by T. R. Harris
“What do you call your race?” Adam asked, attempting to break the ice.
“We are called the Us.”
“Us? That translates as a pronoun indicating a group of people,” Sherri commented.
“That is correct. We consider all of us as the Us. Is there a problem?”
Adam and Sherri shook their heads. “Of course not. It makes perfect sense,” Adam said. “In fact, we come a planet called Earth—”
“Earth?”
Adam could see the confusion on Afton’s face. “Yes, it translates as dirt in most languages. But we consider it to mean the mother soil, the stuff that makes our world firm and solid.”
“Which also makes sense,” said Afton. “And where is this Earth of yours?”
Adam hesitated. He had the feeling the alien was baiting him, having already figured out the answer. Afton stepped into the silence.
“You are from the Kac, are you not?”
“Why do you say that?” Riyad asked.
“For generations, my world of Bancc-Bin has played host to hundreds, if not thousands of races in the Suponac, brought here by the Nuoreans for testing. We have seen nearly all the advanced species on this side of the galaxy—”
“And we have never seen you before,” Nissi snapped, not hiding her venom for the Humans.
Adam saw Coop’s and Riyad’s hands slide down their legs, ready if the Us decided to try anything.
“You’re correct,” Adam admitted. “We are from the galaxy you call the Kac.”
“Why are you here?” Nissi demanded. She was having trouble speaking through the pain in her face. To her credit, Adam was surprised she was still alive. With his enhanced strength, he could have killed her.
“From our earlier conversation, I believe you have no loyalty to the Nuoreans. Is this true?”
“If it were not, do you believe we would tell you?” Afton answered, a slight grin on his snarling lips. His fans flared out and vibrated for a moment before receding. A laugh?
Adam smiled back, careful not to fully expose his teeth to the alien. The Us were constantly exposing their own sharp, wicked-looking teeth. Still, Adam wasn’t taking any chances.
“A very good point, Afton. But yes, we are from the Kac and we have come because the Nuoreans are threatening our galaxy with their silly challenges. We mean to stop them.”
“You…and your solitary ship?” Nissi growled. Literally…she growled. “You must not have experience fighting the Nuoreans. It will take more than that to defeat them.”
“We don’t want to defeat them—just stop them from entering our galaxy,” said Copernicus, speaking for the first time. His response was a growl itself.
Afton raised his hand, attempting to calm the tensions around the table. “Your mission is your own, and you have come a long way to accomplish it. I trust you believe in your abilities, so I will not question them.” He cast an angry eye at his fiery assistant.
The conversation was interrupted by the serving of the evening meal. Kies carried a large tub into the room and placed it at the center of the table. She then brought in seven small torches on wide bases—flames shooting upward three inches—along with seven sharp knives.
Something moved in the tub. The Humans were taller than the Us and could see over the edge of the container. Just then, a number of pointy tentacles slithered over the edge.
Afton reached out quickly and grabbed one of the spongy arms, then with his knife, cut it off and placed the bloody end into the flame of his torch.
“Hurry,” he said. “Cauterize the end to hold in the juice.”
“The juice…is blood,” Riyad pointed out.
“Yes,” Afton beamed, as he bit down hard on the charred end of the tentacle. Then he placed the bit end back in the flame to once again seared the flesh—to seal in the juice.
Sherri reached across the table and grabbed one of the wiggling tentacles. She cut it off and placed the bloody end in the flame. The three men watched her, their mouths agape. Once the tip was blackened, she removed it from the flame and pierced the flesh with the sampling wand on her datapad. After a moment, she sighed.
“Sorry guys…but it’s editable. Can’t guarantee the taste, though.”
“Please try,” Afton prodded. “I realize it is alien to you, but even as we must suffer your particularly foul odor, so you should taste our food.”
Each man took a tentacle and placed it in the flame. Then in unison, they bit into a still wiggling and warm, gooey finger of flesh.
Blood squirted out the sides of Adam’s mouth, as the foul warmth of the barely dead animal’s blood met his tongue. His eyes grew wide, and he looked at the others, each sharing the same expression. After the first bite was down he looked across the table at his host. “What does this taste like?” he asked rhetorically. “It’s not chicken or beef. In fact I don’t think it takes like meat at all.”
“Plums,” Copernicus offered. “It tastes like sweet, warm plums.”
“That’s it!” Adam exclaimed. “It tastes like a fruit rather than a meat.”
“The body chemistry of each species produces a different reaction,” Afton said. “We have provided gandt to numerous species. All have enjoyed it, to one degree of another. It is a product of our ocean. Others collect them by the thousands each day to be sold in the market. Please, let us eat before resuming the inevitable questioning you have for us. Our appetites may be altered by the grave topics to be discussed.”
********
After the meal, everyone went outside and sat around a roaring fire, while listening to waves crash against the rocks at the base of the high bluff. The glory of Andromeda was evident in the sky, shining with the intensity of a galaxy twice the size of the Milky Way. Even on its fringe, the light from a billion-billion stars lit up the night, casting a soft, even glow across the landscape and sparkling on the black sea beyond.
The smell of burning wood made Adam quickly forget about the stench inside the house, and he got the impression even the aliens were welcoming the masking fragrance of the fire. Adam was reminded of his home in Tahoe, and the countless nights with pine-scented smoke wafting through the trees. It was hard for him to believe he was in an alien galaxy. It only proved that atoms were atoms, and molecules were molecules everywhere. The laws of chemistry and physics were universal, and wood in one galaxy burned just like wood in another.
Taking in the tranquil scene sent a thread of melancholy through his mind. He missed his home—and his homeworld. He wished all the turmoil and conflict would just go away and leave him and his race alone. They had never asked for any of this. But now he and his closest friends were on a desperate mission of life or death in a place unimaginably far from home. Suddenly, all the tasks before him rose up like a chain of Everest mountain peaks, blocking his way. He closed his eyes and tried to wash away the depression. Only the sound of his friend’s voices brought him out of his waking nightmare.
“How many Nuoreans are on the planet?” Copernicus was asking.
“Several hundred,” Afton answered. Kies was at his side, huddled close for warmth against the cold ocean air. “They are here when the need arises for nearby races to be drafted for the games. There are few worthy opponents left, so they rarely call them up, not until their numbers increase.”
“Why are the Us not in danger?”
Afton smiled. “Look at us. We are small and frail. Although accommodations have been made for us in the past with regards to weapons, we cannot provide adequate competition in the games. You will find that there are many like us. The Nuoreans do not force us to fight, yet they use us for other things. Some worlds provide raw materials, others, food sources. Bancc-Bin has been a preliminary staging ground for several hundred years. Our gravity and atmosphere is a near-match for Nuor so potential immunity races can be tested here, to see if they can stand against the challengers. The Nuor may be heartless savages, but they do like competitive matches.”
“Do you know where Nuor i
s located?” Adam asked over the crackling of the ember-producing fire.
“It is five thousand light-cycles from here, on the other side of the Mournis Gap.”
“Have you ever been there?”
Afton laughed. “I have not been outside my system. I may manage a spaceport, yet I am not a star-traveler.”
Adam moved around the huge fire pit to sit next to Afton. “I have to be honest with you, Afton,” he began. “We came to your world looking for a navigation computer. We’re here to break the link between your galaxy and ours, but we can’t do that without first learning the location of Nuor.”
“You came all this distance without knowing?”
“How could we? We’re the first of our kind to come here. Can you help us? Can you provide us with navigational charts for Andro—for the Suponac?”
Afton looked to his assistant, Nissi. She sat silent, her iridescent skin shimmering in the light from the fire. She looked like she was about to explode.
“There is a—” Afton began.
“You cannot help them!” Nissi stood up, the fans on the sides of her head flaring out and vibrating. “They will upset the peace we have on Bancc-Bin. They come here from a smudge in the sky, and there they will return, leaving the Us to suffer the consequences.”
“All we need is a computer,” Adam countered. “After that, we’ll leave, and no one will have to know where we got it.”
“They will know. And you said it before, you are not here to defeat the Nuoreans, just to make your galaxy safe from them. And what about the Us? We will still be here and subject to their wrath.”
“How will they learn that you gave us the computer?”
“Because I told them where you are. I will not let you hurt the Us.”
Chapter 7
“The Human ship is on Bancc-Bin!” Morlon reported over the comm link to Rodoc.
“Where is that?”
“One of the staging planets, in sector nine.”
“What is it doing there?” the leader of the Nuoreans asked.
“Unknown. It landed three hours ago. A local informed us of the arrival.”
“We must secure the ship above all else.”
Morlon nodded. “I understand. I have dispatched Third Cadre to the planet. It will take two days to get there. Until then our local forces are tasked with securing the ship and the crew.”
The disgusted look on Rodoc’s face spoke volumes. Nuoreans assigned to such an insignificant station would not be expected to the best-trained. Morlon could read his expression.
“We must rely on what is available, Master.”
“Yet these are Humans, Commander. The local force will have no concept of what they are facing.”
“I will inform them.” Morlon looked hard at his superior. “It is the ship that has value at this point. If the Humans become too difficult to subdue or to hold, I will order their execution.”
“That would be a prudent strategy. Make it so.”
********
Did you hear that, Kaylor? Adam asked through his ATD, now linked with the ghost program in the Najmah Fayd’s comm system.
I did, came the response in his mind.
Lift the ship and then jump. I’ll contact you with a location to come pick us up.
Does your ATD have the range? How far can we jump?
That will be a problem, Adam conceded. Slip back near the surface in two hours. I’ll contact you then.
Adam was on his feet, as were the other three Humans, flash weapons drawn from their ankle holsters. “Do you hear that?” he asked the others.
“What?” Sherri asked. “I can’t hear anything over the ocean and the fire.”
“It sounds like the exhaust from jet packs.”
“I can’t hear it.”
Adam looked hard at Nissi. “We’re not your enemy,” he said to the defiant female alien.
“You are not our friends either. You are…a problem.”
Adam turned to Afton. “What’s that way, along the bluff?”
“Open territory, out to the point. You can see it in the distance.”
Adam nodded. “Everyone get going,” he said to his team. “We just need to stay ahead of the Nuoreans for two hours. I’ll have Kaylor meet us at the point.”
Copernicus, Sherri and Riyad took off at a fast sprint into the dim light beyond the fire. Adam stayed behind with Afton.
“Are you going to be safe?” he asked the alien.
“Very unlikely, but I will deal with that.” He cast an evil eye at Nissi. “Hurry; I have seen the Nuoreans swarming tactics.”
No sooner had Afton spoke before Adam spotted a dozen or more dark figures descending from the galaxy-lit sky. It never got fully dark on Bancc-Bin, so the armored figures stood out clearly against the glow of the night sky.
Adam set off after the others.
Only a few yards beyond the fire pit, the terrain turned coarse, the rock-strewn top layer of a massive volcanic lava flow that formed the miles-long bluff jutting out into the ocean. Adam could see the others ahead of him, winding around narrow canyons, cracks in the flat shield flow that were slowing their progress.
Adam was approaching one of the crevasses himself. It looked to be about fifty feet across. As he drew closer, he figured this was as good a time as ever to test his new mutant abilities. A few feet from the abyss, he felt muscles surge in his legs, having received the message from the bundle of mutant cells lurking in his brain. He jumped, instantly feeling the awesome sensation of flying.
He landed on the other side with room to spare. Even in the light gravity of Bancc-Bin it was a world-record long jump.
Three dark figures landed in his path—Nuoreans with jet packs. Without thinking, Adam threw his body sideways and body blocked one of the aliens. Then he twisted in the air and landed back on his feet, squared against another. The alien was armed with an energy weapon in his right hand and a long narrow shield in his left. He struck at Adam with the shield, slamming it into his face and chest. Adam fired his flash weapon point-blank at the alien. The bolt hit the shield and was absorbed.
Momentarily surprised by the hand-held diffusion screen—he didn’t know something like that existed—he was struck from behind by the shield of the other Nuorean. He stumbled forward into the other one, causing all three to fall onto the sharp, obsidian rock covering the ground. The Nuoreans wore body armor, so they were unaffected. Adam was slowly transforming into a mutant, so he too ignored the cuts and bruises.
His new-found strength and quickness was enough for him to swarm over his two assailants, snapping necks and busting skulls before all was quiet. He looked across the landscape, where brilliant streaks of light flared out from flash weapons two hundred feet away. The other Humans were engaged in a battle of their own, up against what looked to be a dozen Nuoreans. After a moment, the flashes died away, and Adam could see his friends being surrounded and shackled by the dark figures.
Another light on his left caught Adam’s attention. It was a small aerial transport, maneuvering for a landing.
Adam was on his feet, watching his team being taken prisoner, and standing on the opposite side of a wide crevasse across from them. He ran off in the other direction, stopped and turned toward the dark pit. He had jumped one canyon…he could jump this one too.
Everyone on the other side was watching him—the Nuoreans included—wondering what he was doing. Then he took off at the fastest sprint his enhanced leg muscles could provide. He planted his right foot on the edge of the crevasse and launched his body into the air. A split second later he was fifty feet in the air, his legs running through empty sky, heading for the other side.
And he almost made it.
Even with his mutant cells working overtime, it still wasn’t enough. He dipped under the edge of the canyon and hit hard onto the flesh-cutting rock. His head bounced off something hard and he slid to his right, before beginning a long tumble down the rock face. Even though he could tolerate pain more
with the changing he was going through, this was asking too much. His mind took over and he blacked out, moments before splashing into the cold surf at the base of the bluff.
The shock of the water stunned him awake. He fought against the surging current, before being lifted up and dropped against a solid wall of sharp rock. He struggled to stay above the surface, but was pulled away again by a return wave. Three times in rapid succession he was lifted up and dropped, before finally surrendering to the relentless battering. He fell into unconsciousness once again, welcoming the warm arms of darkness and the soothing sensation of floating….
********
“Adam!” Sherri yelled. The Humans gasped when they saw his body disappear into the dark abyss of the canyon. Several Nuoreans raced to the edge, sending probing shafts of light far below. More aliens came forward, these carrying ropes. They began to make their way down the canyon face. Even if he was dead, they needed the body for proof.
The trio of Humans was shackled and then herded into the back of the aerial transport. Sherri tried her best to catch one last glimpse out the back before the door closed, but aliens swarmed in and blocked her view. She looked at the faces of her companions. Riyad and Copernicus stared back with stern, angry expressions. They had all run over the rocks making up the large lava shield and knew them to be loose and razor sharp. The bluff was made up of a hundred feet or more of the flesh-ripping material. Add to that the pounding surf below, all cast in the dull glow of Andromeda, and hope was in short supply.
In their depression, none considered the incredible height Adam had reached with his leap. If they had, they would have chalked it up to the light gravity of the planet. All they were thinking at the time was that no one could have survived such a fall.
Sherri slumped on the bench seat, her body held in place by netting on the bulkhead. The craft lifted into the air and made a steep turn. She tried to focus on the here and now; sadly, Adam’s fate was already sealed. She wondered if he contacted Kaylor before he fell, or did the Nuoreans get to the spaceport first? And even if Kaylor did get away, they had no way to contact him. Without the ship, their mission to destroy the midpoint generator was a bust.