A green light across the room started blinking furiously. 41 staggered forward to it as though Maon had forgotten Kelly’s existence. Kelly joined him.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
“The chambers ...” whispered Maon. “Not the chambers.”
Kelly looked around at Siggerson. “Can you determine what’s happening?”
Siggerson slung his weapon and activated a surveillance screen. After a few moments he said, “Kelly, look.”
Kelly came over. The screen showed row after row of compartments containing Visci boxes. Thousands of them stretched past counting. Nothing looked wrong, yet the alarm still flashed.
Kelly frowned. “Is the whole race aboard?”
“Yes!” said Maon. “All! We are the City. Our home world is contaminated past reclaiming. Originally we were to be a colony, then we became the only ones remaining. We have searched the galaxy. We have searched time, seeking when we should claim our new home. It takes time, you see, to change the pH balance of the oceans to the proper level. Your seas are full of salt, teeming with competitive life. Without destroying everything, much time is needed to make the necessary alterations. We lack that time. That is why we use interdimensional travel.”
“Why?” asked Kelly. “Is there a limit to how long you can live inside the containers?”
“Yes. What have you done to us? Why have you breached the seal of the chambers?”
Kelly and Siggerson exchanged glances. There could be only one explanation.
“Holborn,” said Kelly. “He wanted to take the plague to you. I told him not to.”
“He must have gotten past Mohatsa,” said Siggerson.
“An easy explanation!” shouted Maon. “Easy to put the blame on Holborn, who cannot make a defense. Holborn is a fool, weak and easily controlled. Holborn would not seek our destruction. But you, you are another matter. Already we have seen your kind’s attitude toward life. You do not hold your own species dear. Why should you seek to preserve ours?”
“What are you talking about?” demanded Kelly.
41 staggered to the surveillance screen and played back the episode of Phila within the code storage facility, shouting defiance and throwing the contents of a drawer onto the floor. Kelly barely watched it, for 41 had slumped against the control panel. His eyes were sunken, his face yellow-gray. Kelly touched his arm, steadying him. Was 41’s mind still intact? Had Maon taken control of it, or destroyed it? 41 ’s face was slack. Kelly could find no spark in his eyes.
“You see?” said Maon as Phila began to weep and Beaulieu supported her out of range of the camera. “No respect. No understanding of these codes, of their entirety, of their beauty. Our bio-engineering techniques surpass anything you could know. We have cloning facilities here in the City that can resurrect any of these codes. In a matter of hours the tissue is regrown, the thoughts, memories, brain patterns, all is restored as it was before. And yet this unit Mohatsa treats it as dirt, to be bargained with, to be destroyed if necessary.
“Your kind have no understanding of what is compassion. You speak the word, Kelly. You accuse us of lacking in it. Look to yourselves.”
Kelly drew a deep breath. “She was crying. She did not enjoy what she had to do.”
“Enjoy? Is that a prerequisite for an action? Is justice enjoyable? We debate with you, yet you are too primitive to understand the issues. You think a little; therefore, you believe yourselves great. Unless an alien species evolves along a branch similar to your own, you cannot comprehend it. Unless there are legs and hands, you have no communication with it. We are a thing of horror to you, Kelly. You are shamed by that.”
“It is not you, but what you do,” said Kelly. “Manipulating us, reducing us to smears of DNA, stealing bodies to be hosts for your own pride, robbing us of our own world. We judge by actions. Yours tell us we cannot trust you.”
“And your actions? Obliterating an entire species? Will you know how to code our DNA, to save us from extinction? We have our way. We have the right to exist.”
“Yes, you do,” said Kelly. “But—”
A scream interrupted him. Startled, Kelly glanced over his shoulder in time to see Holborn come staggering into the control center. The scientist’s smock was torn and filthy. Blood trickled down his face from a cut over his left eye. His lips were drawn back, baring his teeth in a horrifying parody of a smile. He was quite mad.
Siggerson moved to intercept him, but Holborn knocked him aside with unexpected strength.
“Going to kill them all!” he said, panting.
Kelly grabbed him. “Holborn! Holborn, you’ve done it. Stop now. Stop.”
Holborn sagged in his arms, weeping with pathetic little snuffles. “Slaved for them. Honored to help them. Wanted the glory, you see? Wanted the glory. They wouldn’t let me finish my work. Wouldn’t let me ...”
He wasn’t making much sense to Kelly. Over his head Kelly nodded to Siggerson. “Help me get him into that chair.”
“This wretched unit is defective,” said Maon.
At the sound of its voice Holborn jerked upright, getting past Kelly and Siggerson. He rushed at 41 before they could stop him.
“Dead. You’re dead. Dead thing. All dead. Have to stay dead.”
He threw the contents of a vial in 41’s face before Kelly and Siggerson managed to drag him back. But Holborn had stopped struggling now. He threw back his head and laughed with a hysteric note of triumph that made Kelly shove him angrily away.
Kelly went to 41, who was standing there vacantly. The brownish liquid dripped from his cheek onto the collar of his tunic. Kelly held him by the arms, not sure what it would do to him.
41 shuddered in Kelly’s grasp.
“My ... container!” said Maon. “I am too far. I must have it. Must have it!”
“Siggerson,” said Kelly beneath Maon’s frenzied shouting. “Get Beaulieu here. On the double.”
41 sagged suddenly like a limp rag, going to the floor before Kelly could catch him.
“Help me,” said Maon. “I want to live. Help me, unit. Help me live.”
41 shuddered again, and Maon began to emerge from him, seeping out from eyes and ears and nostrils. Where Maon’s dark edge touched 41’s wet cheek, it shriveled and withdrew.
Faintly in the back of Kelly’s mind, almost as a whisper of imagination, he heard a scream. Instinct made him drop 41’s hand and suddenly back away.
“Stay close!” said Maon’s synthesized voice. “Stay close to me.”
Holborn was still laughing. Siggerson and Kelly exchanged glances, then Siggerson aimed his launcher.
“No!” said Kelly. “Not while it’s still on 41.”
Maon flowed to 41’s chest and pooled there. 41 stirred, as though coming around, then he went into convulsions, hemorrhaging from his nostrils and ears. Kelly wanted to rush to him, help him, but Maon waited like a hunter watching its quarry, and Kelly dared go no closer.
Footsteps came running. Beaulieu said breathlessly, “I’m here.”
Holborn lunged at her, and Kelly intercepted him just in time. A swift chop to the throat felled Holborn, and Kelly gripped Beaulieu’s arm.
“Quickly. 41 is still—”
A shout from Siggerson made them both turn. Maon was moving, flowing incredibly fast over the floor toward Siggerson, who was backing up frantically, knocking over a chair, and shouting.
“Siggerson!” shouted Kelly. “Shoot it!”
But Siggerson was still backing up, too panicked to remember the weapon in his hand. Kelly aimed at Maon and fired. Plasma engulfed Maon, who stopped. But as soon as Kelly stopped firing, Maon flowed forward again. It was almost to Siggerson’s boots.
Screaming, Siggerson fired on it now, with no effect. He was pinned against the controls. Frantically he climbed up onto them and crawled over the boards, shooting again and again at Maon although it did no good.
Beaulieu moved past Kelly. “I’ve got to check 41.”
Kelly seized h
er wrist and held her in place. “Not yet.”
“Kelly! He could be dying.”
She wrenched free and knelt beside 41. Maon had flowed halfway up onto the controls, but now it abruptly reversed direction, falling to the floor again with a soft plop, and headed for Beaulieu.
“Doctor!” yelled Kelly.
She glanced up and tried to scramble out of the way, but Maon moved too quickly for her. It flowed up her boot, and she slapped at it.
“Don’t touch it! ” yelled Kelly. “It will get to your face that much more quickly.”
Even as he spoke, Kelly was moving. He snatched the empty vial off the floor and grabbed the back of Beaulieu’s tunic with his other hand, holding her against him as he thrust the vial right to the edge of Maon.
Maon stopped at Beaulieu’s hip.
“It will not affect me,” said the synthesized voice from the speaker. “I am too strong.”
Kelly held the vial where it was, wishing to God he knew how long it took before the biotoxin had any effect. Minutes, hours, days, months? His hand was so close to Maon he could almost feel it. Goose bumps broke out along Kelly’s arms, but he did not move. Held in the circle of his arm, Beaulieu remained frozen. She scarcely breathed.
“I can halve myself,” said Maon. “Enter both of you. Holborn is a stupid unit. This was not the plague. It does not affect me.”
Maon moved, sliding over the vial and Kelly’s hand. Kelly felt a warm slickness upon his skin that left it tingling unpleasantly. Maon parted, half flowing up Kelly’s arm to his shoulder, then to his throat, the other half flowing up Beaulieu’s torso.
Kelly gritted his teeth shut and closed his eyes. He tried to tear Maon from his throat, but his fingers could get no purchase. They slid through Maon and could not grasp it. Kelly jerked away from Beaulieu, hoping that if Maon were completely parted, that would weaken it. He heard Beaulieu scream and felt the warm slickness sliding across his lips, dribbling through despite all his efforts to keep them clamped shut, forcing them apart.
His eyes flew open in horror. It was going down his throat, choking him. More of it went up his nose. He tore at his face, trying to breathe, trying to get it off.
Then Maon stopped. Kelly dropped to his knees and retched, spitting out the creature. The taste was unspeakable. He felt that he could never be clean again. Maon lay inert upon the floor, small puddles of it splattered between Kelly and Beaulieu. She was crying, holding herself and rocking back and forth.
Siggerson slid hesitantly off his perch and went to her. She clung to him, sobbing harder. Kelly had no such release. He met Siggerson’s gaze, met the sympathy and understanding there, and began to shiver.
It was only revulsion, physical shock, and reaction. He let the spasms go on without trying to stop them. In a storage bin he found a scoop and scraped Maon off the floor. Scoop and its contents went into disposal. Only then did Kelly give way to knees too shaky to support him. He sat down on the floor, thinking about how close it had been, knowing that if Maon had ever gotten completely into him he couldn’t have stood it, not for an instant.
Siggerson had been touched and he had survived. 41 had lived with that thing in him for hours. Whether he would survive remained unanswered.
“You okay, Commander?” asked Siggerson after a long while.
Kelly nodded. He sat there, drained and spent.
“Looks like we got them all, the damned dirty things. I’m glad we got them.”
“Yeah,” said Kelly. “Maon was right.”
“About what?”
“We can’t make contact yet with a species like the Visci, a species that different, that alien. We aren’t ready.”
“Good,” said Beaulieu, choking and wiping tears from her face. “I’m glad we aren’t ready. I don’t ever want to meet anything like that again. If I do, I’ll know I’ve lived too long. We can’t coexist with them. We can’t.”
“No, we can’t,” said Kelly softly.
“Anyway, they’re dead,” said Siggerson. “Dead and gone. Good riddance, I say.”
“Yeah,” said Kelly.
But there was no cheering.
* * *
15
After some long hours of reprogramming by Phila and Siggerson, the robots worked for them. Records showed that the City had not moved from her current position for at least half a century, perhaps more. The question remained now: could she be moved at all?
Kelly settled himself at his station in central control. Seats had been rigged up for them; robots didn’t need seats. These were not comfortable. The controls were spaced at the wrong intervals. There were many that were marked off limits simply because Siggerson could not figure out what they were for.
Siggerson had argued that they should try to rewire the attack ships docked in the hangar area beside the ruined Alliance ships. But they were totally robot ships, not designed for living pilots at all. It just wasn’t practical to use them, but Kelly was bringing them along for scientists to study. This whole massive ship would jump Alliance technology ahead by years.
If they could move her. If they could navigate her. If they could make the proper interdimensional jump to get them home.
Siggerson had lost weight. But he seemed completely absorbed in his work and showed less and less strain from his experiences. As for Phila, there were dark circles beneath her eyes and she was unusually subdued. But Kelly knew she was still dwelling on her actions in the genetics lab. He had tried to talk to her, but she evaded the subject. Kelly worried. He’d gone through this himself, over and over, and he’d seen plenty of his fellow officers go through it. In time she would work through it on her own and come to grips with it, or it would fester and ruin her.
Flashes of binary came in over myriad communications lines as robots and automatic functions reported in. Kelly couldn’t translate fast enough. He stopped trying. At this point the bots could report what they wanted; the City was moving, ready or not.
A beep sounded, startling him from his reverie. He flipped a toggle to open a voice line.
“Beaulieu to control.”
“Control, Kelly speaking. How’re they doing, Doc?”
“Everything’s as ready as I can get it. The vats look like they’re designed for movement so I’ve gone ahead and started the cloning process with batch number one.”
Kelly frowned. He had not forbidden Beaulieu to clone the DNA codes, but he remained skeptical.
“Yes,” he said impatiently. “I meant Caesar and 41.”
Caesar remained dangerously weak without benefit of life support facilities. Because Beaulieu would not let Caesar be moved for any reason, it had been necessary to strip down a sick bay from one of the destroyers and transfer the equipment to the genetics lab. Kelly had helped her, leaving Phila and Siggerson to get on with the even larger job of preparing the City for flight. Robots had transported the heavy stuff, but Kelly had been faced with wiring it into a not always compatible power system. The work had been made even harder by a restrained Holborn gibbering insanely to himself and 41’s presence—wide awake, eyes staring vacantly, responding to none of the wide range of stimuli Beaulieu tested upon him.
“Yes,” she said. “Now that I’ve finally got something besides a dull knife and a tom-tom to work with, I can report Caesar safely stabilized. I’m feeding him a transfusion right now, and I’ve been able to seal the incision in his lung. He’ll do.”
Kelly smiled tiredly. Even Phila and Siggerson looked up with interest. “That’s great, Doctor. And 41?”
She hesitated so long Kelly’s hopes went plummeting again.
“Well,” said Beaulieu finally. “I put the neural scanner on him, and there’s less actual damage than I suspected at first. The hemorrhaging looked worse than it really was.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?”
“Kelly, he’s retreated psychologically. There are some very good therapy units on Station 4 and even better ones on Station 1, but I’m not sure anyone will ever be
able to reach him. His psych profile has always been unsure. That, plus his catalepsy, puts him pretty deep. Beyond hypno-scan and certainly beyond probes, which I think would just make him worse.”
“What about a Salukan mind sieve?” asked Kelly.
“Maybe,” but her voice was doubtful. “I’m sorry. That’s the best I can offer right now.”
Kelly sighed. “Thank you. I’ll let you know when we’re ready.”
“Standing by.”
Kelly broke the line with a frown. Restlessly he got to his feet and paced around. Siggerson, ever careful, was running a last series of systems checks. Phila called them off for him. She sounded tired. Kelly rubbed his eyes, longing for more sleep than the two hours he’d snatched somewhere. They all needed rest.
But they all wanted to get home.
Kelly paused at the observation port and stared out at the stars. Familiar stars shining upon a time he did not belong in. By Siggerson’s calculations if they simply went back to Earth, they would be two thousand years in her past. It was almost tempting to see what the sixth century was like firsthand.
“The Dark Ages,” he muttered aloud.
Phila glanced up. “What was that?”
Kelly came away from the port. “Are we ready?”
“Almost,” said Siggerson. Ouoji wandered in and curled up beneath his chair. She smelled of singed fur and unguent. “Just one last simulation. Won’t take but thirty-eight seconds.”
“Fine,” said Kelly. “Then we start, Mr. Siggerson.”
Siggerson’s eyes met his. Siggerson looked grim, not very confident. But he made no protest. The arguments were long over.
“The simulation checks out,” said Phila. She shut off her list and tossed it aside. “Time for the real thing. Commander?”
Kelly resumed his seat. There was no safety harness. He felt naked. Rubbing moist palms across his thighs, he steadied himself.
“Secure the ship for takeoff,” he said.
Phila reached out and activated the dozens of binary messages that flashed through the City in nanoseconds, giving commands that locked all mobile robots into place, shutting down gravity, heat, and air to non-essential areas, closing stress bulkheads at key points, switching off all teleport grids.
Sean Dalton - Operation StarHawks 03 - Beyond the Void Page 17