by I. O. Adler
If Sylvia Vincent was talking to the other Melded, she showed no outward sign. Like Ovo, one gadget fixed to her body must have been a communicator, and her mom could speak to them without moving her lips. Whatever translation they might have once needed before joining Club Melded was automated and invisible, not requiring a Dragoman.
“This wasn’t a social visit,” Carmen said.
She Who Waits flashed a band of yellow. “Your statement implies ulterior motive to designate Sylvia Vincent’s presence.”
“Her two goons are carrying weapons. Is that allowed by the Framework?”
“The mutual agreement between the survivors is to act peaceably. Designate Melded are the only ones to openly bring weapons off their own vessel. But it doesn’t mean others don’t also do so in a more clandestine fashion.”
“I’m guessing you’re not someone who keeps a blaster tucked away inside your shell. And I know the Melded will shoot first.”
She Who Waits didn’t respond. Carmen continued to study the screen. Her mother’s two escorts had settled in on either side of the shuttle’s outer hatch. Like guards. Were they there to keep her in the ship like a prisoner?
Carmen wiped her palms on her sweatshirt before pulling up the space suit.
“I do not recommend going outside,” She Who Waits said. “We can ask for help. The others on the Framework will talk to the Melded and ask them to return to their own ship.”
“This is your shuttle, not mine. I don’t have a place here. And I don’t want to wait for anyone to stick their neck out for me when it’s my mom out there causing problems.”
She placed the helmet on her head. It sealed. She felt a moment’s pressure in her ears and worked her jaw to clear it before stepping into the airlock. Her mom turned to face her as she emerged outside. So did the two sentries.
“You don’t need that suit here,” Sylvia said.
“I thought it best to be careful.”
“Each zone of the Framework accommodates the host’s preference. Most breathe air with enough oxygen that you and I can be comfortable. I can get you a simple wrist sensor, which will warn you in case you’re about to step through an atmosphere barrier and into someplace dangerous.”
“Okay. But why are these guys out in front of the shuttle?”
“They’re here to protect you, that’s all. The Cordice shared that there might be unknown agents on board the Framework. It explains some of the problems they were having. They’re investigating it and so is everyone else.”
She felt a chill. “They think there’s more of whatever might have attacked me?”
“Assuming you weren’t suffering some kind of hallucination, yes. We’re guessing it’s nothing more than a pest along the lines of rats which caused an outage. But you’re not the first one to report seeing something like what you described to the engineer. There are others on board the Framework who have dismissed such sightings, and even the Melded feel it’s nothing harmful. Sensor sweeps have always come back negative. Whatever these things are, the Framework has no record of them. No one wants what happened to the Cordice ship to happen to them. And no one is arguing that the harvester’s controls weren’t severed.”
“It wasn’t a rat, Mom. What does this mean for everyone on the Framework?”
“It means they’re locking down. Each of the member species is back on board their ship. But it changes nothing. We need to go to Earth. We’re listening for a reply from the Dragoman broadcast, but we can’t wait.”
“All right. I’ll go.”
Her mom cocked her head ever so slightly. Had she been expecting a fight? “Good. I’m happy that’s settled.”
“I’m worried about you, Mom.”
“I’m okay. At the risk of sounding overconfident, I’m better than that. We’re going to spend the hours of travel together. I hope I can make clear why what the Melded are trying to do is the best action. Not running. Not hiding. But fighting.”
“I’m not up for the hard sell. Why haven’t you asked about Jenna?”
“Because you said you brought her back. She’s already home. There’ll be time to check on her condition once Earth answers us.”
“But you didn’t ask me.”
Sylvia scowled. “We’re all under a lot of stress. You would have told me if she wasn’t okay. I love both of you. That won’t ever change. Now come with me. Our ship is preparing to leave.”
“I have my own request. I want She Who Waits to come. And I want to travel on her shuttle.”
“It’s not as fast as ours. She’ll have to dock with us. And you won’t be comfortable.”
“Nothing about this is comfortable,” Carmen said.
“We can talk while we travel. I’ve learned so much. There’s so many things you need to understand. I’ve spent virtual decades studying each race of the Framework, the galaxy beyond our system, the history, the art.”
“I’d like that too. You can come on board her shuttle and we can talk there. I know I’m being difficult. But that’s what I want if I’m going to come with you.”
Her mom paused. At first Carmen thought she was finding the words for a retort. But Sylvia Vincent wore a glazed expression as she tapped at virtual controls, as if typing on an invisible keyboard.
“Who are you talking to, Mom?”
Her mom met her stare. Her tone was crisp. “Tell She Who Waits to prepare to depart.”
She turned and headed down the tube leading to the landing. The two guards remained. When Carmen moved to follow, one of them blocked her path and pointed back at the shuttle. While the weapon dangled from a strap, the sentry kept a hand rested on it.
“Is that it, Mom?” Carmen shouted. “We’re prisoners?”
But her mom didn’t reply as she vanished into the gloom.
Chapter Nine
The guards stayed put as Carmen went back inside to find She Who Waits. She had just volunteered the Dragoman and her shuttle and realized she had no right to do either.
She Who Waits approached as Carmen stepped out of the hatch. “I have a message from designate Melded navigator. Our ship is to meet theirs before we begin our voyage to Earth.”
“You already heard from them?” Carmen asked. “You don’t have to do it. I should have asked you first.”
“I don’t understand the statement.”
“You don’t have to go. I suggested us using your shuttle to see what my mom would say. I was worried they were trying to get me on board their ship so they can…I don’t know…change me like they changed her. Turn me into one of them.”
“My comprehension of Melded ethics makes that unlikely. They don’t practice involuntary recruitment.”
“They have ethics?”
“Yes, especially around those they would alter physically with their adaptations.”
Carmen felt acid in her throat. “My mom wouldn’t just become one of them.”
“Each Melded retains their original neural matrix and consciousness.”
“As if you’d know. You’re trusting what they tell you.”
“I have been working with them for longer than you have been alive. Designate Carmen Vincent, I sense hostility and sarcasm. Please correct me if I’m mistaken. But designate Sylvia Vincent is still herself.”
“You’re forgetting part of her got left behind inside the Cordice virtual world. The Melded have only one part of her and are exploiting her to get what they want.”
She Who Waits’ tone remained maddeningly calm. “That is an interpretation.”
“How can you just accept all this? They stuck a bomb on you because you were slow to jump when the Primary Executive told you to. Almost killed you.”
“It is my duty to serve.”
“Come on! You said it yourself that you’re new to this. At what point do you stand up for yourself? Your job is to serve everyone here, not just the ones who bark the loudest.”
Carmen realized she was shouting. Hated herself for doing it. Hadn’t She Who Waits do
ne enough for her and Jenna and suffered for it? Laying all this at her feet, or floor tentacles, wasn’t fair.
She shoved her helmet into its compartment. “I’m sorry. I’m upset.”
She Who Waits’ swirls took on a few black bands, which were soon replaced by diamond sparkles.
“Any word from Earth?” Carmen asked.
“No. In fact, my communications have been cut.”
“What do you mean? How?”
“There are several technologies which could accomplish this. But it appears to be a signal jammer preventing my ship from accessing the Framework’s superior arrays to send and receive messages.”
“Right after the Melded gave you their orders. Unbelievable. It has to be them, right? They want to blame space rats but are just using that as an excuse. Why would they stop all communication?”
She Who Waits didn’t respond.
Could the Melded force She Who Waits to fly her shuttle and join them? She was afraid the answer was yes. No one stopped them when they had attacked the Cordice ship. It had only been after Carmen used the harvester and destroyed one of its spheres to deflect a missile that the Melded had recalled the Primary Executive.
She paced the length of the shuttle bay. Longed to lay her eyes on a distant vista, the sky, the sun. She angrily ate one of the food bars, which was like choking down cold oatmeal.
If the Melded had their doctor as their new leader, what had prompted their decision to return to arm-twisting to get what they wanted?
“Send one of your little bots to the Cordice. Request we communicate with them. They need to know what the Melded are planning. Either we go see them or they send a messenger here. Can you do that?”
She Who Waits flashed diamonds and one of the bots headed into the airlock.
Carmen chewed her thumb while watching the screen. The bot emerged outside. It had barely made it ten feet past the outer hatch when one of the Melded blasted it.
“Whoa!”
The bot was reduced to a double handful of splinters.
She slapped the wall of the shuttle. Renewed her pacing. “They just…destroyed it. No warning, nothing. They haven’t changed, have they? And now they’ve got my mom brainwashed to think and behave like them.”
“Perhaps. Or designate Sylvia Vincent is acting of her own accord and believes the Melded purpose is the right course.”
“How can you just accept what they’re doing? They destroyed your property. They’re threatening you all over again.”
“The bot was not me. I understand the principles of intimidation. They wish us to comply and stay on board and join them for their journey back to Earth.”
“And what happens if you refuse to go with them?”
“But I will go with them. As requested.”
“We talked about this. You have rights. You aren’t a slave to the Melded or to anyone else here. This is beyond your duty to anyone on the Framework. We have to let the Cordice and anyone who will listen know what they’re doing.”
She was about to continue her aimless stroll when she paused to consider the printer where She Who Waits had produced her new shell.
“How long did it take to make your replacement space suit?” Carmen asked.
“Two hours and three minutes.”
“And it has a propulsion unit. What if we wanted to make a quick mock-up of one, just enough so it could hover along beside you? That would be faster, right?”
“I don’t understand the purpose.”
Carmen couldn’t believe she was considering what she was thinking. She didn’t want to die. But she couldn’t let the Primary Executive do what he wanted with her and her mom.
She sized up the translator. “Who within the Framework might exercise some authority over the Melded? It’s clearly not the Cordice.”
“The Framework is a voluntary collective based on mutual aid. ‘Authority’ doesn’t exist as you mean it.”
Carmen felt the edge of a headache forming. “Yeah, I get that. But what about the One? He stood up to the Primary Executive at the council meeting. What’s your relationship with him…with it?”
“I perform my duty as requested.”
“We need to go talk to it and see if it will help.”
“With the communications down, we cannot make such a request.”
“Not from here. But we could in person. You could go to their ship and ask if they’ll help.”
She Who Waits’ tone remained matter-of-fact. “But the One did not summon me.”
“Then you invite yourself over. Consider it my request to you for service, if you have to. I’m not part of the Framework, but if your duty extends to anyone requiring translation, then that’s what I need from you.”
“The Melded sentries may not let me depart.”
“That’s the next step in my plan,” Carmen said. “If they shoot anyone leaving the ship, then we’re sunk. But somehow I’m guessing they might not want a repeat of what happened on the Cordice home ship. From what I’ve seen, their own translations are terrible. They need you to talk with Earth. They need me in case they can’t unlock the harvester. So do you trust me enough to try something which will keep us from becoming Melded slaves?”
More bands of black wove through the sandy patterns behind the translator’s shell. Carmen became concerned that she might have caused offense. Leaned too hard.
The last thing she wanted was to hurt She Who Waits. While she couldn’t wrap her head around how someone hundreds of years old could still be an apprentice, the young Dragoman had risked herself more than once already.
“I am no good at subterfuge,” She Who Waits said.
“I’m not telling you to lie. We just need to present enough information to those guards out there that they’ll let us get past.”
“While I can request to leave, I don’t see how you will accompany me.”
“I’ll explain that part while we wait. But first you need to get this printer going while there’s still time.”
Chapter Ten
As the shadow fed, one human paused near the spot on the floor where his fellow had fallen. Head bowed, his lips moved. The words were quite soft, but just loud enough to make out. The shadow thought he was addressing Barrett. But Barrett understood, so the shadow did too.
The human was praying.
He wore one of the bulky hazard suits and carried a compact black rifle slung on one shoulder.
A second soldier approached from the entrance. “Brody, get back on station.”
“Just a minute. Almost done.”
The second soldier left him. Brody resumed his prayer before stepping to the foot of Barrett’s bed. The shadow prepared itself in case it had to leave, a tendril resting on Barrett as it slid out through the bottom of the bed. Barrett hadn’t given up fighting. The shadow refused to let him go until the last possible moment.
“I’ll say one for you too,” Brody said. “You were up there. You saw them, didn’t you?”
Despite the panic, Barrett’s mind filled in a few of the blanks. This Brody was indeed a soldier, his weapon a slug thrower which could murder everyone in the emergency room, and he was a man of faith. Common enough among the humans, but overt displays of piety were considered unprofessional.
Brody came to the side of the bed. “What kind of monsters are they?”
Barrett managed some choking sounds before the shadow locked him down.
“We knew they were coming,” Brody said softly. “Not just the government, but Earth. Kept it under wraps until the Big Wipe let anyone who was paying attention know that we had our pants down. We all paid the price. You traveled there, didn’t you? The place where Peter Vogel went.”
The shadow had to push for the memories to understand. Peter Vogel. The husband of Jenna Vincent. A member of the Peace Patrol and someone Barrett thought of as a true believer. He had remotely linked to a robot on board the harvester when Sylvia Vincent had first contacted her daughters. But something had happened to him
during the process that Barrett didn’t fully understand, some sort of psychological break. The soldiers had taken him into quarantine before Barrett and Sylvia Vincent’s daughters had departed on board the harvester sphere.
The soldier kept talking. The shadow lost track of the rambling as it tried to uncover more of what the humans might believe.
Barrett must have been waiting for such a lapse. He forced himself to sit up. Contact between them was severed.
He screamed something. While the shadow couldn’t understand, it knew the words were a warning. Barrett repeated the ragged cry at the top of his lungs. The shadow stunned him. Barrett convulsed and sagged on the bed. Even his surface memories became scrambled.
The soldier reacted to Barrett’s cry, was stammering, calling out, fumbling for his weapon.
The shadow extracted itself from the bed. Flight would mean the humans would hunt it. Evading them might be simple enough, but it would become difficult to monitor their progress with the harvester. And it felt energized from its time feeding.
Even as Brody freed the weapon, the shadow slid past Barrett and sprang. It slammed into the soldier. The human proved too hefty to knock down. He was physically stronger, pushing the shadow’s limbs aside, but he couldn’t bring the weapon to bear. The shadow wrangled with him, keeping his arms occupied as it found the hazard suit’s zipper.
Brody was screaming when the shadow entered his suit. His cries cut off abruptly. The shadow clung to his neck and face and ran down his chest and back. The panic made pushing difficult. A feast of emotion flooded past, wasted, as the shadow fought for control.
Others were coming. Nurses, orderlies, scientists, and Brody’s fellow guard from the hospital entrance. Any of them might be armed.
The shadow would never gain control in time to feign normal behavior. It tasted and shared the man’s panic. Then it discovered where it could most easily push.
Specialist Ryan Brody, third son of Kevin and Rachel, husband to Tiana and father of one-year-old twins Phillip and Daniel, halfback on the varsity West Dayton Spartans football team, and diehard fan of all things rapture punk, opened fire.