Old Venus Read online

  He was still chuckling at his own joke when they stepped onto the boat. Ronson was smiling, too, as he casually bent down beside the net locker and found the Taser he’d hidden there. He straightened up, turned around, and fired it at David before he knew what was happening. The charged prongs hit him in the chest; the kid collapsed with little more than a grunt, and he was still twitching on the aft deck when Ronson and Mikhail hastily cast off the lines and Angelo started up the engine.

  By the time David regained his senses, his wrists and ankles were bound, and he’d been deprived of the jackknife Ronson found in his pocket. He rolled over on the deck and glared at the detective. “What the fuck are you …?”

  “Your father hired me to come find you.” Ronson was sitting beneath the tarp, watching the island as it receded behind them. “If you’re lucky, I’ll be taking you home to him. But I know a certain cop who might have a say in that, so …” He shrugged.

  “Dude, you’re so screwed. When my guys figure out what you’ve done …”

  “They’ll come after you?” Ronson shook his head. “Don’t count on it. No one’s following us. I imagine that, even if they put two and two together, they’re not going to risk everything trying to rescue you. My guess is that they’ll pack up and move out as fast as they can, and someone will take over as the new boss.” He glanced at David, gave him a knowing smile. “Hate to break it to you, kid, but with guys like that, you’re expendable. And easily replaced.”

  David Henry glowered, but didn’t reply. He must have realized the truth of what Ronson was saying. Ronson cracked open a beer he’d found in the galley. “So how did you fall into all this, anyway? Did you come here looking to get into the yaz business, or was it just something you stumbled into and …?”

  “Slow down!” Mikhail was standing at the bow, searching the waters ahead. “Stop! The Water Folk are just ahead!”

  “Oh, for God’s sake …” Angelo was reluctant to stop for the frogheads who’d led them to the island, but he throttled down the engines and the boat coasted to a halt. “Make it quick, okay? I want to put distance between us and the croppers.”

  The three aborigines floated just beneath the surface, their protuberant eyes the only things visible. As the boat idled, its engine still throbbing, Mikhail leaned over the rail and called to them. He spoke for nearly a minute, but the frogheads didn’t respond. When he was done, they silently submerged, vanishing as if they’d never been there. Angelo waited a few seconds to make sure he wouldn’t run over them, then started up the boat again.

  “What did you say to them?” Ronson asked once Mikhail came back to the aft deck.

  Mikhail didn’t reply at once. He stood over David Henry, hands clenched at his sides, regarding the kid with cold and murderous eyes. David tried to return his gaze but quickly looked away. “I told them we found the man we were looking for,” Mikhail said at last, his voice low, “and thanked them for their help.”

  “That’s all?” Ronson didn’t believe him. Mikhail had spoken a long time for something as simple as that.

  Mikhail nodded, then went below, closing the cabin door behind him.

  Aphrodite continued westward, chasing the shrouded sun as it gradually dipped toward the horizon. It was beginning to slide into the ocean when Angelo called a stop for the night. There were no islands around, so he simply stopped the engines, allowing the boat to drift. With no nearby islands, there was little chance they’d attract the shrikes who haunted them. The captain left the nets in the locker, and since it was a mild evening, Mikhail suggested that they have dinner on the aft deck beneath the tarp.

  Time to relax a bit. All the same, Ronson took the precaution of scanning the ocean with the binoculars. Aside from a distant logging ship, they’d seen no other boats since escaping the yaz camp. As he’d predicted, the croppers had apparently decided that pursuing the people who’d abducted their chief—their former chief—was more trouble than it was worth. And although he’d occasionally glimpsed Water Folk breaching the surface, they’d kept away from the boat. He couldn’t tell whether they were the same ones they’d met before, but he doubted it. Their task was done; no reason for them to have anything further to do with the humans.

  He was wrong.

  Darkness had fallen when a froghead rose to surface just behind Aphrodite’s stern. By then, the four men were seated in folding deck chairs beneath the awning. Ronson had removed the ropes around David’s ankles but left his wrists tied; he was eating canned stew from the paper plate Angelo had placed in his lap when Ronson happened to glance behind the boat and spotted a pair of eyes that reflected the light of the deck lamps like silver coins.

  “Company,” he said.

  Angelo turned around in his chair, followed his gaze. “Oh, hell,” he muttered, annoyed by the distraction. “What does it want?” He looked at Mikhail. “Give it a candy bar and tell it to go away. It’s putting me off my food.”

  Mikhail had been quiet all afternoon, saying little to anyone. Now he put down his plate, pushed back his chair, and stood up. Instead of turning to the froghead—no, Ronson realized, there wasn’t just one pair of eyes, but two … and now three—he looked at David.

  “You remember when we were at your camp and you were showing us how you got the Water Folk to bring you tree roots?” he asked. “You remember that one of them said something to you and your people?” David said nothing and Mikhail went on. “I know you did not understand what it was saying, but I did. It said that it did not want any more chocolate, and then it begged you to let it go.”

  “Yeah, well …” The kid was watching the frogheads. They were coming closer to the boat. Ronson counted six pairs of eyes, and it seemed like more were coming. “That’s really tough, but I don’t think … I don’t think …”

  “No. You don’t think, do you?” Mikhail stepped away from the circle of chairs, out from under the tarp. “And now you pay the price.”

  A thump against the stern, then a froghead reached over the side. With surprising speed and agility, it pulled itself aboard. Its feet had barely touched the deck when another one followed it. And then a third.

  “Hey, what’re you …?” Angelo was out of his chair, staring at the creatures. “Tell these goddamn things to get off my boat!”

  “They will be gone soon.” Mikhail was calm, hands at his sides. “They will leave as soon as they have taken what they want from us.” A faint smile. “And no, it isn’t chocolate.”

  “Mikhail, this has gone far enough.” Ronson stood up, felt for the Taser he’d clipped to his belt. His hand fell upon an empty holster. Sometime in the last half hour or so, it had disappeared. He remembered Mikhail’s bumping against him just before they sat down for dinner, and immediately knew what he’d done. “Mikhail …!”

  Frogheads were climbing over the starboard and port gunnels. Ronson could hear more coming over the bow. Eight, ten, twelve? He had no idea how many. Now it wasn’t just their eyes that were reflecting the light, but also the teeth within their open mouths. Wet, sharp teeth …

  “Get ’em away from me!” The plate fell from David Henry’s lap as he leaped to his feet. His eyes, when they swung toward Ronson, were wide and utterly terrified. “Get a gun or something and get ’em the fuck away from me!”

  Ronson looked at Mikhail. Frogheads were standing on either side of the Russian now, advancing toward the other three men beneath the tarp. “Don’t do this. Mikhail, don’t let them do this …”

  “Go below,” Mikhail replied. “You too, Captain. If you do not interfere, they will not …”

  All at once, the Water Folk attacked.

  Ronson saw little of what happened next. It was swift, it was violent, and by the time he and Angelo reached the cabin and threw themselves inside, it was over. Almost. The screams were still coming as the captain slammed the door shut and they put their weight against it.

  The frogheads hadn’t come for them, though. They’d come for David Henry.

  And f
or Mikhail, too.

  Both men put up a fight, but it didn’t last but a few seconds. The boat rocked back and forth, and there were the sounds of a struggle from the other side of the door. A series of loud splashes. And then the night was quiet again.

  Ronson waited a minute or so. Not just to make sure that the frogheads had left, but also to give his heart a chance to stop hammering against his chest. Then, with Angelo fearfully peering over his shoulder, he inched the door open and peered out.

  Overturned chairs. A ripped tarp. Blood on the deck, already mixing with puddles of seawater. No bodies.

  The two men stood on the aft deck, feeling the warm rain against their faces. In the far distance, lightning flashes briefly delineated the horizon, painting the clouds with shades of purple and silver, silver the color of the Water Folk’s eyes. A soft rumble of thunder. A storm was approaching.

  “I really hate this fucking planet,” Angelo whispered.

  “Yeah,” Ronson said. “Me too.”

  LAVIE TIDHAR

  Here’s a vivid pulp adventure of the old-fashioned kind, full of slam-bang action, that pits a hard-bitten spaceman against a vengeful god from a Lost Civilization in the depths of the steaming Venusian swamps …

  Lavie Tidhar grew up on a kibbutz in Israel, has traveled widely in Africa and Asia, and has lived in London, the South Pacific island of Vanuatu, and Laos. He is the winner of the 2003 Clarke-Bradbury Prize (awarded by the European Space Agency), was the editor of Michael Marshall Smith: The Annotated Bibliography, and the anthologies A Dick & Jane Primer for Adults and The Apex Book of World SF. He is the author of the linked story collection HebrewPunk, the novella chapbooks An Occupation of Angels, Gorel and the Pot-Bellied God, Cloud Permutations, Jesus and the Eightfold Path, and, with Nir Yaniv, the novel The Tel Aviv Dossier. A prolific short-story writer, his stories have appeared in Interzone, Clarkesworld, Apex Magazine, SCI FICTION, Strange Horizons, ChiZine, Postscripts, Fantasy Magazine, Nemonymous, Infinity Plus, Aeon, The Book of Dark Wisdom, Fortean Bureau, and elsewhere, and have been translated into seven languages. His latest novels include The Bookman and its sequel Camera Obscura, Osama: A Novel, and, most recently, The Great Game. Osama: A Novel won the World Fantasy Award as the year’s Best Novel in 2012. His most recent books are novels, Martian Sands and The Violent Century. After a spell in Tel Aviv, he’s currently living in England again.

  The Drowned Celestial

  LAVIE TIDHAR

  1.

  COLT WAS PLAYING CARDS WHEN TROUBLE CRAWLED IN through the door in the shape of a dead man who didn’t yet know he was dead.

  This was on old Venus, ancient and most decadent of planets. Make no mistake, as the blind poet said: man has conquered space before. Woman, too, though in fairness, Colt thought, what women had come to this planet in aeons past had not seemed to make it as far as Port Smith. It was a dismal Earth outpost, stranded somewhere on a solid strip of land amidst Venusian swamps. Violet clouds capped it like a forest of mushrooms, and the thick, green-leafed jungle sprouted at the edges of the swamps on all sides, enclosing the port in its relentless grip.

  The Earthmen called the place Port Smith; what the Venusians called it, Colt didn’t know.

  Colt was playing a mixed Martian Wild Card Stud. He was in for all he was worth, which, admittedly, at that precise moment, wasn’t a hell of a lot. Colt was out of cash and out of luck, and he needed a boost of both if he were ever to get off this wretched planet. Neither seemed likely to materialize.

  In the corner, Old Ishmael, the blind musician, brought his instrument to his lips and began to haltingly play. It was a dream-flute, and, as he blew, gently, into its mouthpiece, ghosts rose into existence around the bar. Colt’s breath was caught in his throat, for they were Venusian dancers, from some long-vanished Atlantean temple, perhaps: bold and free, with their long, flowing black hair, their eyes in which ships sailed in the infinity of space. Slowly, they grew solidity and shape, gliding in a dance through the bar, amidst the tables and unoccupied chairs: and the eyes of all men in that place turned to them, in fascinated enchantment, even Colt’s. All but the musician’s blind eyes.

  It was hot. The humidity wore you down, after a while. The other men sweated, though Colt kept his cool. Outside the windows of the Medusa’s Head, the cloud cover stretched from horizon to horizon, covering the sky in an impenetrable dome: it was the same weather that, on Earth, heralds the coming of a hurricane. From time to time, a distant explosion could be heard, as one of the ships took off into the sky. Glancing out of the window, Colt was startled anew, each time, by a flash of silver as a rocket rose, disappearing beyond the clouds. He downed his glass of local arkia, squinted at his cards, and waited for his luck to change, for better or for worse.

  There was a rumble in the distance, and the other players looked up. Colt kept his eyes on the table and his free hand on the butt of his gun. He was playing a four-hander: the others were two short, scaly Venusians, and an Earthman who called himself Carter. The sound, as of a distant explosion, sounded again, followed a moment later by a rumble that, this time, shook the ground. “That ain’t the sound of no rocket ship,” the other Earthman, Carter, said. The two Venusians exchanged uneasy glances, but kept their own counsel. “All-in,” Colt said, and pushed what remained of his money, a bag full of gold Martian ingots, into the pot. For a moment, there was a silence.

  “I’m out,” one of the Venusians said, and the Earthman immediately followed suit. Colt found himself staring into the other Venusian’s eyes. The Venusian’s mouth curled in a smile Colt did not like. “Well?” he demanded.

  Slowly, the Venusian laid down his cards.

  Colt stared at the Venusian’s cards and felt his heart sink.

  He had lost.

  The Venusian had the Queen of Despair, the Jack of Despair, and a ten of the same. On the table, the community cards were the Seven of Love, the Two of Surrendered Bliss, the Nine of Love, and the Shambleau: the wild card.

  The Venusian had a Royal Straight. Colt had nothing—nothing but a gun.

  “Don’t,” the Venusian said. There was the unmistakable sound of a weapon being charged.

  At that moment, a third explosion erupted outside. This time it was almost directly overhead. The aftershock rocked the foundations of the bar and toppled the unoccupied chairs; it smashed glasses to the floor and made the cards fly into the air. Colt’s hand closed on his bag of ingots and made it disappear. Already, he was rising, the gun in front of him, aimed at the door. The blind musician put his dream-flute down. The dancing girls flickered, then faded away, and Colt felt a momentary sense of loss.

  “What—” the Earthman, Carter, began to say. The door to the bar blew open inward and a man came crawling into the room. He lunged forward, in one desperate, terrifying last desire to live, and fell by Colt’s feet. He was badly hurt. “Get down!”

  A ray-gun blast followed the man through the open door and the Earthman, Carter, fell down, screaming, as his face melted beyond recognition. Not taking his eyes off the door, Colt reached across the table and swept the man’s remaining money into a pouch by his side. The Earthman would not, now, need it—but Colt did. Mercifully, the other man’s screams shortly died, and with them, the man himself. They were now three against the unknown menace—the two Venusians, and Colt. The blind musician had disappeared, taking his dreams with him.

  “Roog!” one of the two Venusians—the one who had folded early—said. Looking wildly in all directions, he ran to the door and outside. Colt could hear him shouting, but whether he was pleading, or threatening, or both, he could not tell. There was a fourth rumble of an explosion, shaking the walls and the floor, and Colt could hear the man scream, outside, then fall silent.

  Colt and the one remaining Venusian were left alone in the bar: them, and the unknown men at their feet. “What’s your name, Earthman?” the Venusian said.

  “Colt. You?”

  “Sharol. And that money belongs to me.”

/>   “We can fight over it later,” Colt said. “When we get out of this mess.”

  Amusement crinkled Sharol’s face. “If we get out, surely,” he said. Colt shrugged. “Any idea what’s out there?” he said.

  “Roog, evidently.”

  “What is Roog?”

  “I don’t know.” Sharol looked uneasy. “My money is on something bad.”

  “It …” It was the dying man at their feet. Colt took a close look at him, and was surprised to see it was an Earthman. He was badly scarred, and suffering from malnutrition. Burns, oozing puss, covered his hands. “It is … treasure.”

  “Treasure?” Sharol said. He had a purplish, mottled skin and small, near-translucent ears close to his skull. They are a more delicate-looking breed, on Venus, smaller than Earthmen and seemingly fragile, but never underestimate them, for it will be the last thing you ever do. “You have my interest, stranger.”

  “The temple lies …” The dying man’s eyes fluttered closed. In a heartbeat, Colt was kneeling, though he kept his eyes and his gun trained on the door. “Where?” he said, shaking the dying man roughly. “Where?”

  “The Roog …” the stranger said. “The Roog!” with horror and revulsion clear in his voice; and then his breath stilled. “Damn you!” Colt said. Sharol’s cold chuckle made him glance up: the Venusian was looking at him in amusement. “Death is not the end, Colt of Earth,” he said. “But let us hope this man’s pursuers do not know that.”

  “Let them come!” Colt said, and felt the cold, savage fury burn through him, as clean and as pure as a knife. The Venusian merely gestured, silently. He and Colt separated, one to each side of the door. “Ready?”

  “Is this a gun?”

  “It certainly appears to be one, yes.”

  “Then I’m ready.”

  They turned, together, and burst through the doors, outside.

  The sun was low over the horizon, behind the clouds; it painted them fantastical shades of violet and red and oozing green. Directly ahead, Colt saw the enemy—just as the enemy saw them.