Nandroth

By Peter Miles

It is the near future. Axel, a computer scientist, with broad, mechanically-inclined hobbies, is working on a prototype matter transmitter. It is erratic and, in an instant, he finds his consciousness has been transmitted across space. It has been received into the brain of a young, male humanoid immediately following the latters brain-death from a traumatic wound; one that has not, however, left any long-term organic injuries: Axel of Earth has become Lexar of Nandroth.

Lexars race are called the Androthi. Their world has some geophysical similarities to Earth, and some similarity of life forms but with notable exceptions. The civilisations of the Androthi are roughly on the same technological level as 14th century Europe and Asia. Their overwhelming problem is that their world has been invaded by self-replicating robots, the mekkans, which have a highly advanced and to living creatures deadly technology.

The mekkans are relatively few in number. They require, for their power and construction, minerals that they cannot easily find and mine. To obtain them, they have set about subjugating Nandroth and enslaving the Androthi, either by direct force or by fomenting internecine warfare. Their ultimate intention is to refuel their nuclear-powered space craft and continue their conquest of living worlds in the universe.

Axel-Lexars self-appointed task is to get his fellow Androthi to accept who and what he is, and to get them to help him create, with what resources are available, strategies to defeat the mekkans. Above all, he wants to destroy the mekkans ability to threaten intelligent life forms on other worlds.

The work deals, inter alia, with the nature of the linguistic problems faced by Axel on his becoming Lexar and the means by which he attempts to transform the local technology. He seeks to exploit special features of mekkan engineering and their rigid social structure, in order to subvert their seemingly unassailable power. But, in the meantime, there are defences to organise against the mekkans highly advanced weapons, and battles to be fought against other Androthi nations who have become the mekkans allies.

To complicate his new life, he finds that Lexar is betrothed to the teenage daughter of the local Lord. She is a highly intelligent, independent and passionate individual, at first disbelieving, then suspicious and finally jealously protective.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Oct 27, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499027785

Book preview

Copyright © 2014 by Peter Miles.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2014918931

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-4990-2771-6

                Softcover         978-1-4990-2773-0

                eBook              978-1-4990-2778-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 10/21/2014

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Contents

Names

Axel

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

XIII

Derayna

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

Luluth

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

Revolt of the Servos

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

Pontilutu

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

War

Attack from the South

I

II

III

IV

Attack from the East and North

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

Attack from Within

I

II

III

IV

V

Counterattack

I

II

III

IV

V

The Empire of Nandroth

Emperor

I

II

Empress

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

Names

The events recounted herein take place mainly on an alien planet. The main characters, alien names, and brief notes on some alien features are listed below.

Agala: the name of a tree that forms forests in the tropical bogs of Nandroth. Its leaves are large enough for humans to walk on, but it shoots out metre-long electrically charged thorns from its trunk when struck.

Ames, Mrs: Axel’s landlady on Earth.

Androthi: the collective name for the most highly developed humanoid inhabitants of Nandroth.

Axel Denman: a computer scientist on Earth, working on a project to transmit matter. His consciousness becomes projected into the body of Lexar Gulatier on Nandroth.

Axel-Lexar: the name eventually given to Lexar Gulatier when his memories had become those of Axel.

Azdar: a lieutenant in charge of the Berminuth Civic Guard, later second in command of the Berminuth Regiment during the fighting in Luluthon.

Baklon: a small farmyard animal in Nandroth with succulent flesh.

Berminuth: Luluthon’s second city, and its manufacturing centre, situated in the Luluthon valley.

Biblar: Derayna’s cousin, an avid student, especially of mathematics and physics; the youngest of the rescue party.

Bletj: a Nandroth rodent, known for its bad temper.

Boguni: semi-humanoids inhabiting an area of Nandroth north of the agala forest.

Borog: falls and caverns, a tourist spot just south-west of Luluth. Fissures at the back of the Borog caverns can be used to access mines deep within the Karanos range.

Brulits: a Nandroth mineral. Axel eventually identified it as a complex of salts that include mercuric chloride.

Burdar/Burrin: a Shenzi captured and enslaved as a child by the Vykeeni; he acted as an interpreter after the battle between the Shenzi and Vykeeni.

Central Control: the original controlling computer and data base for all mekkan operations situated in the Mother Craft.

Collecting Expedition: sent to collect klentha pods from the agala forest. Derayna and Lexar became separated from the other members, namely Fentora and Nortelar, Gurinda and Sharjar.

Derayna Luluthier: eldest daughter of the ruling family in Luluthon.

Drixina: personal maid to Lexar’s mother, Wileta.

Duren: the Shenzi word for the period from midnight to midnight; see Nandroth time.

Entom: any of the species of small, mainly flying, invertebrates on Nandroth, the ecological equivalent of insects.

Farandar: a bowman and missile maker; one of the rescue party.

Fentora: a seamstress, Nortelar’s girlfriend at the time of the collecting expedition.

Fred Nurak: a nuclear physicist, the scientist in charge of the matter transmission project.

Glooba Worms: predatory worms inhabiting the bogs underlying agala forests.

Gogran: a metre-long maggot-like scavenger and predator of disabled larger creatures.

Golothi: a nation living to the north of the Shenzi; their traditional enemies.

Gumbar: a very large Shenzi blacksmith; carrier of the cannon in the rescue party.

Gundar: a wagon maker, Gumbar’s brother and only slightly smaller; carrier of the cannon-mounting in the rescue party.

Gurinda: a bakery worker, Sharjar’s lover at the time of the collecting expedition.

Harumfar: captain of the Luluth Civic Guard, later the major in charge of the southern defences of Luluthon.

Hoonushi: short, dark, hairy, warrior people on Nandroth to the north-west of Nanshenz, allied with the mekkans. They ride dwarf jonglons and fight mainly with bows and arrows.

Horbar: chief cook to The Luluthier household.

Jakovar Luluthier: Derayna’s father, ‘The Luluthier’ or earl of Luluth.

Joejar: a jeweller; the smallest member of the rescue party, detailed to mind the camp. He later assisted the development of electrical and electronic equipment.

Jonglon: a beast of burden in Nandroth, roughly similar to a shaggy donkey, or llama.

Karanos: a mountain range in Nandroth, running SW to NE through the Shenzi lands.

Kardar: Mayor of Luluth.

Klentha: the name of a parasitic plant that lives in the upper canopy of the agala forests. Klentha pods contain an antibiotic much valued in Shenzi medicine.

Koga: a thorn tree bearing acorn-like fruit normally considered unfit to eat by the Androthi but edible in an emergency.

Kollyon: a large-eyed nocturnal lizard-like creature, with a soft, furless body, about the size of a cat, kept on farms to hunt vermin.

Kremil: a Vykeeni princess.

Kron: a short period of time, about 1½ Earth minutes; see Nandroth time.

Kuklon: a domesticated lizard bred for eating and for its eggs.

Lexar Gulatier: a young Shenzi male brought up in The Luluthier household into whose body Axel’s mind is transported.

Luerloth Mountain: the highest peak in the Karanos ranges.

Luluth: a city perched on the side of the Luerloth mountain; the capital of the Luluthon province of Nanshenz, and overlooking the valley of the River Luluthon. It is where Derayna and her friends were raised.

Luluthier: the family name of the earl of Luluth, who is known as ‘The Luluthier’.

Matat: a hot beverage made from dried leaves, similar to tea.

Mekkan: one of the self-replicating robots that have invaded Nandroth. Mekkans and the robots that serve them each have an identifying class name and individual number (see Pontilutu).

Mindu: the main type of servo overseeing mining. It has six legs, shorter than those of the spidu, and a heavy duty laser ray used to melt rock. It has a relatively high intelligence for a servo.

Mongar: a medic, one of the rescue party.

Moonflow: the Shenzi term for menstruation.

Mother Craft: the spaceship in which the mekkans arrived and in which are stored supplies of condensed matter and where radioactive minerals are processed to provide nuclear fuel for energy generation and future travel.

Nan~: a prefix attached to the name of a Nandroth people to indicate their home country.

Nan’oonush: land of the Hoonushi.

Nandroth: the world to which Axel’s mind gets transported. The name is derived from ‘Androthi’, a term for the most highly evolved humanoids on the planet.

Nandroth Geography: Nandroth is a planet of similar size to Earth but spinning slightly slower on its own axis and orbiting somewhat more slowly about its sun (see Nandroth time and year). Its axis of spin is almost exactly at right angles to its orbital plane so that the sun rises and sets at much the same time at all latitudes. Seasons are the result of a slight eccentricity of orbit. Four cardinal compass points are recognised, as on Earth: east in the direction of the rising sun, and west, north, and south.

Nandroth Linear Measurement: most of the developed humanoid peoples on Nandroth recognise a common system of measurement. The smallest unit of length is a seed, and ten seeds make a pod, both terms derived from the Nandroth ‘measure plant’, which produces seeds and pods of a remarkably constant size. Ten pods make a ‘step’ if the distance is measured along the ground or an ‘arm’ if measured elsewhere; Axel estimated either to be somewhat less than a yard. Two steps make a ‘pace’ and 1,000 paces make a mile. Occasionally height is roughly estimated in ‘body lengths’, one body length being approximately two arms.

Nandroth Race Names: there are a number of humanoid races and peoples on Nandroth, the names of which mostly end in ‘i’. See Androthi, Boguni, Shenzi, etc. The mekkans and their servos are not considered as living creatures and are named differently.

Nandroth Time: the time from midnight to midnight is termed a duren. The duren is divided into ten watches, each of 100 kron, and each kron is divided into 100 moments. Axel guessed that a Nandroth moment was about equal to an earth second, which would make a kron just over 1½ minutes, a watch about 2¾ hours, and a duren approximately 1.16 earth days. See also Nandroth year.

Nandroth Year: the Nandroth year is composed of fifteen ‘big moons’ (Nandroth has two moons), except every sixth, or ‘long year’ of sixteen big moons. Each ‘big moon’ is composed of thirty duren (see Nandroth time). Axel calculated that Nandroth years averaged out at about 1.45 earth years.

Nanshenz: land of the Shenzi.

Nanvykeen: land of the Vykeeni.

Nortelar: a toy maker, one of the original collecting expedition and also of the rescue party. He later assisted the development of engineering projects.

Oglar XVI: Shenzier (king) of Nanshenz.

Pontilutu: the name given to the highest class of mekkan. Each Pontilutu has an identifying number. The Pontilutu with which Axel and Derayna first make contact is Pontilutu 27.

Prutha: Sorona’s personal maid.

Rafar: a red-headed Shenzi furniture maker, carrier of cannon shot in the rescue party. He was later mainly responsible for the development of flying machines.

Raglon: a woolly haired animal on Nandroth providing meat and textile fibre.

Repdu: a repair robot designed to make running repairs to mekkans and their other servos also able to be programmed for other, minor, engineering tasks.

Rescue Party: the group from Luluth who went looking for Derayna and Lexar when they were lost in the agala forest. Commanded by Sharjar, it consisted otherwise of Biblar, Farandar, Gumbar, Gundar, Joejar, Mongar, Nortelar, Rafar, Rokelar, Sindar, Tjangar, Torufar, and Wulfgar. All played important parts in the events that followed.

Rokelar: the cook in the rescue party.

Samethier: a Baron and chief advisor at the court of The Shenzier, Oglar XVI.

Servo: any of the subservient robots controlled by the mekkans.

Sharjar Hanthier: one of the original collecting expedition in which Derayna and Lexar became lost in the agala forest; he was in charge of the rescue party and at that time a lieutenant in the Civic Guard. He later became a distinguished soldier.

Shenzi Personal Names: the names of Shenzi men mostly end in ‘ar’, and those of females in ‘a’. Collective nouns end in ‘i’.

Shenzi: the people to whom Lexar Gulatier and Derayna Luluthier belong.

Shenzier, The: the monarch of Nanshenz.

Shenzuth: the capital of Nanshenz.

Shizits: a Nandroth mineral. Axel eventually identified it as arsenic sulphide.

Sindar: an apprentice chemist and miner; carrier of the cannon powder in the rescue party.

Smorg: the god worshipped by the Shenzi.

Sorona: Derayna’s mother.

Spidu: a servo that Axel thought looked somewhat like a daddy-long-legs, although with only six instead of eight legs. It can climb rapidly and is armed with a laser weapon.

Suskwat: a potent alcoholic Nandroth drink.

Tembo: a wood-eating invertebrate on Nandroth.

Teneta: the volcano overlooking the mekkan ‘city’ controlled by Pontilutu.

Teron: a leathery-winged flying creature of Nandroth, the ecological equivalent of a bird.

Tjangar: an expert scout; one of rescue party, he hid the mekkan helmets of Derayna and Lexar. He later became leader of the rangers in the lost lands of Transkaranos.

Tjinji: a nation on Nandroth, renowned for their inventiveness but disinterested in practical applications.

Torg: a subterranean Nandroth creature, the ecological equivalent of a toad.

Torufar: a cross-bowman and tool maker; one of the rescue party.

Transkaranos: originally a province of Nanshenz, on the north-western slopes of the Karanos ranges.

Trogi: semi-humanoids of Nandroth who live underground. The trogs, as the Shenzi call them, are extremely sensitive to sunlight. Those with whom the Shenzi made close contact as a result of injuries sustained by the trogs were

• H’ck: wounded in both forearms;

• N’g’k: more seriously wounded, with a broken collar bone and chest wound;

• Snh’lk: N’g’k’s brother and spokesman for the trogs, since he understood a little Shenzi.

Uchons: large domesticated herbivores on Nandroth kept for milk and meat.

Vogul: a scavenging teron, the ecological equivalent of a vulture.

Vykeeni: a nation of seagoing raiders and warriors on Nandroth.

Walgar Gulatier: Lexar’s deceased father.

Wileta Gulatier: Lexar’s mother.

Wulfgar: a minstrel and expert bowman, renowned as a long-distance runner; a member of the rescue party. He later became a messenger for Tjangar’s rangers.

Zantagraal: a huge and vicious predatory creature living in the equatorial forests of Nandroth.

Zurnov Pass: a narrow section of the mountain road leading from the south-western end of the province of Luluthon to its capital, Luluth.

Axel

I

Famous! They would be rich and famous! Very rich and very famous! The first to demonstrate matter transmission! All they needed was just a little refinement to make it reliable. Axel’s reverie was interrupted by a string of expletives issuing from the other end of the laboratory. The words were incomprehensible to Axel; although, from memory of previous outbursts, he thought they might consist of indelicate suggestions to the supreme deity—or were they merely concerned with bodily functions? Not that Axel really cared.

‘If the sodding thing worked with a mug, why doesn’t it work with the goddamned kettle?’ Fred yelled, now in his adopted tongue. He was throwing a minor tantrum. It was one with which Axel fully, albeit wearily, sympathised.

Fred Nurak had worked out the basic theory, and Axel Denman had developed the computer program to control the process. When they first set up a pilot project in Fred’s lab, they had transported a coffee mug, apparently instantaneously, from a transport pad at one end of the laboratory to a receiver pad at the other. Fame and fortune seemed within easy grasp. But it hadn’t quite worked out that way. The apparatus was temperamental, and when a delegation from the Defence Department came to see a demonstration, it hadn’t worked; they left unimpressed.

Fortunately, an influential member of the Grants’ Committee had witnessed an earlier, successful demonstration and made sure the two researchers got enough money to develop a somewhat larger apparatus, one that should be capable of moving a small car, for instance. Then things really began to go wrong. Each time the larger apparatus was switched on, it recorded a huge power surge and blew its fuses. Yet, as Fred explained to Axel, there was no reason he could discover to account for the use of the energy, ‘It just seems to drain off into space.’

Axel was a computer programmer and engineer, not a particle physicist. ‘I don’t think the equations account for all the energy of the subatomic bonds,’ was all that he could suggest, somewhat lamely.

‘OK, so there has to be an uncertainty factor,’ replied Fred. ‘That’s basic to the entire concept, but, with our new set up, it should be less than .001 per cent. The damn thing ought to work virtually every frigging time, and there shouldn’t be any frigging power surge. Look, I’ll go through the circuitry one more time and then we’ll try again.’

They had been working through that night, and it was already nine o’clock in the morning. Axel was half dozing as he sat at the main computer console. To keep himself awake, he began to muse on his less-than-satisfactory love life. His last but one girlfriend had broken off their relationship with the acerbic remark that love only ever came a poor fourth in his life, after computer programming, rebuilding old automobile engines, and flying model aircraft. ‘Since you prefer to play with your engines, Axel Denman, I’m going to find someone who prefers to play with me,’ was her parting sally.

He had gone out of his way to look for a thoroughly academic girlfriend after that, one who might appreciate his interests while having equivalent ones of her own. Alas! No sooner had he found just such a paragon than she left to take a university post up north: That was just over two months ago and, from the last month, she had ceased to respond to his messages. Apparently she had even changed her mobile phone. Axel supposed gloomily that he was doomed to a life of dedicated bachelorhood. It wasn’t that he has a bad lover; his last but one girlfriend told him that the physical side of their relationship was very satisfactory, it was just that he paid her too little attention. Yet one had to have one’s own personal space, didn’t one? Well, didn’t one?

Fred’s voice again interrupted Axel’s reverie: ‘OK, I’m going to throw in the main switch now. Check the readings on the instrument panel by the transport pad, would you?’

As Axel peered at the dials, there was a flash, and a loud report accompanied by a shower of sparks as the main power source shorted out. Axel fell.

In the hospital, an hour later, the doctor in charge told a worried Fred that his friend was alive and apparently physically unharmed but deeply unconscious.

Not, however, as far as Axel was concerned. One moment he had been in the lab, the next he had a splitting headache and found himself prostrate—but on what? Looking upward he could see layers of enormous, spear-shaped, translucent green leaves, patterned with phosphorescent orange blotches and radiating from thick black deeply grooved trunks. A face was looking down at him. From the light that filtered through the foliage, it appeared to that of a girl; although, it was difficult to make out her features since they were in shadow. Her head seemed to surrounded with what looked like a halo of greenish-yellow hair. ‘A trick of the light,’ supposed Axel.

She was shaking him gently and saying, ‘Oh, Lexar, thank Smorg, you are still alive! I thought the thorn and the fall had killed you!’

Axel struggled to a sitting position. He held his head as pain shot through it. ‘What a weird dream!’ he thought to himself. He appeared to be sitting in a shallow depression running along the centre of an enormous leaf, similar to those he had already seen above him. The girl seemed to be wearing loosely fitting shorts and a shirt of some light yellow fabric. She did have a greenish tint to her hair, he was certain of it; moreover, her skin was blue, or perhaps purple; it was difficult to be sure in the green-tinged light of the forest. He looked at his own hands and limbs. As far as he could see, he had much the same skin shade as the girl and was wearing much the same kinds of clothing.

‘Don’t touch the wound, you’ll rub off the paste. The zantagraal will still be after us, we must hurry away,’ she whispered urgently.

‘A zanta—ah, wha—what’s a zantagraal?’ Axel enquired.

‘What has happened to you?’ the girl said anxiously.

Axel tried to pull his thoughts together. Dream or not, the girl who was peering at him seemed to require an answer. ‘Perhaps I lost my memory when I, er, fell,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you could tell me who you are and where we are.’

‘Lexar! Look at me! I am your betrothed, Derayna.’ She sounded distressed and not a little irritated. ‘We are in the forest where we were collecting klentha pods, but a zantagraal is stalking us. We didn’t think there were any zantagraals in this part of the forest, they’ve never been this far north before, but unless we escape quickly, we shall die—horribly!’

‘Perhaps we should first get off these, um, leaves and down to the forest floor,’ said Axel, gingerly attempting to get to his feet.

‘We can’t do that, stupid! Oh, I’m sorry, Lexar, what has happened to you! You know we can’t do that. The floor of the agala forest is just one huge bog. We’d get sucked into it, and the glooba worms would consume us bit by bit. We shall have to leave as we came, but avoiding the thorns this time. Don’t you remember? When we first heard the zantagraal and were retreating, you stumbled against a trunk and a thorn shot out. I thought it had killed you! It struck you on the head, and the force knocked you off the leaf and down two layers, where we are now. And I can hear the zantagraal coming after us.’

‘Do we have any weapons?’ enquired Axel. He staggered upright and became even more aware of the searing pain in his right temple.

‘We dropped our klentha pods and knives when we were knocked off the leaves above,’ said Derayna, ‘and do be careful, you almost bumped into the trunk again.’

‘What about these thorns?’ asked Axel, looking round, bewildered.

‘Oh, Lexar!’ She sounded desperate, ‘You know if something hits the trunk on the side of a groove, a thorn may shoot out.’

Just then, Axel heard a rustle from the foliage above and a slurping glob, glob, glob noise. He went to the thick trunk next to them, observed the thick groove that ran up and down it, and, moving to one side, gave the trunk a karate chop. From the centre of the groove, out shot a fearsome white spike about as long as his arm.

He was amazed and exhilarated at what he had just done; he seemed to have done it without conscious thought, but now he wondered, ‘Will others come out if I pull this?’ he enquired.

‘No, no, not at this level, silly, but hurry, hurry, we must get away. It will be here any moment,’ pleaded a distraught Derayna.

Too late, already the leaves above were parting to reveal a huge iridescent blue head bore down on them; it was surmounted by bulbous yellow eyes and had a monstrous, projecting, sucking mouth. The mouth opened wide to reveal rows of razor-sharp teeth. It lunged towards them and slurped shut just short of where they were cowering against one side of the agala tree. Almost without thinking, Axel grabbed the thorn as the zantagraal’s head recoiled for another strike. As the head came down, Axel wrenched the thorn out of its socket and jumped forward to thrust it within and across the beast’s gaping mouth. The mouth closed on the thorn and, for a moment, Axel wondered whether it would hold, but the beast reared its head backwards, and a fearful bubbling shriek filled the still air of the forest.

In the same instant, Derayna was pulling Axel backwards. ‘To the next level,’ she cried, tugging him towards the centre of the woody leaf on which they were standing. The next moment, Axel found himself sliding down a natural slippery dip to drop on to a lower leaf. He followed Derayna, somewhat clumsily at first but with increasing dexterity as she jumped expertly from leaf to leaf and descended to lower levels.

II

At first, Axel thought that he and the girl and the monster must be the only animal life in the forest; but, as his eyes became accustomed to the dim light, he became aware of little eyes staring at them and of dark shapes leaping and scurrying all around them. In a little while, Axel began to catch glimpses of the forest floor, which, as Derayna had pointed out, was a semi-liquid bog, black, stinking, and gently seething. At one instant, he saw a furry lump fall into the mud; it gave some spasmodic jerks. Then, almost immediately, there were slithery white shapes surrounding it, and it was dragged down and out of sight.

By the time they were almost at ground level, Axel realised they must be nearing the edge of the forest, since the light reaching them had increased considerably and he could see patches of dry land emerging from the bog. Finally, they were able to skip out on to solid ground, which was dotted with dense thickets of shrubs, with bare patches of reddish ground between them. Axel had never been interested much in plant life, but he was sure he had never seen plants like these before. Some bushes had tall spiky red leaves, others seemed to be composed of brown leathery straps, and still others looked as though they were sticking out green and orange furry tongues.

There was a reddish sun near the horizon, shining in a red-streaked sky. Axel had his first opportunity to observe his companion in a good light. There was now no doubt about her colouring: her skin was a pale blue with reddish tones and her shoulder-length pale yellow hair had a distinct greenish tinge. She had a slight, but athletic, build and a delicately featured, intelligent-looking face. Axel realised that she was beautiful, although very different from anything he had ever seen before. But she still looked worried.

‘Are we safe here?’ enquired Axel.

‘Zantagraals never venture far from their forests,’ said Derayna, ‘but this is Boguni territory, so we had better move carefully.’

‘I can see lights,’ said Axel.

‘Yes, that’s one of their dwellings, but, if we keep heading east, near to the edge of the forest, we may be able to avoid them.’

Just as Derayna was saying this, three spears landed behind, and to the left of them. Almost immediately, a group of four semi-naked warriors, armed with spears stood before them. They had pinkish white skins, blotched with grey patches and sparsely covered with reddish hair. Their faces were thoroughly brutish: narrow with a projecting, chinless mouth, overhanging brow ridges, and almost no noses—just two round holes in a slightly raised snout. The lower parts of their bodies were covered with leaves, roped around their waists. They looked very dirty and unkempt. Axel turned round to see a similar group behind. ‘Keep still,’ hissed Derayna, ‘I’ll try to talk to them.’

She called out in what Axel presumed must be a language, although it seemed to him to be little more than grunts and shouts. There was an exchange, during which the Boguni became, if anything, even more hostile and threatening.

‘It’s no use,’ sobbed Derayna. ‘We shall have to go with them to their long house. There is little hope for us. They will kill us if we try to escape now, and they will almost certainly kill us later if they take us.’

The leader of the Boguni band, who had several greasy black markings over his hairy face, barked some commands that Axel rightly interpreted as meaning they were to keep silent. Spears prodded them towards a path between the bushes, and they found themselves moving towards the lights that Axel had seen earlier.

Soon they were in a large clearing, surrounded by more of the Boguni. Axel noted that some of them had projecting nipples, although not much in the way of breasts, but he assumed they were females. In a huge pit in the ground were glowing embers and among them, in the centre, was a large black object that Axel thought might be some animal, partly caked with black clay. The captives found themselves approaching the largest building in the clearing, a mud-and-stick long house, where they were made to halt before the main opening in the middle of one wall. Here an obese Boguni sat on a rough stool, hewn from a log. He wore leaves interwoven in the matted hair that covered his head.

A brief exchange took place with the warriors who had captured Axel and Derayna. The Boguni chief seemed only half interested in them, however, and many of the Boguni were clustering around the far side of the house to which the chief kept looking.

Axel realised that beyond the long house was a stretch of water and that, rapidly approaching over the water, was what looked like a landing craft. The craft itself drew up on to the shore behind the house, hence just out of Axel’s view, but, within a very short time, around the side of the house came the most amazing sight that Axel had seen since his encounter with the zantagraal.

‘Mekkan,’ gasped Derayna in surprise but was immediately silenced with a spear point.

The Mekkan, if that was what it was called, was apparently a robot. It had what appeared to be a metallic body of a size and shape that resembled a coffin. The coffin body was held horizontal by six, jointed, piston-like legs which stomped up and down, so that, in motion, the whole seemed to Axel to resemble a gigantic beetle. Recessed on each side of the body, back and front, were coiled appendages that looked about as thick as a wrist.

The front end of the ‘coffin’ bore a swivelling projection that Axel assumed must be the robot’s eye. Also on top of the front end, on either side of the eye, were a whip-like aerial and a small dish antenna. In the midline of the upper surface of the Mekkan was a small iridescent dome, about as big as a clenched fist. A similar dome protruded from below, between the first and second pairs of legs. From a grill at the very front of the body came an artificial sounding voice. There was an exchange with the Boguni chief during which the Mekkan’s eye turned to get a better view of Axel and Derayna.

At length, the captives were pushed and prodded into the long house. Inside, it was smelly, dark, and smoky, lit only by a pit of embers along the centre of the main room that occupied most of the house. They were forced across the mud floor and into a small wood-and-mud cell at one end. The low door through which they were pushed had a crude but effective batten slotted across it on the outside.

They could barely stand erect near the crude door and had to hunch down to move further into the cell, which was presumably bounded by the outer wall of the long house. Some light from the fire in the main room filtered through the wooden staves that separated it from the captives’ cell. The damp earthen floor of the cell smelt utterly foul. Perhaps, fortunately, the light was too dim to make out what made it so. After an initial attempt to inspect the cell, as much by touch as visual observation, Derayna hunkered down against the outer wall facing the crude door.

‘You can understand them, Derayna,’ said Axel, joining her, ‘what’s going on? Tell me about the Mekkan or whatever.’

‘Really, Lexar, can you remember nothing?’ said Derayna, in a tone that mixed anguish, fear, and irritation.

‘Well, actually, I can’t. I’m, well, confused. It would be much easier if you were to tell me from the beginning what exactly we are doing here and exactly who these savages are.’

‘I can’t believe this, Lexar! This is ridiculous. It would be funny if we were not in such terrible danger.’

‘Look, I’ll try to explain later, if ever I have a chance to, that is, but, in the meantime, please just humour me. It may be very important.’

Derayna gulped, in what Axel sensed was a mixture of anger, frustration, and fright. ‘Very well, Lexar, I’ll do just as you say, but I hope you do have good reason! In fact, I’ll tell you exactly what I tell the school children.

‘The Boguni were originally the inhabitants of a large part of north and central Nandroth, but over many centuries, we Androthi—actually not so much us Shenzi, although we were guilty too—have gradually taken their land and forced them into a few places on the edge of the great forests. Then, two generations ago, the Mekkans came in a great spaceship. They are not living things like us. Many eons ago, on their own planet, they were made as mechanical servants by living creatures, perhaps creatures like us. As their planet grew more and more dry and cold, its living inhabitants slowly died out. But, before they did so, the makers of the Mekkans programmed their servants to think for themselves, to repair themselves, and to make new Mekkans, so now the Mekkans are entirely self-sufficient, self-reproducing machines.

‘When the Mekkans came to our world, they were looking for minerals and energy sources. There seemed to be only a few of them, and at first, they seemed friendly. They learned our languages and promised to teach us their amazing technology. But they also learnt to conspire with our different tribes and races, including the Boguni, and incited us to fight one another. Gradually, the Mekkans enslaved one nation after another so that now there are only a few of us in the mountains in this central region of Nandroth who are truly free.

‘The Shenzi territory, or all that is left of it, is the most difficult for the Mekkans to conquer, since the Mekkans are built to traverse flat land, like that of their home planet I suppose, and not to climb mountains. They have subservient machines of various forms, which they call servos, and some servos are designed to climb, but they are much less intelligent than the Mekkans and are much less adept than us at mining. Perhaps the Mekkans are afraid that if they make their servos too intelligent, the servos will rebel. So the Mekkans use Androthi, who have been captured in wars, as slave labour in mines.

‘Unfortunately, both for us and the Mekkans, some minerals that are essential to them are found almost exclusively in the mines of the mountains that border what is left of our country, Nanshenz. Especially unfortunate for us, some of these minerals and especially the chemicals made from them are poisonous, and our people do not live for very long once they have been forced to mine and process them.

‘Really, Lexar! I don’t know why I am telling you all this. You know it well enough, and presently everything will come back to you.’

Derayna shifted irritably. ‘For the moment,’ she continued, ‘I don’t know what a Mekkan is doing in this place. Whatever it is, the Mekkan does not want us to hear about it. The Mekkan suggested that the Boguni kill and eat us immediately. The chief said they already had food for today, and they would keep us till tomorrow. I fear we are as good as dead.’ She put an arm around him, and leant against him in a gesture of hopelessness.

Axel tried to digest the information that Derayna had given him. Clearly he was on a planet that was called Nandroth by its dominant, intelligent life form, the Androthi. Nandroth was apparently also the home of another intelligent—or at least semi-intelligent—species, the Boguni. Lexar, whose identity he had somehow assumed, and Derayna were members of an Androthi nation called the Shenzi, who lived in a country called Nanshenz. About all of this, and of the invading Mekkans, however, he still had much to learn.

Derayna shook herself. ‘But we can’t just give up. Since our prison is made only of wood and mud, we should be able to break out if we try hard enough, but I fear that they will hear or feel the vibrations if we use just brute force. So we must see if we can pick our way out.’

They were soon trying to lever out pieces of mud from the outer wall and, in a short time, had uncovered some of the wooden branches that made up the core of the wall. They looked very stout and showed no sign of moving when pressure was applied.

They tried to pull away some of the thatch that roofed the cell. The activity helped to take Axel’s mind off the throbbing in his head, but he soon became dispirited. Although some twigs and leaves fell away, the roof had been stoutly built. Even Derayna, who had been working with determination, eventually stopped, her shoulders hunched. ‘The main rafters seem to be as strong as the wall timbers,’ she said, ‘and they are too close even for me to squeeze through.’

Just then, they heard the batten being pulled out from the door, and they quickly crouched by the wall again, contriving to cover the part where they had picked away the mud lining. A Boguni warrior poked his head round the door and shouted at them to keep quiet, as Axel correctly surmised.

While this was happening, Axel felt a prickling sensation on his back, and, when the Boguni guard had left, he turned to see what could be causing it. From one side of the hole they had just picked in the wall, Axel could dimly see what appeared to be yellow, iridescent feelers waving at them.

‘Ooh, tembos, said Derayna.’

‘And what are tembos?’ sighed Axel, who was finding it hard to keep up with all the new names that kept cropping up.

‘They eat wood, silly, don’t you know anything any more? But where they are eating, we might be able to push through. Help me pick away at where they came from.’

Sure enough, they uncovered a patch of damp, softened wood, and finally forced an opening just large enough for them to squeeze through.

By now, it was dark outside, although there was a dim glow