Brontomek

by Michael G. Coney

Genres: Science Fiction; Sci-fi Action & Adventure; Military Sci-Fi

Synopsis

The planet Arcadia was on the verge of economic collapse. Its human colony had been decimated by the strange Relay Effect; in the aftermath, still more colonists were leaving for other worlds. The Hetherington Organisation promised to change that. If the remaining colonists put themselves entirely in their hands for a five-year period, they would transform Arcadia into the most prosperous planet settled by mankind, while preserving its great natural beauty. It was an offer the Arcadians could not possibly refuse, for the alternative, after all, was an accelerating slide into poverty and, eventually, savagery. Only when the Hetherington Organisation's first cargo ships arrived, unloading a huge stream of brontomeks - huge robot agricultural machines, heavily armoured - and an army of amorphs, aliens who were capable of moulding themselves into human form, did the colony begin to realise what it had committed itself to. Brontomek! is a sequel to two earlier books, Syzygy and Mirror Image. Like it's predecessors it is an ingenious, adventurous tale of the type which has rapidly made Coney one of SF's foremost entertainers. Brontomek! won the 1977 BSFA award for best novel.

Release date: February 18, 2013

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 250

Sample

The beach was a long crescent of pale sand, bright in the sun so that I had to replace my sunglasses. A large number of people stood there—all of them, without exception, looking out to sea. The water was shallow, low waves rippling in lazily from a long way out. Beyond the line of breakers I saw movements, black fins cutting to and fro.

There was a girl standing near; a tall tanned girl who looked at home here, who was probably able to explain. I watched her for a moment, summoning up courage. She was pretty in an outdoorsy way, her hair bleached by the sun, a rim of white showing above the top of her bikini where she had pulled the flimsy material down as far as she dared. My feet made no noise on the sand so I cleared my throat as I approached, but still she didn’t look my way.

“What’s going on?” I asked. “Is someone in trouble out there?”

She didn’t reply. She stood still as though listening. I could read nothing from the expression on her face.

I turned and looked back at the town. Houses stared back at me with empty windows; a handful of people picked their way through the parked hovercars to join the growing numbers on the beach. Further down, where an outcrop of sandstone shelved down to the water’s edge, a man stood with raised hands. He was saying something: I couldn’t make out the words but I recognised the hectoring tones employed by outdoor religious speakers and patent medicine quacks.

I’d never felt so alone...

I’d tried to get out of the town a couple of hours previously. I’d driven back along the road towards Premier City, and after a while had come across a block.

A uniformed soldier had stuck his head through the open window of my rented hovercar and said, “Get the hell back the way you came.”

I asked, “What’s going on? I couldn’t get any sense out of anyone in Oldhaven.”

“If you don’t know, I sure as hell don’t.”

A knot of soldiers lounged against their vehicle nearby, grinning. The interior of the car was getting hot. Sweat started somewhere behind my ears and trickled down under my shirt. I wanted to drive away fast, but I wanted to talk, too. I didn’t want to go back to Oldhaven, where the zombies were.

“Look, why can’t you let me through? I came this way only a few hours back. There was no block then.”

Another soldier ambled up, chewing. He leaned on the car roof, drooped his head through the window and said, with peppermint, “Nobody comes out of Oldhaven any more—that’s our orders. If you came along the road from Premier City you must have seen the refugee camps. Christ. They’ve got no food, no johns, and not much water. Stay in Oldhaven until this blows over, will you?” His voice was not exactly unkindly.

“How long will that be?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

“For Christ’s sake, I only arrived on this goddamned planet today. What kind of a place is this?”

“You have your Immunol?”

I fingered my bottle of small white pills. “They issued me with them in Premier City.”

“Well, you’ll be all right, then. And if you didn’t see any fighting in Oldhaven, that means everything’s all right. Maybe the whole thing’s over. I don’t know. Be a good guy, get back, huh? Otherwise I’ll just have to burn you a little,” he said sadly, fingering the button on his laser.

I took a pill and started the engine.

“They should have told you in Premier City,” he said regretfully. “But maybe you didn’t ask. You just landed at the spaceport, rented a car and drove out, huh? Too bad. Too bad nobody thought to tell you about the problem we’re having on Arcadia right now. I tell you this,” he said, “I reckon they’re ashamed to admit, back in Premier City. They’re ashamed to admit there’s something happening they can’t handle. And so you’re out of luck. Like I said—get going, man.”

Smiling, he flicked the button on his gun. There was just the slightest hum as a sliver of hot invisible light zipped past my nose and out of the far window.

So I drove back to Oldhaven.

I rechecked the address on the Interspac Telex which I’d carried all the way from Earth and found I’d been right the first time. So once again I drove to 1678 Second Avenue, parked the car and rang the bell, then hammered on the door. I made enough noise to rouse the entire street from its siesta, but there was no response. Beckenbauer was not at home. My one contact on this planet was unobtainable.

Then I heard a noise from behind, a concerted shambling as of many feet. I wheeled around, heart pounding. In the stillness, the sound had shocked me. A line of beasts straggled down the street, heading for the beach. They were akin to the terrestrial cow: angular with protruding bones, wise clowns’ faces rather goat-like. They lurched from side to side as they walked with swaying udders. The leader paused as she caught sight of me and the followers piled up behind, butting each other gently in the rump. There was a moment’s confusion as they watched me uncertainly.

I felt nervous and outnumbered. I recognised the brutes as Arcattle from pictures I’d seen, but I was not sure of their temperament. They looked harmless enough—but I had the weirdest notion they’d taken over the town. After all, they seemed to be in charge: there was no human around to shoo them back to their stalls.

Then, still watching me, they began to sidle furtively past. They were just as scared as I was, after all.

I climbed back into the car and headed for the beach again: there seemed nowhere else to go. I saw no other animals in the empty streets, and no people.

By now the crowd on the beach had assumed immense proportions. Most people stood at the water’s edge although numbers were now sitting on the sand, watching the sea through the legs of those in front. I saw a little girl nearby: she was about nine years old and appeared more alert than most. She was shaping the sand into neat brown piles as she sat alone.

I knelt beside her. “What’s your name?” I asked.

She looked at me. Her eyes were not quite empty.

I remembered something. Pulling the bottle from my pocket, I offered her an Immunol pill.

She shook her head vigorously.

“Just one,” I coaxed. “Tell me your name, then,” I added, offering her an alternative.

“Wendy.”

“Where are your parents?”

She pointed down the beach.

“Why is everyone here, Wendy?”

“Because.”

“Because what?”

“The giving...”

“What?”

Suddenly the little girl looked at me very directly. She said, “Get away from me, you stupid bastard. You’re not one of us. You cannot attend the thanksgiving.” Her little fingers drew tense zigzags in the sand, destroying the castles. “Get the hell out of Oldhaven. Go back to Earth where you belong, go build your boats somewhere else. We don’t need you here, Kevin Moncrieff.”

One of the side effects of Immunol is a euphoric numbing of the senses, and the pill I’d taken a while ago was still with me. I smiled at Wendy and stood, riding down the terror which threatened to burst through the drug.

A line of Arcattle threaded their way through the bystanders, slow hooves sloughing through the sand, abundant turds dropping as they reached the shallow water and continued onwards without pausing, waves lapping at their slender legs as their hooves sank. The leader glanced at me as she passed: there was knowing recognition in those goatish eyes.

“How do you know my name?” I asked Wendy.

“You know it—so I know it. Now get back in your car.”

I backed away as she stared at me. The Immunol pills were still in my hand; I fumbled for one as a man fumbles for a cigarette in times of crisis. Yet I didn’t take one... Somehow, it seemed that my hand would not convey the small white pellet to my mouth. I capped the bottle and slipped it back in my pocket.

Wendy was smiling at me now: a child’s open smile but with something else behind it. “Maybe you ought to stay, Kev,” she said.

And I thought, maybe that’s a good idea... Maybe this is a good place after all. The sun was warm but there was a pleasantly cool breeze off the sea. People were beginning to paddle in the shallow ripples; further away, on the headland above the end of the beach, I saw Arcattle grazing. I wondered why they weren’t down here with the rest of us. Out to sea, the other Arcattle were up to their necks, probably swimming. I saw their heads jerking this way and that as little puffs of quiet spray erupted about them, as they joined with the fish, as they gave themselves to the ocean of Arcadia...

Wendy was standing; she took my hand in her small, soft grip.

“Come on, Kev,” she said.

I held back.

“It’s time now,” she said. “If you don’t come now you’ll be left behind.”

She was right. Everyone was in the water now, walking steadily forward, eyes on the horizon. Everyone. I was wrong to think of holding back. I allowed myself to be drawn forward and the water slopped into my shoes, crept icily up my calves.

The zealot away to my right was yelling some prayer; part of my mind wished he would shut up. I needed time to think. I seemed to be getting myself into something I didn’t understand.

“You don’t need to understand,” said Wendy, dancing through the waves and tugging at my hand. “Just give! Give!”

Others took up the shout. “Give... Give... Give...” It became a chant, monotonous and hypnotic, in rhythm with the pulsing of the waves as they rose to my groin, fell, rose higher, rose to my waist.

Ahead, someone was screaming.

A woman thrashed in the breaking waves, scattering scarlet spray as she fought with the black thing that was fastened to her right breast. A man waded towards her, then went under in a convulsive fighting.

“What the hell is going on?” someone shouted. “What the hell are we doing?” He turned towards me, a thickset man in a dark, wet jacket, his eyes wide and his mouth twisted with fear. “My God!” he howled, beating at the water with his hands as he fought his way back towards me. He staggered and paused, and his expression took on a dreadful knowledge as he jerked and kicked at something which seemed to be restraining him. The water around him began to well up crimson and he screamed in a continuous high tone which was almost a whistle—while he twisted and jerked, his arms upraised in the manner of a man avoiding a leaping hound.

Wendy stopped pulling me forward and began to cry.

Black sickle-shaped fins were slicing the surface all around; people were going down, squealing and thrashing. I found that I was running, a tramping, high-stepping run as I tried to get clear of the water, struggled to reach the beach. Once my foot sank into a pothole and I fell, and I swear I was screaming underwater before I sprang to my feet and clawed my way on, and found dry sand under me, and collapsed.

It was a long time before I could turn my head and peer over my shoulder at the water.

Nothing much was happening, now...

I sat on the harbour wall with a girl one night: in the confusion and collapse of the ordered sub-colony existence there were many such chance relationships until people found their niches again.

She said, “They’ve known for fifty years that this was going to happen, and yet there were no preparations. The bastards...” All six of Arcadia’s moons were in the sky and the night was almost like day, so that we could see a shapeless thing floating face down nearby. Behind us many of the dwelling units were empty burned-out shells: the acrid whiff of old fires mingled with the stink of death.

The harbour was small, compact and rectangular with a narrow entrance. Luminous trails glowed on the surface like the tracks of snails at sunset, originating at various points around the harbour wall, converging at the entrance. Billions of plankton made up those trails, countless tiny things which the Minds had given birth to, and which were now making their way out to sea. The girl watched them.

“The Minds are still there,” she said. “Do you feel it?”

“Not now.” I took an Immunol pill and offered her one.

“The blackfish protected them while they gave birth,” she said slowly, ignoring the bottle, “and in return they fed the blackfish. It was a square deal, so far as they were concerned. So why did we have to get involved? We wouldn’t have harmed them.”

“I don’t suppose they knew that.”

I was watching a patch of water which glowed with an eerie luminescence. Then a cloud obscured Daleth and the water broke into concentric ripples—and the thing was bobbing there, shining...

It floated less than ten metres away, a sphere slightly larger than a man’s head. We watched it, fascinated, horrified, disgusted; the stench of rotting fish came faintly to us. The thing rotated with the wind then, startlingly, leaped into the air and landed with a splash, some three metres nearer to us.

“What the hell...!” The girl was on her feet.

Then we saw the fins of blackfish, circling and darting, and the sphere bounced and splashed, was pushed here and there as sharp teeth tore at its decaying flesh, noisily devouring...

And all around the harbour wall other Minds rose to the surface and floated, their glow fading as they died, their duty done for another fifty-two years.

Arcadian scotch whisky is good for a reflective mood, but a lousy thing for creativity.

I didn’t walk directly home from the Swindons’ dwelling unit: instead I took a stroll along the trail which follows the north ridge, and whenever I caught a glitter through the trees I stopped and looked down the hillside to the water. There were four moons in the sky that night and their reflections were everywhere, dancing in the faster currents, swirling in the eddies, watching me like silver eyes from the backwaters.

Like the moons I reflected, and saw my childhood, the girls I’d known; remembered the jobs I’d lost, relived the frustration which caused me to emigrate to Arcadia a couple of years ago. The initial terror of the Relay Effect, my comparative success since.

I paused again at a place where the steep bank had collapsed some time in the past, crumbling and tumbling into the water at the inlet they call Anchor Pool. It was a mysterious and romantic spot, and I wished I had a girl with me to kiss. The moonlight glittered on a metal plate let into a rock.

IN MEMORY OFThe Reverend Emmanuel Lionel BloodPolice Officer William ClarkeEric PhippsAlan PhippsAlfred Blackstone“They died that we might be saved”

I passed on, still reflecting, still not creating.

Jane Swindon had said, “A man ought to be married by the time he’s thirty-two, Kevin. Or even twenty-two. There’s something unsavoury about an unmarried man. Present company excepted, of course.”

Professor Mark Swindon had said, “I mean, look at Will Jackson, for example. Weird. A woman can’t hang her clothes out to dry within five kilometres of the guy. And Vernon Thrale—he does folk dancing. Last week I saw him prancing about in a smock. You must take a long hard look at yourself, Kev. I saw you talking to Lucy Sung in the street yesterday. She can’t be more than five years old.”

And so the old subject had received its periodic semi-serious airing, and been forgotten until next time...

Eventually I turned around and began to walk home. Sure, I got lonely sometimes. Doesn’t everyone, even married people? But when a man has a business to build up, when he has to sustain it in the face of a trade recession, when in any case he lives in a small community which the younger folk tend to leave as soon as they are old enough—then there’s not much opportunity for love.

Occasionally people like the Swindons can be a nuisance. Secure in their own united happiness, they have that desire more usually found in Jehovah’s Witnesses and junkies, to convert everyone to their way of thinking.

The crowd on the wharf was silent. I saw children fidgeting; their parents admonished them absently, while they kept their eyes on that place where the silver ribbon of water disappeared behind the tall banks of dense trees. Near me stood members of the Regatta Committee. They were understandably nervous. Over five hundred people had made the journey to Riverside on this spring day: five hundred colonists seeking escape from the problems which were besetting our world.

These people wanted to be entertained. They expected to be entertained. And there are few people more unpleasant than those unexpectedly deprived of their fun. Step into the Riverside Social Club any evening and take Chill Kaa’s beer away from him, if you don’t believe me.

Mortimore Barker stood a few yards away, a vast figure in a brightly-patterned shirt, pants sustained by a thick leather belt.

“What the hell’s the delay?” I asked.

The publicity agent smiled expansively. “Take it easy, my boy. Just waiting for a little sunshine. Ah... Here we go.”

The sun slid from behind a cloud and dazzled us all, worrals chattered in nearby trees, tiny mewlers sparkled iridescent above the water with blurred wings as they picked plankton from the surface. In the distance we heard the bumping hiss of skitterbugs moving fast.

They swept around the corner and into view, in line abreast, nine of them, small dome-shaped boats squatting on a cushion of foam as they raced up the estuary towards us. I was conscious of a feeling of pride. I had built those bugs. They towed water-skiers, girls dressed in flowing white robes, feathers of white spurting from their skis.

Strapped to the back of each girl was a golden kite. When they were about two hundred metres away from us the girls rose from the water, the sun illuminating the fabric of their kites, the wind and wetness causing their gossamer white robes to cling to their bodies. I raised my binoculars—then dropped them quickly, not wishing to waste any time in focussing on the rapidly-approaching vision.

I stole a quick glance at Mortimore Barker. He was smiling, confident of the success of his stunt. The crowd was ooohing and aaahing. I wondered why crowds love spectacle and colour so much more than individuals do. Maybe this is something good about us. Maybe we like to think that everyone else is enjoying himself.

Ralph Streng stood beyond Barker. His smile was cynical.

Fifty metres away the skitterbugs throttled back and sank to the surface in a sudden crippled wallowing. By now everyone was watching the girls, who had dropped their towropes. They soared above the water like angels. On either side of us the thick denseness of the trees rose up steep hillsides to the broad ribbon of sky, framing the angel girls.

I heard a chuckle nearby. It sounded like Streng.

The incredible thing was, those girls all looked the same: identically beautiful with curly golden hair, small smiling mouths and, I’ll swear, dimples. As they soared above us their innocence took my breath away.

Then...

Then they snapped their hands across, peeling the cloth from their bodies, and underneath they were naked. The line wheeled, out there in the estuary, and came swooping towards us, nine naked girls suspended from golden kites, all breasts and plump thighs and golden hair.

And across the belly of each girl was painted a single letter, in bright scarlet.

The letters spelled R.I.V.E.R.S.I.D.E.

The crowd yelled.

Then the girls wheeled again, losing height, and I could hear the wind in their harness as they swept close overhead then out over the estuary again, upstream, alighting gently on the water like a flight of golden swans. They waded ashore a couple of hundred metres away, on the opposite bank where the estuary narrows and the road bridge crosses the water.

I said to Barker, “Brilliant, Mort.” My eyes were on the girls. They had slipped off their wings: a team of men had appeared and were throwing cloaks around them, and escorting them to a large truck. There was lettering on the side of the truck: I was reminded of a travelling circus I’d once seen, back on Earth. I raised my binoculars and read the words HETHERINGTON ENTERPRISES. “Where did you get them from?” I asked.

“An agency.”

“Are they coming to the dance tonight?”

He shifted uncomfortably. “Uh, no. They’re not allowed to mingle. They go straight back to Premier City after their performance.”

The name of Hetherington and the sight of those girls being herded away had turned the day slightly sour for me. “Like circus animals, Mort?” I asked.

He blinked, then turned to accept the congratulations—and in a few cases the outrage—of the regatta committee.

Paul Blake asked me to take a look at his skitterbug. I knelt on the wharf, fumbling about inside the inspection hatch where the simple motor is. I found that the cable from the thermostatic damper control to the miniature reactor was crimped.

“I seem to lose lift at full power,” he was complaining. He was fidgeting anxiously: he was scheduled to take part in the second race. Around us the water churned with the bustle of other craft being readied.

“Have you been fooling with the cable?” I asked.

He avoided my eyes. I saw two feet arrive beside my face, large feet clad in expensive clothes. I looked up into the massive jowls of Ezra Blake, Paul’s father.

“I paid good money for that boat, Moncrieff,” he said too loudly. “And you gave me a year’s guarantee. The goddamned thing’s never been out of your repair shop since the day it was bought.”

“Easy, Dad, easy,” muttered Paul.

“See here, Paul, this guy calls himself a boatbuilder. He arrived here a couple of years back with nothing and now he’s doing pretty goddamned well—and he’s making his money out of us. So he owes it to us to give us a square deal. Huh? What do you have to say to that, Moncrieff?”

People were watching us. It always seems to be my lot to run afoul of the Blake type, and always in front of an audience. At one time maybe I’d have backed down, but over the past two years I’d gained some sort of standing in the community—not an easy feat in the rough-and-ready atmosphere of a planetary sub-colony—and I wasn’t about to see it destroyed by the likes of Blake.

“This boat’s losing lift because your son’s been tampering with the minipile dampers, Blake,” I said loudly enough for everyone to hear. “I always make a point of telling my customers not to fool with the engine, but your son chose to ignore the warning. I’ll tell him again, in front of you. If he tries to get more than the designed power by souping up the pile he’s liable to kill himself and anyone else within range.” Blake was staring stiffly past my face; his son shuffled his feet. I relented. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” I said. “I’ll fix it now, with a new cable, free of charge. And Paul—you come down to my yard tomorrow morning and I’ll show you what you can do to improve performance. Right?”

“Thanks,” said Paul. His father strutted away looking for someone else to attack. Paul stayed to help me thread the new cable. He is a tall, good-looking guy who has a way with girls; his very presence makes me think of the chances I missed when I was his age. Somehow I don’t think Paul misses any chances, and good luck to him...

It is a strange fact that a small colony like Riverside—where I’d expected to find the outward-looking and freethinking adventurers—can become parochial and preoccupied with trivialities within three generations.

“Disgusting!” I heard a deep female voice booming as though to prove my conclusions. I looked up to see Mrs Earnshaw, committee member and worthy Riverside notable, haranguing Mortimore Barker. “I never thought the day would come when our colony would find it necessary to display naked trollops in order to attract tourists to the regatta. Not only is it demeaning to our colony, but it’s degrading to the girls themselves. I feel insulted as a woman!”

Barker is not the type to go on the defensive. “Don’t talk to me about degradation, Bernadine,” he boomed. “W. . .