut. And if their destination is astray from their home timeframe by a few hundred million years, why, that doesn’t matter a bit! Because time doesn’t care, time is relative and personal, which is how I can have been wandering in these bloody Crypts so long and still make it here.
And who knows, maybe some of them’ll survive to finish the Red Rocket in the end. Just because we found it derelict and incomplete doesn’t mean it can’t also be complete later, or earlier. Let them finish it and blast off for Earth even if it’s not the Earth they want to find. What if they do end up in 5th-century Scandinavia or something? At least everyone has a working knowledge of Danish to help them tell stories to the locals.
But I don’t think they’ll survive that long. I have a feeling that a former colleague is going to dine on their bones tonight.
There is a chamber cut from the stone here, just behind the Frog God’s eye. It’s neater than the caves of the Pyramid People, but I know it’s man-made. Naish has played it safe and made her base in sight of the stars, in case they go anywhere. I see maybe a dozen people, some sleeping, some upright, all suited, but most without helmets. They see me.
I recognise Doctor Naish. I should probably feel an additional stab of ire at her pasty Scottish face. She’s the one who got me into this nonsense in the first place, after all. Why couldn’t she have gone to study Mercury or something, and left gravitational anomalies well alone? I don’t hate her, though. She’s the person left here who I knew longer than anyone else, back from before the mission, before training, back when I did odd jobs for the Madrid branch of the ESA. I feel almost fond of her, an old friend. We should catch up, chew the fat.
Just let me see everyone else off first.
There’s a little gunfire, but I shake it off irritably. Nobody’s much keen to go toe-to-toe with me now, not since Li and Diaz got theirs. Naish is shouting, though. It sounds as though she’s calling in the cavalry, so I guess another salvage team’s in earshot. The more the merrier. Let’s make this a proper farewell party. Everyone’s invited.
Except what comes out of a tunnel at the far end of the chamber isn’t just another goblin, it’s an ogre, head and shoulders above these mewling little chitterers, these stunted runts, these humans. I roll my shoulders, standing tall for once thanks to the space Doctor Naish has cut for me. Across the room is a metal shape with bandy legs and big, curving arms, four blank lenses for eyes and a row of chattering cogs for teeth.
I almost feel relief. I thought that scrap we had was meaningless, the clue of the food bar wrapper a mystery I’d never unravel, but here it is, the Iron Hunchback itself. It hands something off to one of my former compatriots, a device that looks unfamiliar and half-complete. Has it been trading with them, helping them? Is it a true Crypt-traveller, wise to all the paths and the tricks the place plays with time? Or perhaps just another lost exile seeking common cause? It lurches forward swiftly enough, though, joyous for the battle, the goblins running to hide beyond it. I see some dents in its armour that I gave it, and no doubt it remembers the pounding it gave me.
It tries its energy weapon first. Now, you can’t dodge lasers, no matter what the sci-fi films say. You can’t dodge them, because they move at the speed of light, and if you see them coming then you’ve already taken one through the eye. You can fake them out, though. I saw the direction its big arm was pointing in, and ran forward in an erratic zigzag, feeling the fire of it warm my hide but nothing more.
The others, Naish, Ostrom, they’re all cowering in its shadow. My people, fellow humans of Earth, and they’re hiding behind the Iron Hunchback like it’s going to save them. I’m going to rip off that dome and use its body as a dustbin. How dare it stand between me and my repatriation? I will not be denied my rightful prey.
The anger rises so hot in me that I forget the next dodge and take a charcoal weal across my shoulder. The pain only fortifies me. I will bloody have this alien tosser. ‘Iron Hunchback’ is giving the bastard way too much dignity.
“Eat it, you git!” I howl and then I’m on it, leaping forward and clinging to its shell with fingers and toes as I try to pry it open.
It’s strong, I know, but I’m stronger than I was the last time we slugged it out, and that was an even match. I am the Crypts’ darling, you metal twat, and you are going to be hearing from my lawyers. Oh, I am going to write to the editor of the Times about you, Mr Tin Tosspot, signed Angry from Stevenage.
Iron Git goes flailing back, off balance on those silly little feet. I grip the rim of its dome with one hand and pound away with the other, bringing to bear all the leverage of my long arms and dense muscles. It staggers and I knock a handful of dents in the metal, but the clear portholes remain unbroken, made of something far more resilient than glass or plastic. Then it brings a steel fist arcing down into my jaw. I feel a tooth explode from my lips with the force, and lose my grip. It’s after me with the energy gun as I hit the floor, but I land on hands and feet and spring right back. I will sort you out, son. You’re going home in an ambulance, you see if you’re not.
I give it a double-handed smash across the chest to unbalance it, and then go for its legs, hoping to upend it like a turtle. The Git’s surprisingly light on its toes, though, and it gets another jackhammer punch to my head that’s going to leave a bruise. Something about the mechanical advantage of its limbs and its armoured shell mean it punches even harder than I do. Probably I’m tougher, but it’s a mug’s game when I can grapple. Let’s see how those daft arms work then.
And so I get it in a hold, one hand prying at its lid again, the other buckling the plate at the lower edge of its barrel torso. Its hands lock at my shoulder and neck, but I’m right, it doesn’t have the strength that way, better at landing quick-twitch blows than sustained effort. I grunt and strain, feeling rivets and seams start to give. Let’s open up this can and find out what colour the soup is.