Blackout.
When consciousness began to fade back in, Astanger realized that the roaring he could hear now was only from the engines. He felt the pressure rapidly dropping away from him. Judging by the pull of gravity, the ship was coming down at a steep angle. This was going to be bad. The Lenin settled with an almighty crash and the drive cut out. Then, with an awful creaking and groaning, the ship toppled and slammed down flat on whatever it had landed on. The impact flung Astanger sideways in his chair, but the side padding absorbed most of the shock. He was now sideways to the pull of gravity. Peering down to the bottom of the spin section, he saw a tangle of bodies, blood, and some exposed broken bone where the Guard had ended up. Some of them had landed on Citizen Breen—Astrogation—but she seemed okay because she was pushing them away and unstrapping herself. She climbed through the tangled mass over to the spin-section controls and hit the step-motor button. The section shuddered and began to turn, and she walked around with it. Step by step it brought sets of acceleration chairs down to ground level, and the crew unstrapped. Astanger released himself from his chair last and eyed the bodies that had tumbled around like stones in a polisher. A few of them were still breathing. One was bubbling blood from her mouth and muttering.
"Okay, let's get out of here."
Those from Engineering had broken open the weapons locker and, when Astanger arrived, were passing out carbines, sidearms, and loading up two shoulder-held missile launchers.
"Should we get food?" enquired someone.
"No time," Astanger replied.
The loading ramp was nearly underneath the ship, but its hydraulics managed to lift the cargo section enough for them to crawl out. Outside, a pall of smoke obscured much, and the ground was blackened and in places still burning. Checking a notescreen map and positional indicator, Astanger led the way toward where the Breznev was down, and toward where that house lay. After a few hundred yards, light penetrated-reflected from that awesome terrible moon as it breached the horizon-then a breeze began sweeping the pall aside to reveal a nightmare perhaps a mile to their left.
The Grazen ship.
The thing possessed no aerodynamics, no recognizable engine or drive section, nothing remotely equatable with human technology. It was a loose tangle of meter-wide pipes, the color of charred bone, nearly half a mile across. Within this tangle was a nacreous and vaguely spherical core. Some of the pipes, their mouths open to the air, were moving as if questing for the scent of something. Astanger had a fair idea what they were searching for.
"No-keep moving." He slapped an engineering assistant on the back as the man raised and aimed the missile launcher at the ship. "You'll only attract its attention."
But what was "it"? Was he talking about the ship itself or what it contained? He'd seen pictures of organic fragments from destroyed nests, but there were so many different kinds of those that no Collective Societal Asset had managed to put together an entire Grazen. He had little idea of what they actually looked like, how big they were—anything, really. The Collective described them as alien maggots-but that description was politically motivated and predicated on charred evidence gathered from the bombed nursery world.
"Keep moving."
Surely their luck could not hold for much longer.
It didn't.
A sound issued from the ship-the sighing groan of caves. Astanger glanced back at it and saw some of those pipes inclining toward the ground, coming together, then leveling so that he could see straight down their throats.
"You two! Hit that!" he shouted at the two carrying the missile launchers.
Both of them turned and went down on one knee, their shoulder launchers bucking. There was something coming down the pipes as the four missiles struck. Red fire bloomed, spraying bony fragments everywhere, but out of that flame a twiggy wheel two meters across rolled at speed toward them.
"Run!"
The thing seemed to hesitate for a moment, then it made its choice. It accelerated up behind one of those with a launcher and slammed down on the man. Astanger skidded to a halt, then ran back to look down into a terrified face. Encaged in the gnarled jointed mass the man struggled. Astanger had heard about this; the man would begin to scream in a moment, for spikes would soon begin easing into his flesh. He drew his sidearm and shot the man twice through the forehead-the only mercy possible. Then, looking back toward the ship, he saw its core open and its pipe components snake across the ground toward them—the whole mass disassembling and turning into a rolling avalanche of alien technology. And within that mass, commanding it, swept along with it, controlling it, came the Grazen itself. Obeying his own command, he turned and ran just as hard as he could.
*
Kelly guessed it didn't really matter what had happened. Though the Guard were completely out of it, the Doctrinaire still held a gun and she and her companions were still bound.
"Astanger! Report!" Shrad kept screaming into his communicator.
Any minute now, that would change. Either this Astanger would report or he wouldn't. Afterward, Doctrinaire Shrad would return his attention to his prisoners and, strouds no longer being an option, he would probably settle the matter with his gun. Kelly knew him. He represented everything she hated about the system she had tried to escape. He was also the one who had led them into the fight against the Grazen in which many of her friends had died, quite often as a result of his incompetence. She strained at her cuffs, but they were still hardened steel and unbreakable. Maybe if she could get to her feet, she could kick the weapon out of his hand. Maybe the others…
She turned and looked at the other five. Elizabeth was down on her side, her head in her father's lap. Slome looked ill, and anyway, he was old and fat and would probably be no help. That left Traviss and Longshank. Both of them were focused on the Doctrinaire. Kelly caught their attention and nodded her head toward Shrad. Longshank, who was closest, began to ease a leg forward, ready to hurl himself at the man. The sidearm abruptly whipped around, the barrel aimed straight at Longshank's forehead.
"I don't think so," said Shrad. He lowered his communicator and clipped it back on his belt. Kelly felt herself deflate.
Shrad continued. "Obviously the Lenin has encountered some difficulties."
The man looks crazy, thought Kelly. No telling what he might do now.
"But difficulties aside, you are all still criminals and betrayers of the Collective. Unfortunately, it seems that the strouds no longer function correctly." Shrad gazed around at the Guard. Not one of them remained standing. Some were sitting, some sprawled and unmoving, some kneeling with their foreheads against the carpet. "No matter-this is easily settled." He focused his attention back on Longshank. "For your crimes against the collective will, Daniel Longshank, I now execute sentence on you."
Shrad pulled the trigger. There came a hollow thunk, and the Doctrinaire looked with puzzlement at his weapon. After a moment, puzzlement turned to shock. He yelled and flung the weapon away. Tracking its course, Kelly saw it bounce on the carpet and begin smoking, then, with a multiple crack, it exploded, flinging fragments in every direction.
Kelly began trying to get to her feet. Then she noticed something: the Guard, those of them that were not obviously dead, were all now standing. She hadn't even seen them move.
"Citizen Guard One!" said Shrad with relief.
The one he addressed shook his head. "No… I think… I was…" He gave a puzzled frown, looked to his fellows for a moment, then slowly returned his attention to Shrad. "There's holes, but he tells me I can fill them. I remember now: my name is Evan… Evan Markovian."
Markovian.
"Citizen Guard One!" said Shrad, backing up. "Kill the prisoners! At once!"
Kelly settled back down, the certain knowledge of what would soon ensue igniting a warm glow in her chest.
"Why should I do that?" enquired Evan-formerly Citizen Guard One.
"I order you to kill the prisoners!"
"No," said Evan. He glanced to hi
s fellows and from them received nods of approval. After a moment, he reached up and pushed at one finger of his stroud with his thumb. The device lifted and, as if removing an irritating scab, he peeled it from his head.
"Do you know what's happening now?" Evan asked. Shrad could only shake his head mutely. Evan continued. "Tens of thousands of the Guard, all armed and ready for the new assault on the Grazen, have suddenly found themselves without strouds." He smiled. "I can see the images in my head, and they are beautiful. I see Doctrinaires being marched to the airlocks of ships and expelled into vacuum. I see them, on Capital World, being lined up and shot. Elsewhere, some have had the idea that sterilization is a better option, and flamethrowers are being used. And everywhere more personal, more painful, and more long drawn-out vengeances are being enacted." He paused contemplatively, gazing down at the stroud he held, then discarded it. "I think that last option is the one I want, Shrad." He looked up. "It's going to take you a long time to die."
Shrad turned and ran.
Get him, get him now, thought Kelly, but the newly awakened Evan Markovian just watched Shrad's departure with amused contempt. Almost without flunking, she brought her hands forward to push herself upright, then stopped and stared in confusion at her wrists. Where were the cuffs? Glancing back, she saw them lying in pieces on the carpet. No matter. She pushed herself to her feet, just as Longshank and Traviss were doing.
"Are you going to let him go?" she asked Evan. "Because I'm not."
The man still had that look on his face, but he was utterly motionless. Kelly walked over to him. She prodded his chest. He swayed but showed no other reaction. The other Guards were motionless, too. What was going on here? Fuckit. She could not work this out right now. But whatever was happening, she was not going to let that fucking Doctrinaire escape. She turned, scanning about her feet, then squatted down to pick up a carbine. She checked it over-just to be sure it was in working order.
"This cannot be happening," said Longshank.
What was the man on about?
A hand squeezed her shoulder. In annoyance, she turned, and then shock took over and she found herself dragging herself backward.
"It's all right," said the man who had named himself Mark, the man whose brains were all over the carpet nearby and whom she'd subsequently seen shot four times in the chest. He turned to glance over at the others and she could see that the occiput of his head was missing, exposing a gory hole the size of her fist.
"Conflicts outside my territory are usually of no interest to me, though I keep watch on them, just to be sure they don't come to represent a danger."
Kelly stared at the back of his head, watching as the hole just filled up and closed. He turned back toward her, and she saw bright pinpricks of light flickering around him. Both his eyes were in place, and red points advanced from deep inside to fill them out, turning them into something demonic. The man Mark seemed to be fading into the background, blurring, or perhaps another background was reaching out from somewhere to grab him back. Abruptly, the figure before her came back into focus and was no longer Mark. This individual's hair was bone white over a thin face. His simple attire transformed into something more like the inside of a machine than clothing for a human being. Trying to focus on him, Kelly realized she was looking into something… else.
Around him, indefinable engines lurked at the limit of perception, gathered and poised like a planetoid moments before impact. Vast energies seemed to be focused upon this one man, like a mountain turned onto its tip.
The Owner-Kelly had not the slightest doubt now.
"But I don't like conflicts upon my border. I find them… disturbing." He nailed her with viper eyes. "This Collective you fled is one of the most unsavory regimes I've seen in some time. It would have died eventually, but meanwhile it was stirring up the Grazen, who represent an altogether different danger."
There was a coldness here—an indifference to human suffering. Yet, he had saved them. Why did he do that? Kelly suspected that he had done so simply because the difference between saving them and not saving them was minuscule to him. She also felt he could annihilate them in a moment, at a whim.
"How can they be a danger to you?"
He paused contemplatively, then said, "Human speech—I have to slow myself down so much for it, have to hone down a fragment of myself for its purpose. The word should not have been danger but inconvenience. They inconvenienced me once before. They call it 'the Misunderstanding.' It resulted in me losing the biosphere of one of my worlds."
"What did they lose?"
"Half of their race… but that was long ago, when I was more impulsive."
Had he used the right words then?
"What about them?" Kelly pointed at the Guard.
"They are healing slowly—it's better to take them offline during the process. I used them to set Shrad running, just as I am using the rest of their kind to bring down the Collective."
He talked about human beings as if they were components in a machine.
"Yes, Shrad," said Kelly pointedly, gripping her weapon with more determination, but not yet ready to turn away from this being.
He looked at her as if he did not understand; then it seemed that the penny dropped. "I see, Shrad. You want to kill him." He turned toward the shattered window. "Walk with me." Glancing at the others, he instructed, "All of you."
They stepped out of his house and began crossing the rose garden. His walking, she saw, seemed okay at a brief glance, but closer inspection revealed that his feet weren't touching the ground. Kelly strode at his side; the others attentive all around.
"My god!" Olsen suddenly exclaimed.
Kelly glanced at him and saw that he was gazing up and to her left. She glanced there, taking in the starlit darkness and the rising moon. It took a moment for what she had just seen to register, and then she looked back. That was no moon.
"My ship," stated the Owner.
His ship. Fucking hell.
"I don't like problems close to home," he went on. He glanced at Kelly and she thought, He's more human now. Perhaps he had refined that fragment he was using for communication.
"The Grazen are an inconvenience. A Grazen Mother who is grieving and half mad could become something more than that, especially when she positions herself right on my border."
"The one that's coming?" Kelly guessed.
"The one that is already here."
Kelly's sudden fear was muted by his presence. "Here?"
"Yes, here to find a cure for her ill, and a kind of justice."
Abruptly, Slome interjected, "Is vengeance a cure?"
The Owner gazed at him and Slome turned pale at what he saw, but the Owner nodded. "Yes, for that mind-set, and for the human mind, too, though humans would like to deny their own nature."
Vengeance?
Then Kelly understood.
*
Leaning against the trunk of a gnarled olive tree, Astanger caught his breath and gazed in horror at the thing poised on the slope below them. So this was a Grazen! He saw a giant crayfish head from which extended many wiry tendrils, many of them spearing away to connect into the writhing tangle of pipe-things, whose black-etched moon shadows now surrounded him and his crew. Unlike a crayfish, it did not seem to possess a jointed exoskeleton, but a slick and tough-looking red and brown skin. At the extremities of the multiple limbs arrayed down its long body, it possessed things like hands, or feet, with digits arrayed in rows under flat pads. Its tail was not a flat fish tail, but a long rattish thing coiled around its already coiled body. And the Grazen was the size of a space shuttle.
It had stopped, why had it stopped? Was it toying with them now?
"What do we do now?" asked one of the crew.
Astanger wanted to reply, We die, probably very slowly, but didn't think that would help much. He gazed down at the sidearm he clutched and wondered if it would be best to use it on himself now, or to wait until the monster sent one of those twiggy things for him.
/>
Movement behind.
He looked upslope and saw the pipe-things withdrawing into the surrounding trees. Did it want them to run again? Had the chase thus far not been satisfying enough for it? Then he saw the figure hurtling toward them down the moon-silvered grass, and, after a moment, recognized the Doctrinaire. Obviously things had gone badly at the house-perhaps the Guard with Shrad had collapsed like those aboard the Lenin. Shrad must have used the tracer on Astanger's communicator and had come here because he thought he would be safe. Astanger felt like laughing, but knew it would come out hysterical.
When he saw what was awaiting beyond Astanger and the crew, Shrad came to an abrupt halt.
"Astanger! This way!" Shrad gestured imperiously.
Astanger just rested against his tree, watching the pipes moving in quietly behind the Doctrinaire. It was a small satisfaction to know that the man would be suffering a similar fate to them all.
"Come on!"
He started to gesture again, but then must have heard something. Turning, he saw one of the pipes rising up behind him, throated darkness bearing down on him. He fell back to the ground and scrambled downslope. He managed to gain his feet and break into a run. The pipe, like a confident python, came down and slowly writhed after him, then halted ten yards out from the first of the crewmen. Shrad kept running until he was up beside Astanger. Horrified, he stared downslope at the Grazen, then turned on Astanger.
"What the hell do you think you are doing, Citizen Astanger! You should've warned me! You should've run!"
Shrad's holster was empty. Astanger gazed at crewmen Breen, Chadrick, Grade, and the others who now gathered around. He read in them the contempt and hatred they felt for the Doctrinaire. Transferring his gaze to his own weapon, he swung it to one side in a leisurely motion, then brought it back hard across Shrad's face. The man went down and lay moaning, clutching at his cheek.
Galactic Empires Page 13