Noah's Ark

by Vijaya Schartz

  Trixie chuckled at the irony of McLure's sharp tongue silenced. Smart. It would protect Kostas from acidic remarks. As part of the council, the officers present had all heard McLure's accusations of Kostas being a clone. Still, some words best remained unspoken.

  With Kostas dragging McLure along, they traveled back the same tunnel. They all followed when the Zerker guides took a turn, then led them up many steps to a landing and another door. This one, however had no jutting hinges.

  Relinquishing his prisoner to Tabor, Kostas quickly scanned the door with his detector. “A crossbar braces the door inside.”

  “What do you suggest?” Trixie had no doubt Kostas had an answer.

  “No problem.” Kostas motioned for everyone to stand back.

  Trixie and the others complied.

  With the same laser-tool he'd used for the hinges of the first door, Kostas carved a roughly circular cut into the lower part of the wooden door. Tiny flames coursed along the black burnt line, and the smell of charred wood filled the small space. When the circular line closed, Kostas kicked out the thick, round panel. It flew out on the other side, clearing a wide hole in the lower part of the door.

  The Zerkers stepped back behind their queen. Their job was done.

  Kostas crouched and ducked through the hole, then signaled for Tabor to hand him the prisoner. McLure, Tabor, Tom, then Cheng followed.

  Dolores offered Trixie a friendly smile. “Good luck, Captain.”

  “Thanks, Dolores.” Trixie ducked inside what must be the cellar of the capitol building, leaving Dolores and the two Zerkers behind in the tunnels. They had fulfilled their part of the bargain.

  From now on, the fate of the Human settlers resided upon the shoulders of the skeleton team. Five officers, and their prisoner, McLure.

  Chapter Nineteen

  McLure grimly yielded to Kostas' shoving and pushing as they climbed the familiar stairs of the capitol building, all the way to the roof, where his shuttle waited. His bony shoulders ached, the twine bit into his wrists, and that tape over his mouth couldn't be sanitary. How dare the despicable clone arrest and manhandle him?

  Had this Neanderthal no respect for the higher intelligence who'd successfully seeded this planet with a viable fauna? People like McLure manufactured clones like Kostas. Didn't he grasp the difference between a created utility clone and a creator of life?

  Trixie's voice rang from the rear of the small group. “Is the shuttle here?”

  “Yes, Captain,” the black pirate in the red beret answered up ahead. “I can see it,”

  “Getting to the ship unseen will be a piece of cake,” Cheng volunteered. “We'll slip right past their shields.”

  What a ridiculous plan. Even if he could speak, however, McLure wouldn't tell the morons how wrong they were. A few of them carried swords, for the devil's sake... swords, to raid a starship! In any case, they might get through the shields, but their little attack would fail. During his prolonged visits to the Goddian ship, McLure had witnessed a few routine security simulations. He'd glimpsed enough to know the vessel was impervious to commando raids.

  Although glad to return to the comfortable safety of the Goddian ship, McLure desperately looked for an opportunity to ditch these imbeciles as soon as they boarded the large vessel. He didn't want to stand anywhere close to them when the automated defenses started picking targets, or worse, flooded the compromised corridors with deadly gas, if it didn't beam the attackers straight into the void of black space.

  McLure shuddered at the very thought. As tough as they came, even military clones needed to breathe.

  They reached the roof landing and the open cubic shelter that protected the stairs from inclement weather. McLure felt like smiling. Of course, he couldn't because of the damned tape. In his field of view, the shuttle hovered a foot above the flat roof, only five paces away.

  While the team stood under the protection of the covered landing, Tom ventured alone to the shuttle. As he approached it, the bubble hatch tilted to allow him inside.

  “McLure.” Kostas motioned with his pulse rifle. “Now, you go.”

  McLure offered no resistance and made his way sullenly to the vehicle.

  Kostas soon joined them inside. Then, one by one, Cheng, Tabor, and Trixie ran to fill the shuttle. McLure realized they'd come one at a time to fool the satellites. If only one Human signature was detected on the open roof at any given time, it wouldn't attract attention... since McLure had permanent clearance. Clever, but not clever enough.

  Once the five raiders sat on board, Kostas touched the hatch release on the armrest with the butt of his rifle. The hatch closed and the small flyer lifted in total silence, toward its pre-programmed destination.

  On the plain in the distance, fog and mist dissipated under the early morning warmth. Directly underneath them, through the flexglaz bubble, McLure could now see the abandoned streets of the citadel. And outside the northern gate, on the platform carved in the mountain flank, sat the oppressive black barge, like a giant cockroach, an evil stain in the scenery.

  McLure wished things had turned out differently. Noah’s Ark could have been a great experiment in a perfect setting, an organized society that respected science and culture. Instead, Kassouk would never be more than a rudimentary hovel to shelter lowly slaves. In any case, McLure hoped to find his own rightful place among more evolved beings... in Goddian society.

  No one spoke during the short flight to the orbiting ship. No sound to betray uninvited travelers... just in case someone was listening. The raiders glanced at each other, clasping their pulse rifles in a white-knuckle grip. They should be worried, indeed.

  Inconspicuously, McLure kept working to loosen the rough twine binding his hands behind his back. It gave a little, but not enough, even for his skinny fingers. Damn the clone for doing his job so well.

  Soon the Goddian ship loomed in the distance, like a huge, luminous, scalloped shell.

  The shuttle crossed the ship's outer shields in a glittering rainbow shower and parked itself in its usual white bay. When the team stepped out of the shuttle, Kostas, still in silent mode, motioned for McLure to get out.

  McLure shook his head vehemently. He wanted to stay as far away as possible from this suicidal team.

  Kostas sighed. He plucked McLure out of the shuttle, threw him down to the white rubbery floor. Then he leapt down and held him there with his booted foot. The soldier pulled another length of twine from his belt and fastened McLure's already restrained hands to an anchoring hook on the floor, further tightening the binds. Damn the clone.

  The problem was, if no one gave the alarm, the automated defenses might not consider a few Humans as a threat. Especially since they came in a Goddian shuttle, and two of them had visited the ship in the past.

  The team disappeared along a white corridor, the wrong one, but McLure wouldn't tell them if he could. He strained against the twine. It took him several minutes of suffering before he could finally slip one bloody hand out of the ties. Then he pulled off the tape from his mouth with a wince, and labored on freeing the other hand, still bound to the anchoring hook on the floor. Damn! It took even more time to loosen the second tie, even with one free hand.

  As soon as his skinny fingers loosened the loop, McLure hurried out of the bay, rubbing his chafed wrists. He took the opposite direction the team had taken... toward Prince Ktal's private chambers. Ktal would certainly reward McLure for his loyalty to the Godds, and grant him a place in Goddian society yet.

  The iris door opened to let him in. Ktal glanced up from his console and swiveled his chair to face him. “I thought we agreed your services were not required until we have live animals to study.”

  “I know, My Prince, but I came to warn you.” McLure bowed stiffly.

  “Warn me of what? The mine has collapsed? The production has stopped?” Ktal's large turquoise eyes pinned McLure where he stood. “The Imperial authority will soon take away my royal status in retribution for failure, and
you came to warn me?”

  “The mine collapse was no accident, My Prince.”

  “Don't call me prince. I am not your prince, I am prince only to the Godds. To you, I am lord over your inferior race.”

  McLure's heart tumbled in his chest at the insult. “The slaves destroyed the mine as they escaped. Even worse, a group of them forced me into my shuttle, and are aboard this ship right now, looking to kill you!”

  “Kill me? Ridiculous!” Ktal emitted a deep, rumbling belly laugh. “And why should I trust you, anyway? You lied to me all along.”

  McLure straightened his frame in what he hoped looked like righteous indignation, wishing he wore more appropriate garb than a house robe. “I did honor my word. I've been loyal. I told you where they hid!”

  “But you didn't tell us the most important thing of all.” Ktal rose, now towering over McLure. “And for a geneticist, it's an unforgivable crime.”

  McLure scratched his head, at a complete loss. “What important thing?”

  “That your clone is fertile, and that three women among the settlers are pregnant... one of them, the one you call Trixie, carries his progeny.”

  “What?” McLure couldn't grasp the meaning of the words. “It's impossible... clones are always sterile. We make damn sure of it.”

  “You do? But why?” Ktal frowned. “We explored cloning options on my world, but never could engineer clones perfect enough to reproduce. How did you manage to make this Kostas fertile?”

  “Damn!” McLure now remembered something odd about the Kostas models file. They'd been recalled with no specific mention on record of what their defect might be. McLure had assumed it was their inconvenient tendency to empathize with civilian enemies, children in particular. In retrospect, empathy was not the flaw, only a symptom… a fatherly reaction. “I swear, I didn't know, My… Lord.”

  “Come on, McLure. You are a geneticist who boasts about his intelligence. You expect me to believe you didn't know? Are you lying to me again? You just don't want to share the secrets of fertile cloning with us. You know we have reproduction problems on Godda, how sacred we hold our women, how pregnancy is a rarity among us, a miracle to be worshiped.”

  McLure was only half listening to the ridiculous babble. Big deal!

  “A clone with perfect reproductive abilities could save our race from extinction,” Ktal went on. “Provided the children are perfect in every way, of course... and can also produce perfect children.”

  “That is your main concern?” Exasperation got the best of McLure. He needed to vent. “That clone and his pregnant bitch are now raiding your ship, with three of their friends, and they want to kill you.”

  “Those two are here onboard my ship?” Ktal flashed a broad smile, revealing his freakishly small white teeth. “Perfect. It will make their capture easier.”

  “What do you mean, perfect?” McLure decidedly didn't understand the giant cretin. “They forced their way into my shuttle. They mistreated me. They have no regard for highly evolved people like us.”

  “It is of no importance.” Ktal dismissed him with a wave of his hand. “Now I can study that miracle clone and his unborn progeny for myself right here!”

  “How stupid can you be?” McLure immediately realized he'd misspoken, but he couldn't take back the words. Still, he would make his point. “Life is cheap. You and I can produce new life any day.”

  “But Goddian life is the most sacred gift.” Ktal turned his back on him and stared through a porthole into space, where the planet was visible. “And as a geneticist, you of all people should respect all life... at the very least the life of your own kind.”

  “They are not my kind!” Stunned by Ktal's reaction, McLure scrambled for words. “I have a superior mind. I don't belong with this ragtag group of lowly Humans.”

  “Yet you are Human.” Ktal turned and faced him again, his jaw tightened in his pale face. “You betrayed your own people, you lied to me, you used my lab for your misguided racial discrimination research. You concealed from my people the one gift that could save us from extinction. Then you knowingly brought on my ship soldiers bent on killing me. Am I correct?”

  “My Prince, I couldn't help it.... I never meant...” Panic, like a runaway horse, galloped through McLure, trampling his tenuous pride.

  The turquoise eyes stormed like raging seas. “You are the one who does not deserve the gift of life, McLure.” Ktal's six-fingered hand pointed to the port hole displaying part of the planet below. “Get off my ship, McLure!”

  “My Prince... please!” McLure's heart dipped and all the blood rushed to his ears, making so much noise he could only see Ktal's lips moving. “I refuse to return to the planet. I could never live among slaves, even less work as one. I deserve a place among your civilized race.”

  “All right.” Ktal's pale face hardened as he leaned forward, his many fingers caressing the console. “Since you want to be treated like a Godd, so be it. My people have a special place for traitors. As captain of this ship, judge and jury, I hereby sentence you to death by black space.”

  McLure felt his blood retreat to his core. Adrenalin flooded his system. He wanted to scream, flee, but something held him in place, like a force field. Then lightning struck. A transport beam?

  Before he realized what had happened, McLure found himself looking at the Goddian ship from outside the shields, floating, unprotected, in forbidding black space. Stabbing pain ripped his insides as his body bulged to fill the void. He stifled a scream to conserve air.

  Blood and other fluids escaped his eyes, his nostrils, his mouth, and beaded in front of him, freezing instantly. He tasted copper as he gasped and his insides froze, rupturing his skin. His precious, beautiful, intelligent brain, deprived of oxygen, was dying.

  McLure stopped struggling, and the pain ceased. Then he was free. His dilapidated body floated beside him like a dead shell... a piece of space junk in a blue cashmere robe.

  And suddenly McLure, devoid of his precious brain, understood something about the miracle of life. Ktal had been right about one thing. There was much more to life than DNA sequences. And despite all his scientific achievements, McLure had failed at understanding life... miserably so.

  * * *

  “Masks on!” Kostas ordered, at the first hint of a sleeping agent in the sweet-smelling air.

  Tom, Cheng, Tabor, and Trixie immediately strapped on their oxygen masks. So did Kostas, relieved to see them wide awake and breathing.

  “It's only a sleeping gas,” he said through his mask. “It seems they want to catch us alive.”

  Trixie smiled behind the clear visor. “It might work to our advantage.”

  “The bad news is,” Tom said, righting his red beret under the mask strap, “They know we are here and coming for them.”

  “Or,” Tabor offered, “This is a standard security procedure when they are not certain whether the intruders are friends or foes.”

  “Let's hope they'll underestimate our capabilities in any case,” Trixie said.

  Kostas loved her consistently cheerful attitude. It didn't win battles, but it certainly did wonders for the morale. He consulted his tablet. A red dot blipped ahead. “Non-Human life sign at ten o'clock.”

  * * *

  Ktal stared into space at McLure's floating body. Good riddance. He tore himself from the porthole.

  He had to preserve the clone and his progeny for thorough study. Fortunately, both were on his ship. They'd cleverly escaped the sleeping gas, but he had them contained in one section of the ship by force fields. He'd deal with them later.

  After what that traitor had told him of the slaves' escape and their raid on his ship, Ktal couldn't risk leaving deadly weapons or any kind of technology into Human hands. Down on the planet surface, the survivors must be kept with only cold steel blades for hunting and farming. Goddian rule required it.

  A few months ago, Ktal had been blinded by the sweet-talking female negotiator. She certainly knew how to protect her o
wn. She would make a good mother for the clone's children.

  Ktal caressed a key on his console, opening a channel to the enforcers' barge on the surface. “Status?”

  The black-helmeted head of a commanding enforcer appeared above the console. “Most of our troops have perished in the explosion deep in the mine, My Lord. All extraction and loading have ceased. Since we are almost at capacity anyway, our standing orders are to leave with the ore... and what's left of our troops.”

  “All right. Get off planet immediately. I'm going to electro-magnetize the entire place.”

  “Understood, My Lord. Leaving at once.” The holographic image vanished.

  Somewhere on the planet, the Humans still had weaponry that could endanger Goddian lives. The EMP wave would melt down anything connected to a power source, in a three miles radius. The explosion over the citadel would cause minimal collateral damage. Only sophisticated technology would perish... all of it.

  As the barge on his wall screen lifted off slowly, Ktal calibrated the pulse weapons array. The three pulse heads lined up on his virtual screen.

  “All clear,” said the commander from the barge.

  “Acknowledged. Firing now.” Ktal entered the firing sequence on his console. A bolt of lightning surged toward the surface. To the side, the barge still ascended steadily toward the stratosphere.

  The explosion above the citadel looked like a ball of fire. It mushroomed then contracted to expand mightily into a clear wave that swept in every direction, including down in the canyons, and high into the atmosphere, licking the edges of the ascending barge.

  When Ktal realized his miscalculation, it was too late. The barge, slowed by its heavy load, was still too close to the ground. Why did the commander state all clear? Bumbling Goddian clones! He couldn't wait for better specimens... like that Kostas unit.

  Upon engulfing the barge, the EMP wave snuffed its shields. Then it tossed it, like a toy in a pet's paw. The black vessel burst into flames and exploded. Its many flaming parts careened toward the planet at vertiginous speed, scattering charred debris over many miles of rocky slopes, deep into the mountain range.