Lazarus Rising

1.30 The Beicker Collective

Without warning Charisa sprang forward, ran swiftly to the cliff edge, and as Lazarus cried out in alarm, leapt off the edge into empty space.

Cheyenne grabbed at Lazarus as he charged forward. For a moment they struggled dangerously close to the cliff precipice before she wrestled him back. "Lazarus, don't get too close. Just wait!" As the fire died in his eyes she felt his muscles relax. Cautiously she released him from her grip and together they made their way to the edge of the cavernous crevice and peered over.

The cliff face was made up of many coloured stratified bands of rock. Strips of deep ochre's and burnt oranges, impregnated with millions of crystalline shards of minerals glistened like diamonds under the effervescent glow of the star filled sky. Far below, the gleaming figure of the Synthoid could be made out descending the face off the cliff. Hand over foot, she trepanned down through open crevices and jumped from ledge to ledge like a mountain goat, fearlessly impervious to the long drop below her. Within minutes she'd disappeared from view.

"Your friend is full of surprises," offered Runf. "At that rate it will not be long before she gets to the surface of the valley."

"To what purpose?" Jamek stood back and looked at the far off navigation lights marking the outlines of the ships that had not taken to the air earlier. He sighed. "I'll suppose we'll have to wait to find out."

They sat with their backs resting against the Martian land yacht as the camp fires of the remaining troops left by Urbaine opened up across the desert floor beneath them and throbbed like a colony of glo worms on an early summer's night. The breeze shifted and changed as the cooling air of Mars evenings were apt to do and from time to time the far off sound of men singing drifted up to them from far below.

Cheyenne, still keen to avoid Lazarus's questions over the events at the temple sat to one side, a little away from the others. Above her the vast expanse of Mars starlit sky rolled through its interminable cycle, occasionally cut by the thin trail of a shooting star streaking across its ebony surface. Listening to the fickle wind shifting through the sand she watched Jamek tapping his knees with impatience and Lazarus pulling irritably at the creature bonded to his face.

In her mind she turned over her visits to the temple. The thing that chased her, the thing with teeth and claws that had sought to tear her apart, did it live up there in the vastness of space, was it contained within the paradigm of the Extensivity? She shivered at the memory, it would haunt her nightmares for ever.

What was real, what a dream, and what was nightmare? Above all, the visit had bought her aunt back to the forefront of her thoughts. The boat on the lake, sailing with her aunt on the glittering waters on Grafton Lake reminded her of the best of times before her aunt had rejected her, thrown her out, for turning into a Lylac. Her aunt could be hard, it was in the nature of the Old Worlders who stood alone from the rest of society with their power and wealth. Perhaps, despite her endless round of parties, her aunt had been lonely. At her death her closest confidant had been Milton, her Riser Chauffer. And it was Milton, Cheyenne was still reasonably confidant, who had shot her.

But her aunt, or rather the Martian warrior, had told her that all things were connected. The invasion that lead to the extermination of the Martians and her warning to Cheyenne over the threat to humanity, it would not end with Urbaine. Should she tell the others? Perhaps this all as it first appeared to be, a hallucination bought on by the poison of the Jörmungandr. The others would laugh when they heard.

As her mind churned in uncertainly the sound carried by the wind changed, it bore with it a high whine that rose, louder and louder until cut itself into her consciousness and stole her thoughts back into reality. She stood up and turned her head away from the breeze.