by Robert Boren
“Go on,” Ecason said.
“I found two friends who weren’t infected. Both had escaped to a rural area. They understood the situation. They also knew of many humans who were not infected in the cities. They sent me video received from the survivors in one of the cities.”
“Video of the creatures?” Ecason asked.
“Yes. You’re right, they look like wasps with hands, and they multiply quickly, but they can’t grow above two meters long.”
Ecason sat down, thinking. “Insects in our universe can’t grow large on the more mature planets, because the oxygen content isn’t high enough. We have large insects in world levels 15, 16, and 17, when the oxygen level was much higher. The Paleozoic era. Insects become much smaller by level 14. Of course they never got as big as the creatures in the other universe.”
“What was the oxygen level in their universe?” Elizabeth asked. “I don’t remember you saying it was unusually high.”
“It wasn’t, but I can confirm. I’ve got a lot of data on my PA.” He was silent for a moment. “Remember that poisonous compound that smelled like ammonia? I’ll bet that’s necessary for long-term survival. It might make the oxygen more accessible to their cellular structure.”
XC22272 pulled out his communicator. “I’ll cast some video to the screen, of an altercation between humans and these creatures. The local humans can kill them with ease.”
The video started, showing a group of teenaged humans chasing a group of the creatures, stomping on them with their feet, killing them all in minutes. Then adult humans showed up and rounded up the kids, killing several that resisted.
“Oh no, they’re killing their own children,” Elizabeth said.
XC22272 nodded. “The only way the creatures survive is under the protection of the humans they’ve infected, and they must continue to find new humans.”
“Why do they have to continue to find more?” Elizabeth asked.
“Their ability to take over a host exists only for reproduction. When they first take over a host, they set up the temperature oscillation. There’s a limit to how long a host can be kept in that condition before eggs are implanted. The hatching process is fatal to the host, of course.”
“Oh,” Elizabeth said. “What’s the incubation span?”
“Relatively long, according to the people there,” XC22272 said. “Sixteen months.”
“What’s the pre-incubation limit?” Ecason asked.
“We’re not sure,” XC22272 said. “It appears to vary quite a bit. There are some cases where pre-incubation oscillation went on for nearly a year. They think it might have something to do with the Vitamin D level of the host, and the outside temperature. The creatures can’t take heat or cold well. The two people in the rural area said their region gets too hot in summer and too cold in winter for these things to complete their life cycle. Coastal cities in moderate areas are better for them.”
“We’ll be able to defeat these things,” Ecason said. “They’re barely hanging on. This is a hostile environment for them.”
“How are they multiplying so quickly if they’re killing their human hosts?” Elizabeth asked.
“All they need is a warm-blooded creature to incubate,” XC22272 said. “They’re breeding using non-human hosts. The only reason they bother with humans is to control their environment and provide protection from non-infected humans. Oh, and they have one other big problem.”
“What’s that?” Ecason asked.
“The only thing they can eat is each other.”
{ 14 }
Retrofit
E lizabeth and Ecason sat in the lab with XC22272 and XC22475, their eyes wide.
“The creatures are cannibalistic?” Elizabeth asked.
“Yes,” XC22272 said. “Was this the situation in their home universe, Ecason?”
“I don’t know,” Ecason said. “They hid things like that from us. That’s what made me suspicious about them. I didn’t understand why they would be secretive about that. My first thoughts were that they viewed us as a food supply.”
“Were there other creatures living there?” XC22475 asked. “Maybe there was a lower-level food chain of lessor creatures.”
“Or maybe they ate vegetation,” Elizabeth said.
Ecason shrugged. “I’ll go through Janize’s notes again, but I doubt there will be much to help us there. I’d remember.”
“How did you travel away, since we’re inside an underground bunker?” Elizabeth asked.
“There are spacecraft access ports,” XC22272 said. “We can move small vessels through them.”
“How bad is it on the surface of this planet?” Ecason asked.
“The royal family is being held hostage, from what we can tell,” XC22475 said. “Based on what I’ve learned in the last forty-eight hours, I suspect they’re managing them, to keep their authority over the population in place.”
Elizabeth looked away. “They’re being farmed.”
“I’m going to say something you won’t like,” Ecason said.
XC22272 looked down for a moment, then back at Ecason. “I’m open to any ideas you might have at this point. Go ahead.”
“Do you have royal family members down here that could take over the government?”
“Our society values all of them, regardless of age or experience,” XC22272 said. “If we were able to get them to a safe place and build a government around them, I believe most of the worlds would follow them. We have a difficult problem, though.”
“What’s that?” Ecason asked.
“Official government communication is controlled on the C-prefix planets. Too many Clan worlds believe the propaganda released by infected members of the royal family.”
“What does the propaganda say?” Elizabeth asked.
“There’s a plague attacking the C-prefix planets, and these worlds must be quarantined so it doesn’t spread to the other worlds. They’re pretending to sacrifice themselves to protect the society.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “So that protects the creatures from molestation.”
“If the other worlds got together and invaded the royal planets, fortified with Vitamin D and having the testing tools at their disposal, they’d liberate them quickly,” Ecason said.
“Possible, but it’s also a great risk,” XC22475 said. “We could have these things sneaking from C prefix worlds to the greater population.”
“We need to think about this logically,” Ecason said. “These creatures can’t continue in their current situation forever. They’re fighting the environment, and they’ll eventually run out of hosts, unless they’re actively promoting human reproduction. They know their species has a time limit here no matter what.”
“Yes, we can still track population on the C-prefix planets,” XC22272 said, “and it’s dropping like a rock.”
“How can you track that?” Elizabeth asked.
“Clan eye enhancements,” XC22272 said. “We can see them with our sensors. The population of C1121-B is down by about 40%. We’ve had similar losses on this planet and others.”
“Wow, that’s a huge percentage,” Elizabeth said. “I’m so sorry.”
“Can you tell who the owners of the eye enhancements are?” Ecason asked.
XC22272 nodded. “We can, by the serial numbers.”
“How about current location?”
XC22475 eyed Ecason. “What are you getting at?”
“If we know where the captive royal family members are, perhaps we can rescue them, and get them off this planet.”
“They’ll be under heavy guard,” XC22272 said.
Ecason chuckled. “I’m sure, but we know the creatures only have a tenuous hold on the situation. The resistance we run into might not be as rigorous as you’re thinking.”
“How much Vitamin D do we have down here?” Elizabeth asked, “and how many people do we have who can fight?”
“We have a large supply,” XC22272 said, “but remember where we are. The
re’s no sunlight down here. We need to keep reserves, or we’ll be forced onto the surface.”
“We need to get out of here anyway,” XC22475 said. “You know that, brother. We’ll start running out of food in another six months or so, unless we start rationing.”
XC22272 sat. “Before we start any of this, we need to move the royals in the bunker to a safe location.”
“How much capacity do we have to move people out?” Elizabeth asked.
“It’s bad,” XC22272 said. “The largest vehicles we have down here can take twelve passengers, and we only have three of those.”
“That’s not the only problem,” XC22475 said. “We need to get past the communication jamming and notify authorities on a safe world. If we can’t do that, our ships will be destroyed before they can land. Right now the only communications going out are from infected royals here, and they’ve warned the other planets not to allow ships to land from any of the C-prefix planets.”
“To protect themselves from the plague,” Elizabeth said, shaking her head.
XC22475 nodded.
“I’m really good at getting around jamming technology,” Ecason said.
“We had communications and encryption experts on the Magellan III,” Elizabeth said. “We’ve also got a number of biological experts. We could work on a strategy to neutralize the alien population. That might be the easiest way to accomplish what we need to do.”
“Where is that ship, anyway?” Ecason asked.
“The Magellan III was in orbit around this planet,” XC22272 said. “It was destroyed, probably by infected individuals in the military.”
“Did you get everybody off?” Elizabeth asked.
“We got all the scientists off,” XC22272 said. “There were crew members aboard when it was destroyed. I’m sorry.”
“What about the Razor production plant?” Ecason asked.
“That’s on S1133-C,” XC22272 said.
Ecason was silent for a moment. “Are you still building Razors for Aeon?”
XC22475 eyed XC22272. “Did you decide?”
“I’m not taking Central Authority calls anymore. I might not be able to stop them from delivery, though. Our economic situation is bad.”
“The procurement won’t shut down if you cut off contact?” Elizabeth asked.
“There are independent contacts between the production management and the Central Authority. They could make their own deal. I can’t do much about that until we have the Royals back in control.”
Ecason stood. “Okay, fair enough. I’ve got a bunch of ideas rattling around in my head. I need to go off someplace and work through them. Anything you can get me on the communications system controls would be helpful, as well as connection information for their controlled broadcasts.”
“I’ll go meet with the scientists,” Elizabeth said. “I think I know what seeds to plant.”
“Thank you both,” XC22272 said. “Let’s go, brother. I want to chat with the Royals.”
***
Aeon watched as the body of a Corporal was removed from his office, a team of cleaners rushing in to mop up the blood and tissue. General Corsi walked in, stepping around the mess.
“You called?”
Aeon chuckled. “Don’t worry, that is not your fate. Sit.”
Corsi nodded, sitting in a chair facing the massive desk. “What can I do for you, Mr. Prime Minister?”
“You aren’t going to ask about that?” Aeon nodded to the mess.
“I didn’t think it was my business,” Corsi said, sweat beads breaking out on his forehead.
“That corporal was ordered to take landing crafts full of troops to the surface of a planet. He refused, calling it a suicide mission. I made an example of him. Video is being distributed.”
“Oh,” Corsi said. “Our difficulty installing speed loaders is causing a big problem, as we both expected.”
“We have enough landing craft to move forces to the surface, but the first few will have a very tough time. Very tough indeed. We need them to suck it up. I can understand grunts complaining about this, but we can’t have officers doing that.”
“I understand,” Corsi said, “not that you require my approval.”
“The military needs to fear me more than they fear the enemy.”
“Yes, of course.”
Aeon leaned back in his chair. “We’ve got a problem, one that I expected. It’s time to bring you up to speed. I’ll need help from you handling the situation.”
“I’ll be happy to help, sir.”
“Don’t be quite so patronizing. You aren’t in danger. I know who I can get away with killing and who I can’t. You’re valuable, and you’re part of my inner circle. Settle down.”
“Sorry,” Corsi said, wiping the sweat off his brow. “Go ahead. How can I help?”
“I can’t contact XC22272. He’s refusing my calls.”
“Who’s he again? These coded names give me fits.”
Aeon chuckled. “I know, me too. He’s the procurement manager for our Razor ships. The direct liaison with the manufacturing plant, and also the coordinator of efforts to develop our cloaking device.”
“Oh. Very important person. You saw this coming?”
Aeon nodded. “Yes, that’s the real reason I sent Stuart Cain and Admiral Boeraton to the Clan Zone. They don’t know it yet.”
“Did they link up with those five diplomatic Razors?”
“They jumped away together a couple hours ago,” Aeon said. “We won’t hear from them for a while. It takes a long time to jump across the Free Zone.”
“Yes. Are they really going to C1111-A?”
“This is classified,” Aeon said. “There’s something wrong on all of the C planets. Rumor has it there is a plague, but I can’t get confirmation. All those worlds are under quarantine. Entry into the atmosphere has been restricted. I’ve not been able to contact any of the royal family for quite some time.”
Corsi smiled. “If they can’t land on C1111-A, they might be sent to the manufacturing planet.”
“That’s what we’re hoping,” Aeon said. “The Clan leadership has been very careful to hide the location. I figured it was worth sending Cain and Boeraton there to poke around, just in case.”
“They might not survive this,” Corsi said.
“No big loss. Boeraton would probably be dead by now if he’d stayed here, and he knows it. I figured that out during the conversations I had with him while the Forestall was cruising on impulse power.”
Corsi smirked, shaking his head.
“What?” Aeon asked.
“I wondered why you didn’t send the five Razors with them. Now I know. You wanted a situation where you could work on Boeraton. A couple days of impulse cruising provided that quite nicely.”
Aeon smiled. “You have to think several steps ahead when dealing with the set of adversaries we’ve got.”
“So you never believed Ecason was there?”
“Ecason is a ghost,” Aeon said. “He might be alive, he might be dead. He might have gotten stuck in that neighboring universe he was obsessed with. Nothing personal, but I hope he never shows up. The Zone is hard enough to control without people like him and Alexander Carlson around.”
“I have a sneaking suspicion he is still alive,” Corsi said. “Nothing more than a hunch, though.”
“Every hunch is based on something,” Aeon said. “What’s yours based on?”
“The similarity of the Razor design to a concept Ecason developed.”
“Oh, that. Heard, but never saw it.”
“Want to?” Corsi asked.
“You have it?”
Corsi snickered. “I kept a copy of the artist’s concept when I heard it was going to get purged.”
“That purge was one of the few smart things my predecessor did,” Aeon said. “Sure, let’s see it.”
“I’ll cast it to your screen, if that’s okay.”
“You know the code,” Aeon said, sitting back as
Corsi spoke softly into his comm unit.
“You should see it now.”
Aeon’s eyes got wide as he looked at it, his heart skipping a beat. “That is striking. At a glance it’s the same design.”
“It’s not just the appearance,” Corsi said. “There were other similarities. That’s the real reason the concept documentation was purged. The design was essentially completed.”
“How long ago did Ecason disappear?” Aeon asked. “It was only three or four years ago, wasn’t it?”
“More like five.”
Aeon leaned forward in his seat. “Maybe I should rethink this. If the Razor design was completed before Ecason disappeared, I could see it being put into production at the speed it was.”
Corsi nodded. “Good point, but Ecason himself might not have been involved. Our friends in the Clan might have gotten ahold of the design independent of Ecason… even after his death. We just don’t know.”
“I’ll have to give this some serious thought, but enough of that. I’m sending you the recordings of my conversations with Boeraton. Study them carefully.”
“How will that help?”
“I want to know your impression,” Aeon said. “It’s helpful to have somebody else thinking.”
“Okay, no problem. You suspect he did something against you?”
“Vermillion’s team and the leadership of Pentant Simtar were warned about our spies. Boeraton, Cain, and X22945 knew, and I couldn’t monitor them.”
“Oh,” Corsi said.
“Don’t let that color your analysis too much,” Aeon said. “They might not have done it. Or it’s possible that the leak came from the Forestall, but Boeraton knew nothing about it. That’s all I had.” He turned his attention to his screen as if Corsi wasn’t there.
Corsi left, avoiding the blood.
***
Deacon was in his Zephyrus stateroom next to a mover filled with his stuff. There was a knock at his door.