Blakes 7 by Trevor Hoyle

Author:Trevor Hoyle
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science-Fiction
Publisher: Sphere Books
Published: 1977-06-27T16:00:00+00:00

7

It was a bleak and desolate place, a planet of barren rock and stunted vegetation, wreathed in sulphurous mist. This, the furthermost frontier of manned exploration, was the perfect location on which to site a penal colony, many parsecs distant from the centre of galactic civilisation. Escape was impossible, the inmates doomed to live the rest of their lives in primitive squalor on a lost world, forgotten and abandoned in outer darkness.

Crouched over a small fire, the carcase of rodent roasting smokily on a sharpened stick, two hooded figures gazed with dulled eyes into the flickering flames. Crude sackcloth robes enveloped them like shrouds; their faces were hidden in the deep shadow cast by the hooded cowls.

Grunting, the one nearest the fire reached out a scrawny arm and removed the sizzling carcase from the flame and laid it on a flat rock. From his wide sleeve he removed a knife and with its broad iron blade slashed downwards, a swift savage stroke, splitting the carcase in two. Taking the larger portion, he began to eat, tearing at the flesh and sucking the hot juices from his fingers. His companion took the remaining portion, and for a time the only sounds in the clearing were the crackling flames and the gnawing and crunching of tiny animal bones.

Then, faintly, from high above, another sound.

The two shrouded figures became still; rising slowly, they stared upwards into the night sky, listening intently as the sound grew louder until it was descernible as the roar of a rocket engine. And now they could see it, the fiery glow descending towards the planet.

The taller figure made a guttural noise and the hooded cowl fell back a little to reveal his face. It was gaunt, deeply lined, framed by wild hair, a cruel and violent face in which the eyes brooded like cold black pebbles.

‘A Federation ship,’ Laran gloated, his teeth bared in a soulless grin. ‘Bringing in prisoners.’

His companion turned to him... and in the flickering firelight it was a face of evil, the lips twisted in a rapacious snarl, yet even so with a fascinating, hypnotic beauty.

‘New souls for the faith,’ said Kara in a throaty whisper, her eyes alight with sly rapture. She tore the last of the meat from the bone, throwing it into the fire where it spat and sizzled. ‘We must go to Him and tell Him there is new bounty come from the outer darkness...’

Together they watched as the glowing orb of light slowly descended towards the desolate wasteland of Cygnus Alpha.

Commander Leylan stood pensively before the scanner screen watching the planet loom gradually larger, much of its surface masked by dense layers of swirling grey mist. He shivered involuntarily; even to visit such a hell-hole of a world for a few short hours filled him with a sense of uneasy foreboding. It was the place of the damned, lost souls crying in the wilderness.

His morbid reverie was interrupted by his junior officer, who came to stand at his elbow. For Artix, landing on one of the planets of the outer systems was still a thrilling experience.

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