Cyrus stood up. “I’m too tired. Let’s try it tomorrow.”
Jasper watched him. Finally, the man nodded. “Yes, we’ll try it tomorrow.
10
Wexx had sweaty palms making them moist and shiny, as if smeared with a thin layer of oil. Fear twisted in her stomach. She didn’t want to be here and she didn’t want to wake up Venice. It was a bad idea but Argon had overruled her.
The Special First Class lay on a cot behind steel bulkheads. Video cameras watched her, each of the shots visible on Wexx’s side screens. The doctor sat in cramped quarters, studying her panel. Jasper stood to the side, breathing down her neck.
“Steady,” Wexx told him.
Jasper grunted behind her, and his breathing remained heavy.
Venice’s sealed chamber was directly in front of the bulkheads before them, giving Jasper proximity to use his telepathy if needed. Wexx had a switch and she’d turned the Special’s inhibitor off. The thought of possibly going against Venice must be why Jasper sounded frightened. Argon believed Venice’s inhibitor didn’t work anymore. It was the reason why he wanted Jasper near.
Jasper’s heroism against Roxie seemed to have changed the chief monitor’s thoughts about the telepath.
On the other side of Venice’s sealed chamber, monitors waited. They were ready to rush into the chamber to subdue her if needed.
She’s like a demigod from myth. We’ve learned to be terrified of her and her wrath.
Another monitor watched both Wexx and Venice’s rooms through holoimaging. He was ready to flood either room with knockout gas.
“She’s stirring,” Wexx said. She glanced at the brainwave scanner. Signs were normal. No! The brainwave spiked.
Before her, a bulkhead groaned in metallic complaint as if put under tremendous pressure. There came a popping sound, and a fist-sized piece of metal began crumpling.
“She’s doing that,” Jasper whispered.
Wexx’s finger hovered over a red circle on a screen. It was her kill switch. It wouldn’t kill Venice, but it would flood the Special’s chamber with fast-acting gas.
“Let’s put her back under,” Wexx pleaded. She couldn’t forget the time in the tele-chamber.
“Not yet,” Argon said through a speaker. “We must have her information.”
“Come down here with me then,” Wexx said.
“Courage, Doctor. My monitors are there.”
“He spouts courage from the safety of his room,” Jasper muttered.
Metal crumpled and Wexx watched in horror as the brainwave scanner showed greater spiking. She turned on the intercom, “Venice, this is Dr. Wexx. I need your help.”
Wexx stared at the brain scanner.
Before it showed anything different, Jasper said, “She’s interested. Keep talking.”
Then the scanner showed a drop in brainwave spiking. The metallic crumpling sounds quit for the moment.
“Venice, you’ve been asleep,” Wexx said into the speaker. “You… you had an accident. Do you remember anything about that?”
On-screen, Venice’s eyelids fluttered.
“She’s waking up,” Jasper whispered. “Get ready.”
The telepath’s fear was infectious. Wexx’s stomach tightened into a knot.
Venice’s eyes flew open. She turned to the cam Wexx was using to watch. Horror swirled in Venice’s eyes.
“Now you’ve done it,” Jasper whispered. “Get ready to sleep her.”
Instead of causing mayhem, Venice said, “Turn back. Turn the Teleship around. You must do it now.”
“That’s good advice,” Wexx said in a soothing tone. “I’ve been speaking to the captain. I’ve almost convinced him.”
“You’re a quick liar,” Jasper muttered. “I’m impressed.”
Wexx concentrated on Venice, pushing Jasper’s asides from her thoughts. “I need information from you before the captain will agree.”
Venice blinked, appearing thoughtful. “I—I have precognitive dreams. You may have forgotten that.”
“Go on,” Wexx said.
“I saw… saw them.”
“Them?”
“The aliens,” Venice whispered.
Wexx’s skin crawled. There were aliens at New Eden. This was terrifying. This was exciting and interesting.
“Can you describe them to me?” Wexx asked.
On the cot, Venice moved her head from side to side. “I couldn’t see clearly, Dr. Wexx. They watched, absorbed with their experiment. They held slates, taking notes on the horrors committed upon me. Their fingers…”
“What about their fingers?” Wexx asked.
“The fingers or digits were not flesh, but something much harder.”
“You’re doing well, Venice. Keeping talking.”
The Special’s features hardened. The mouth firmed. “Do not patronize me, Doctor. I’m trying to warn you. Let me out of here. Let me shift us home.”
“First, tell us more about the dream,” Wexx said.
“It was a precognitive dream,” Venice said. “I was on a table and they removed organs. They put things in me. But it wasn’t just me. It was all of us, Doctor. Don’t you realize? If we reach New Eden, we’re all going to die horribly. The aliens will dissect us on their tables. We’re bugs to them.”
“Is that why you went berserk in the tele-chamber?”
“You’re not listening to me, Dr. Wexx. And you’re using Jasper to try to pry into my mind. You’d better start listening to me and do what I tell you.”
Venice’s eyes went cold gray.
Wexx stabbed the kill switch, but nothing happened.
“You waited too long, Doctor,” Venice said. “You let me wake up.”
“No!” Jasper howled.
Wexx twisted around. Jasper had his hands in front of his face. Sweat pooled on his features and he squeezed his eyes shut.
Wexx shouted into the speaker, “Stop it, Venice! You’re killing him!”
“I’m going to kill all the Specials! We’re never going to New Eden! We’re going home!”
Wexx watched the screen. Portals slid up and three monitors charged into the chamber. Venice’s head swiveled to regard them. The first monitor flew up off his feet and slammed against the ceiling, pinned. The second charged in and his head exploded in a rain of blood, skull, and brain.
Wexx groaned at the grisly sight.
The third monitor fast-drew an illegal needler. Wexx saw in surprise that it was Chief Monitor Argon. He had reflexes like a machine. Venice’s head shifted, maybe to take some action against him, but it was too late. Argon fired, sending thin metallic needles into Venice’s face, puncturing forehead, cheekbones, and mouth.
Special First Class Venice died on the cot. The first monitor fell from the ceiling, dazed. The second monitor’s giant torso pumped blood onto the floor.
“You killed her,” Wexx said in horror.
Chief Monitor Argon holstered his needler. “I’d feared something like this might happen.”
“You killed a Special,” Wexx said. It felt as if she was floating. “That brings a sentence of death.”
Argon stared at Venice’s body.
“You are under arrest, Chief Monitor,” Wexx said into her speaker. “Please ask your surviving monitor to take you into custody.”
A wintry look appeared on Argon’s face. “It is time for me to unseal my extraordinary orders. They’re from Premier Lang, putting me in charge of the expedition.”
A sick feeling filled Wexx, like a ball of lead dropped in her stomach. Venice had killed a monitor and nearly killed Jasper. The First Class Special claimed to have precognitive dreams and now Venice was dead. Argon had usurped power, and he might also have just saved their lives.
What waited in New Eden that was so terrible? How could aliens there affect the Teleship’s Specials? How could aliens there even know humans were out here?
“What are we going to do now?” Jasper asked.
Wexx nodded. That was an excell
ent question.
11
Chief Monitor Argon called a meeting in the officer’s lounge. He recorded it as “Discovery Meeting #12.”
ARGON: Premier Lang, I am in the process of revealing your sealed orders to the critical crew personnel regarding the chief monitor’s emergency powers. I have now put those orders on-screen for the personnel to read. Are there any questions from those present?
KONEV: The order appears correct and legal.
NAGASAKI: You have usurped authority.
ARGON: I am the commanding officer under Premier Lang’s emergency powers. As the colonel stated, everything is correct and legal.
WEXX: You killed Venice. That is illegal.
ARGON: Self-defense is always a right whether it exists in codified law or not. In my case, I also happen to have full authority to eliminate whomever I deem a danger to the expedition. The Special killed one of my monitors. She was in the process of slaying Jasper, another Special—the superior of the two sane Specials left us.
WEXX: You’re actually trying to justify the murder of Sol’s greatest Special?
ARGON: You would rather I’d died in the room?
WEXX: I wish you’d subdued her with a trank so we could continue questioning her later.
ARGON: Combat conditions do not always lend themselves to perfect solutions. The important point to remember is that the Teleship is safe with a minimum of casualties. Now we must decide on our reaction to the new information.
WEXX: What can we do? You’ve killed our best shifter. Returning to Sol will take us a long, long time, providing our two remaining shifters remain sane.
ARGON: Sanity seems to lie in direct proportion to the distance from New Eden. The farther we are from it, the saner the Specials act. We can wake Roxie after several shifts and include her in the roster. That will expedite matters considerably.
NAGASAKI: I suggest we continue on our journey to New Eden.
ARGON: Elaborate if you would.
NAGASAKI: By the evidence, we have found new life forms, aliens. They appear to have mental capabilities. At least, they are able to harm our Specials. We must discover further evidence of the aliens, doing so in the interest of safety regarding Sol.
ARGON: We are presuming Special Venice actually had the precognitive ability she claimed.
WEXX: I checked her bio. She had them—the dreams—and they have an 87 percent accuracy rating.
ARGON: Let us examine the evidence rationally. Venice had precognitive dreams. Her dreams were correct 87 percent of the time. She dreamt that aliens examined her, removing organs and adding something to her. Now Venice is dead and her dream can never come true. Therefore, this precognitive dream was false, or part of the 13 percent failure rate.
WEXX: That doesn’t necessarily hold true. What if the aliens examine her corpse?
ARGON: That was logically deduced, Doctor. You are right. I had not considered that.
NAGASAKI: I’m unfamiliar with Specials. Precognitive dreams… this is a strange sort of science.
WEXX: Teleships work, do they not?
NAGASAKI: No one questions that.
WEXX: If Teleships work, precognitive dreams can work too.
NAGASAKI: I wouldn’t presume otherwise. My point is that Venice’s dream was sketchy at best. She pinpointed aliens and warned us of their existence. Very well, now we must slip into New Eden and record the evidence.
ARGON: How can we slip in if our Specials cannot shift there?
JASPER: I can shift us to New Eden.
NAGASAKI: If aliens exist, Sol must hear of this.
ARGON: I agree. Sol must learn of these aliens and their location. That is why we must turn around as Special Venice wanted and return at once to Sol.
NAGASAKI: That is the wrong decision.
ARGON: I am willing to listen to your logic. Convince me I’m wrong.
NAGASAKI: We have a precognitive dream as a warning. That’s it. We need better proof. Some of our Specials have malfunctioned on the approach to New Eden. We have to learn why.
ARGON: Not at the expense of losing Discovery and thereby denying Sol the knowledge of these aliens.
NAGASAKI: I’m not suggesting such a thing. We’re a warship, are we not?
ARGON: No. We are not a warship. We are an exploratory and colonizing vessel with armaments. Now if aliens already inhabit New Eden—
NAGASAKI: That’s just it. No aliens can inhabit the system. Look at the telescopes. Study the star system. We’re eight light years away. It’s conceivable a technological civilization leaped into existence two hundred and thirty years ago, but not eight years ago.
ARGON: You believe that’s why the astronomers saw no evidence of high technology, because their evidence was two hundred and thirty years old, the speed at which light left New Eden and traveled to Pluto?
NAGASAKI: It would fit the facts—but only if we could see something now. We don’t. Ergo, there is no civilization at AS 412, or New Eden if you prefer.
ARGON: What do you think is there?
NAGASAKI: A ship, perhaps or a colony, as we built a lone habitat at Epsilon Eridani.
ARGON: Can you be more specific?
NAGASAKI: Commanding Officer, I would like to speak to you in private.
ARGON: I would need a reason first.
NAGASAKI: System-wide security.
ARGON: At New Eden?
NAGASAKI: No. Sol’s future security.
ARGON: (Rises from his seat.) We will take a short recess as Captain Nagasaki tells me his urgent and apparently secret information.
End of Transcript #12
12
Captain Nagasaki floated after Argon.
The chief monitor gracefully practiced zero G maneuvers down the narrow passageway. The seven-foot giant used the hand rungs, pulling or swimming his way along.
Nagasaki did it even better from endless years of practice. Twenty-six years ago, the sleeper ship Argonaut had accelerated out of Sol at one G as it built up to near light speed. That had been the easiest part of the journey. The long coast had been much more tedious, the years of weightlessness.
That had been nothing, however, compared to the growing fear of cyborgs as they approached Epsilon Eridani.
During the Great War of the solar system, the cyborgs had destroyed the supreme philosophical and political arrangement known to man. The cyborgs had sent an armada and eradicated Jovian life from the moons and habitats. Circe had taken the survivors of that awful time and repopulated the two moons of Neptune. The cyborgs of that era had slaughtered or converted all Neptunians, leaving the gas giant’s gravity system bare of human life.
In the beautiful Jovian system, the wisest had ruled, the most spirited fought, and the brutes labored. It had brought about the highest of artistic achievement and human thought. Then the cyborgs had destroyed it all like an evil virus, murdering love, art, beauty, and political harmony.
Nagasaki ground his teeth together as he floated into the chamber with Chief Monitor Argon. He sensed the truth. The cyborgs must have indeed built at least one more proto-Teleship. They had escaped far from Sol, to rebuild in the stars, forging an invincible empire of machine-man melds. What else could be waiting for them at AS 412?
“Well?” Argon asked. “What is this secret information? Are you going to warn me about cyborgs?”
Nagasaki approved of the Spartan nature of the quarters. Nothing adorned the walls. There was a cot, a clean desk and these two chairs. Of clothes, shoes, or personal items, there was no sign.
The captain withdrew a capsule from a hidden pocket. It was the size of his thumb, with a flat end with hundreds of microscopic holes. He moved toward the bigger man and slapped the flat end of the capsule against the fabric of the chief monitor’s right thigh. In a powerful jet of air—and a soft sigh of sound—tranks injected past the fabric and into Argon’s skin.
The chief monitor moved with startling speed, backhanding Nagasaki. The small captain catapulted from his spot and
sailed against a wall, thudding against it with his shoulders.
“What have you—?” Argon said.
Nagasaki was far from finished. As the chief monitor spoke, Nagasaki corrected his position and thrust with his thighs, propelling himself at Argon’s head. The captain was a black belt in zero G karate, something he’d perfected during the round trip from Sol to Epsilon Eridani and back.
Argon twisted toward him as Nagasaki flew at his head. The NKV officer blocked, and the two men traded swift, zero G blows.
“This is treason against Premier Lang!” Argon shouted. “You won’t live long enough to enjoy it, I assure you.”
Nagasaki breathed heavily as sweat floated off him. He’d never faced anyone with such strength and speed. The man was phenomenal. Weightlessness helped him against the NKV officer, as did the fast-acting drug in the chief monitor’s bloodstream. Colonel Konev had assured him the drug would efficiently knock out Argon. Now Nagasaki was beginning to doubt if it would happen quickly enough.
“You’re the one being treasonous,” Nagasaki panted, trying to buy time. “I am the captain of the Teleship. With your so-called sealed orders—an obvious forgery—you have declared mutiny against me. How do you think I handled these matters aboard Argonaut? I didn’t wait for others to do my dirty work. I, personally, put an end to sedition.”
Argon showed his teeth, but his efforts had noticeably slowed and his speech was beginning to slur. “You have no idea why you’re doing this?”
“I’m perfectly aware of my actions.”
“Jasper must have tricked me. He uses you.”
“The telepath has nothing to do with this,” Nagasaki said.
“The telepath has delusions of godhood, you fool. I’ve read his secret profile. His inhibitor must be faulty.”
“You’re wrong.”
Argon roared and launched himself at Nagasaki. The captain kicked, and then his ankle was caught in a bone-crushing grip as the chief monitor wrapped his thick fingers around it.
“You’ll never use this foot again,” Argon snarled.
Nagasaki shouted in pain, and with his other foot, he repeatedly kicked Argon in the face, bruising the broad cheeks.
Finally, Nagasaki wrenched his ankle free. The chief monitor glared at him helplessly as blood pumped into the air from his nostrils. The blood floated in globular shapes, with little droplets breaking off to orbit the main mass.
Alien Honor (A Fenris Novel) Page 10