Champion of Mars by Guy Haley

Author:Guy Haley [Haley, Guy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781849973663
Publisher: Solaris
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The Cylinder

HOLLAND FLOATS BEFORE a star. It can be nothing else; nothing else is so bright. It is like no star he knows of. Its light is cold. Its photons hit him with a force he can feel on his skin through the hard suit. The rays of the sun are blades of ice. His eyes shrivel. He falls blind, and yet he can still see. He sees faces, screaming. Flames lick glass. Skin blisters. An uncaring machine voices its observations as his friends die, and he is powerless to stop it.

He tears himself from the faces. He is through the crack in the rock, and it goes on into infinity. He sees a profusion of life around him – creatures, plants, animals, stars, planets, galaxies – bound to the lazy spiral of creation.

Stulynow kneels before the star, on ground Holland cannot see. His hard suit has gone, and he tears at the helmet of his undersuit. He cannot see the Russian’s face, but he knows, somehow, in his gut, that Stulynow is weeping.

Vance flickers into view. She is naked, and beautiful in the cold, cold light. She is entranced, one arm outstretched, reaching for the star.

She is going to touch it. She mustn’t, absolutely mustn’t. Of that he is sure, above all other things.

“No!” he shouts. His voice shatters into a million pieces. Only some say no. Some urge her on, others talk of other matters entirely.

She turns to him, her face puzzled. She turns back to the star, fingers straining. He is in the dark on a stony floor. There is movement. His eyes follow it. An insect-like creature that should not be regards him.

He walks through halls that are not there; a world-building constructed of knowledge and past lives. There is a woman there, and she loves him.

Night-time Mars glows below his feet with the lights of a hundred cities.

A woman with blue skin smiles hesitantly at him, but she should not be and she is aware of that.

Vance touches the star.

Stulynow laughs a wild, despairing laugh.

There is an unearthly scream that rolls round the dark places of his soul. He is not sure if the noise issues from him. It descends to a quiet, persistent moan.

The light goes out.

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