by B. V. Larson
“Oh… I get it.”
“No, you don’t—it is probably beyond your limited capacities. But I will try to elucidate anyway. The singularity is trapped within a containment device. To generate power, the gravity it exerts is being switched on and off again in rapid pulses. Like a combustion engine, this moves various objects—think about them as pistons—and their falling and rising generates a great deal of energy.”
“Uh… so that thing is turning off and on all the time? Why don’t we feel it tugging on us then letting go?”
“We are feeling it. Aren’t you a bit unsteady on your feet?”
“Yeah… but I thought that was the effect of the drug you shot me up with.”
“Not entirely. Part of it—probably most of it by now—is due to the perpetual tug and release going on every microsecond from that vile machine.”
“Hmm…. it feels like I’m in an elevator that’s moving. Like I’m swaying just a little.”
He snapped his fingers at me. “Yes. That is the sensation.”
“So, uh, are you planning to sell this tech to Central? Is that the plan?”
“No. They’re already working on such things. Nothing I could add to their knowledge would be so valuable.”
“What then?”
Armel turned toward me with a nasty smile. “My plan is complex. You are to play a key role in it, however. Here.”
He handed me a teleport harness. That was a shocker. I checked the charge—it was full-up.
“What’s this for?”
“It is already targeted for Earth. No! Don’t fool with the settings!”
I let my big hand slip away from the coordinates. “I was just checking.”
He rolled his eyes. “Listen to me. Part of this plan requires that I die here, under your observation. Touch your tapper to mine, please, and start recording.”
Inwardly I cursed myself. He was right, I should have been recording everything. His drugs or that infernal machine had messed up my thinking for sure.
“Done,” I said. “What now? Are we porting back together, or…?”
“No. That won’t work. I want you to record my death and then port out to Central. Once there, you will get them to revive me via the recorded data in your tapper. They’ll want to question me at least, don’t you think?”
“At least that.”
“Well then… do you agree to participate in this scheme?”
“I guess so… but why are you all fired up to die and leave Rigel? I thought you were sour on Earth.”
“A good question. I already told you that I think Earth will prevail in the coming conflict.”
“Why, exactly?”
“In all history, rebellions of conquered nations rarely succeed. Did you know this?”
“Nope,” I admitted.
“It is true. So, I would place my bet with Earth. But my actions here today are about more than a simple desire to be on the winning side,” his face shifted, and it took on a real look of pain and disgust. “I’m sick of Rigellians and Vulbites and Steel World saurians. I hate the stink of all of them in my nostrils. I yearn for real humanity again. I would rather live among my own kind. Is that so hard to understand?”
“Nope, it makes perfect sense to me.”
We stared at one another for a moment. Finally, Armel became agitated.
“Well then… do it!”
I blinked at him stupidly, and I wasn’t even faking. “What? Do you want me to push you? I thought you were going to jump?”
“No, idiot. They would never accept that approach. I want them to think this wasn’t my idea. I want it to appear I was forced into it.”
“So… I’m supposed to kill you? Right here, right now? Look, there are two lizard guards just over there. They’ll get pissed.”
He rolled his eyes. “Why do you think I brought you here to do this? Teleport away before they can kill you. If anyone can manage that, you can.”
“Yeah, but… won’t they just revive you anyway?”
“No, they won’t. I’ve erased my local data. Also, nothing that touches the surface of that vast containment vessel below us is reachable. They’d have to shut down the entire machine, and they won’t do that. It powers half their cities.”
I glanced around again. The two lizards were standing guard. Like most reptiles, they could look like statues when they wanted to—but I sensed they were watching us anyway.
“You sure you want me to do this?” I asked again.
“Get on with it, damn you!”
It was weird, having a guy so cocksure that he wanted me to pretty much perm him. But since it was Armel, I was game.
I put a hand on his chest, but he stopped me for a moment, grasping my hand with his.
“We shook hands just once before, McGill, back on Storm World. Do you remember that day?”
“Uh… yeah.”
“Leeza told me you kept your word to her, even through her death. You brought her back. Do you promise me now to do the same for me?”
“What do I get out of it?”
His eyes darkened. “I just revived you! I just saved you from a well-deserved perming, man!”
“Oh yeah, so you did… Okay, I swear to do my best to get you breathing again, Maurice.”
He nodded, and he shook my hand. “Very well, James. In this odd instance, I trust you.”
Then, I pushed him off the ledge—but I didn’t let go of his hand.
Instead of releasing Armel and letting him spin down into the abyss, I hung on. I dropped to my knees, then my chest.
Dangling below, Armel was howling bloody murder.
“Let go of me, you retarded mule of a man! You’re supposed to let go!”
I hung on. “Hey!” I shouted over my shoulder to the two lizard guards. “I need help over here, he slipped!”
They came running, and I took a glance down at Armel. He was looking up at me with big round eyes.
“Treachery! Betrayal! Base deceit!”
“Keep your shirt on,” I told him. “I’m just doing this my own way.”
The drug that had affected my mind had faded by now. I’d kept talking to Armel, playing the fool, and testing it all the while. By this time, I was pretty sure I could do as I wanted and was free of any chemical influence. The current situation was proof: Armel was anything but happy.
“Let me go, damn you, McGill. So help me, I’ll—”
“Ah-ah, no threats now. Don’t go and give me a good reason to change-up our deal any further.”
He began hissing and twisting down there, using both his hands to pry back my fingers—but he couldn’t do it. He just wasn’t strong enough.
Right about then, the first of the lizards arrived. “Quick!” I told him. “Grab on and pull him back up. Help me!”
The lizard had his gun unslung. He didn’t trust me, that much was clear, but it was also clear that his commander was twisting in the breeze below.
Putting his rifle down, he crouched and reached one thick arm down over the side. He grabbed Armel and began to haul him upward.
Armel, for his part, wasn’t cooperating. He bit my hand, bringing up blood.
“That’s plain unsportsmanlike,” I complained.
I waited until the lizard was leaning way out, hanging onto Armel—then I let go of Armel’s hand. Now holding the full weight of his commander, the lizard teetered. His tail whipped around, trying to regain his balance.
It was as easy as pie. All I had to do was stand up and kick him one in the rump. The lizard plunged over the side, and Armel went with him. They both put up a horrible racket on the way down.
The second lizard was standing nearby at this point. He looked over the side in shock.
“Damned shame, isn’t it?” I asked him.
He turned back to me, revealing about a hundred pointed teeth. I didn’t think he was smiling. “You killed them. You are a bad thing.”
“The worst,” I admitted.
The lizard moved to l
ift his rifle up between us, but we were too close together. There just wasn’t room for him to line me up for a shot.
He tried anyway, not being a smarty-pants lizard. I grabbed the barrel of his weapon and tugged. Naturally, he responded by bunching up his shoulders and giving a mighty yank to pull the weapon back into his control.
It was a perfectly normal thing to do—unless you were standing on the edge of a cliff. All I had to do was let him have the weapon. I didn’t just let go, however, I gave him a hard shove to go with it, forcing the rifle into his chest.
The second lizard went over even faster than the first one had. Then I was left standing on the precipice, watching him fall. What with his tail spinning around and croaking sounds only his brood mother would cry about, I could only guess at the curse words that were coming out of his toothy mouth.
At last, he vanished into the distant gloom surrounding that strange, quivering machine.
“They really should put up a rail, or something,” I said to nobody.
Calmly, I picked up the first lizard’s rifle and walked back into the tunnels. I was concerned that anyone reviewing these recordings might become irate, seeing my actions as a breach of honor. But I hoped it would be clear that I’d agreed to just two things: one, to kill Maurice Armel. Second, to return to Earth and try to get him revived there.
No one had said anything about just how these events were to occur, or how long they might take to complete. Therefore, my conscience was clear as I stepped into the passages of the moon base to have myself a look around.
-9-
Other people with less flexible minds might have felt bad about what I’d done to old Armel—but not me. I’m a person who engages in a general strategy of allowing people to live and die as they wished.
Armel had done me a solid, there was no way of denying that. He’d brought me back to life when no one else was interested enough to do so. But, he hadn’t done this because he had a big heart and a kindly nature. Quite the opposite. He’d trusted me to keep my deals, so he’d chosen to deal with me—that was the long and short of it.
His trust in me wasn’t badly placed. Someday I would get around to helping him out, if the good Lord was willing, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t think about anything else in the meantime.
One element of the day’s picture had stood out to me among all the others I’d witnessed: Raash. That tricky lizard and I had crossed paths many times. But this was the first I’d seen of him working for the enemy. The last time I’d run into him he’d been working revival machines for Earth’s legions.
What had changed? Had he been plotting his rebellion against Earth for a long time? Some of my conversations with that oddball saurian had indicated as much. There were also other possibilities, of course.
As I walked down the tunnels, I passed a number of Armel’s lizard guards. Practically all of them swiveled their ugly snouts, following my path. They didn’t attack or demand to know what I was doing, however. They’d seen me with Armel, and in their rather straightforward minds I must have been labeled as a guest. Other humans had worked with Armel before, forming the majority of his officer corps.
That fact was helping me today. As long as I looked calm and certain about my business, they let me pass unmolested. At some point, naturally, one of these pointy-toothed geniuses was bound to figure out Armel and his guards had taken a tour of the abyss, but for now, I was free to roam.
The biggest challenge I had was retracing my steps. My mind was pretty clear by now, but I wasn’t certain of every twist and turn—and the idea of stopping to ask for directions was unthinkable. Not even these scaly dumbasses would offer me help without checking up on my status.
So I kept walking and thinking until I found the revival chambers again. I peered inside the chamber, and sure enough, I thought I recognized Raash in there.
I flung the door wide and strode in. Raash hunched and spun, using his heavy tail to speed up the process. Lizards liked to grab the leg of a chair or something to help them turn faster, and this time was no exception. Old Raash latched onto one of the underlying struts of the big machine, curling his tail around it like it was his mama.
“McGill?” he said, peering at me. “What are you doing here?”
“Armel sent me. He’s thinking about making me an officer in his legion.”
“That is unwise. You should be recycled and expunged from our data core.”
“Aw now, that’s a bad attitude, Raash. Surely you aren’t holding onto hard feelings about our past, are you?”
Raash eyed me with his twin reddish slits. He didn’t like me at all, and he never had. The first time we’d met, I’d been chasing Floramel, unaware that this pervert lizard had a carnal interest in her. That unfortunate situation had ended up with a big helping of death for everyone involved.
On later occasions… well… all that was best left to the past. The long and the short of it was we’d never gotten along.
“There are no feelings within me. I am a saurian. My people aren’t weak mammals, full of idle sentiments. We are as cold of heart as we are of blood.”
That was an outright lie. Raash fancied himself logical and calm, but nothing could be further from the truth. He was a hothead, that was for sure.
But I smiled and nodded anyway, accepting his bullshit. Nothing could be gained by ripping open old wounds now.
“You’re one hundred percent right. I’ve always told everyone I know that good old Raash is as cool as a cucumber. You’re as chill as they come, my friend.”
Raash’s eyes blinked a few times. I’d reset his brain, I think. “We are not friends. However, the rest of your words are correct. Your supplication is unexpected.”
“Long overdue, I say… hmm… what’s coming out of the oven now, do you think?”
The revival machine behind Raash was shivering. As I watched, it burped, or farted, or something like that. Goop spilled from the bottom like a half-gallon of drool.
Raash looked at the machine in surprise. “I don’t know… there have been no battles lately. No live-fire exercises. I am perplexed.”
“Ah well, don’t worry your pointy head about it. Some lizard probably just fell off a cliff or something.”
Raash looked back at me, and his eyes were narrowing again. I knew right off that I shouldn’t have pushed things with a joke—but it was too late now, so I moved on to a new distraction.
“Say, I’m curious about how two fellas like us have ended up here. I was kind of wondering how you got recruited. Was it like me? Did you die somewhere, maybe getting run over like a dog in the road?”
“Negative. Offensive. Do not compare me to a dog, human. To call any of my kind a mammal is—”
“Right, right, sorry. I should have compared you to a garter snake, or a skink, maybe. Anyways, how did you come to work for Armel?”
Raash stepped from one thick foot to the other, and his tail lashed for a moment. While he did this, the machine behind him sloshed and churned. I was pretty sure it was gestating a new copy of a lizard, probably one of the boys I’d had a disagreement with, so I had to finish this conversation before he was reborn. I was pretty sure that either one of the guards would come out accusing me of something unpleasant.
“Are you still thinking, or…?” I asked.
“Irritating. Demanding. Insulting and provocative.”
“Ah, I get it. You don’t remember. I understand. Sometimes, when an alien like you comes out of a revival machine meant for humans, he gets kind of twisted up, and his brain doesn’t work right. Don’t hurt yourself trying to answer me, I won’t—”
Raash took a threatening step toward me. I was pissing him off something fierce.
“You suggest Raash is a bad grow? That Raash is an imbecilic lump of meat that should be recycled?”
“Hold on, hold on. I didn’t suggest anything of the kind. You said it, not me.”
“It will not happen. If anyone is to be recycled today, it will be the M
cGill.”
“I’m sure you’re right about that.”
Raash paced around a moment, but then he suddenly started talking. “There is no work on Cancri-9. Humans have stolen the mining business. Humans monopolize the mercenary business. Some of us are forced to leave our homeworld and seek work among the stars.”
“Hmm… I believe you. Sorry about that, Raash.”
The surprising thing was, I did understand, and I was sympathetic. I came from the swamps of southern Georgia, after all. My people understood travelling to find work. Hell, I’d joined the legions in the first place for similar reasons.
“My downfall came when Earth changed her policies. They rarely revive nonhumans now. My specialty as an operator of large-scale machines isn’t needed any longer.”
All of a sudden, I got it. Raash had been let go. He’d been laid off, effectively. He hadn’t sought work in the next province out of spite—he’d been pushed out.
“Oh… I get it. That happens sometimes. Too bad, you were the best.”
He straightened his curving spine and drooping tail. “Raash is the best. Raash will always be the best at specialty revivals!”
I grinned, and it wasn’t even an act. It was hard not to like a guy who had pride in his shitty job.
“Everyone says that,” I told him. “They’ll miss you sorely back at Legion Varus.”
“They are lost without my services.”
Right about then, the revival machine farted again. The big mouth sagged open, and I saw some wet scales in there.
“A saurian brother… how strange.”
“Welp,” I said, “that’s my cue to be moving on.”
Raash didn’t pay me any attention. He was busy digging the lizard out of the steaming maw.
I reached up, and my finger flirted with the button on my harness. I almost pressed it, but not quite.
“Hey, Raash.”
He didn’t turn. He was too busy working on his buddy. “What is it, human?”
“Do you like it here? Do you ever miss Floramel?”
He whirled around, his tail doing that clutch and spin thing again. “You dare torment me with her memory?”