ATONER

Ellison's technicians stripped him naked, covered him from head to foot in a skin-tight mesh of micro-pored capillaries, thrust a gleaming, metal staff in his hand and strapped a pack to his back. These are the things you'll need Lloyd, they said. Down on Erasmus.

The capillaries, fed from a reservoir clipped to his utility belt, wept a foul-smelling fluid over his flesh. The technicians said it was the same chemical the Erasmans secreted to prevent them becoming entangled in their own webs. It also contained a powerful Erasman sex pheromone.

The pack was a viscous globule of fertile Erasman semen, a half metre in diameter and cocooned in swathes of web-silk. It was a gift to the female who dominated the area of the planet Ellison's PlanetMine Corporation were most interested in. A region glutted with mineral deposits. Fertile semen, apparently, was in short supply on Erasmus, something to do with the low success rate of male courtship - which was frustrating for the ladies and fatal for the men.

The staff was a vibe-stick. It had three settings: lull-pattern, sexual-arousal (guaranteed, the technicians assured Lloyd, to please) and a message written by Ellison himself; something about coming in peace and bearing gifts.

The shuttle flight down to Erasmus was hell and so was the landing. The relentless, white roar of the shuttle's engines still ringing through his ears, nose bleeding and dizzy from countless grav to null-grav to grav transitions, Lloyd clambered out of the squat little craft and saw that Erasmus was hell too.

An ochre-coloured hell. Of jagged rock, tortured into grotesque sculptures by the screaming dust storms that regularly flagellated the planet. Of lowering,

cloud-heavy, brown skies into which the planet's sun wrung out its merciless heat-load. Of dust, thirst and desolation.

Lloyd walked, towards the fanged lip of a big crater some fifty metres from his landing site. That was where the Erasman lived.

The walk wasn't an easy one. The cling-skin overshoes they had given him were no protection against the ragged, stony ground. The local flora was viciously thorned. And he was scared.

No choice, Lloyd old buddy. It was this or the Execution Chamber on Io. That was how it was for slum-scum from the Tenements. Especially when you had murdered one of your woman’s customers because he was beating her up, and that customer happened to be some high-ranking grey-suit from the Admin Tower...

* * * *

The guards had come for him three days before. Bursting into his cell, kicking over his uneaten last meal and hauling him to his feet. No chance for dignity or speeches. Just, rough hands, tight cuffs and bets on how long it would take for him to laser-cook in the Chamber. He was a big guy, they decided, so he would probably last twenty minutes or more. And if Rowland was Duty Executioner, he may even stretch it to forty.

Lloyd's only recourse was to keep his mouth shut. To fight the dread clawing at his guts and the scream trying to rip its way out of his closed throat. To deprive those animals of the satisfaction of seeing him crumple into gibbering, hysterical idiocy.

Though his legs were so weak he could barely stand, he angrily shrugged off their gauntleted hands and set off on his own. Walking steadily down the corridor, passed his jeering, cheering, death row neighbours. Towards that door.

Then, unaccountably, one of the guards shoved him into a side passage. Sent him stumbling towards a different door. Into a room where there was a table, two chairs and a single hover-globe which cast more shadow than light.

One chair was taken, its occupant male, well past mid-age but still handsome, tanned and square-jawed. Lloyd stared at him in dumb incomprehension. "Ellison?" he murmured.

The man nodded. Ellison, who was Interstar Freight, Stella-Construct and PlanetMine. The man whose face was known to every human being in the colonised universe because he owned more than half of the Home System and the entirety of many others.

"Lloyd," Ellison greeted him quietly. "Please sit down, I want to make you an offer."

"People like you don't make offers to people like me - " But they do, Lloyd raged at himself. So why don't I just shut up and listen?

"Hear me out," Ellison paused, smiled, then continued: "You see, Lloyd, I admire you in some ways."

“Yeah, yeah.” Always the tough guy, he couldn't help himself.

"You're a survivor. The Tenements haven't broken you as they have others. You are, in fact, a man after my own heart."

"Is that so?"

"What you did to Senator Gavrilovik for instance."

"No one hurts Re."

"Indeed they should not. Even a Professional Lady such as she deserves some respect."

“She doesn’t do what she does because she wants to Ellison, she does it because there’s no other way for slum-scum to scrape a living. It’s that or the mines. That's my damnation. I don’t want her down there. I wouldn’t want my worst enemy down there.”

“A choice between Hell and Hell. You in one, she in the other. A terrible state of affairs Lloyd.”

“You own those mines Ellison.”

“I own Io Lloyd.”

"So, what's this offer?" Cautiously.

“A way out for both you and the lovely Re,” Ellison said. "The chance to become an Atoner."

Lloyd felt his breath catch in his throat. An Atoner. A condemned man washed whiter than driven snow (or more likely killed) by some heroic, near suicidal act that only a madman would undertake.

But then, what choice did he have?

"Tell me about it." Tremor in his voice. Couldn't help it.

"There is a planet called Erasmus. Bloated with mineral wealth. Untouched. Virginal." Ellison smiled, predatory eyes locked with Lloyd's. "And I want it."

Another pause while he regarded the back of his perfectly manicured hand.

"There is, however, a problem."

There always was.

"Erasmus, is inhabited and because its natives appear to communicate with one another, albeit crudely, they have been decreed intelligent. You know how sensitive the Senators are about anything that shows even the merest glimmer of sentience."

"Yeah." It seemed a good idea to agree.

"So, I shall have to be circumspect in my dealings with the indigenous population of that beautiful little planet." Ellison's smile became conspiratorial. "I need a diplomat Lloyd. Someone to open delicate negotiations with a very powerful Erasman lady."

"I'm your man," Lloyd heard himself say. And wondered how long it would take to die on Erasmus and if it was going to hurt more than the Chamber.

* * * *

It shimmered. A vast, frozen whirlpool of dust-browned silk, stretched taut across the crater, whorled about the mouth of the funnel that was her lair. The shimmering was from myriad droplets of false dew woven into the complex patterns of web strands. A deadly lure for the eternally thirst-racked wildlife of Erasmus.

Lloyd dropped to his knees, exhausted by the trek from the shuttle and the fear-sodden climb to the crater's lip. He stared at the web. They wanted him to walk across there. To go down that hole. Down to where she was. And if he didn't...Rowland concentrated on your genitals first, they said. One item at a time.

He sucked in a long, ragged breath, then thumbed the slider on the vibe-staff to setting one: lull-pattern. The staff tingled and hummed in his hand, He gingerly placed its tip on the edge of the web. Waves of vibration rippled outwards towards the funnel.

Nothing happened. Which is how it should be.

He struggled to his feet. Took a step. Another. The web yielded beneath him. He was sinking. The web wasn't taking his weight. He screamed a silent scream as his mind preceded him into the hell-hole below -

The web held. Ellison's technicians said it would. Lloyd ventured another step. and another. Bouncing across its expanse in slow, water-bed motion. Keeping the tip of the vibe-stick on the strands in front of him.

He came to the rim of the funnel. A black maw, some ten metres across. Lloyd closed his eyes, gulped in air. Willing himself to crawl into that thing. But what if the vibe-stick was programmed wrong? What if she hated the smell of the mucus pouring over his bare flesh as much as he did? What if...what if...what if...

His guts squirmed and slithered. His joints locked. No way Lloyd old buddy. No way...

They make it slow on Io Lloyd.

And she sucks all the juices out of your body if she doesn't like you Ellison.

She'll find you irresistible Lloyd.

The way I find synthi-steak irresistible Ellison.

Oh come now. This is your chance. An Atoner, that's what you'll be. All you want you will have. And remember what they actually do in the Execution Chamber Lloyd...

He snapped open his eyes, steadied himself, dropped carefully to his hands and knees, then thumbed the slider to setting two: sexual arousal pattern. He crawled into the funnel. Head first. The semen-pack squelched against the back of his skull like a grotesque, silk-skinned balloon.

It was soon dark. The funnel narrowed. The walls grew steadily steeper. And all the while the vibe-stick buzzed out its sentimental Erasman serenade. Lloyd hoped that she was in the mood for romance. "I'm coming babe," he whispered. "Just lie back and get ready for Lloyd the Ram - " He giggled helplessly, too loud, almost hysterically. Then wished he hadn't.

Vibration.

Matching, then overwhelming the one created by the vibe-stick. Shimmering through the web. Originating from…Lloyd closed his mind against the thought, felt a huge sob of raw terror convulse through him.

It came from above, from behind.

Carefully, very carefully, he twisted round and peered back up the web. There should be daylight up there. A little disc of ochre cloud-swirl.

There wasn’t. There was a darkness, solid and moving. Slowly, cautiously. But moving.

Another Erasman. A jealous lover on the trail of its rival. Lloyd tore himself back round and pressed himself against the web. He could feel the trembling made by the creature’s legs now.

Finished then, before he had hardly begun.

Eaten alive. Pierced, sucked and -

Blind. The Erasmans were virtually blind. They relied on vibration to communicate, to mate and to locate their prey.

Hand slippery with mucus and sweat, Lloyd switched off the vibe-stick and tightened his body into absolute stillness. Except for his heart. That was pounding hard enough to bring every Erasman on the planet straight to him.

Nothing he could do about that.

He waited. Head to one side. Eyes death-wide.

A leg slid into view. Chitinous, spiked with hair, its foot divided into two vicious hooks. Another leg, moving slowly, cautiously.

The Erasman was on the opposite wall of the web. Lloyd wondered how big it was. If there would be enough room for it to pass without…God forbid…touching him.

He saw its head. About three metres away. Indistinct in the dark. Studded, he knew, with blank, unblinking eyes, many of them staring straight at him. In front of the head, were its shorter forelegs, blurred as they played their Erasman love songs on the web-fibres.

Lloyd held his last breath tight in his lungs. The thudding of his heart pulsed deafeningly through his skull. You can’t see me buddy. My eyes are shut and you can’t see me…

It moved on. The head giving way to the vast pulsing sac of its abdomen. Swelling as it passed. Lloyd willed his body deeper into the web. Only inches away now. He could hear the bubbling and squelches of its lethal digestive acids.

Then it was gone. Picking its way carefully downwards, dragging, Lloyd saw, a bundle ominously similar to his own.

Mission failed. Lloyd doomed. He lay in the web fibres. Exhausted, crushed.

The funnel suddenly jerked and swayed. Something was happening down there. Something big and massively violent. Lloyd froze. Not breathing. Waiting for the horror to erupt from the deep, deep shadows below him. It went on and on. There were sounds. Crunching, gurgling, sucking.

Then nothing. The shuddering and lurching ceased. The web stilled. There was silence.

Not much of a lover after all, eh buddy?

He reactivated the vibe-stick and forced himself on. His joints ached. Everything hurt or trembled. Maybe the Chamber was better. Maybe he should turn tail and scuttle up to the distant, rapidly diminishing disc of ochre behind him.

Get her all worked up and walk out on her would you? You know what they say: Hell hath no fury like an Erasman wronged. Come to think of it, Hell was probably better -

A shape. In front of him. Big. Dark against the darkness. He froze. Couldn't breathe. Heart about to burst, throwing itself painfully against his ribs. The Male Erasman. Alive after all. Waiting for him. It was going to hurt. God how it would hurt...

Didn't move though. His eyes adapted. Etched out form and shape. A series of lumps and mounds entangled in the webbing. Something once alive, now dead. Now...sucked. He had no choice but to crawl over it. Felt husk-dry skin and hair. Saw an empty eye socket. Gagged against the stench. It had been big, whatever it was.

Hell of a way to go. Huge legs wrapped about you. Multiple, sentient yet soulless eyes staring at you. Those slurping, drawing noises. And pain.

Re, got to think about Re, still pretty, even after a lifetime in the Tenements. A little thin maybe, haggard, but pretty with skin as pale as ice, and hair as black as Io’s midday sky. He had met her in a brothel, when last on leave from the mines. She was scared, fresh-flesh expensive and cost Lloyd half his meagre salary.

But it was worth it, because she had touched him, changed him somehow. There was something more than skin-to-skin here. Something so deep he handed over the other half of his salary right away, then volunteered for the core-shift to earn enough danger-pay to buy her outright.

She had cried when the Enforcers came for him…

Don’t worry Re-baby, he whispered. I’m coming back, I promise…

He saw the Erasman. Twenty metres below him.

A black mass. Motionless. Titanic. Jammed into the narrow neck of the funnel. She had her back to him. Abdomen slightly raised. Legs splayed. Eight legs.

One wrong move now and he would be punished. God how he would be punished.

Lloyd was sobbing. He hadn't cried since he was a kid. You didn't cry in the Tenements. You didn't even cry when they pushed you into the Chamber and you discovered that Rowland was on duty.

You cried down here though. You sobbed your rotten, stony old heart out.

He crawled towards her. Watched his left fist grasp handfuls of web silk. Watched his right carefully slide the vibe-stick along in front of him. Watched her growing closer and bigger and more real and completely, overwhelmingly terrifying.

One of the Erasman's hind legs twitched, convulsively. The funnel shuddered. Lloyd hung on grimly, burying his face in the web. She was getting impatient. He had to keep moving.

He breathed deep and slow. He'd been in tough spots before. Had the knife scars to prove it. He'd even had the guts to kill a Senator when the need arose. So what was this compared to the Tenements? Hell compared to Heaven, that's what it was.

Almost there now. The stench was suffocating. The sweet dense odour of rotting meat mingled with a cloying perfume smell. Lloyd stopped, then, with his left hand, gently reached for the semen pack release. He fumbled, palm slippery with secretion and sweat. The buckle was jammed. Broken dammit. It wouldn't open. wouldn't open. Wouldn't - Something clicked quietly and the buckle slid apart. The pack rolled to one side.

Jamming the vibe-stick under his chin, Lloyd struggled the ungainly pack round until it was in front of him. Then, vibe-stick back into his right hand, left fingers hooked into the pack's webbing, he moved forward. Gaining purchase with toes, knees, elbows, anything.

Her abdomen loomed over him. A vast, pulsing sac the size of the terrestrial elephant he had seen in the Io central holo-zoo. On either side, her legs formed the eight bars of a living cage into which Lloyd squirmed on his belly, whimpering and gagging on his fear. He could feel her weight bearing down upon him yet not touching him. Could feel immense, latent power and violence. The slightest mistake. The minutest discourtesy and that violence would erupt Unstoppable, unthinkable. It was dark here. It stank here. Death was here.

He had to touch her now. Touch...Couldn't. Not touch. Had to. Violent trembling cramped his muscles. He rolled on to his back and lifted the semen-pack. Touch her damn it. Touch. Touch. Touch. He lifted the pack a fraction more. And felt it brush against yielding, pulsing softness. He recoiled. Stomach heaved. Needed to vomit. Mustn't though. Later maybe. Not now. Just touch. Push...

Eternity dragged by. She didn't move.

Time crawled to a halt.

Push.

He felt her push back. Felt her immense, unthinkable strength for the briefest of moments. She shuddered. Hugely. The web quivered. Lloyd's bladder gave way. Wet warmth flooded his groin, spilled down his right thigh...and her third legs suddenly folded inwards to slam into the semen-pack like twin pile-drivers. Lloyd screamed. She had almost touched him. Never that. Never...Then the pack was gone. Drawn up against her body. Lloyd uttered a sob and began sliding backwards and upwards.

Out from beneath her. Trying to move slowly, calmly. Mustn’t agitate her. Just keep sliding. Retreating a short distance, then pausing. Okay. So maybe now was the right time for setting three. He thumbed the slider and the stick's thrumming became more staccato. "We, humankind, come in peace, bearing gifts..." No response. Maybe she was displeased with the gift -

She answered. Hind legs blurring. The funnel droned and shook. Lloyd swung to and fro. Too scared to read the words sliding across the vibe-stick's tiny screen.

Whatever it was, it was beamed straight up to the Central InterStar Government computer. There would be no cheating. Not even for Ellison.

The thrumming stopped. And Lloyd was getting out. Setting one; soothing Erasman lullaby. An awkward backward clamber. Then round and upwards. Home, wherever he decided that was going to be. Ellison was a good guy. His technicians were good guys. Lloyd was going to buy them all a drink. Two drinks. Three. Doubles, trebles, whatever the hell they wanted. Lloyd could afford it. He was an Atoner. No more Io. No more Tenements. No more Chamber.

The vibe-stick died. Bleeped two failure warnings, then its comforting, tingling hum was gone. Lloyd stared at it. This is a joke, huh Ellison? Come on, I got a sense of humour, but this? The stick has got to work, see. Or she will be offended. Deeply. So this isn't real or its a mistake and if I shake it and beat it with the heel of my hand, like this, it'll start working again. Christ Ellison, it really isn't working. I'm in the shit you bastard. Bathing, wallowing and drowning in it.

He scrambled round and scuttled towards the funnel mouth. Panting, moaning, gibbering. Clawing at web-silk. An ungainly, panic-stricken crawl, clambering upwards towards the ochre-coloured paradise above. Wrenching muscles, shaking and jarring the web. Didn't matter. Just had to get out.

Halfway up, the micropump at his waist gurgled and cut out. The reservoir was empty. No more secretion. No more glorious, heady pheromone.

Lloyd began to struggle. Thrashing and writhing against the suddenly sticky, clinging, silken wall of the tunnel. They'd screwed him. There were two gifts. Satisfying sex followed by a satisfying meal - a worthless slab of Tenement scum from Io.

The funnel lurched violently. Lloyd screamed. Lloyd who never screamed, torn open by a fear so primal it could find no other expression. Web silk blinded him, clogged his mouth. His screams became a muffled animal shriek.