by Jeff Stanley
“Your guilt is misplaced, erroneous. And unnecessary. Foolish. What we do here is necessary to the continuance of our species. We are fighting a war of survival, Singh, a war we cannot hope to win without resorting to the use of the weapons of the enemy. As the planet changes us, so must we change ourselves, if only to keep the scales balanced.
“Look around you next time you stalk the halls. How many Founders do you see? How many of our own children still roam the Enclave? Few. Few. And daily fewer.” The cold voice paused, the flickering lights on the screen contracting and expanding, contracting and expanding. “They kill them, did you know? The Hatchlings. They kill the Founders’ children, when they can find them.”
“No.”
“Oh, yes. I stop it when I can. But they are persistent. Hopefully, with what I’ve extracted from Eric, I’ll be able to put a stop to that sort of behavior. If we are to survive as a species some small segment of the population must remain as free of mutation as we can make it. Random mutation, that is.”
Singh shook his head. How many Hatchlings had been birthed, grown, tested, and harvested, all for the purpose of isolating gene sequences that could work to the improvement of the root stock of the Founders? How many lives had been artificially created only for slaughter? Countless. Countless.
“If we are to wage war on a planet, we must be prepared. We must be armed and armored against its incursions, against its insidious attacks. We must create and maintain a healthy pool of resistant individuals, capable of carrying on the crusade. We must safeguard them, improve them, and prepare to marshal them for the war we must wage.”
“Why?” The word was almost a sob as Singh hung his head and wrapped his arms around it. “Why?”
“To reclaim the stars. To reclaim our heritage. You cannot dream of the wealth of growth our species has undergone throughout its history. Since I’ve bonded with the computer I have expanded, grown. I understand so much more now than I ever did before. We are a glorious species, Singh. Glorious. Unmatched. To lose such a heritage, such a birthright . . . It would be tragedy beyond understanding. A crime against nature. I cannot let that happen.
“One day, whether it be next year or a hundred thousand years from now, we will achieve dominance over this world. We will rise above it, become its masters. On that day, we will begin to move forward again, to reclaim the stars that were ours.”
Singh shook his head, tears spilling from his eyes. At what price? What will we have become by then?
Chapter 35
Rian squeezed his eyes shut and screamed. The stranger twisted the broken spear shaft, digging it deeper into Rian’s stomach.
Something was thrust between his wide-opened lips, slamming against the back of his jaw. His eyes popped open, seeing the feral, grinning visage of the woman leaning over him. She pressed the other piece of the spear shaft into his mouth. He gagged on the stick as she held it tight. Out of the corner of his eye he could see tendrils of landskin rise and wrap around the protruding ends of the shaft, locking it in place.
“You won’t be spewing your poison again, Rian,” the stranger said. He slid the length of wood from Rian’s stomach and tossed it aside. With a smile on his ruined face he stood, offering his hand to the female. She came forward, leaning on his hard, knotted body. Already the wound in her stomach had vanished, leaving only a staining carpet of dried blood. The stranger’s face had begun to knit together as well, though deep, raw fissures still leaked slowly. He smelled of rot.
“You should kill him,” the woman said, and Rian oriented on her. She stood beside the stranger, one arm on his shoulder, the other cupped around her midsection. “His attack nearly destroyed the offspring. It was damaged, but I have repaired it.”
The stranger looked at her, frowning as his lip reknit, flesh flowing in thin threads. Filaments of flesh crept up from his shoulder, forming needled heads, and sank into her hand where she touched him. “It remains viable.”
She nodded. “Within the viable range for this flesh.”
The stranger turned to stare into the sky over the valley below. “Come, God calls. The Genesis nears fruition. Soon our brothers and sisters will begin to awaken.” He raised one hand over the landskin sheath that held Rian immobile.
The landskin shivered, its abrasive inner surface churning against Rian’s skin. He could feel it creeping into the wound in his stomach, could feel its hideous burn. It trembled, ballooning upward on a thick stalk, Rian’s cocoon at its head, raised some four feet from the hillside.
“There is pain,” the woman said with a wince.
“Yes. His touch poisons the landskin. You feel it as well. This is the taint that God fears. It is a threat to God’s plan. Like all their threats—all the Terran flora and fauna they have unleashed on our world—this one will be nullified.”
“It should be killed.”
“God does not will it so,” the stranger said. “There is a purpose for this one. Follow.”
Be patient, Rian. Do not struggle. All will be made well in time. The voice echoed out of the dim recesses of Rian’s mind, soothing, undeniable. Rian felt himself falling into a languorous stupor.
The stranger set off down the hillside, hand in hand with the woman. Rian’s landskin cocoon shook, then flowed downhill after them, trailing by a yard or two. Rian struggled against the stupor that gripped him, trying to break free, but the weight of warm flesh held him tight.
Ahead, at the base of the slope, a vast shadow in the dawn light masked the terrain, revealing only black swaths of spindly trees and scattered boulders. Farther within the dark shadow, the ribbonlike river gleamed darkly. Overhead hovered the titanic body of the largest ool Rian had ever seen. Its humped, bulbous body dwarfed the valley. Lightning danced beneath the ool, flicking across the landscape, sending huge plumes of dust and debris churning into the air. Massive feeder tentacles lay quiet among shattered trees. One such tentacle, larger by far than the others, rested between two upthrust boulders, its mouth yawning wide, revealing a puckered redness. Dozens of figures, seen through a withering curtain of flickering lightning and rendered tiny by distance and perspective, swarmed around the tentacle mouth.
Able to move only his eyes, Rian could see little else; the ool blotted out the sky. But the sounds of ool-passage swelled as the landskin wave carried him downslope behind the two strange creatures, and the passage-wake of dozens of the monstrous creatures lay all about the valley. Even now he could hear the harsh buzzing of countless boreworm swarms in the distance.
They drew near the ool, entering its shadow, and Rian could smell the heavy scent of ozone as lightning crashed down before them. Tensing, he could feel the spines of his head standing on end, charged with electricity. A tremendous bolt slashed down from above, flickering across landskin, boulders, and trees alike, raising an explosion that sent clouds of debris pluming into the sky.
Insanity! Surely the stranger could not mean to lead them into that firestorm!
The stranger paused just outside the ring of sizzling fire and raised his hand. As if in answer to an unvoiced command the lightning storm parted, rolling back to either side, opening an avenue through to the massive feeder tentacle and its attendant creatures. The stranger and his mate strode through a landscape warped and twisted by the lightning storm, and Rian’s landskin cocoon trailed behind them.
As they neared the tentacle-mouth Rian could discern more of the nature of the creatures around it. Distorted, mangled, they seemed almost Gagash, though much more monstrous. Like Gagash, no two were alike, comprised of mixtures of mismatched torsos and limbs, bestial heads and tails. No few were winged, beating wobbling flights around the base of the tentacle. Others had burrowed down into the landskin, into the crust of the world, itself, only their upper quarter visible. One creature, seemingly no more than a sphere of mottled, spined flesh, rolled toward Rian and the strangers. As it approached, Rian could see hundreds of pale eyes scattered over its surface and a sucker-lined maw ringed with grasping
tendrils. It paused within a few yards of the strangers, raising itself on spindly stalks and orienting its eyes on them. Its maw gasped open and closed, its breath hissing through its tentacles, causing them to vibrate. A thin warbling emerged.
“God awaits,” the thing said in a mewling voice.
The landskin at the feet of the creatures bulged. It split open with a sound like tearing cloth, and a sharp-snouted head emerged, followed by broad, spiked shoulders and spadelike hands. The snout opened, revealing row upon row of needle-sharp teeth and a tongue tipped with a cluster of a dozen eyes. “God awaits,” this creature said, its voice but a whisper.
Others approached, until a horde of misshapen, distorted creatures crowded close. Some reached out tentacles, claws, pinchers, or rigid, thorny appendages to touch Rian in his landskin sheath. All intoned, “God awaits.”
Rian shivered in his warm, pulsating blanket. So alien. So bizarre.
The stranger waved his arm, a sharp gesture, and the monstrosities scattered. “They are mindless drones. Workers. Even in Paradise, there is need for such. Perhaps such a fate awaits you, Rian.” He smiled and patted the landskin covering Rian’s belly. The slight pressure sent new waves of agony through Rian’s midsection, and the landskin sheath bulged as if hungering for the stranger’s touch.
The woman led the way toward the open mouth of the tentacle. Rian’s gaze tracked the massive feeder, following it up, up toward the throbbing bulges of the ool. He jerked within his cocoon, eyes widening as he looked upon a scene from a nightmare. In the center of the ool, ringed by long, dangling tentacles, was a huge hole from which a bright light shone. The lightning crawled from this hole, snaking along the underside of the ool, before lashing down at the ground. In the center of the hole, visible through the shimmering haze of the lightning storm, a mammoth sphere of shining metal hung, spinning in place. Rings of crackling energy rippled outward from the orb, crashing into the metal latticework that formed the interior walls of the hole.
With the swarm of monstrosities parting before them, Rian’s captors marched toward the gaping maw of the feeder tentacle. A putrid stench wafted from it, smelling strongly of rot and decay and acidic juices. Closer, Rian observed that the tentacle, thirty yards in diameter, heaved and contracted, as if breathing. Squirming cilia disgorged from ulcers and reached for the stranger and his woman, caressing them, tickling along their nude, sweat-glistening bodies. They raised their arms and allowed the thin tendrils to play over their skins, broad smiles on their faces.
“Come,” said the stranger, shrugging away the cilia. The squirming mass withdrew and returned into the walls of the feeder. “It is time to return home. God calls. I can feel his impatience.”
The stranger squatted at the base of Rian’s cocoon and caressed the landskin. Abruptly Rian felt a sense of weightlessness, and his sheath dropped into the waiting arms of the stranger, who, grunting, stood. Rian was cradled in his arms, still held immobile by the pressing constriction of the landskin.
The stranger smiled down at him. “God is expecting us, Rian. He’s most anxious to meet you.”
Rian struggled, but could not move. Carried by the stranger, trailed by the woman, Rian entered the moist heat of the feeder. He gagged on the close, disgusting air, biting down on the stick in his mouth. Globes of flesh that protruded from the walls glowed softly, shedding enough light for Rian to drink in his surroundings. The walls breathed, plumes of rancid-tasting air shooting from moist sphincters in the flesh. Thick veins, pulsing, ran in a convoluted pattern throughout the tunnel, and from the ceiling hung tattered scraps of flesh like lace. The woman stepped forward and raised her arms, brushing aside the flesh-lace.
After traveling for a hundred yards or so through the dense tunnel they came to a hump in the tentacle. Once they climbed over this they arrived at a flattened section. Above them the tentacle stretched away toward the ool, more than a thousand yards overhead. Here the cilia emerged from the walls of flesh in waves, caressing the strangers. The stranger dropped Rian to the floor of the tentacle. Rian felt a powerful shifting in the flesh of the ool, a heaving that shook the tentacle and rattled his teeth against the stick in his mouth.
The walls of the tentacle contracted, forming a hump in the center as they squeezed tight. Rian felt the unmistakable sensation of upward movement, borne aloft by the rising knot of flesh. Like a gargantuan throat, the feeder shot them upward smoothly, toward the ool awaiting them above.
Yes! At last, I have found him! The voice throbbed with excitement, satisfaction. But it left Rian cold.
Chapter 36
Dersi strained against her bonds, screaming, as putrid liquid splashed down from burst vessels overhead, bathing her in caustic warmth. Her skin burned. The hiss of belching steam masked God’s words, but Dersi saw him raise his arms toward the twisted ceiling. Crystalline rods shot downward, plunging into flesh and metal skin. Dripping tendrils danced, their severed ends spurting fluid in a fine, heavy mist. The walls groaned, bits of metal snapping, spinning through the air to crash against bizarre machinery.
There! Did her arm move, even a fraction of an inch? She bit her lip, feeling sweat trickling down her forehead, dripping into her eyes, burning. The stench of smoke and bile and vomit and a thousand other odors clung to her nostrils. She gagged. Pushing down her revulsion, she blocked out the terrible sound of the buckling walls, squeezed shut her eyes against the image of God on his throne, the crystal shafts buried in his chest, his mouth gaping wide, writhing with a million squirming cilia, gushing pale fluids.
Her forearm bulged, trembled. Whatever power held her tight to the chair resisted her efforts, made them desperate, futile.
And then the room stilled. Like a gigantic exhalation, the walls retracted. Bulges of oozing flesh retreated back within shrinking tears in the metal walls. Massive pipes overhead crinkled, snapping shut the rents from which the steam billowed. Loose tentacles slammed into the walls, burrowing their dripping ends through metal, into ool-flesh.
Dersi’s efforts died as she watched God rise from his throne, the spears of shining crystal throbbing, stained with his lifesblood where they emerged from his torso. He shivered, his eyes pinched shut, and his mouth slowly closed. A few cilia remained trapped between his taut lips, squirming, tasting. He slurped them in, opened his eyes, and grinned at Dersi.
“Pardon the interruption, Dersi. I was . . . distracted. It is quite . . . unnerving when the boreworm swarms infest the ool. But the situation is under control now. Yes. The situation is quite fine.” His smile broadened, and he gestured absently behind him with his mechanical arm. The broken shards of the screen, scattered about the floor, liquefied. Like slithering worms, the silvery fragments gathered together, forming a solid ball at the base of the wall. Spears of silver lanced upward, spreading, drawing the rest of the mass up to coat the wall. Recreated, the great screen pulsed once, then quieted.
As God approached her, he left a trail of mixed fluids: black, crimson, and yellow, leaking from oozing puckers covering his body. Dersi took her gaze from him, watching over his knobby shoulder as the screen flickered, flickered, and a panoramic image winked into view. Outside. She was no soldier. She was a Lord. She had never seen the outside world except through the tinted, hazy film of the ool’s membranous outer husk. Here, on the screen, the outside world was immense, clear. Vast. From edge to edge of the screen it stretched, encompassing all, a rich, deep blue pierced by the faintest of golden glimmers in the distance. In the background rose the irregular humps of hills, and between two of them a slender arc, the edge of a golden ball, hung suspended, blazing.
Dersi’s jaw hung open as she stared at the image. So beautiful. So . . . alien. All that vast, open space, no convenient veins to hold, to steady; no warm embracing walls to comfort, to offer the cushioning solidity that sang of security, of . . . of home.
This was the world where the Gagash lived, this endless horizon, this incredible vista of vulnerability.
Filling the sk
y, leaving shadows like dense stains on the hills, were dozens of ool, their dangling feeders churning through the humped, broken land.
“Behold, Dersi!” He turned to face the screen, raising his arms and gesturing broadly. “Watch! Watch as I remake the world in the image of my dreams. This is my sixth day, and I need no seventh to know that it is good.”
The clutch of ool swept through a deep ravine, a valley packed close with tall, spindly trees and split by a ribbon of silver water. Where they passed, obliteration reigned. Beyond the valley, over a jagged wall of naked rock, lay a sunken place, a swirling maze of dark ponds and tangled rivers, crooked trees and waving grass. And boreworm swarms. Thousands of them, a vast network of darker blots against the sky, aloft, thrusting into the mottled bulges of ool bodies. In response, the ool opened their nether sphincters, showering the land below with a deluge of caustic waste. Trees crackled, sizzling, and melted into slag. Water boiled. Rock ran like liquid.
“What . . . what’s happening?”
God turned back to her, smiling. “I’m destroying Santiago’s scions, Dersi. They are . . . obsolete, and troublesome.”
“San . . . Santiago?”
“The Gagash. Those pitiful ground-dwellers, with their fruitless quest to return to mundane humanity. They cannot comprehend the gifts of this world. They refuse to accept the beneficence of the world-mind. Of me. I am just, Dersi. But I have grown wroth, impatient. I have tried to show them the errors of their ways, have tried to wrap them in my loving arms, embrace them, bring them into my flock. I have waited for them to return to me.”
His eyes grew hard: The mechanical orb contracted; the oozing sore of his other socket squeezed tight, dripping with yellowish fluid that trickled down his cheek. “But they bear the taint of Santiago and his ilk. He opposes me through them. They are fallen. They seek to thwart my designs, flaunt the will of the world-mind. Now I shall harvest them. Now I shall—what?”