The Damned Trilogy

by Alan Dean Foster

  The medical tests and examinations were far more intimidating, though he was never hurt or subjected to any painful stimulation. It was the unfamiliarity of the equipment and procedures, the fact that he had no idea what to expect, that he found daunting.

  Once they slid him on a pallet into a machine that enclosed him like a cylindrical coffin and bathed his body in light of alternating colors and intensity. As with similar tests, he emerged physically unscathed but mentally apprehensive, and as always no unpleasant aftereffects resulted.

  They took samples of his blood, of his waste and his skin, hair, and bone. He was probed and prodded, scanned and scoped, calibrated and appraised. It went on endlessly. In all that time he saw not a single Human, and why should he? They were soldiers, warriors, not scientists and research specialists. They did not study; they destroyed.

  He was not especially displeased, only piqued by their absence. It would have been disconcerting, for example, for Heida Trondheim to have been among the personnel examining him. Far easier to remain dispassionate and aloof in the presence of querulous Hivistahm and S’van.

  The idea of suicide did not occur to him. That was an alien concept familiar to him only from studies. Killing oneself constituted an offense against the Purpose by depriving it of an otherwise undamaged and potentially contributory intelligent mind. It was a gesture that could be conceived of only by truly alien beings. Like Humans.

  He was not let in on his examiners’ discussions and so had no idea if their extensive studies of him were resulting in anything useful. When not under observation he tried to relax as best he could, maintaining mental alertness and physical conditioning so that in the event his captors grew lazy or overconfident he would be ready to seize any opportunity to escape or cause trouble that might present itself. While one lived, one could still serve the Purpose.

  Twice a day they took him topside, as he came to think of it, for a stroll in a secluded, fenced, parklike area, where he could exercise, bask in the sun, and smell cultivated Omaphilian flora. Though only a single guard accompanied him on his sojourns, he did not delude himself into thinking he could get more than a few steps away from the complex by climbing the vine-covered wall. They would be alert for anything so obvious; therefore, he made no moves in that direction. His captors were not stupid. The presence of only a single escort was proof in itself no others were needed.

  So he spent his time learning the names of various trees and flowers, and toying with the odd-shaped pink-hued fish and multishelled domesticated cephalopods that swam in the garden’s central pool. Once while he was topside it rained, and the evident delight he took in the unfettered natural phenomenon almost moved his Massood guard to sympathy. Almost.

  Then came a day when the routine was broken. He knew it was going to be different when Humans instead of Massood arrived to escort him. As they exited the familiar elevator they turned him left instead of right.

  “What’s up? Where are we going?”

  The big, burly dark-skinned Human on his immediate right didn’t reply. He carried what appeared to be an unnecessarily large weapon. Ranji eyed it longingly, but knew that even if he could appropriate it, it would do him no good to do so. Each weapon here was attuned to its individual owner’s unique electrical signature and no one else, not another guard and certainly not a prisoner, could make it fire.

  “Is something the matter?” The farther they walked, the larger unpleasant thoughts loomed in his imagination. “I’m not scheduled for anything at this time of day.”

  “Look, buddy, I don’t know nothing.” The translator managed to convey the other Human’s gruffhess along with his words. “I’m just taking you where I’m supposed to. I don’t know what happens after you get there any better than you do, understand?”

  “I understand,” Ranji replied, though he didn’t.

  They took him to a room he hadn’t visited before. In addition to a small table and chairs it contained the ubiquitous wall-mounted communications screen, some medical equipment of modest complexity, couches, and potted plants. Except for the instruments it looked more like a lounge than an examination room. He thought it deceptively welcoming in appearance.

  Not unlike Heida Trondheim, he thought. She sat on one of the couches and turned in his direction as soon as he entered. Instead of her camouflaged Tracker gear she wore a light rust-and-white-colored uniform. Detailed patches lined her right sleeve. He was surprised to see her but uncertain whether to be pleased.

  Two other Humans looked up from the medical equipment. One was exceptionally short, almost as short as a S’van. Ranji knew it was not a member of that highly intelligent race because of the absence of the characteristic S’van hirsuteness. Both wore identical high-necked beige-and-black suits. Neither looked much like a warrior.

  The room’s population included a Massood of advanced maturity. She was slightly stooped, and most of her cranial and facial fur had aged to a rich silver hue. Ranji had no idea if it was due to her many years or to other circumstances, but for one of her kind she was unusually self-possessed. Her whiskers and nose hardly twitched at all as she examined the new arrival. She was surrounded by several Hivistahm and O’o’yan but, rather surprisingly, no S’van or Wais.

  The two guards remained outside, flanking the open door. A farrago of round and vertical pupils stared back at him.

  “Please sit down.” The taller of the two Humans spoke perfect Ashregan. Startled, Ranji complied. Obstinacy would gain him nothing, and besides, rejection for its own sake burned proteins.

  There followed a pause as awkward as it was brief before a mature, extremely self-possessed Hivistahm approached him.

  “I am First-of-Surgery.” The scaly green alien studied him with a fearlessness remarkable for one of his kind. Or perhaps, Ranji decided, it was merely scientific detachment. Whichever, he was duly impressed. “I the honor have in charge of the examination to be placed.”

  “Examination?” Ranji determinedly avoided looking in Heida Trondheim’s direction. “What are you charged with ‘examining’?”

  “You. Truly it has enlightening been to observe you these past weeks.”

  “Sorry I can’t say the same.” He indicated the assemblage with a sweep of his hand and was gratified to see several of those present flinch. “Why the party? Are you going to let me go?” He smiled thinly.

  “Actually, we are not quite sure what to do with you.” Ranji turned toward the speaker. The shorter Human’s Ashregan was not as fluent as that of his companion, but despite an atrocious accent his words were comprehensible. “You are an anomaly.”

  “So I’ve been told. I’m glad you’re confused.”

  “Perhaps you can that help us to resolve,” the Hivistahm hissed softly. “We would like you some pictures to look at.”

  In response to his gesture an O’o’yan handed him an oversized plastic envelope. Delicate fingers explored the interior, brought forth a rectangular tridimensional image.

  “This the interior of your brain is.”

  Warily Ranji turned his attention to the flat sheet, conscious of the fact that everyone in the room was watching him intently. Heida Trondheim, too? He chose to affect indifference.

  After careful consideration he handed it back to the surgeon. “Is there something here that’s supposed to surprise me? I see an Ashregan brain. Nothing more.”

  “For the moment I would simply like you at all of these to look. Elucidation will follow.” The Hivistahm patiently passed Ranji two more sheets. He glanced at each before returning them. They were side and front views of the first.

  The fourth was different.

  “This a close-up image of one small part of your brain is. Truly much reduced.” The surgeon extracted still another sheet. “And this another.” A slim-boned finger tapped the plastic, the finely manicured claw seeming to sink into the image. “I ask that you in particular note the minuscule white spot which has been in deep red color-enhanced.”

  Ranji’s
gaze narrowed momentarily before he once more passed the sheet back. “Glad to oblige. Anything else?” So suffused in droll solemnity was the gathering that he nearly burst out laughing. “I’m afraid that as revelations go this misses the mark. I’ve seen pictures of my insides before.”

  “I am certain that you have.” First-of-Surgery hung close. “If you do not object I should like for you your attention to devote to them one more time.”

  Ranji sighed. If this was some kind of test, at least it was less discomfiting than others he had undergone.

  “This picture here, for example.” The Hivistahm removed a compact indicator from a vest pocket and used it to highlight portions of the image. “Do you see these points … here, here, and here?” The indicator shifted precisely as he spoke.

  Ranji squinted, unimpressed. “What about them? Am I supposed to volunteer identification? They could be bits of bone, or blood vessels. You’re the surgeon, not I. If you’re offering me lessons on my own physiology, I don’t need any.”

  “Truly that to be seen remains.” The indicator moved anew. “These are grafting points.” Wide slitted eyes gazed up at him, both eyelids drawn back. “You no comment have?”

  Ranji blinked at the image, trying to make sense of what the Hivistahm was saying. What was the object of all this, anyway? Why were there so many of them in the room, and why were they all watching him so closely? What did it matter if such things were inside his head, or anywhere else in his body?

  “No, I don’t have any comment.” He tapped the plastic. “This means nothing to me. Should it?”

  “It should indeed.” The surgeon removed another of the sheets. “That the right side of your skull was. This the left is. On this one you will see three additional points. Note that as to location they are to the previous three identical. It is thought that this work very early was carried out.”

  “Still means nothing to me.” Ranji was cautiously indifferent. “Does it mean something to you?”

  “Truly. It tells me that the prominent bony ridges which just beneath each of your eyes begin and over your ears and into the back of your skull run are not natural, but rather the result of prenatal osteoplasty.”

  Ranji started to reply, hesitated, instead said slowly, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Permit me.” First-of-Surgery strained on the toes of his sandals to reach the right side of Ranji’s face. With a clawed finger he delicately traced the prominent bony line which dominated each side of the prisoner’s skull.

  “These are to you not natural. They are of surgery and implants the result. Your skin was similarly modified to allow for the additional unnatural projections. The same sort of modification has to your occipital orbits, ears, and fingers been done. Everything carried out was before you were born, before your bones time to set had.

  “To insure that such work ‘takes’ without interfering with the natural process of bone maturation and fusion requires skills we do not possess. Only one species at bioengineering so clever is.” He replaced the current sheet with a new one.

  “See here, your hands. Again the grafting points.” Ranji stared without comprehending.

  “But … if any of what you say is true, why?”

  The Hivistahm’s teeth clicked softly. “To give you the appearance of an Ashregan. If one backward works to delete these points and their projected effects, the result is a quite different skeleton.” He hesitated and took a step away from the prisoner. “Truly truly what one has is not a mutant Ashregan, but a normal Human.”

  Ranji snorted derisively. “That’s crazy.”

  First-of-Surgery slipped the pictures back into their protective envelope. “The rest of your body—your muscular structure, density, organ placement and function, sensitivity of sense, everything—comfortably within Human-normal parameters sits. You grade out high-end Homo sapiens, not off-the-scale Ashregan. You are as Human as the three others in this room.”

  The prisoner’s gaze darted reflexively to the Ashregan-fluent woman and her squat male associate. They stared evenly back at him.

  “This is more than aberrant; it’s insane. No, it’s more subtle than that. You’re all trying to trick me. You’ve got some ulterior purpose in mind and in order to carry it through you need to confuse and trick me. You might as well forget it. I’m not so easily fooled.”

  “Perhaps not,” said the short Human, “but you’re not stupid, either. You scored as high in intelligence as you did in everything else. Environmental factors aside, scanner tridis aside, can’t you tell just by looking at yourself that you’re more Human than Ashregan?” His companion took up the refrain.

  “No Ashregan ever grew bones as dense as yours, or had such median muscular strength. No Ashregan ever had your reflexes or striking ability.” The emphasis on the elements of the ruse he expected and was prepared for, but not the imploring tone in her voice.

  Still he remained perfectly composed. “I concede that I may have been slightly altered to give me certain specific Human fighting characteristics and abilities. That conclusion’s inevitable and I no longer try to deny it.” Comments in different tongues filled the room. “Nor does it trouble me. Obviously such information needs to be withheld from children and young adults since they are not sufficiently mature to cope with it. Whereas as an adult I can understand what was done and why. So what if maybe I’ve been physically enhanced in order to better serve the Purpose? I see nothing sinister in that.”

  “Truly it no wonder is how confused you are,” First-of-Surgery said. “You still do not see.”

  “See what?” Ranji snapped impatiently. He’d had about enough of this nonsense.

  “That you are not an Ashregan to whom Human characteristics given have been, but a Human into whom Ashregan features have been engineered. We have your genome pattern scanned and found the alterations which will enable you to pass on these features to your offspring. They into your genes have been induced. The Amplitur the long view take.

  “To the Amplitur you are a warrior only second, Ranji-aar, and breeding material first.”

  X

  He waited until he was sure he was still in complete control of himself before responding. “If everything you claim is true, then how do you explain my parents? My memories, my homeworld? The Houcilat outrage?”

  “We’ve been doing some research, using as a starting point some of the things you’ve told us.” The woman’s manner was far more soothing than anything Ranji would ever have associated with a Human. “You and the friends you have spoken of are indeed the survivors of a massacre of civilians.”

  “Ah,” Ranji said.

  The woman continued. “There was a colony. Not Houcilat. A world whose name is now synonymous with mindless destruction. It was utterly obliterated a number of years ago by an unsupervised, unanticipated Crigolit attack. Just the right number of years ago, in fact, to place you and your age-group companions there as fetuses.

  “Whole regions were incinerated. It was the only time within modern memory that weapons of mass destruction have been utilized on a planetary surface. The Crigolit commanders who directed the attack were severely disciplined by their own superiors and by the Amplitur. Based on what we have learned from you we have come to believe that this did not prevent the Amplitur, ever pragmatic, from seeing the possibilities inherent in the situation.

  “At the time it was thought that no one could have survived. The majority of bodies were incinerated, carbonized. An accurate count of the dead could not be made. Therefore it was not possible for those who came after to say whether or not any children, men, women, or—” Her voice broke for the barest instant. “—pregnant women had been taken prisoner. Considering the unprecedented scope of destruction it was presumed not. Your presence vitiates a reappraisal.” She tried to go on, couldn’t, and left it to her colleague to continue.

  “You were taken by the Amplitur, not rescued,” the man said curtly. “Of course you have no memory of it. The abductio
ns were carried out prior to your birth.”

  “Many images of the devastation are available for scholarly study.” The elderly Massood spoke for the first time. “The world in question is there for all to see, a barren testimonial to war without rules.”

  “My parents.” Ranji was mumbling. More than his self-assurance was under assault now. The walls of himself were under attack, and he was frightened, terrified because he could feel them crumbling.

  Too much. Too much to listen to at once, to try and absorb and dissect and analyze. Too much to think about. Pictures and words, stories and facts. Invention, invention! They were trying to drive him mad.

  The woman was remorselessly gentle. “As soon as you were born you must have been taken from your natural mother and placed with foster Ashregan parents. The same would be true for your brother.” She paused. “We suspect that the much younger sister of whom you have spoken is the result of in vitro fertilization and subsequent implantation. With sufficient medical support an Ashregan womb will support a Human fetus. Such action would contribute to familial verisimilitude. The Amplitur are careful about details.”

  None of it could be true, he told himself numbly. Not a word of it. Because if it were so then it meant that his real parents were dead, extinguished by the Amplitur as soon as their usefulness had come to an end. It meant that the two individuals on Cossuut he had all his life called mother and father were no more than Amplitur agents who had dedicated their lives to perpetuating a monstrous fraud on innocent children. It meant that all his hard work, everything he had devoted his life to preserving and fighting for, was no more than sham and shadow in the service of monstrous eugenics.

  “Deception.” He was muttering under his breath now. “Tricks and lies. You’re trying to convince me I’m something I’m not.”

  Abruptly the eviscerating uncertainty vanished. Once again he was composed and relaxed. The fear that possibly they were right, that everything he was and had stood for all his life was a lie, simply evaporated under the cool glare of knowledge.