She landed with a thud, face-down on the sheer marble surface. The suit was completely dead. Unable even to move enough to climb out the chest hatch, she coughed and gagged as the suit filled with smoke. She was on the verge of passing out when the suit was rolled onto its back. Her last memory before losing consciousness was being hauled out of the suit by long, rough fingers.
Chapter Thirty-eight
F reya awoke lying in a bed inside a simply furnished cell. She was surprised to be alive. Eric and the other men had been killed trying to get her to the Command Center. She was alone and imprisoned on an alien planet.
She was wearing a simple gown made of something like linen. Her head had been shaved, and further inspection revealed that her entire body was now devoid of hair. Her skin was raw, as if it had been scrubbed by course brushes. Decontamination, she thought. The Cho-ta’an had been concerned that she might be carrying some dangerous pathogen. She didn’t blame them.
There was only one exit to the room. The door had no handle or latch, only a face scanner. She saw no cameras, but she was certain they were there. She sat on the bed and waited.
About an hour after she awoke, a raspy Cho-ta’an voice came to her from somewhere above.
“Who are you?” the Cho-ta’an asked, in its language.
“My name is Freya,” she replied.
“You were sent by the IDL, Freya?”
“No. I came on my own.”
“What is your mission?”
“To destroy the Cho-ta’an High Command Center.”
“With the fission bomb we found attached to your suit?”
“Yes.”
“Where is your ship?”
“In orbit. It uses advanced stealth technology, so your radar will have a hard time locating it.”
“There is only one ship?”
“Yes.”
“Are more coming?”
“No.”
“We did not know the IDL were capable of building spacecraft that could not be detected by our sensors.”
“They aren’t,” said Freya. “As I said, I came on my own.”
The voice was silent for a moment. “We estimate the destructive potential of the bomb at one hundred kilotons, in human measurements.”
“That is correct.”
“You intended to destroy the Command Center with this device?”
“And as many of the surrounding buildings as possible.”
“Why?”
“To cripple the Cho-ta’an’s ability to wage war against humans.”
“Surely you must have known you would fail.”
“I nearly succeeded.”
“A missile fired from orbit would have been more effective.”
“Our intelligence indicated a missile would be intercepted by your planetary defenses. Our best bet was to land outside the city and then overcome its relatively weak ground defenses.”
“Why did you not trigger the bomb when you reached the Command Center?”
“My suit was dead. I couldn’t activate the detonator.”
“Even if you had,” said the Cho-ta’an, “you must know that destroying a few buildings would not end the war.”
“It would be a start.”
“Where does the IDL manufacture the mechanical suits your people used?”
“As I said, I am not with the IDL. The suits were manufactured in a secret facility on a remote planet called Kiryata.”
“This facility, it’s run by the IDL?”
“For the fourth time, I don’t work for the IDL. I’m willing to give information to the Cho-ta’an High Command, but I’m not saying another word to you.”
“Then you will be executed.”
“I doubt that. I think someone with more power than you is watching me right now, or at least recording this interrogation. That individual knows about Kiryata and what happened to it, or is about to contact someone who does. When that individual is ready, he, she or it knows where to find me.”
*****
About three hours later, another voice penetrated the cell. It introduced itself as General Semik Yarchillok. “How do you know about Kiryata?” it asked.
“I was there.”
“When?”
“Three weeks before you destroyed it.”
“How do you know about that?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Tell me anyway.”
“No. There are certain things I am not going to tell you, because doing so will serve no purpose.”
Semik was silent for a few seconds. “Why were you there?”
“I had an arrangement with the Fractalists. They gave me the bomb. I gave them the plans for the mech suits and a self-contained hyperspace drive.”
“There is no such thing as a self-contained hyperspace drive.”
“I suspect that before today, you’d have sworn there was no such thing as a forty-pound bomb with a destructive potential of a hundred kilotons.”
“You claim that the bomb was developed by the Fractalists at the Kiryata facility.”
“That’s right.”
“Our intelligence indicated it was a biological warfare facility.”
“Well, maybe you should have verified that before you blew it up, because now that bomb is the only one of its kind in existence.”
Semik was silent again for a moment. “We have limited use for such a weapon. We already have nuclear weapons, and the war against the humans has been won.”
“I imagine a self-contained hyperdrive would still be of some use. With hyperdrive-equipped ships, the Cho-ta’an could spread out across the galaxy—and beyond.”
“You claim to know how to build such a drive?”
“Not only do I know how to build it, I can give you one. The ship we took here is still in orbit. It’s wired to explode if it’s tampered with, but I can tell you how to defuse it.”
“You seem quite willing to cooperate with us.”
“As you say, the war is over. This was my people’s last chance to strike a blow against the High Command. We failed.”
“Who are your ‘people,’ exactly? You claim you do not work for the IDL.”
“My organization is what you could call a spinoff from the IDL. We’re a separate group with our own aims and our own technology. We remained out of the war as long as we could, but we could not allow humanity to be eradicated. We contacted the Fractalists in the hopes of executing a joint assault. Clearly it was too little, too late, but we did what we could.”
“Where is this organization?”
“I am not going to tell you that.”
“We could compel you to do so.”
“You could, but you won’t, because then I will give you the wrong code to deactivate the bomb aboard my ship and you will have lost the only known self-contained hyperdrive in existence. My organization is no threat to you. We are a handful of people on a distant planet. We have no weapons. This was our last and only chance to save humanity. We failed.”
“And now you are willing to betray your kind. For what? A bigger cell? A better view?”
“That’s a good start,” said Freya. “But it’s hardly a betrayal. Humanity lost. Our species has reached the end of its life. I may as well be comfortable.”
“This is why we won,” said Semik. “No Cho-ta’an would think this way. Not even the Fractalists are so craven.”
Freya shrugged. “It matters little what you think of me.”
*****
The next day, Freya was quizzed by several Cho-ta’an scientists regarding the fission bomb, the stealth technology used by Valkyrie, and its self-contained hyperspace drive. She answered all the questions as well as she could. Having personally overseen the fabrication of the bomb, she knew its design well, but pretended to have minimal knowledge. She knew less about the stealth technology and the hyperspace drive, but she was able to answer all the questions posed to her with little difficulty. It seemed the Cho-ta’an were not so much acq
uiring information as assessing her knowledge and intent. The “scientists” did all the talking, but there were often long pauses between questions, indicating they were being coached. At one point, a slot at the bottom of her door opened and a tray with food and a glass of water was slid inside. The water smelled of sulfur and the food was somewhere on the spectrum between unappetizing and inedible. She staved off hunger by forcing down a few bland, chalky crackers and dried fruits that were like overly fibrous prunes. The interrogation continued all the while.
After several hours of this, the questioning abruptly stopped. The door opened and three Cho-ta’an in suits designed for handling hazardous materials stepped into the room. She caught a glimpse of a small room like an airlock just outside her cell. One of the Cho-ta’an, holding a gun, ordered her out of bed. While the guard stood in the corner watching, the other two ordered Freya out of bed, stripped her naked, and proceeded to probe and scan every nook and cranny of her body. They took samples of her blood, saliva, urine and spinal fluid. When they’d finished, nearly two hours later, she felt thoroughly sore and violated. She lay down and sobbed quietly into her pillow until she fell asleep.
The next day was much the same. Again she was quizzed, being asked many of the same questions she’d already answered. Again she was scraped, prodded, probed and scanned. This time she was too numb to cry before falling asleep. The questions resumed the next morning—questions she had already answered, some of them many times. Her answers were always the same. She wanted to yell, to scream, to tell them they weren’t going to get another iota of information unless they gave her some decent food and stopped assaulting her with their instruments and probes, but she knew that earning their trust was part of the price she had to pay. At last, as the day’s questioning seemed to be winding down and Freya began to wonder what sorts of torture she would be subjected to that evening, the voice belonging to Semik spoke the words she had been waiting for.
“We have located your ship.”
Freya did not respond.
“Give me the entry code.”
“I would like to be moved to a larger room, preferably with a view. I would like something resembling human food. And I would like the physical abuse to stop.”
“The examinations are necessary to ensure you are not carrying any weapons or biological agents hidden in your body.”
“If they haven’t determined that by now, it’s not going to happen. I’ve been more than patient. Start treating me with some basic decency or you’re never getting into my ship.”
“We will find a way around your security eventually.”
“Maybe. And maybe you’ll make a mistake and destroy the only self-contained hyperdrive within a thousand light-years.”
A long pause followed. “I am told that one more biological screening is required to clear you. Then we can see about moving you to more comfortable accommodations.”
Freya groaned. “This is the last one?”
“It is. For what it is worth, I give you my word.”
“All right.”
*****
The next day, Freya was moved into a modest but well-furnished apartment with a view of the plaza where Eric had died. There were bars on the windows and a guard outside her door. The wreckage of Eric’s suit had already been cleared away, and repairs to the pavement were nearly completed. Freya had asked to see the bodies on her second day in confinement, but they had already been incinerated. The Cho-ta’an were taking no chances that they had brought dangerous pathogens to Yavesk—particularly now that they knew Freya had been to Kiryata.
Her first afternoon at the apartment, she received her first visitors not wearing hermetically sealed suits. The two, who introduced themselves as physicists, grilled her for four hours about the portable fission bomb. Her answers were evidently satisfactory, as they came back the next day with several more Cho-ta’an. The day after that, another group came to ask her about the hyperdrive aboard Valkyrie. She had given Semik the code to defuse the bomb, and Valkyrie had been brought to the surface. This went on for two weeks, with scientists, technicians, military officers and civilian leaders coming to ask her questions about the mech suits, the Fractalists, the fission bomb, Valkyrie’s stealth technology, the hyperdrive, and a dozen other topics. Every day she talked until she was hoarse and exhausted.
She was moved into a larger apartment, with more bars, more guards, and a better view. She gathered she was becoming something of a celebrity on Yavesk; some of the Cho-ta’an who came to see her carried cameras or recording equipment. The last human being in existence, right here on Yavesk! She answered all their questions as best she could, politely declining to say anything substantial about Jörmungandr, how she had known where to find Kiryata, and how she had known about the Fractalist facility’s destruction. She lied only when necessary, and insisted, truthfully, that she wished the best for the Cho-ta’an and hoped that if they ever met humans again on some forgotten planet, they would remember the help Freya had given them.
Three weeks after she arrived, Freya began to feel ill. Fortunately the Cho-ta’an were so unfamiliar with human biology that she was able to hide the symptoms for two full days. They only suspected something was wrong when she fell asleep during a discussion of hyperspace technology with a group of ten Cho-ta’an scientists.
Freya felt tired and achy. The lymph nodes at her neck were swollen, and her throat hurt. The Cho-ta’an doctors who examined her opined that she’d been infected with some virus common on Yavesk that her body had no antibodies against. They had been aware of this possibility, of course, and had given her a cocktail of antivirals and carefully screened every Cho-ta’an who came into contact with her. Evidently their precautions were insufficient. Freya assured them it was nothing serious, but the interviews were put on hold while she recovered.
Over the next two days, however, her condition worsened. The evening of her second day in isolation, she was awakened from a nap by General Semik, who sat in a chair across from her bed. “There seems to be a virus going around the capital,” he said.
“That would explain my condition,” Freya said groggily, sitting up in bed.
“That’s one possibility,” said Semik. Freya noticed that his voice was even raspier than usual, and there was swelling in the soft tissue below his eyes. “Our best scientists are saying it’s a new variety of a common respiratory virus.”
“You sound dubious.”
“You never intended to use the fission bomb,” he said.
Freya regarded his (Freya thought Semik was a he, although she wasn’t sure) cold, black Cho-ta’an eyes. “No,” said Freya. “I didn’t.”
“It was a ruse, a way to get us to use you as a source of information.”
“Yes.”
“How did you do it? We shaved you, scrubbed you, irradiated you, took samples of your blood, your saliva, your urine. There was no way you could have carried an active virus here.”
“It wasn’t active when I brought it,” Freya said. “It was in a tiny capsule inserted into the lining my nasal passage, completely organic and virtually undetectable—another neat bit of technology my people developed. I’ll give you the details if I live long enough. It gradually worked its way out and then dissolved in the moisture of the mucus membranes, releasing the virus.”
“How long ago?”
“I started showing symptoms four days ago, so the virus must have been released about three days before that. I’ve been contagious for a little over five days.”
And during that time, you’ve met…”
“Forty-three Cho-ta’an. I’m not familiar with Cho-ta’an social structure, but if it’s anything like humans’, they’ve each spread it to several hundred people by now. If you can track all those people down in the next few hours, you might stop the spread, but I doubt it.”
“You seem to be suffering more than we are.”
Freya laughed, and it turned into a hacking cough. When she recovered, she said, “Yes, that�
�s the rub. It will probably kill me, even with your ‘antivirals.’ For your people, it will be no worse than a mild head cold—assuming you get those.”
“We do. I have one right now, in fact—as you’ve probably noticed. I don’t understand. Why orchestrate all this to give us a cold?”
“The respiratory symptoms are just a way to facilitate transmission of the virus. A more consequential symptom will become apparent later.”
“It will kill us too.”
“No. You will recover from the respiratory symptoms and feel as well as you ever did. But it will make some minor modifications to your DNA.”
General Semik stared at her. “This virus was engineered by the Fractalists.”
“Yes.”
“It is forbidden to speak of this.”
“Just as well. My throat hurts.”
Semik got to his feet and walked to the window. After some time, he turned, seeming to have made a decision. “It is true, then? What the Fractalists are said to believe?” He glanced to the door, as if expecting the authorities to charge in and drag him away.
“That the Cho-ta’an were descended from humans? Yes. That virus is the proof, as your scientists will someday discover. The virus simply turns off a series of DNA sequences and reactivates others.”
“Then our children….”
“Will be human. We’re the same race.”
“If that is true, then why do this?”
“Because whether you like it or not, the Cho-ta’an strain was an aberration, engineered to allow the race to survive a specific set of circumstances. Even on Yavesk, those circumstances no longer exist. You have the technology to support human life if you wish to.”
“The change made by the virus could be undone.”
“It could, if your understanding of genetics had kept pace with your development of warships and hyperspace gates. The fact that your scientists think this is a mutant strain of a common virus tells me it hasn’t. At some point you lost the knowledge of how you became what you are. A few members of your species did recover the secret, but you murdered them.”
The War of the Iron Dragon: An Alternate History Viking Epic (Saga of the Iron Dragon Book 5) Page 28