The Sinners of Erspia

Laedo used his nose and followed dead, sterile smells years old. In a darkened, blackened corridor he found what he wanted, still seeping with infinite slowness from ruptured tanks: a thick sludge of oil, toxic metals, and exotic compounds. Another search produced a bucket flung in a corner a century and a half earlier. Laedo scooped up a quantity of the sludge and carried it out of the Excelsior .

Treading the yellow moss, he climbed up the declivity until the roofs of the pleasure palaces came in sight.

The rest of his plan depended on simple daring. He made the short journey to the main palace, passed through the magnificent entrance, and into the great entrance hall, still carrying the bucket.

Few people were about. Encouraged, Laedo started across the hall. Then he froze as a voice spoke behind him.

“What's that you've got there?"

A young woman in a loose-fitting light green gown was staring at the bucket, her nose wrinkled in distaste. Laedo smiled in embarrassment.

“It's from the food tanks. I'm taking it to reprocessing."

“Oh.

Her face blank with incomprehension, she gave a curt nod and moved on.

Sighing with relief, Laedo continued on to the broad staircase, mounted to the outside balcony, and thence to the narrow corridor and spiral stairs. When nearly at the top he raised his eyes just above floor level and peeped furtively into the gallery.

It was unoccupied.

With alacrity Laedo leaped up the remaining steps, sprang to the nearest vat and upended his bucket.

The thick, dark, oily sludge poured with treacly slowness into the pus-coloured fluid. He watched in fascination as it spread and formed tentacles and swirls and multicoloured stains, tainting and poisoning the flesh substance that was meant to form Klystar's new body.

Would ‘Klystar', or the team which serviced the tank, discover the pollution? It would be rash to think otherwise, but Laedo paused to consider Klystar's carelessness. There was a singular lack of security—in consequence, perhaps, of Klystar's contempt for human intelligence.

Though still fascinated by the spreading discoloration, which had reached the other openings by now, he decided he had been here long enough. He turned and made for the stairs.

Then the hairs on the back of his neck prickled. There came a slamming sound, together with a rushing, sloshing noise.

He whirled. The oval vats, really openings of a single tank, had slid to the extreme ends of the gallery, revealing the full extent of the ochre slime.

That slime was surging towards the middle of the tank. The air crackled. A dramatic transformation was taking place, a tumultuous rising, a gushing spout which formed itself into a tall figure.

And stepped from the tank.

The figure resembled ‘Klystar', complete with the long spindly legs, the four spindly arms and the turreted, swiftly rotating head. But it was much more invigorated, with an integument of brilliant shining yellow in place of the pale pastel of the older body.

Laedo stared, transfixed.

Klystar had returned.

Here at last was the creator of the Erspia worlds: Klystar the ancient, the polymath, who held in a single consciousness more knowledge than was possessed by the whole of mankind.

It was stupefying to think of his achievements. His method of travel meant that he could take no instruments with him, yet unaided he had shaped planetoids, built machines, worked wonders. Such feats were impossible except with the aid of supreme knowledge.

Drops and gobs of life-substance dripped from Klystar as he stood before Laedo, bending his head to regard him. The turret was rotating back and forth with rapidity. The five separately functioning eyes flashed with fiendish intelligence.

Laedo became absolutely certain that here was a being who never slept or rested, and who never paused from ceaseless mentation.

He wished he had brought his gun with him. What subconscious impulse had prompted him to leave it behind? Was it to avoid the possibility, always a horror to him, of having to kill a sentient being while in that being's presence?

Perhaps he had accomplished the act already. Purple discoloration was appearing on Klystar's body, creating a mottling effect. Klystar appeared to flinch. A vibrant voice issued from the turreted head.

"Is it you who has poisoned this body? Everything is disrupted."

A click sounded. The tall door through which ‘Klystar’ had earlier exited opened. The previous body of the polymath strode through, walked a short distance, then stopped, facing its replacement.

Modulated sounds passed between the two: some sort of high-speed language. The newly arrived Klystar sagged and staggered. Its paler, older counterpart started, as if in shock, eyes briefly becoming a thousand times more alive than before, flashing fire. Then, in the same moment that the new Klystar collapsed to the floor, they waned into dullness once more.

“What has happened?” Laedo whimpered.