The messages that bombarded us projected directly into our minds. My stomach heaved.
“What insanity is this?” Levi screeched.
The transmission centered on a system only a short distance off our route home.
I turned to Fur. “What do you think? Whoever they are, they don’t seem to agree on whether they want help or not.”
“We must return to Dovid’s World. We are finished with helping creatures on useless worlds.” Levi’s voice stroked my nerve endings like fingernails on a chalkboard.
“Yeah. Curious.” Fur pulled at his beard. “Can’t hurt to head in that direction and see what’s up. It’s not far.”
Levi erupted. “I forbid it. Absolutely forbid it. Computer, do not take us anywhere but back to Dovid’s World.” He looked at me, his black eyes scorching my soul. “You are playing with fire, Berger. I have already had your parents arrested because you have disobeyed my commands.”
This was news to me. My stomach turned over again, and I squinted against the incipient headache.
“They will be tortured unless I countermand the orders.”
Pain pulsed in my temple. My voice shook. “If one hair on my parents’ heads is touched, your own loved ones—if you have any—will be saying the Kaddish for you, you son-of-a-bitch.”
Levi stepped toward me and grabbed the front of my tunic. “I will—”
I brought my forearm down on his wrist. He loosed his grasp, but then went for my throat with both hands. The bastard was strong from all his weight lifting. His fingers cut off my breath, and I tried to knee him in the groin. I was not successful, not having room to maneuver. He squeezed tighter.
I slammed the heels of both my hands on his ears. He grunted and relaxed his grip momentarily, but then squeezed even harder. I grabbed his wrists but could not budge them. The blaze of his fury cut through my shields, adding nausea and vertigo to the lack of oxygen to my brain. His suffused face started to waver, and my vision faded before I felt another set of hands intervene.
Fur pried the rebbe’s fingers loose. As strong as Levi was, he could not match the big man. Fur put his post-like arms between us and pulled us apart. “I think you had better come with me, Reb Levi,” he said.
“You’ve threatened me and my parents at every turn,” I croaked as I rubbed my throat, “but you are not going to have a chance to give more fucking orders. You’re not in charge of this expedition anymore.”
Levi stood with his mouth open, face purple. His white scar seemed to throb in time with his twitching eye. “You cannot—”
“Ruthie, activate my override, execute program Levi Lockout.”
“What are you doing? Computer, ignore that command,” Levi screamed.
I stared at the rebbe. “As of now you have no rights to operate anything on the GCVS outside of the food machines. Ruthie, I don’t want him on the bridge without Fur or me, so lock it if we’re gone. Let him access the comm to us if we are off ship, but that’s all.”
“You can’t do that!” Levi struggled against Fur’s grasp.
“Just shut the fuck up. I programmed the AI interface. It takes my commands. I don’t know what’s happening on this world, but we’re going to find out and see if we can help.” I glared at Levi.
Ruthie broke in, her dulcet tones at odds with her words. “Command sequence activated, Cy. You know, I never did like the way Reb Levi insulted me, so I am happy to keep him under control. That will be fun.”
I about swallowed my tongue on that one. The first image that hit my mind was that of Hal, the computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey. What kind of monster had I created here?
The rebbe’s black eyes went wide. He stared at the comm board, then stopped struggling and said, “Let me go. I will leave.” When released, Levi broadcast hate that would have immolated my brain if he had the power. Then he wheeled and stalked off the bridge.
Fur gave me a long, hard stare. I could feel he was worried about the repercussions of what had just occurred, but he said nothing more. I rubbed my neck, anticipating the bruises that I knew would appear, while I tried to get my stomach and head under control.
***
As we settled into orbit around an unnamed world. Ruthie said there were no records of the planet in any of the databases. I hailed the planet on the comm and myriad voices assaulted our senses again.
“Whoever you are, please, stop contacting us all at once. Our minds can’t tolerate it. If you persist, we must leave.”
The assault paused, but it then resumed even more frenetically.
“Shit. Ruthie, can you do anything? Shield us somehow?”
Levi stormed back onto the bridge just as I gave this direction. “What is happening? I am going mad.”
I could only wish. “We’re trying to get a handle on it. These things are incredible telepaths.” My writhing guts agreed.
Fur groaned. “I can’t think straight.”
Silence descended. Ruthie said, “I have erected a barrier, Cy. It will work at this distance, but I can’t say what will happen on the surface of the planet.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “Thanks, Ruthie. You’re a godsend.” I ignored Levi’s sputter at what he considered blasphemy. “We need to figure out how to communicate rationally with these beings.”
Fur frowned. “It almost sounds like there’s some sort of civil war going on. The last voice seems to be the only rational one, wanting to know who we are and what we want.”
“Yeah. Maybe we can contact that one to start.”
“Contact no one,” Levi screeched. “This is too dangerous. They are warning us themselves. We must leave.”
I clearly had not gotten across to him. “Levi, why don’t you just go back to your cabin and stick your head up your ass for a while? When you’re ready to be useful, you may come out. If not, just stay there.”
Levi’s face resembled a bruise. “Cohen. You are a devout Jew. You understand. Stop him from this madness.” He turned back to me. “Your parents are already suffering. That I guarantee you,” he screamed.
My head pounded as I stepped forward with balled fists, but Fur grabbed Levi’s arm first. He bodily picked the rebbe up by both arms and said, “It’s time for you to learn some truths yourself, Levi. Guess who I am?” Then he slammed the rebbe down on his feet, eliciting a grunt of pain, and hauled him off the bridge. “It’s time for a chat.” I heard Fur say before they disappeared down the corridor.
I sat back down and breathed deeply, pressing on my abdomen with crossed arms. Levi’s final words reverberated in my brain, but I needed to concentrate on the matter at hand. The mental voices were gone so I activated the comm.
“They are killing us. You must—”
“You have no hope. We will kill—”
“Hide. We must hide. Run—”
“We must communicate.”
“You,” I barked, “the one who wants to communicate. Can you shut down the rest of the voices?”
After a moment, the comm went quiet. Then the last voice came through from the speakers. At least Ruthie kept it out of our heads.
“Is this acceptable?”
“What’s going on down there? It sounds like a disaster.”
“We are having difficulties. Our mind is fractured.”
“‘Our mind is fractured?’ What in blazes does that mean? I don’t understand.”
Fur walked back in and said, “I left Levi to cool off, but I doubt he will. He was rather incredulous when I told him who I was.”
“I don’t doubt that a bit.”
The voice spoke in my head and interrupted us.
“I’m sorry, Cy,” Ruthie broke in. “The being has overridden my block.”
“So long as it’s just your voice. Who are you?”
Fur looked at me and shrugged. “That helps a lot.”
I responded. “Greetings, Overseer. Can you explain what the problem is so we can understand it?”
“Okay, you’re at war. There’s nothing that we can do to assist in that case. We are a veterinary medical service, not peacekeepers. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is.”
I glanced at Fur. “Shit. The thing reads minds, too? Overseer, we can help the wounded, but not at the risk of putting ourselves in the middle of a civil war.”
“Then what?”
“You need what?”
Fur’s murmured, “I think it means a psychiatrist.”
“A psychiatrist? I’m not a psychiatrist. I’m a veterinarian, for crying out loud. I can’t help you.”
I looked at Fur, eyebrows clawing their way up my brow. “You’ve contacted other worlds? If you have that kind of mental capability, what do you need us for?”
I let Overseer’s words dangle in the air for long moments. “Maybe we can do this from the ship?” I said to Fur. “Then we don’t have to put ourselves at risk on the ground.”
I did not have a clue as to what the thing meant. Our voyage had stretched the meaning of veterinary medicine. I expected that we might run into some unusual situations, even a strange animal or two. We had far exceeded our allotment in that regard, but this promised to be the strangest of all. Playing psychiatrist to a warring species—if it was one species.
“This thing can read minds and I’m supposed to be the psychiatrist?” I sighed and dropped my chin to my chest.
Fur grinned. “Pull this one off and you’ll be famous throughout the galaxy.”
***
The planet had no discernible cities, or even settlements large enough to identify as such. The seas were muddy green and covered about half the planet’s surface. The landmasses were uniform ochre except where mountain ranges thrust bedrock toward the sky. The Overseer directed us to a spot on the northern hemisphere that was indistinguishable from any other as far as we could tell. As we got close, we saw a series of earthen domes that jutted above the ochre plain. Overseer directed us to land near one of the domes, and Ruthie brought us in.
The atmosphere was not breathable—high in methane and ammonia—so Fur and I donned our suits and armed ourselves. At the Overseer’s direction, we exited and moved toward the nearest mound. Gravity was a bit higher than Dovid’s World, but not enough to be a problem. The vegetation resembled splotched brown, olive, and gray lichen. I had Ruthie shut the airlocks.
“For all the telepathic communication, we still have no idea what these aliens look like,” I said.
“I think we’re about to find out,” Fur pointed to an opening in the side of the dome.
What emerged might have been the communal offspring of a daddy longlegs spider, creeping Kudzu, and belly button lint. The central body was a ball of grayish-green fluff that stood about head high. A multitude of long thin legs covered with greenish leaf-like structures stuck out from the body. Two pairs of thicker bare legs—I assumed they marked the front of the thing— were tipped with hand-sized pincers. A mass of glittering black spheres spun within the body lint.
The three beings moved to the edge of the mound. One raised its front legs toward us.
“There is danger here. You must hide.” The translation came through my suit’s speaker. At least the Overseer was keeping his promise to stop the mental voice assault.
They constantly pirouetted their bodies on their myriad delicate legs as if on lookout for the danger they feared.
Fur had his hand on his blaster. “I have a bad feeling about this.”
I did a double take. I didn’t think he had been watching my old Star Wars vids. I shook my head and addressed the spider-things. “We were invited by the Overseer. We’re here to help.”
“The Overseer no longer commands us. We cannot stay in the open. Follow us.”
They turned and moved toward the entrance to the dome.
I saw Fur’s face blanch, even through the suit’s faceplate.
“What’s wrong?”
“Cy, I...I don’t...”
“What is it? Are you sick?”
“No. I just can’t...I can’t go in there.”
This was not like him. “Why?”
He shook himself like a dog trying to rid himself of fleas. “I can’t abide underground places.” He looked down at the ground. “I have claustrophobia.”
I stood open-mouthed. In all the time I had known him, this had never reared its ugly head. Then I recalled how uncomfortable he had been when we entered the tiny hut on Lupus IV. “Okay, I agree. Let’s get back to the ship.”
Then our conversation came to an abrupt close.
“Flee! Flee! They come.”
Levi, listening on an open comm, screeched, “What is happening? Who is coming?”
A howl of fear from the beings battered my empathic sense like a physical blow. I had no time for Levi. “Ruthie, shut him off.”
I looked for the source of the creatures’ panic. A horde of even larger beasts galloped around both sides of the ship. They resembled our greeters but with a denser core and stouter legs. Wicked-looking spines glinted on front legs that had pincers the size of my torso. The telepathic emotional message was one of hate and destruction. That moved me more than the panic of the dome dwellers. The oncoming monsters were between the ship and us.
“We’ve got to get in there,” I yelled at Fur, and darted for the entrance of the mound.
Fur followed, but hesitated at the underground entry. I grabbed his arm and tugged. It was like trying to move a land drone, but he relented before the horde reached us. One spider did something on the wall with two legs and a rock barrier slammed down behind us.
“This will give time, but they will enter. We must go.”
Fur shuddered.
There were many more spiders clustered in the tunnel we had entered. In response to their combined fear, I doubled over and almost vomited before I got myself under control. At least our guides were friendlier than the things outside. A blaster might take down a few of those creatures, but there were dozens. Maybe more.
“We must go.” I could not tell which spider was speaking to us, but we followed the horde.
The tunnel’s earthen walls were smooth, hard, and slick as glass. Eerie greenish illumination seeped from patches of a fungus-like growth and bounced off the burnished walls. The passage was tall enough for Fur, but he still walked with his head down and his shoulders scrunched together. I described our progress to Ruthie as we walked.
“We need you to keep a trace on us. We’ll never find our way out of these warrens if you don’t. We’ve passed at least a half-dozen intersecting tunnels already.”
“Cy, you are breaking up. GPS read...cannot follow...”
“Shit. K
eep trying, Ruthie.”
I wondered how Fur would respond to our loss of communication, but he seemed oblivious. When we marched out into a spacious cavern, Fur straightened up a bit, but not completely.
A host of creatures awaited us and the block on mental communication that had been protecting us disappeared.
At the last thought, Fur quivered. I couldn’t say I blamed him. Pain lanced through my temples.
“Quiet,” I screamed. “I can’t make sense out of anything you’re saying.” I instinctively held my hands to my ears, a useless gesture.
The voices subsided to a dull roar. I looked at Fur. His eyes were wide as he stared off into space.
“What were those things outside?” I asked the spiders. “They resembled you, but were more threatening.”
“Whose soldiers? Some other army? Where are yours?”
Confused thoughts fleeted through my mind. Then something spoke again.
“Well they can’t be your soldiers, can they? Why were they attacking you?”
Fur spoke for the first time since we had entered the dome. His voice was hoarse. “Maybe there’s been a military insurrection. Maybe some sort of coup.”
“Wait a minute!” It seemed like the only way to get their communal attention was to yell. “What in hell are you talking about? Those things out there are trying to kill you. You ran in here to be safe. Now you want to kill someone else? Nurses, yet?” I looked at Fur. He wrapped his arms around his chest.
“What is this? Does everybody just kill everybody else here? If so, I want out. We can’t help you.”
“I second that,” Fur muttered.
The clamor in my head ceased. I could still hear the movement of the creatures around us, but internally the constant chatter of voices in my head disappeared. Then Overseer spoke.
The Galactic Circle Veterinary Service Page 29