by Eric Brown
“Or perhaps,” Akio said, mesmerised by the sight of the dying man, “perhaps he truly has attained an Exalted state?”
Hovarth stared at Hendrick and called out, “Lincoln promised that the Vhey would deliver unity with reality! The Vhey agreed to Exalt me, and they have!”
Hendrick shook his head. “It’s a lie,” he said, “an effect of some alien drug . . .”
Hovarth laughed. “Listen to you, Hendrick! Blind to the last, even when confronted with evidence!”
Mercury took a faltering step forward, staring at the man as if in disbelief. “But . . . but you didn’t undergo this for yourself, Hovarth. Or . . . or not wholly for yourself.”
Hendrick stared at her. “What do you mean?” He swung to face Hovarth. “Where’s Samantha, damn you? Where are Sam and Maatje?”
Hovarth looked at Hendrick, his eyes wide. He appeared ecstatic. “I did it for Maatje, for Samantha. We . . . After what happened on Tourmaline . . . our relationship would never be the same. How could she have trusted me, after that? I . . . I had to make it up to her, to atone.”
“But how does this . . . ?” Hendrick began.
Hovarth went on, “I heard about the Vhey from my old friend, Edward Lincoln. The Vhey are wise beyond our understanding; they manipulate molecules, cells, with the power of thought alone. And they are infinitely curious. They study us, Hendrick: they wish to Exalt us so that they can better understand the human psyche. They study us in life, and they wish to study us on the point of physical death. So I gave myself: I traded myself.”
His heart pounding, Hendrick managed to ask, “Traded yourself . . . for what?”
In reply, Hovarth moved his left hand minimally. Restricted by a cruel spike that skewered his wrist, he nevertheless managed to raise a trembling finger and point across the clearing.
Hendrick swung and stared into the jungle.
In the shadows, overhung with vines and alien leaves, was Samantha’s suspension pod.
He launched himself from the thorn tree and lurched across the clearing. He stumbled to a halt two metres from the pod, too fearful to approach and raise the lid. Then Mercury was beside him, and together they stepped forward. Hendrick drew a long breath, reached out and lifted the lid.
The pod was empty.
Moaning, he reeled away and staggered back to the thorn tree and its gruesome cargo.
“Where is she, damn you?” he sobbed. “For Christ’s sake, Hovarth, tell me where she is! What do you mean, you traded . . . ?”
“The Vhey are a fair race, Hendrick. For every human they took from Edward’s colony, to study and Exalt, they agreed to cure, or heal, another.”
His body gave a galvanic spasm.
“Where is Samantha?” Hendrick cried.
Hovarth stared at him, his eyes wide. Then he smiled one last time and his head fell forward.
Hendrick stepped towards the tree. “Tell me, damn you! Where is . . . ?”
Mercury took his arm and murmured, “Matt, he’s dead.”
“But . . . did you read him? Do you know what happened to Samantha?”
As he watched her, tears trickled down her cheeks.
“Tell me,” he cried. “For pity’s sake, put me out of my misery!”
She reached out and touched his cheek, and said, “The Vhey cured her, Matt. They reached into her and manipulated her molecules, brought her back to life, and took her further into the sacred zone. I read that much in his dying mind, but no more.”
“Cured her?” he said, incredulous.
Mercury turned to the watching Vhey. “Where are Maatje and the child?” she asked.
Hendrick gripped Mercury’s arm. “Does it know?” he asked in desperation.
She shook her head. “I can’t make out its thoughts . . . just images. I see Maatje and Sam, in a clearing.” To the Vhey she said, “Take us!”
The alien turned and slipped into the jungle, and they followed.
ELEVEN
IN HIS DESPERATION NOT TO LOSE SIGHT OF THE ALIEN, Hendrick fell again and again, slipping and sliding in slicks of rotten vegetation and fungal growths. Everywhere he looked he saw miniature versions of the thorn trees garlanded with the liquefying corpses of small animals, and he tried to close his mind to what he might find in the next clearing. Could fate be so cruel as to have Samantha resurrected from the dead, only for her mother to sacrifice the child in some grotesque alien ritual?
He was aware of Akio behind them, struggling to keep up. Mercury slowed down and assisted the young man along the track while Hendrick surged ahead, keeping the crimson alien always in his sights.
The track became steeper, so that soon they were scrambling over rocky outcrops with the jungle closing in claustrophobically on every side. Hendrick was exhausted, his legs weak. He wondered how long he could continue like this before he collapsed. He forced himself to stay upright and conscious, dragging in great breaths of fetid air. He told himself that he’d lived for this moment for years; he’d traced Samantha from planet to planet, covered light years and overcome setback after setback, and numerous disappointments, and still he’d continued, undaunted, dreaming of the day he would rescue his daughter and bring her back to life . . . And now Samantha was alive, and almost within his grasp: he could not fail her now.
Without warning he burst from the twilight gloaming of the jungle and emerged into dazzling sunlight. He stopped dead, cursing his vision, which was tardy in adjusting to the light. He was aware of Mercury to his right, grasping his arm, and of Akio to his left, breathing hard.
“My God . . .” Mercury said, seeing something that Hendrick had yet to behold.
And then his vision adjusted to the glare and he saw it too.
They were in a clearing like the others, with a giant thorn tree at its highest point, and before the tree stood Hendrick’s ex-wife, Maatje, proud and upright as she looked down on him imperiously.
But it was not Maatje and the thorn tree that had provoked Mercury’s exclamation, but what stood ten metres away across the clearing.
Three aliens were holding Samantha. Two creatures stood on either side, gripping her upper arms, and a third was behind his daughter; this one had one arm around Samantha’s chest, the other reaching around her so that its wide hand spanned her face.
Samantha was unconscious, sagging in the aliens’ embrace; she was dressed in the light-green one-piece she had worn in the suspension pod, and stood a head higher than the trio of Vhey.
Hendrick could only hope that she was unaware of what was happening to her.
What was happening to her . . . ?
He took a step forward, then another, like a sleepwalker, or someone wading through fathoms of retarding ocean.
“You’re too late!” Maatje cried as she stood before the thorn tree. “There’s nothing you can do now!”
He found his voice. “What . . .” he began feebly. “What the hell . . . ?”
He watched, transfixed, as Maatje moved. She took a step backwards, towards the tree, so that her torso came up against the projecting spines. Something moved behind her—a long, questing, crimson tentacle, its tip moving like a curious proboscis towards the base of her skull.
“What are you doing?” Hendrick cried.
Maatje laughed at him as the umbilical latched onto the nape of her neck; it adhered like a leech and her eyes widened as if in ecstasy.
He gestured to Samantha. “Stop them!” he yelled. “Tell the Vhey to give her up!”
Maatje shook her head, her expression rapturous.
Mercury was moving towards Samantha and the aliens, one step at a time, her face twisted in pain. She sank to her knees as she attempted to read the alien minds.
Maatje called out, “This is the culmination, Matt! The very end . . . or should I say, the very beginning?”
“Stop!” he cried. “This is insane. It’s not too late to save yourself. Walk away from the tree . . . It will kill you, Maatje. The ecstasy you’re experiencing . . . it’s
a drug, an artificial stimulus!”
“You fool!” she yelled. “You small-minded, rationalist fool! Can’t you bring yourself to admit that the Vhey possess what your limited human sciences can only dream of emulating?”
“Please . . .” he said desperately. “Please tell the Vhey to release Samantha! Do that, at least.”
“What? And abort what we are about to achieve? Oh, no, Matt, I can’t do that. Thanks to the Vhey, Samantha lives, and soon I will experience what I’ve only ever dreamed of experiencing.”
Her words sent a glacial dagger through his heart.
On her knees, Mercury said, as if in wonder, “Pahn-malahn.”
“Soon,” Maatje said, “I will be one with my daughter . . . and then you can never, ever, take her away from me.”
He almost laughed at the sheer insanity of her words, but when he spoke he was in tears. “Is that what this is all about, Maatje? To deny me—?”
She laughed. “You shallow, egotistical fool! As if everything is about you! Of course it isn’t about you, though I will gain immense satisfaction in denying you custody of my child.”
“Then what . . . ?”
“This is the only way I can ensure that Samantha and I will never be separated. And there is nothing, nothing, you can do to prevent it.”
He fumbled in his jacket for the pulser. He would show her—he’d burn the thorn tree to cinders, then turn the pulser on the Vhey if they refused to release his daughter.
“Matt!” Mercury cried.
Her warning came too late. He felt something grasp his arms, saw a flash of crimson as an alien, as fast as a lizard, snatched the weapon from his grasp and sped off into the jungle.
He fell to his knees and stared at Maatje as the crimson umbilical drew her towards the projecting thorns. He heard her gasp, and saw her wide-eyed expression of pained rapture as the first of the spines punctured her flesh.
He pushed himself to his feet and staggered towards Samantha and the aliens. He would tear her away by main force, take her far from here before the Vhey could work their evil . . .
Then he understood what had brought Mercury to her knees. His steps were retarded, as if he were trying to wade through mud, and something enclosed his head like a pulsing migraine and prevented him from taking another forward step. He too dropped to his knees, impotent despite the overwhelming desire to reach his daughter. It was all he could do to turn his head towards Maatje in one last desperate, mute appeal.
A dozen spines erupted from her chest and belly in a welter of blood—and Maatje flung back her head, her mouth wide in a piercing scream of agonised ecstasy.
At that precise second, Samantha opened her eyes; she struggled, whimpering, and turned her head this way and that in an attempt to dislodge the alien’s hand from her face.
Through its splayed fingers, she caught sight of Hendrick and cried out, “Daddy!”
Maatje screamed at him, “Too late, Matt! Too late . . .”
“Daddy, I don’t want . . .”
So pahn-malahn had not yet been achieved. There was hope yet, though he was powerless to move, still less save his daughter.
“Daddy, help me!”
He called out that he loved her, and knew the futility of his words.
“Daddy, I don’t want . . .” Samantha said again. “Mummy told me what she wanted, but I don’t want her in my head!”
On the thorn tree, Maatje opened her mouth to scream, but all that fountained from between her lips was a pulse of frothing blood.
Mercury stared across at Hendrick. “They . . . they can’t do it, Matt! Or they’re unable to achieve the transfer. Or perhaps . . .” She stopped, her features twisting with horror.
“What?” he called out.
She shook her head. “Later . . . I’ll tell you later. We’ve got to fight this, Matt. Help me up, and together . . . together we can fight them.”
He felt hands on his arm, lifting him to his feet. Akio staggered under his weight as he held Hendrick upright. They stumbled across to where Mercury was on her knees, and between them lifted her to her feet.
“Daddy!” Sam cried. “Help me!”
Hendrick, Mercury, and Akio moved towards the alien trio as Samantha struggled for her freedom. Hendrick fought the pounding pressure in his head and forced his way forward, step by painful step. The closer he came to the aliens, the more difficult it was to take the next step as pain pulsed in his head.
Samantha struggled sluggishly, crying out. She managed to release an arm, lashed out and caught an alien in the face. It reeled away, holding its jaw. Now two aliens held her as she tried to shake them off, crying out in terror.
She reached out to Hendrick and their fingertips met. He forced himself further forward, gasping with the effort, and gripped her hand. He pulled his daughter, and with a cry she jerked away from the aliens’ grip and came crying into his arms.
On the thorn tree, Maatje gave vent to a piercing scream as she stared across the clearing and beheld his victory.
Hendrick hoisted Samantha onto his hip and staggered from the clearing, foregoing the satisfaction of witnessing Maatje’s death. He had one simple aim: to be as far away as possible from the Vhey. Akio led the way back through the jungle, Mercury at Hendrick’s side, assisting him when he lost his footing. If the Vhey were giving chase, there was no sign of them as they came to the second clearing, and then the first, and what seemed like an age later arrived at the sloping meadow and the welcome sight of the flier standing in the sunlight.
Hendrick eased his daughter onto the back seat as Mercury powered up the flier and they took off.
Five years, he thought. After five long years, the chase was over.
He held Samantha close to him as the flier banked and headed south towards the equator.
TWELVE
HENDRICK SAT BESIDE THE BED IN PASCAL’S LAKESIDE villa and held his daughter’s hand.
He stared at her perfection as she slept. Earlier, Pascal had called in a doctor who had submitted Samantha to an extensive examination: for someone who had been so ill, he pronounced, and in suspension for so long, she was in remarkable condition. He advised sleep and small meals, gave her a sedative, and attached a biomonitor to her left temple.
Hendrick was loath to leave her side. He was unable to put into words what it was he feared, exactly: that the Vhey might come from the jungle and take her back, that Maatje might miraculously rise from the dead and abduct Samantha yet again . . . He knew his fears were ridiculous, but he felt them even so. He had spent five long and fruitless years searching for his daughter, and now that he had found her, he was paranoid about her safety.
He looked up. Mercury was leaning in the doorway, smiling at him.
He returned her smile. “How long have you been there?”
“Five minutes, a little longer. Watching the man I love. I’m so happy for you, Matt.”
“Watching me?” he asked. “Or reading?”
“I couldn’t help snatching a few seconds, to share your joy. I hope you don’t mind?”
“Of course not.”
“I wish you could look into my mind, Matt, and see how happy I am for you.”
He stared into her eyes. “I can tell that from just looking at you.”
She entered the room, pulled up a chair and sat beside him. “The doctor has arranged transport for Samantha first thing tomorrow. There’s a shuttle leaving the port at eight, and a Telemass transfer from the orbital station to Berlin at six that evening. I’ve booked our return.”
He took her hand. “Back there, in the jungle . . . you said that the Vhey were unable to make the transfer, or . . . or what?”
“While I was fighting my way towards the Vhey,” Mercury said, “I tried to read them. I did read them, very briefly.”
“And?”
“I don’t think they can really achieve ‘soul’ transfer, or pahn-malahn as they call it, with their own kind—and they certainly can’t do it with humans.”
He stared at her. “They can’t? But Edward Lincoln . . . ?”
“Lincoln wanted to believe that he was conjoined with the . . . the essence of his wife, and the Vhey were able to persuade him that
this was so. They were happy to lead him along, to get what they wanted from him—access to the minds of the humans in the artist’s colony.”
“They’re telepathic?”
“Or empathic, and telekinetic, and perhaps a lot of others things that we humans can’t yet understand . . . But they can’t trade in human souls, Matt. And,” she went on, shaking her head, “I’m not even sure that they can achieve transfer with their own kind. Perhaps I’m being cynical, but I think that the Vhey who claim this ability are a malign minority . . . a priesthood, if you like . . . who use their empathetic ability to gain power amongst their kind.”
“So Maatje and Hovarth . . . ? The ecstasy they claimed?”
“They probably did experience a kind of ecstasy, Matt, but I’m sure it was drug induced. And I’m sure they felt no pain, before they died.”
He squeezed her hand. “Whatever I felt for Maatje died a long, long time ago.”
They sat in silence for a minute, staring at the sleeping child.
Mercury said, “I read Samantha’s mind earlier too.”
“And?”
“And I read her love for you, Matt. Subjectively, although over six years have elapsed since she was installed in the suspension pod, she has been awake for less than an hour. Her last thoughts, when she was resurrected in the jungle, were of the hospital on Landsdowne. Then Maatje explained to her what had happened, briefly, and what she wanted to happen.”
“She was truly insane,” Hendrick whispered.
“But Samantha is remarkably unaffected, Matt. Of course, she’ll need counselling, as well as medical attention, for a long time when we get back to Earth. She’s lost her mother, after all, and her life on Landsdowne and everything she knew there.” She smiled at him. “I’ll remain in the background. I don’t want her to think of me as her mother’s replacement.”