'Who was the shooter, Jerry? And who told you what was happening here?'
The youth, who was obviously in great pain, said, 'Time to go, Harold mate. We need to find that javelin launcher pod and get away before all the scavengers arrive. Climb up here and I'll tell you on the way.'
They lifted off with Harold directing Jerry to the precise spot where the neatly severed javelin pod lay in the top of the thick undergrowth. As Jerry hovered the bike over it, he activated a mechanical waldo arm-hand from under the front of the machine that grasped the pod and they then climbed away. They headed back to the village where the trees were opening up again in the late afternoon sunshine. Looking back, Harold saw a small Games Board recovery craf t and also a local Administration police craf t landing beside the Tengu. He smiled to himself, wondering what the discussion was going to be like between the two groups as one tried to explain to the other what had happened and why.
'I don't know who the shooter was, Harold. And I got the call from the village AI who told me that you were in real trouble. I was asked to run interference while a more substantial force of our militia was being readied. I am a territorial soldier for the Administration, so I grabbed my carbine and armour.
When I was told that the enemy was a dragon I decided to take the tournament bike with its javelins as I thought it would do the most damage. They worked well, eh!'
Harold nodded slowly in agreement, feeling very sick.
They quietly moved up the main road leading past the Administration building where they could see the picked clean skeletons of two of the Games Board security staff being gently lifted into body bags. The Games Board Event Management Centre looked like it had been chewed on severely as well, with parts of its surface appearing to be heavily acid-eaten. Harold wondered if any beetles had got inside.
Looking behind it, he saw that the Administration building showed only superficial damage and was slowly opening its living shields, the tens of thousands of dead beetles sliding off the unfolding leaves to the delight of the flocks of feasting birds. A few minutes later, they passed under the lowest branches of the giant village trees. The leaves were gradually lifting off the ground as they unlocked themselves from their neighbours, leaving tall piles of slowly melting hail, mixed with beetle parts and carcasses, in a great oval shape right around the village.
Jerry stopped the bike just beside his uncle's workshops with a crowd of locals quickly gathering. They climbed off the bike to be greeted with beaming smiles, then concerned comments when the villagers saw what injuries they had. Harold only had enough time to murmur his thanks to Jerry before the young soldier was rapidly escorted away to the medical centre.
Rebecca and Jenna, followed by the rest of the Spitz family, pushed their way through the crowd, all of them grimacing at the state of his injuries. Peter placed a biohazard blanket on the ground beside Harold, telling him to walk onto it. The little dragon wearily walked into its centre as it activated, folding up and sealing him inside. Peter then picked him up and cradled him in his arms and Harold snuggled down, feeling safe at last. Peter started to walk back towards their home tree when he was stopped by the local senior Administration officer.
'We need to interview him as to what the hell is going on, Peter.'
Peter looked at his longtime friend and shook his head. 'Nope. Not yet, Rob. This little guy is seriously beaten up. You can review his internal recordings of the entire event as soon as I have him hooked up in the tank. Follow me if you want to.'
He started taking long strides towards the home tree, with Rob Patu trotting to keep up.
'But, Peter, the Games Board is most insistent they know immediately what happened!'
Peter Spitz spat out angrily, 'Screw the bloody Games Board, Rob! Those bastards brought three combat grade ACEs here without any of us being advised and they hunted us! And the bloody things were that aberration, Tengu. They owe us explanations not the other way around!'
With the family and neighbours following, they walked in silence to the great tree then down into its base and through the high vaulted foyer of one of the ACE workshops.
Peter turned to everyone. 'Family adults, Jenna and Rebecca only from here. Full biohazard suits, everyone, before we go into the white room.'
They pushed themselves up against panels in the walls as the suits reached out and formed themselves around each of them, including their footwear and hands, before helmets flowed up out of the collars and sealed them in. They entered the compact, smooth room with its low ceiling, and sealed the doors behind them as the equipment and lights activated.
Peter placed Harold on a soft table inside a transparent tank, while the blanket unfurled, and asked him to open his access panels and extend his datalinks. The little dragon opened himself up as Peter slid the main molecular level scanner over the top of him and activated it. Around them the screens came alive, showing just how bad the damage was. A brave-faced Rebecca was standing silently, stroking Harold's head with gloves through the tank's wall. He smiled gently at her, but was too tired to reach out. He just wanted to sleep. The majority of his internal threat alarms were going off as one by one his systems slipped into emergency default mode.
Rebecca started to quietly cry, saying between the sobs, 'Dad, you are not allowed to let him die. Not today, Dad. I promised that he could have a Marty-burger.'
Peter looked around at the rest of the family and nodded. The adults were readying systems, or viewing what was happening inside Harold's body as it rapidly succumbed to the powerful ACE-tailored toxins with which he had been infected when the Tengu slashed his wings.
'Decision time, family. Hard-freeze or hold? Just how long do we have before total failure?'
One by one the adults answered that Harold had an hour, at most, if they could not identif y and neutralise the toxins.
Peter looked down at Harold, who was trying to speak. Peter reached into the tank and plugged in a few comms links, but said, 'Don't talk, Harold, just think, and while you are at it, upload everything that happened.'
Harold changed the image of the teacher, allowing it to blur, and shunted the original file deep behind his personal firewalls. He then passed on the recording and said: 'Talk with Reg the pug. They captured one of the Tengu.'
Peter smiled as Marie immediately contacted the dog then the panthers, explaining what was happening. Minutes later the DNA of the toxins captured from that Tengu hours earlier was sent planetwide as all the Augmented Intelligences and other ACE builders worked feverishly to identif y and counter its effects. Harold slipped into unconsciousness.
'John,' Peter said, 'start preps for absolute-zero freeze. We may not have time!'
John started to clip additional datalinks into the little dragon. 'The damage will be much worse in the long run, Pete, but I can't see a lot of alternatives.'
He then began pulling on armoured, thermal protective gear as Jenna, who was sitting at one of the screens on the other side of the room, said, 'Dads!There's a weird e-file here from a non-disclosed Games Board official! Arrived hours ago.'
There were murmurings of 'junk requests for interviews most likely' between those adults not working on Harold. Jenna spoke again. 'I've scanned it. It's clean. It's a formula of some sort?'
John looked hard at Jenna, then raised his eyebrows at Peter. 'Put the formula up on the main screens, Jen,' said Marie.
Everyone then gazed at the formula for a few seconds before Marie ran a<;:ross to the comms link unit, instructing it to send the formula out to the rest of the planet for assessment. Within minutes the answers flooded back: it was what they needed. Marie shunted the file across to their main computers and switched on the pumps flooding Harold's tank in gel. She started the regenerative and rebuilding programs as the bioprocessors created the toxin neutralisers and as soon as they started to become available had them injected directly into him.
Over the next few hours most of the adults left the room, going through the decontamination protocol
s, until just Rebecca and her mother were left watching Harold.
'Will he be OK, Mum?'
'I think so, Bex. Will be a week or so before he is fully recovered. His wing membranes will have to be regrown as will his entire digestive tract and probably both lungs, but yes, I'm sure he will be his old self in time.'
'So he won't get to eat a Marty-burger for a while.'
'No, Bex, but it's OK, as the dads are getting the burgers and are taking a container of liquid nitrogen to preserve some for when he can eat again.'
Rebecca nodded and smiled as one of Harold's eyelids flickered.
Games Board
Human Settlement on Storflsk
The Games Board director was in the airship's front lounge sipping what he considered an eminently acceptable local rose wine, while leafing through the paper reports of the previous day. He looked across at the other senior officers and smiled at each in turn. He pulled out his seal, examined it, pressed it onto the inkpad then stamped the cover of the report which was titled The Redemption of the Tengu. He added his signature with his ancient fountain pen, then looked at his colleagues with considerable delight.
'So, an excellent outcome. Wonderful audiovisual programs of violent and fascinating native life thankfully only found on this planet: a village coping admirably with the threats; giant insects; battles between monsters that humankind created and those of this world; a nice piece on recruiting and a most welcome, unusual gift piece on the mating and propagation of crab beetles. A superb David and Goliath piece, ending with the nasty beast -the loathed Tengu -being impaled by a rocket-propelled semi-precious gemstone spear, a weapon normally used as a tournament antigravity racing bike points scorer! That was outstanding and we did not have to pay for it! Bonus all around. And, finally, yet another program about the grieving family tending to their critically ill ACE and who should come to the rescue? Why us, of course! And the icing on the cake is that we get to return a redeemed, considerably nicer Tengu, to his original tenure holder, the one and only Baron Willie der Boltz! For a nice little fee, of cour se.'
The attending officers all smiled and raised their glasses to the director. Then the commander of the dirigible spoke. 'Congratulations, director, a masterful manipulation, but what of the missing Tengu? And also of the complaints that the Administration have made about us?'
'That Tengu I am not concerned about. I should imagine its carcass is rotting in some creature's guts as we relax here, safe. And the Administration, commander? Do not concern yourself. Af ter all, we are the ones who control the public mind and soul, not them.'
The commander nodded and snapped his head forwards in salute. 'We shall climb up into orbit, Director John. By your leave, I need to be on the bridge.'
The director smiled and nodded as the commander departed, knowing that he had only been voicing what the others present had been thinking.
Privately, he wondered about the third Tengu and fervently hoped that it was, indeed, dead.
Harold
Human Settlement on Storfisk
Harold decided that being a recuperating hero had many unexpected and pleasurable benefits.
Everyone was kind and considerate, constantly asked after his wellbeing, and most brought tasty, but tiny, portions of food and drink whenever they visited, since his digestive system was only just coming back online. The family had given him his own room high in the great tree, with a wide window and a generous balcony leading out into the top canopy so the cats and the birds who were always about could keep him informed and share tales. of their latest exploits.
Bing was sitting on the end of his bed, cleaning himself like a non-ACE cat. Harold watched his friend's quick, fastidious movements, and asked, 'Does your fur not self-clean, Bing? Having to clean yourself is a bit last year tech, isn't it?'
Bing looked at Harold, grimaced, favoured him with a scornful look, replying, 'Of course it does!But I like to do this. It is cathartic for my mind. I find peace in these actions. Don't you?'
Harold looked :mt through the open double doors into the foliage of the great tree. 'I don't know yet, Bing. I am not of any one particular biological stock. One day I will notice how I do things, and that may show which component of my make-up is the stronger.'
He looked at the cat then around the room before quietly continuing. 'I wonder what it would be like to never wake up. John told me that a part of the chemical weapon that Tengu used on me had started to attack my Soul Saver.'
Bing stopped what he was doing with one of his hind legs still high in the air. He slowly straightened it and sat up, wrapping his tail around his legs. He looked at Harold for a long moment.
'Shit! That is horrible. That is real death. Well, I suppose it would be. Without your Soul Saver being in a continuous conscious state how would we know if the rebuild was really us? That is terrif ying, Harold. No wonder the biological humans so fear the Soul Savers. I have known a few killed who went through what they called the darkness when they were in the tank: no sleeping, no distractions, being isolated and focusing only on regrowing yourself. And always the doubt that the new you is actually a new entity with another's memories.'
Bing slowly turned his head and looked to see what Harold was watching. One of the Kahu harrier hawks was high in the sky, slowly circling, watching the ground around the village trees.
Harold looked quickly back at Bing. 'What do you mean, Bing? That because there is not continuation of consciousness the original is dead!' He had a look of horror on his face as he continued. 'No, no, no, that could not be, could it? That would not be true! Would it? The memories would all be there, the spirit of the person would be there. We would see, listen and know that person as they had always been.'
The cat looked unwaveringly at Harold. 'Yes, but would the person? Or is it like sleep? You awaken as a new entity each day with only the memories of another person to assure you of who you are. But what if your memories were changed while you slept? How would you know any different? Nail told me that they believed the Administration was killing people to change their personalities and memories to better suit Administration causes while people were in the tank regrowing themselves. He also said that the Games Board was actively helping them. And remember, only the very wealthy or those who make money for the Games Board have Soul Savers.'
Harold looked shocked. He shook his head, saying, 'So our girls Jenna and Rebecca don't have Soul Savers yet?'
'No, the casings have been grown into the bases of their skulls, but they are empty. Nail says the crew on Basalt know how to make them, but it would be very dangerous. The Administration and the Games Board, who hold all the copies, would destroy us if they knew that non-sanctioned Soul Savers were in use.'
Harold stretched his shoulders, trying to relieve the dreadful itch of healing skin. 'So this is all about control, then? The Administration and the Games Board can manipulate people through the Soul Savers? That is a horrible thing. Everyone wants them, I have seen the weekly lotteries, the pleading for life long beyond the normal span. But really it is all about the status quo. To maintain the power of the Administration and the Games Board, so they can assure their future plans.'
Bing showed Harold a tight little smile, gave a sharp nod and answered, 'Welcome to the Sphere of Humankind, Harold. Nothing is what it should be.'
Ayana
Haulers Territory on Storfisk
The alien-designed scoutship sliced into the target system space far to one side of a Lagrange point with its sensors watching the Hauler sentinel at the Lagrange point's centre.
The collective mind of the ship's crew waited for any orbital changes in the watching sentinel's drones to indicate that they had been seen. Nothing changed so they assumed that they were undetected.
Using the ship's existing high speed and precise trajectory, the minds did not have to use any of the ship's propulsion systems while the perfectly visually and electronically camouflaged ship slid past the nightside of the planet closest to the LP.
When they were at the closest point to the vast northern continent of the world, three linked eight-metre-long ovoid units detached and, as the scoutship slipped away starwards towards the asteroid belt, slowly decelerated using their antigravity systems to spin against each other. 'It took the ovoid units two days to decelerate against the gravitational pull of the Earth-type planet until they were able to drop down through the atmosphere, towards a huge thunderstorm, undetected by any of the orbiting satellites or the single large orbital. As they fell through the air and uncoupled, the ovoids changed their shape into aerodynamically clean lifting bodies which extruded long, slim double wings allowing them to catch the massive air currents of the thunderstorm. With their sensors watching the ground far below, they glided for thousands of kilometres, mapping the area.
Over the next day, one by one the three alien aircraft glided down to land high in the native trees. Large purposefully designed praying mantis and lizard-like creatures -eyeless, six-legged hybrids -then clambered out and climbed down the huge trees to head in different directions as soon as they were on the ground. Each had been tasked to locate and sample a particular species of the large mammalian animals which, the octopoids knew, had originally come from humanity's Earth before it was partially destroyed by a solar flare.
A powerf ul Bengal tiger sensed one of the alien ships land in the massive bioengineered baobab tree on the edge of the grassed plains. He felt confused, knowing that something large was way above him but could not see it in the moonlight. He heard it moving away from him as it lif ted off, pushing aside some of the branches as it did so, and then heard something large slowly climbing down the tree using what sounded like claws driven into the bark to give purchase. He crept closer, through the undergrowth, and after placing himself downwind of the creature he felt confusion at not smelling anything of it. He silently hunkered down, waiting to see what was almost noiselessly moving in front of him towards a herd of Cape buffalo. In the moonlight, the tiger soon saw a long creature whose skin shimmered, becoming almost invisible -what was behind it could be seen through its body -moving towards the buffalo.
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