The Sinners of Erspia

The question of where the food came from was answered: all the palace's wastes were recycled in sealed biological chambers which cultivated edible tissues directly, both vegetable and animal. Once again Klystar's technology was excellent. The produce was gourmet class.

Mounting a staircase, they emerged on to a balcony giving a view of the surrounding moonscape. The other palaces lay in the light of the low sun, imparted an odd canted appearance by the small moon's curvature.

Turning to quit the balcony, Laedo noticed a long narrow corridor leading to the right. So far he had only been able to see the ground floor of the palace. Obviously there were more floors above it, but this was time he had found access to any of them.

Histrina in tow, he paced the length of the corridor. At its end he found a narrow stairway spiralling upwards. The stairwell was dim as he climbed, having no lights of its own. He and Histrina reached the top and entered a long, windowless gallery. Ceiling strips provided lighting. Arranged along the middle of the room were six low tanks or vats, oval in shape. Laedo stepped to the nearest and looked into it. A thick, yellow fluid filled it to just below the rim, pus or vomit-like and gleaming slightly.

The odour which came off the stuff seemed to shift as Laedo tried to identify it. Now it smelled like hot plastic, now like blood, now like toffee. He glanced to the other tanks. Something was happening in the adjacent one. The fluid rippled, swirled, smoothed out, then humped up. A form emerged, like a naiad rising from a pond. A little girl, looking wanly about her.

It was Helsey Fong. She was bare of the cosmetics worn by the children running about below, but she was just as naked. The vision persisted only for a few seconds. Her substance melted and flowed back into the vat.

Laedo put together what Garo had said about Klystar's special project, and what ‘Klystar’ had said about the ancient alien's need for a new body. So this was the special project. This was what happened to those children who were not ‘the lucky ones'. They were melted down to provide living substance from which to make a new body for the returning Klystar.

Garo was right. Klystar was a monster.

At the far end of the gallery a very tall door slid open with a click . ‘Klystar’ strode through, head rotating rapidly from side to side, bringing each of his eyes to the fore in turn.

Histrina scurried for the stairway. Laedo, on the contrary, stood his ground as the discarded body of Klystar bore down on him.

'Klystar’ halted. “You should not be here,” he said curtly. “You are not one of the body servitors."

“You should not be here!” Laedo shouted at him. “You are committing atrocities! You are murdering children! So much for your ‘superiority'!"

“One might as well listen to the arguments of ants,” ‘Klystar’ retorted, “as to your maundering protests about ‘morality'. Your ‘ethics’ has no objective basis. It is simply a species-survival strategy. Klystar's intelligence, on the other hand, is aligned with objective reality."

His voice rose. “To be the instrument of Klystar is high fortune for one such as you. Go, my friend, and become part of Klystar!"

Without warning the Klystar body lashed out with an arm which was surprisingly strong. Laedo was tumbled and tipped into the nearest vat.

The fleshy odour overwhelmed him. The thick yellow fluid closed over his head. He tried to raise himself, only to discover that there was nothing to push up against. The bottom of the vat lay far below the level of the gallery floor. He realized that the six vats were in fact openings of a single larger tank.

He was sinking, but there was no sense of suffocation. He felt no need to breathe. Neither was there complete darkness: a flesh-coloured glow surrounded him. But there was nothing to see apart from vague shadows which might have been faces, bodies, or anything. What there was, quite distinctly, was flickering presences. Helsey Fong was somewhere nearby, feebly protesting. The process of absorption into the fluid was slow. Individuals briefly and sketchily reconstituted themselves. The pus-like yellow muck was a turmoil of bewildered children—they were mostly children—being mixed together as if in some cooking process.

Laedo made swimming motions in an attempt to reach the surface. It was impossible. The more he struggled, the more the custard of melted life resisted. At length he despaired, and was on the point of letting himself sink to the bottom of the tank, when he felt a hand seize his. A slender hand, without a great deal of strength, but with its aid he was able to break free, pushing upward and lifting his head clear.