A dark planet on the galaxy’s edge. A primordial predator. A desperate hunt for a dangerous secret.
When the medical frigate Ruby Rose picks up an SOS from the planet’s lightning-ravaged surface, they do not hesitate to drop into the raging storm. But the innocuous little planet is home to something sinister. Something desperate. Something that will stop at nothing to find what it’s looking for.
Across the galaxy, the crew of the Star Wraith receives a call for help. The captain of a medical frigate has lost his medics, and one of their names is all too familiar. But how could the Wraith's crew know that a simple rescue mission will lead to a string of murders and a waking nightmare that will leave them forever changed?
A dark planet on the galaxy’s edge. A primordial predator. A desperate hunt for a dangerous secret.
When the medical frigate Ruby Rose picks up an SOS from the planet’s lightning-ravaged surface, they do not hesitate to drop into the raging storm. But the innocuous little planet is home to something sinister. Something desperate. Something that will stop at nothing to find what it’s looking for.
Across the galaxy, the crew of the Star Wraith receives a call for help. The captain of a medical frigate has lost his medics, and one of their names is all too familiar. But how could the Wraith's crew know that a simple rescue mission will lead to a string of murders and a waking nightmare that will leave them forever changed?
The shuttle’s hull failed to muffle the thunder, and the two men in suits – one tailored, one off the rack – flinched at the boom. The two corporate security grunts did not. Rain streaked the little portholes, but Adams doubted there would be much to see anyway. Trees and marsh, from what he’d read.
Trees, marsh, and a tower.
The secretary was muttering quietly with one of the grunts at the back of the shuttle. The grunt’s cruel grey eyes flicked up to his and Adams shivered. Then he disappeared into the cockpit.
The secretary resumed staring out of the porthole across from him. He hadn’t even introduced himself by name, hence why Adams chose to think of him as ‘the secretary’, though in reality he was the right hand of the CEO. The man didn’t like Adams and Adams didn’t expect him to. He wasn’t supposed to know about the tower, much less see it, but thanks to his tenacity, he’d bought himself a one-way ticket to the top.
Blackmail, some might call it. The secretary in his pristine suit was clearly one of them. He loosened a silk tie that probably cost more than Adams’ quarterly salary and smirked momentarily to himself. Adams avoided revisiting his feverish planning and crying and worrying. Realising the gravity of his discovery and all of the terrible things that might now befall him had been overwhelmingly frightening, but he was through it now. His contingencies ensured that the company could do nothing to him without their secrets becoming secret no more. The CEO was undoubtedly smarter than he was, but smarts weren’t everything. No amount of intelligence could counter a solid contingency.
Yes, Adams thought, smirking too and hoping his supervisor noticed, he was fine. Better than fine. He knew something that probably only a few did, including this secretary sent forth from the hand of the almighty to give him a personal tour of the tower. Something that, even in this day and age, could get the CEO executed. Adams wasn’t going to be the most popular of upper management, sure, but who cared?
Lightning flashed again, briefly allowing him a vague impression of unending forest. He glanced up at the display above the cockpit door and felt an excited lurch in his stomach. It showed under a minute until arrival.
He would be shown the tower’s secrets and would understand why the CEO was so interested in this perhaps literally God-forsaken place, and then he would start making himself useful. No need to be antagonistic. He’d used his discovery to give himself an advantage, but he would prove that he deserved the position it led to. Soon, he would be in charge of this project, answering directly to the CEO and changing the course of human history! Probably. Presumably. This place must be something special to be kept so secret.
The security grunt returned from the cockpit and nodded to the secretary. As he did, Adams felt the shuttle slow. The wind seemed to shake and jerk it more the slower it flew. And then the lights switched to an eerie blue glow.
‘We can’t maintain this position,’ the pilot said over the intercom.
The rear ramp clunked and whined to the ground. Adams felt a presence beside him and was startled to see the second grunt.
‘We need to move quickly, sir,’ he said, holding out a rebreather. ‘Planet’s hostile.’
Adams took the rebreather and headed to the ramp, pressing it over his nose and mouth. It created a seal and he immediately felt claustrophobic. The other two men had already descended and were just slipping out of the landing lights and through a dark-stone doorway. The tower.
The rain stung his face as the wind whipped it at him through the open doorway. Wavelets had already started rolling up the ramp and into the shuttle. Adams carefully descended and immediately felt the cold water in his shoes. He tried to look around him, but to one side the rain hurt his eyes and to the other it was simply too dark to see anything beyond the landing lights, which themselves illuminated only black ground. The ramp ended mere inches from the door, so he couldn’t even get a look up at the tower.
Though his exposure to the weather lasted only seconds, he was glad to be out of it again as he stepped through the doorway into the starkly lit entrance hall. He flapped the rain off his suit jacket as elevator doors, subtly blended into the stone, slid open beside him. He looked up to see the telltale white lab coat of a scientist.
‘Doctor Arish,’ the secretary greeted the man. ‘We won’t take up much of your time. Mr Adams here would like a tour of the facility and to view the specimens.’
‘Of course,’ Arish said, standing aside and gesturing for them to enter the elevator. He kept his face blank, despite the nerves he probably felt at the visit from management.
They all squeezed in. The doors closed and Adams had barely a second to wonder if he’d glimpsed a sculpture against the wall. Probably not, in an ancient tower turned science lab.
‘We currently have only one level complete, regrettably,’ Arish said. ‘Which limits experimentation for the moment. But excavation is ongoing, and we are still on schedule—’
The secretary waved away the assurances. ‘We aren’t here for an inspection, Doctor. Adams has…taken an interest in the project and needs to see it for himself.’
‘Of course. Things have been tense the last few months, since…’ Adams noticed a sharp glance from the secretary. ‘…the change.’
‘Yes, I imagine so. We are eager to see your next few reports as you get to the bottom of what caused that, Doctor.’
Arish nodded and cleared his throat. It suggested that he didn’t expect to have an answer in his next few reports. Whatever the ‘change’ was, it was probably what had caught Adams’ attention. It had caused an increase in interest in the tower, and in the funds funnelled quietly into the place.
The elevator doors opened again to darkness, dotted with bright white squares. Intrigued, Adams stepped out and the squares became three-dimensional: rows upon rows of room-sized white cubes sitting on the glistening cut-stone floor. There was something otherworldly about the sight that went beyond literally being on another world.
The elevator doors quietly clunked closed behind him and he finally tore his eyes from the cubes, gently effusing their light that barely travelled an inch into the darkness. He half-expected to have been dumped on Arish, but he was the only one not there.
‘The doctor…’
‘Is extremely busy. We’ll meet with him again upstairs.’
Adams almost asked what he should do now, but caught himself in time. He gave the orders now. He made the decisions. He was there to understand the place he would soon be running, and that was what he would do.
He turned back and started towards the nearest cube.
‘This is where the specimens are kept? What about the other levels you were talking about? What will they be used for?’
‘Actually, the next level down is already in use.’
‘Didn’t he say they were still excavating?’
‘They are, but they were forced to seal off that level. But they took advantage of the situation and use it now for behavioural study.’ Adams didn’t understand, and it must have shown on his face. The secretary gestured to one of the cubes, whose nearest wall was missing. ‘I’ll show you.’
They headed towards the cube, and Adams saw that it was empty. He chose not to ask questions. Questions felt weak and reactionary here. As they stepped up into the stark white space, he saw a square metre of glass in the centre of the floor. A window through to the lower level.
Adams stepped up to the window, and the secretary circled around to the opposite side. On the other side of the glass was nothing but rock and darkness. He glanced quizzically at the man.
‘We must be careful, of course,’ the secretary said, peering intently through and examining every visible bit of rock.
‘Of course,’ Adams said, as though he was in the know. He realised that it only made him sound more stupid and ignorant, because the secretary knew damn well he wasn’t.
A polished shoe even more expensive than the tie tapped the floor beside the window. Muffled snapping sounds accompanied sparks and flashes stretching several metres down into the narrow abyss. A fine mesh covered the rock. What was the point of electrifying it?
‘You weren’t careful,’ one of the grunts said, closer to his ear than he would have liked.
‘I beg your par—‘
Arms grabbed both of his and held him roughly in place.
The glass hinged open towards the supervisor, who hadn’t taken his eyes off the darkness below.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ Adams demanded.
‘Giving you the tour. This is the only way to the next level since it was sealed.’
The grunts forced him forward. He instinctively tried to yank his arms from their grasp, but they were too strong. He tried to push away with his legs, but they were taller than he was and simply lifted him a couple of inches so that his feet had no purchase.
‘Anything happens to me and you’re all done!’ he shouted, desperately trying to get the words out before they threw him through the opening or his throat closed up with fear.
‘No.’
They tried to force him through, but he put his feet on either side and pushed back. The struggle lasted a few seconds before one of the hands left his arm and a fist smacked into his cheek. The blow dazed him and he didn’t have the chance to do anything when they both simultaneously kicked his legs together, and then threw him bodily forward. He banged into the glass hatch, cracking his head on it and his hip on the edge of the opening. And with a sickening lurch in his stomach and immediate breathlessness, he was freefalling. He tried to make a grab for the edge but he’d already fallen too far. His wrist hit the rock, followed by his elbow cracking against it with a flash of red and white pain. His thrashing caused him to bounce painfully off the walls a few times like a pinball, and then the brutal, unforgiving stone floor was under him.
An involuntary scream erupted from his mouth as agony shot through every limb, every atom. It echoed back at him from two sides and away from him on the other two.
He tried to cradle his broken leg in broken arms and hands, but the attempts only hurt more. Through hot tears, he looked back up at the square of light casting a silvery glow barely enough to see the bones protruding through his flesh. Two of the heads looking down at him withdrew.
Adams pushed himself backwards along the floor with his working leg until his back touched the tunnel wall. No, it squelched against the wall. The pain battled for priority with a growing dread and sinking awareness as he reached a misshapen arm backwards to touch the wall. His bare skin touched a thick, slimy layer over the stone. At least it felt soft, he thought, as a dangerous sense of peace and indifference began to settle over his mind.
He leaned back and stared into the pool of faint light under the shaft. Thoughts ceased to float through his mind, as though carried away by the blood dribbling from his wounds, but a sense of failure and injustice grasped his labouring heart. His contingencies hadn’t even made them hesitate.
A few minutes passed, he guessed, before he heard a sound. Someone was approaching through the tunnel. Quietly. Secretly. To save him? To finish him off? Probably that one. They’d thought the drop would kill him, and now they had to do it themselves. He didn’t have the strength or the sense to try to get away.
Which of them would be his executioner, he vaguely wondered as the faint sliding sound drew closer and became wet footsteps. Not the secretary. He wouldn’t get his manicured hands dirty. Nor would he risk the suit or shoes in this slime.
The footsteps stopped, and he could make out a figure peering at him from the gloom.
He didn’t have the energy to call out, but when his killer leaned forward for a better look, the face that appeared in the silver light elicited a grim, manic laugh from his split lips.
The storm raged on. Actually, the secretary reminded himself, this didn’t count as raging on this planet.
He checked his comm. The shuttle was on its way back again. What a waste of time this had all been. He should be at home with a scotch and a steak, not in this place. Such an absurd round-trip to shove one rat down a shaft when a bullet or a car accident would have sufficed. But if he’d tried to say no to the CEO, he’d be down there with Adams right now.
The elevator doors closed and he heard it descend. His other bodyguard. So Adams was gone already. At least Arish would have additional data from this. He doubted they’d tried many human sacrifices before. Unlike the previous inhabitants of the tower. He shivered.
‘What is that?’ Arish asked one of the control room operators.
She tapped at a screen and shared a nervous glance with him.
‘Something wrong, Doctor?’ the secretary asked.
Arish had said nothing, but he would have seen the alert that the glass hatch had opened. Sensors down in the tunnels would have told him a new inhabitant had arrived. He hadn’t made eye contact since.
‘We’re getting a spike in activity,’ he said, leaning closer to the screens. ‘We haven’t seen this kind of increase since…’
Arish’s eyes locked with his. The Event. His heart fluttered for a moment, but he took a deep breath and calmed himself. It wasn’t happening again. It couldn’t be. That had been dealt with halfway across the galaxy. This was something else.
‘It’s an even bigger spike, sir,’ the operator said. ‘This kind of activity—’
The control panels lit up with flashing lights. The control room itself began to flash orange.
‘Quarantine alert,’ the tower’s computer announced. ‘Quarantine alert. All personnel, report to your quarters. Full quarantine is now in effect. Electrical grids online.’
As the message repeated, Arish’s face became ghostly pale in the orange light. The secretary followed his eyes and saw the tower’s power usage. It was at least five times what it had been when he’d first stepped out of the elevator and idly watched the screens.
‘This is too much,’ the operator said. ‘Even with the storm powering us, the tower can’t keep up this output!’
‘What the hell is going on?’ the secretary demanded.
The elevator doors opened. It wasn’t his bodyguard who looked back at him. The elevator interior was so black that it seemed to absorb light, yet the flashing alert light glinted on a shining face staring out of the pitch. Adams.
His eyes reflected the orange flashing perfectly, giving him a crazed, menacing visage as he stared into the secretary’s eyes and opened his mouth.
‘Thank you for the tour.’
Fear of the Dark follows two men with names that end in “-er,” an android with poor communication skills, a spaceship crew, a few medics, "-er"'s sister, an alien woman with two hearts and strong arms, and some goopy aliens.
Upon entering the story, you can immediately feel the intimacy that the author has with this world. It’s clearly well-developed and intricately thought out. There are so many layers to many of the characters, their pasts, their relationships, and the spaces they occupy. As someone who hasn’t read the companion novels, I felt a little bit out of the loop, but the expansiveness of this world is still palpable after only reading this entry to the Nexus universe.
While there were a fair share of times when I felt more than a little stupid, the reveals left me with “ooh” moments and the redemption of my reading comprehension skills. I would recommend going into this book with either a) familiarity with the Nexus universe or b) a flexible ego.
But I do think that at times the structure could have been simplified, even for those who have read Harrison’s previous novels. There’s a lot going on here with previous contextual elements, timeline jumps, perspective shifts, and mistaken identities. As I said, ambitious.
There were also too many characters. While some were very well fleshed out, others were superfluous. I'm guessing they exist because they were necessary in previous Nexus books, but in this case I often found myself being confused by who people were and what their role was in the story. It felt like some of the crew members could have been merged together and nothing would have been lost.
But I think it was, overall, well done. Fear of the Dark is entertaining, fast-paced, and offers interesting settings bordering on Vandermeer-esque. Harrison is witty and sentimental, and this comes across in his prose and the relationships between (a few of) his characters.
Recommended for: fans of Star Wars and Ditto the Pokémon.