Seeing, breathing, sweating were experiences of organic beings that he remembered. His own body wasn’t capable of all this, but he always returned to it.
Only because my creators made me like this. Why couldn’t they have given me eyes like these?
To take over the host body hadn’t been a problem for the Sleeper; a long time must have passed for this miserable race, but they hadn’t changed much. They just possessed a bit more knowledge than before, or at least they thought so. They didn’t know yet … it was exactly the contrary!
The Sleeper read the organic memory of his host body as if it were an open book. The original spirit of his host had been pushed into the farthest recesses of his organic brain. Its resistance had faded in a flash.
Soulwalker
Scorge led them to a wall of shelves, where several mirrored cubes, thirty centimeters to a side, were stored.
»These may be of interest to you,« he said to Arkroid and Atkins. »These devices still work and are reliable, if hopelessly outdated by our standards.«
Arkroid just squinted at the cubes.
»Are you going to tell us what they are?«
Before Scorge could answer, Atkins rudely pushed Arkroid to the side and stepped up to the shelf. Surprised, Arkroid looked at Scorge, who just stood there observing.
»They’re automatic inertia dampers, used in primitive spaceships. The device first scans for similar devices onboard, and if none exist, it regulates and neutralizes inertial forces.«
Atkins’ voice sounded strangely changed. His movements seemed rigid.
»Sammy, are you alright? Climate starting to affect you?« Arkroid asked, worried.
Arkroid’s voice was hard. His assistant’s behavior was more than out of character.
What did he just say about these cubes? he thought.
Scorge seemed frozen. Not even his tentacles twitched.
»You understand what these devices are and what they do? How could you know that?« demanded Scorge.
Arkroid looked at Scorge and then Atkins again. Atkins’ facial expression had changed. His eyes were wide open and – the sweat on his forehead had disappeared.
»There’s nothing on this ship I wouldn’t understand … Shwakan! All the junk in this room stinks like the sweat of this being, here!«
Atkins pointed at Arkroid with a lightning fast movement.
Arkroid was horrified. Had Atkins lost his mind?
»Now that I can smell again, I’m painfully aware of how much your world reeks and how limited your senses are. It takes a free spirit to see the Universe as it really is.«
»Sammy! Calm down and come back with me to the station. You’re ill. Calm down and think about what you’re saying,« Arkroid said again but in a deeper, commanding voice.
Atkins grimaced. He leaned back with his hands on his hips and laughed like a maniac. It echoed from the walls of the large storage room.
»You ridiculous creature, how dare you order me around? But don’t worry, I’ll take care of you and your toy space station later. First I will deal with this junk trader and show him his limits!«
Before anyone could move, Atkins pulled his weapon from under his shirt and aimed at Scorge, who was still standing as if paralyzed.
»Sammy! That’s enough! You’re acting crazy! Scorge is our guest! Don’t!«
Atkins turned his weapon from side to side and looked at it intently.
»A threat? This?« Atkins asked loudly. »A million years since your people overpowered me in a moment of distraction, and all you could come up with in the meantime are powder and projectile weapons?«
Atkins’ eyes glowed weird as if possessed.
»You and your race put me to sleep; paralyzed, immobilized me. You buried me under the eternal ice. But that’s ended! Are you ready for my revenge? Actually, I should thank this Shwakan. If it weren’t for him, appearing here in this solar system, my emergency program wouldn’t have been initiated, freeing my body from stasis.«
Arkroid’s thoughts raced.
What is Atkins driveling about? Has he gone insane?
Arkroid cringed at the sound of two shots being fired, then a third one – and a fourth. Atkins emptied his clip at the Shwakan and screamed triumphantly after each shot.
Terrified, Arkroid looked at Scorge, who still didn’t move, but seemed to dissolve in front of Arkroid’s eyes. The alien disappeared. All that was left was a small, silvery shining plate which hovered above the ground.
»A projection!« stammered Arkroid, amazed. He had lost sight of Atkins for a short moment. Atkins had thrown his weapon at the gate in rage. When Arkroid turned around, Atkins was standing right in front of him and grabbed him by the throat. Effortlessly, he picked up Arkroid by the neck. Arkroid began struggling and kicking at Atkins. This made no impression on Atkins at all.
»Before this day is through I will drive you back to your caves where you belong! Don’t you dare challenge me again! The path into space shall be blocked for you! That’s what the Creators want, and I’m their servant!«
Arkroid’s face began to turn red. Atkins’ grip was hard as steel and merciless. Looking into Atkins’ eyes was painful.
That’s not our Sammy! he thought, choking, feeling himself edging toward unconsciousness.
Suddenly, the depot’s large gate opened and Scorge came rushing into the room, enveloped in a red energy field.
Atkins dropped Arkroid to the floor. The hard fall left him gasping for air.
»I knew something wasn’t right!« Scorge screamed in a high pitched voice. »First, I detect the tachyon trace inside this systems sun that was supposed to be long extinguished, stumble upon an energy matrix which could have never been produced by the inhabitants of this world – and now a Soulwalker!«
Arkroid leaped to his feet and grabbed Atkins from behind.
»Scorge! Help me!«
Atkins threw Arkroid powerfully across the room. Arkroid’s head slammed against a shelf and his vision fogged.
Atkins pointed, with one hand, at a heavy object on one of the shelves that suddenly lifted and flew toward Scorge’s position.
Scorge dodged the heavy object and it struck against the gate with a loud crash.
»THAT’S ENOUGH!« Scorge yelled in rage. »You get back where you belong!«
Two blue, thin beams emitted from the red energy field, hitting Atkins dead on. Atkins screamed in pain and instantly fell to the floor, where he rolled around madly.
Disbelieving, Arkroid watched Atkins’ body moving in spastic waves, then suddenly stopped trembling and lay stiff on the ground, staring with dazed eyes.
Arkroid stood up and approached Scorge, waves of pain going through his body. The Shwakan switched off his energy field and looked visibly shaken. This time, Arkroid was sure that Scorge felt the same as him.
»Is he dead?« Arkroid asked, huffing.
»No, he’s still alive. The Soulwalker didn’t have enough time to kill him before he left his body. The host body typically cannot tolerate it and dies, but Atkins was lucky. I hope he hasn’t suffered any lasting damage … to body or mind. I had no other choice than to shoot him with a nearly deadly plasma charge.«
Arkroid found that his eyes were full of tears. He didn’t understand.
»What happened here? What happened to Sammy, and what is a Soulwalker?«
Scorge crawled closer to Arkroid, who crouched to feel Sammy’s pulse.
»Your people are in great danger. Beings such as the one who has just taken over your friend’s body were a myth in the galaxy from time immemorial. On many worlds, you’ll find stories of beings who can separate their minds from their bodies. I’ve never met a Soulwalker until today. This one seems to live on your planet. They can only be killed by surprise, then they take their host body with them. I used a large dose of plasma against Atkins, enough to drive off the Soulwalker. The blast rendered Atkins a strong bio-electric jolt so that the Soulwalker lost control over his vital functions. It was the only way
to prevent him from killing Atkins when he departed. Sammy should be okay. If he can overcome the shock of being possessed, then he’ll make it.«
Arkroid shook his head in disbelief. He was relieved to feel Sammy’s pulse and see him breathing flatly.
»How is that possible, Scorge? How did such a being come to Earth?«
»Answer me this; it may be related. What made your sun’s tachyon trace disappear after my last visit and suddenly reappear a few days ago?«
Arkroid looked worriedly at Atkins.
»Please, accompany me to the station again. We have to get Atkins into the care of a physician, and we need to issue a warning regarding this Soulwalker. I need to tell you something you might not know yet.«
Globuster Lord
Scorge had kept his word. Ten of the mirrored cubes were transferred to the orbital station together with an eight-sided object whose nature Scorge didn’t reveal.
Atkins was admitted to sick bay and stabilized. Another takeover by the Soulwalker didn’t occur.
Scorge was led to the station’s comm-center and a conference link with Fleet Headquarters was established. Admiral Hayes had already been briefed by Arkroid about the incident on the Pyramidship.
»We have placed the area whose coordinates you supplied under surveillance, Scorge,« Hayes reported. »The ice in that particular sector of Antarctica is very thick, but we detected strong tremors in the region a couple of hours ago. It seems that a large object is trying to make its way to the surface.«
Scorge had listened attentively and waved his tentacles in a way that signaled assent.
»I detect an increase in matrix emissions in that region. Something is underneath the layer of ice, but I can’t tell you what it is.« Scorge was disturbed.
»If this phenomenon is connected to the Soulwalker, then I’m really worried.«
Somebody handed a note to Admiral Hayes.
»We just received a report of severe tremors from that region. I’ve just been cleared to tell you about our second problem.«
Arkroid cleared his throat.
»Actually, we assumed our second problem to be our only one.«
Scorge rustled nervously with his tentacles.
»What is it you want to tell me?« he invited Arkroid to speak.
Arkroid manipulated some sensor pads on his desk and called up the commented video clips from the Globuster encounter on Quaoar.
»We have encountered this being at the edge of our solar system and have been involved in hostilities with it. Do you know these creatures? Can you tell us anything about them? We call them Globusters …«
Scorge jumped up with a scream at the first video sequences.
»By all the seven-headed Gods of the Klookans! What did you do, to deserve such punishment?«
Arkroid shivered at Scorge’s translated words. Scorge definitely knew the Globusters.
»The guardians always follow the commands of a Lord, and the Lord is under orders of the ‘Dark Brotherhood’!«
Arkroid found his voice trembling. He almost yelled, »What can you tell us? Why are the Globusters here?«
Scorge got up from his resting place and moved toward the door.
»I have to return to my ship and leave the system! You must have done something that justified this plague! Never forget! The Globusters always listen to a Lord. That’s the one you need to fear and … I believe we met one on my ship today!«
Globuster Lord! Arkroid thought in stark fear.
He ran after Scorge, but the alien seemed to mean what he said and left the conference without a word.
»Listen, Scorge, we’ve just begun to get to know each other. This is way beyond us. We desperately need your help to understand this.«
The Shwakan kept moving, forcing Arkroid to follow him.
»You Humans will have to endure it yourselves. I can’t help you and I can’t tell you either why you were sentenced to isolation. Search your own history to learn what it’s all about. Provided the Globuster Lord gives you the time for it!«
»You’re abandoning us?« Arkroid cried out.
Scorge stopped for a moment and touched Arkroid with one of his tentacles.
»I can’t help you. Forget about me. Maybe I’ll come back, but I don’t know that yet.«
Without another word, Scorge entered the airlock chamber, and the doors closed behind him.
Arkroid hurried to the conference room as soon as he was sure that Scorge really had transferred to his ship.
Looking at the conference holo he saw a hundred-meter-long object breaking through the ice in Antarctica. The commentator himself had problems believing his eyes.
»The giant tower has come to a standstill. It looks strange, threatening,« he commented. »The object has a conical shape and is about a hundred meters tall. The base measures about eighty meters in diameter. An unknown energy field has just been established around the green tower.«
The commentator’s voice cracked and a scintillating energy field became visible on the holo. A different holo showed the Yax K’uk’Mo’ retracting the flex tunnel and reestablishing the stealth shield.
»He’s actually leaving us!« whispered Arkroid. »Abandoning us!«
The Pyramidship accelerated and disappeared from the radar screens.
Prostate yourselves
The Sleeper was awakened and he called his charges. All but one answered his call and the Lord realized that the ‘Exiled’ had terminated one of his protégés. Unchecked anger seethed in him, but he controlled his emotions, fought back the urge to demonstrate his power.
He had his mission. The Exiled knew too much already, but the Sleeper was confident that they would soon again be made to forget. First they had to be shown their limits, a task he looked forward to. He would force these Humans to prostate themselves in the dust and to hail him as their God. After all, he’d done it before – a million years ago!
4 - The Globuster Lord
Written by Thomas Rabenstein
Applos
Toiber Arkroid sat quietly before the holographic display, following the patient’s medical examination with a motionless face. Sammy Atkins was not on the critical list. The Shwakan’s plasma weapon blast wasn’t serious, but the young man’s mind was still critically disturbed. Arkroid saw a broken man, susceptible to unpredictable emotional eruptions and near-schizophrenic behavior.
He hasn’t been able to get over his takeover by the Soulwalker, Arkroid thought with sympathy.
The Merinian looked away, disconnected the link to the sick bay and tried to calm himself. He remembered the young man’s last words well.
He’s a demon! Don’t you understand? He’ll get you all! Oh, God! I was trapped in my own body! I couldn’t run away or fight back! His alien thoughts were almost unbearable, so evil, so brutal and so powerful! He wants to destroy our civilization and hurl us back to the Stone Age! He can do it! It’ll happen – soon!
The attending doctors had all reached the same diagnosis. The trauma caused by the mental enslavement was deep, perhaps too deep for them to deal with. Distracted, Arkroid activated the government channel and immediately a new holo display formed, showing a live picture of the South Polar Region.
The object, over one hundred meters tall, towered over the glacier, between cracked ice and mountain high snow drifts, alien, powerful and threatening.
The demon, whom Atkins so despairingly warned about, was no mystical creature from legend, but exactly the opposite – all too real. The few facts Arkroid had from the Shwakan said nothing good.
The Globuster Lord belonged to a kind who, throughout the galaxy, was only mentioned in history and myths. It was even believed that the creatures had died out long ago or had withdrawn from the cosmic stage, Arkroid remembered Scorge’s words enraged. Except for this one!
As if this wasn’t bad enough, the Soulwalker commanded the Globusters stationed at the edge of the solar system. How he did it and what further plans he’d pursue, nobody knew. Arkroid leane
d back and brooded. Soulwalkers! Beings who could transfer their consciousness into their victims and take full control. Soul parasites, almost ghostly.
Although the Shwakan had indicated that the Globuster Lord was such a creature, to Arkroid it felt like only half of the truth. What or who had brought the Soulwalker to Earth? Did the creature pursue its own goals or did it to merely follow orders? The meaning of the abrupt and senseless takeover of Atkins gave Arkroid an even bigger headache.
Why did the Globuster Lord appear at precisely that moment? Why choose Sammy Atkins over me? he wondered.
Since the incident aboard the Pyramid ship, the dark green, glowing tower had loomed over the ice, defying the strongest Antarctic gales. The Stinger, the preliminary designation of the tower, had worked its way from fathomless depths and then stood still at the same spot.
The structure must have been buried deep under the ice for eons. It had become active at the same time the Shwakan had arrived. Somehow there’s a direct relationship here, Arkroid thought, baffled.
An ominous glow had appeared at the tip of the Stinger, a sphere of light which seemed to attract the Antarctic polar lights. It looked as if the tower was capturing the streams of sun particles!
The glowing phenomenon actually had something in common with the appearance of the polar lights. The effects in the sky, so typical of this latitude, originated as Earth’s magnetic field attracted the solar winds and the particles finally entered the atmosphere, ionizing the air molecules. This phenomenon was without doubt a secondary effect. None of the Solar Union researchers could explain exactly what was happening around the Stinger.
Arkroid had to regain his self-control. Humanity was faced with an imminent threat and not just a natural spectacle. Everyone agreed that the Soulwalker was inside the tower. It was obviously his base of operations.
Antarctica had always been considered the most life threatening place on Earth even before the hole in the ozone layer developed. The air was drier than in the Sahara and the weather conditions extreme. The thickness of the ice averaged 2,100 meters and could reach in many places even 4,000 meters.
NEBULAR Collection 1 - The Triton Base: Episodes 1 - 5 Page 22