Free Starship Spring by Eric Brown Page B

pacific, floating ghost would say was, “It is shalan .” It turned towards Ella as she lifted the cone and inserted it into the face of the cylinder.
    She stepped back suddenly, as if she had received a jolt of electricity.
    And then the cylinder split open and something from Hell stepped forth.
    The creature resembled the figures on the pods, but this one was ineluctably organic: it appeared slick with fluid, like a machine-part stored in grease for years, and its metallic blue carapace scintillated in the light of the cavern. It stepped forward, hunched, a monster, part-insect, part-reptile, and opened its dripping mandibles.
    I backed away, despite the fear for my daughter, and deep within me I felt a terrible recapitulation of the cowardice which, years ago, had prevented me saving Carrie.
    Ella stood frozen before the creature, tiny by comparison.
    The creature turned its great prognathus head, taking in the chamber, then settling its gaze on our tiny, terrified tableau: Hannah and myself, Matt and Maddie, and the spectre of the Yall.
    It stepped forward again, almost tumbling Ella in the process, its great clawed feet clanking on the aisle. Ella stared up, petrified.
    The apparition of the Yall moved from us, down the aisle, and confronted the creature.
    The Yall spoke, and the creature replied, and seconds later their dialogue was rendered intelligible to us.
    “You awake at last,” said the Yall.
    “A million years. A short sleep, for the likes of the Skeath.”
    “You awake, soon to be cast into the depths for ever.”
    The creature opened its nightmare jaws and gave a mechanical, grating roar, conveying its contempt. Then, “You were a worthy enemy, Yall. You fought us well, even if you were always destined to lose.”
    “We did not lose. We… we changed.”
    The beast clanked forward, dripping fluid, and as the drops hit the aisle, they sizzled. “Changed? Changed into the virtual ghosts I see before me?”
    “Changed into a people which will defeat the Skeath once again.”
    “Again?” the monster roared. “You did not defeat my kind a million years ago. We… we merely made a tactical retreat, here, to bide our time, to outlive millennia, until we rose again…”
    The Yall gestured, peaceably. “Believe whatever delusion makes you content, Skeath. You will soon learn the truth.”
    “The truth is that my kind are risen!” the creature thundered. “The truth is that we will dominate the galaxy, as we did once, before you drove us back.”
    And as it spoke, I heard a series of what sounded like detonations echo around the chamber. I looked around and saw, to my horror, that the pods that lined the aisle were snapping open, and that the creatures within, smaller versions of their leader, were emerging.
    What had Da Souza said, that there were more than half a million of these pods within the chamber?
    The Yall, apparently unperturbed by this turn of events, said, “My people have waited a long time for this encounter. It was inevitable, and desirable, that it should happen—to allow me to pass judgement on the Skeath: that you should be banished from this place and dispatched to a realm from which you will never be able to terrorise the innocent again, where you will be no threat to the peaceable peoples of the galaxy.”
    “Words!” cried the Skeath. With an outswept arm it gestured to its risen army. “Annihilate them!”
    And before I could even begin to feel fear, another change took hold within the chamber. A great roar filled the air. At first I thought the waterfall had found its way down here—and then chamber was filled with light, an effulgent, golden light, and I felt elated.
    We were like flies in amber, tiny creatures transfixed, then, in a medium like sunlight made solid, and I knew precisely what had happened.
    Seconds later a small starship appeared to our right, sending pods and the alien army skittling as it did so. A hatch fell open, revealing the lighted interior of