V 07 - The Alien Swordmaster

by Somtow Sucharitkul (UC) (epub)

  “Try telling that to the kid out there, the one whose bones old Kunio crunched up!” Matt said.

  “Or my mom,” CB added.

  “Listen. Throughout history there have been periods when intolerance ruled, when humans—sentient beings— persecuted, enslaved other beings just as sentient. Look at the witch burnings! The Inquisition! Look at the Nazi holocaust! Was that any less cruel than this? And yet the human race is a compassionate race. And because it knows compassion in the fullest sense, it must know also the dark side of compassion ... do you know what Anne Frank said in her diary? ‘Ich glaube an das Gute in den Menschen.’ ‘I believe in the good in men.’ We all know what happened to her . . .”

  “You’re a very educated man,” Matt said. Though at first he had felt nothing but envy for Sugihara, he had finally developed a grudging respect for this infinitely patient, Zenlike old man. “You sure know a lot about history and stuff. I know only one thing—those lizards are taking away my freedom, and I’m going to fight to the death to keep it. For me—for my wife—for my kid.”

  “Right on, Matt,” CB said admiringly.

  “I only want to point out to you that the Visitors have, in their suppressed ancient religion of preta-na-ma, something as beautiful as the Zen philosophy. I dream of the day when we can live in peace with them. Think of how much we have to give each other!”

  “Pipe dreams, old man,” Matt said. “Me, I hate to think. Maybe that’s why Tomoko left me in the first place, huh?”

  “She has come back to you,” said Sugihara. “Things will get better I know it.”

  “Now, don’t go putting words in her mouth. But Tomoko, I want you to know that whatever you decide is okay by me. I made that decision when I saw the way you sit at Sugihara’s feet and drink up his words. They’re good words, I guess. I won’t stand in your way. I used to be selfish, but I’ve learned that that’s not the way ... to love people.”

  He looked at Tomoko. There were tears in her eyes. They flowed out onto the mask, past the yellow alien eyes, onto the rubbery-textured imitation skin. “Don’t cry,” he whispered. “You’ll smudge the paint job Setsuko’s grandmother did.”

  She wept even more. Did she truly love him? He could not tell. He knew that in the vast struggle between man and alien this relationship was less important than freedom. And if he was going to fight for freedom he had to be willing to accept Tomoko’s freedom too. Whatever the consequences.

  They decided that Tomoko, who of the three of them knew no martial arts, should have the last of the laser weapons that still carried a charge. It was a hand-sized blaster, and she tucked it easily into a fold of her dress.

  Then the four of them put a few finishing touches on their Visitor disguises and parted; Sugihara and Tomoko to await the summons to the great banquet, CB and Matt to raid the dungeons of Osaka Castle.

  Chapter 23

  The guests were beginning to file into the banquet chamber which Murasaki had arranged in traditional Japanese style. A single, long, low table to accommodate the couple of dozen guests. Silken cushions, stuffed with rose leaves and embroidered with the Visitor symbols, were placed around the table. Murasaki herself was to sit at the head of the table, in front of the dais and the enormous folding screen that concealed the entrance to the central computer console of the entire castle complex.

  She saw Wu Piao and hastened to greet him, making sure that she used just the right tone of condescension.

  “Ah, there you are,” she said. “I’ve awaited your arrival with anticipation.”

  “How nice, Lady Murasaki,” Wu Piao said testily. “But you promised me that Fieh Chan would address this gathering personally, and I see him nowhere! Furthermore, every one of the guests Fve talked to has been wondering about the same thing.” He furrowed his scaly brow expressively, and his tongue darted out to flick down a passing dragonfly. “Beat you to it,” he said. “I was always faster than you, even when we were students at the war academy together. ”

  “You do ill to remind me of our misspent youth,” Murasaki said. “Especially since our positions will soon be

  so vastly different as to be unable to brook any of this camaraderie. . . .”

  “Ha! Expecting promotion, are you, after tonight?” Wu Piao said, plopping himself down on one of the soft pillows.

  “Quiet, Wu Piao. If you are good, I may permit you to rise rapidly through the ranks—for example, if your sexual favors pleased me.”

  “I see you’ve gone native far more than you’d like to think, Murasaki my dear. I believe you’ve fallen prey to what these earth creatures call the ‘casting couch’ mentality.”

  “Take care, Wu Piao!” Murasaki hissed, and sat down rather ungracefully upon her cushion.

  Something odd caught her attention. “Look at those two!” she said, pointing to the pair who sat at the opposite end of the table, one in male, the other in female attire. “There is something remarkably sallow about their complexions. Don’t you think their scales seem to be peeling, or sagging, or something? Who are they, anyway?”

  “I don’t recognize them,” Wu Piao said, after scrutinizing the two, who were conversing quietly to themselves, and not at all participating in the raucous conversation of the others. “They certainly seem a little weird. I thought you had handled all the invitations yourself. Didn’t you?” “Well, indeed, but there was also a clause, if you recall, issuing a general invitation to any other Visitor VIPs who were stranded here and could make it to Osaka Castle on time. I wanted this to be a victory celebration, not to leave anyone out by accident who might take it amiss and—” “End up sabotaging your wily schemes, Murasaki! I know you of old. It’s like their fairy tale of the evil fairy who wasn’t invited to the castle. Ah, but you haven’t made as much of a study of their culture as I have. Crude, fascinating stuff—extraordinary, sometimes, how it seems to provide a distorted mimicry of our superior culture.” The hors d’oeuvres were being set before the guests now. There was a kind of gelatinized broth containing swimming amphibians, and a chilled blood cocktail; nothing fancy, Murasaki noted, but prepared to perfection. Those chefs she had converted had certainly become adept at preparing what the masters wanted. . . .

  “You know,” she remarked, scrutinizing the dinner guests once more, “the more I look at them, the odder they seem. Do you notice, for instance, how strangely they’re staring at the food? How insulting! They act almost disdainful of it . . . and they’re hardly touching it.”

  “Be charitable,” said Wu Piao. “You have so much to rejoice about, have you not?”

  “I suppose you could say that,” Murasaki said. But she continued to watch the two strangers curiously. Something was not quite right about them. For a moment she suspected some machination of Fieh Chan—but that was impossible! Not tonight, not the night of her brilliant, rigged revelation!

  Lady Murasaki clapped her hands for silence. “Announcement time,” she said.

  Scaly faces turned toward the head of the table.

  “I have great revelations for all of you,” Murasaki said. “First, let us talk about the thermal pressure skins that we are all wearing at the moment. They will soon no longer be needed.”

  A chorus of consternation ran through the assembled diners.

  “Our studies have shown that in some parts of this planet the toxic level is actually decreasing. It has been statistically determined that this is most likely to occur in areas that do not have harsh winters. This means that we will soon be able to declare parts of the planet open to colonization again, that the Mother Ships will return, that my warehouses full of processed food will soon be emptied of their contents. I shall earn the undying respect of those above me in our hierarchy—and be properly positioned to seize the next available rung in the ladder!”

  There was some scattered applause.

  “But we don’t know how long it will be before the

  Mother Ships return. Meanwhile—for now at least—our weapons resources are dwindling.
But doubtless you’ve been hearing about the training of my new troops. I call them the army without souls.”

  “Wonderful, wonderful!” she heard someone shouting. “I have asked my armies to provide a couple of volunteers for tonight’s entertainment.”

  The shoji were drawn aside, revealing two sleek young men, well-oiled. They stepped out and bowed smartly to Lady Murasaki. Guards laid out mats on the tatami; the two men waited in opposite comers.

  “These are two of our young converts,” Murasaki said. “They will fight for the privilege of not being the main course tonight. Is that not a delicious concept? And they will be demonstrating some of the new skills their teachers' have been imparting to them, teachers imported at great expense from as far away as America! But before they fight, one final revelation. A moment of sadness.”

  She clapped her hands once more. A wailing, dirgelike music welled up from a gagaku music ensemble: screeching woodwinds and fifes, pounding drums. Some of Murasaki’s converted servants came in, bearing aloft a tray on which rested a small jade urn. They set the urn down beside her; reverently she lifted it up.

  “Alas,” she said, “this is sad news indeed.” Her tone did not seem to carry much melancholy, however. “As all of you know, on the day that the red dust first reached this region of the planet, we were not that well prepared. Many died. Those to whom the pressure skins could be distributed in time survived, of course. I wish I could say the same of our glorious leader, Fieh Chan, who after all was the inventor of this device that has enabled us to retain our toehold on this world. But Fieh Chan was not to witness his own triumph. I did not wish to announce his sad death before for fear of panicking my people; I wanted to wait until we had a firm power base once more. This urn contains all that is left of him . . . almost unidentifiable, after the red dust gnawed away at him and destroyed him utterly. ” A moment of stunned silence. She could see the astonished look on Wu Piao’s face, and could scarcely contain her delight. What a brilliant stunt she had pulled! Pressing her advantage, she continued, “Of course, I had to wait until all you important survivors were gathered in one place because I want to make absolutely certain that no one questions my right to take over the supreme command of the Osaka Castle—controlled sector of our empire!”

  The guests were looking at each other now. She took pleasure in their confusion. Her glance wandered swiftly from one to the next. They were simply too astonished to speak. How stupid they are! she thought. Almost as moronic as human beings. At length one of them reluctantly shouted out the words “Long live Murasaki, our new commander!” Another and another took up the cry. There was not much enthusiasm, Murasaki noted, but she remembered, as she gave the signal for the two young men to begin their combat, what an ancient Earth tyrant had once said: “Let them hate, so long as they fear!”

  Chapter 24

  “Quiet!” CB whispered. “We don’t want to wake up the whole neighborhood, right?”

  “No . . . well, we’re supposed to, though. We’re supposed to go around as if we own the place. I think that’s the idea.” Stay calm, Matt told himself, sweltering under the dark garments; it was a close, humid evening. “These aliens’ home planet ... do I get the feeling it’s hotter than ours?”

  “Guess so. Or they’d fix the air conditioning. Phew!”

  “This way, I think Sugihara said to go. Left.”

  They passed bamboo-lined corridors. Guards, listless, waved them on. “The dungeons . . . they’re just down there,” Matt said. “Look, one of those doorways that lifts up from the floor.” He swaggered up to the guard and pointed imperiously at the door, thinking, I might as well go out in style.

  Instead the guard merely flicked a switch; the doorway was raised; Matt saw worn wooden steps leading into the dank, musty spaces beneath.

  And moaning . . . and . . . was that the clanking of chains?

  “I feel like I’m in a horror movie,” CB said.

  “Easy now.”

  They went forward. At every turn they saw the brutalized Converts that made up Lady Murasaki’s army without

  souls ... all of them, seeing what they thought were masters walking among them, fell prostrate, pulled piteously at their chains to try and reach their lords’ feet, called out their praises in broken voices. Though Matt could not understand what they were saying, their tone was unmistakable, and he was sickened by it.

  “Hey, Matt, look at this!” CB’s excitement was almost uncontrollable. “Look, in this room here. ...”

  Matt caught up to his apprentice. Looked inside. There was a man hitched to some diabolical device that emitted flashes of blue flames and jags of lightning, on which dials spun madly and switches were lit up. . . . “I know that man,” Matt said, “although . . . I’ve never seen him so broken down, so defeated ... he looks like he’s the middle of some incredible nightmare.”

  The man twisted his body taut against the restraints, shouted out “Never! Never!” and seemed to faint.

  “He’s speaking English!” CB exclaimed.

  “It’s Rod . . . Rod Casilli,” said Matt. “Oh, no . . . I hope it’s not too late ...”

  Rod looked up; saw the two of them standing in the doorway. “So you’re back,” he said, his voice barely audible. “You’ve come to torture me again . . . but I’m never going to give in, never! Especially since I’ve found out what you did to Matt!”

  Matt went up closer Gathering what little energy that was left to him, Rod managed to rear up and spit into his face.

  “Hey, come on, man,” Matt said. “You’re messing up my disguise—”

  “Here they come,” CB said. “Quick! Back into lizard mode!”

  “Hurry up, Rod, feed me some lines—I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing here!” Matt said heatedly as they heard the thud of alien boots in the hallway outside.

  Rod seemed very confused. Then he finally said, “I won’t give in! You’ll never convert me, never! I won’t train your army without souls. I’d rather die.”

  “Figures,” said CB. “It’s a conversion chamber. Well, first, let’s unplug these electrodes,” he said, reaching up and yanking some wires from Rod’s body.

  “Hey, careful! How do you know it’s not some kind of life-support mechanism?”

  “Oh, Matt . . . have I ever steered you wrong before?”

  “Matt ... is it really you? . . . But . . . you’re wearing ... you look like one of them!” gasped Rod. “No time to explain now. Go on protesting!”

  Rod continued to groan and scream imprecations.

  The guards paused behind Matt and CB. Clearly they didn’t understand English. But they were egging Matt on. CB continued to operate the dial even though it wasn’t wired to anything anymore, occasionally emmitted what Matt thought were extremely convincing sadistic shrieks.

  One of the guards barked something incomprehensible at him. This was the moment of truth! Matt turned to face him, turned his throat device on as loud as he could, and said, ‘T’m one of the English-trained personnel, specially brought in to question these American prisoners. If possible, could you let me perform my task in the officially assigned language?”

  The guard looked curiously at them both, then shrugged. A second one, who seemed to know a smattering of English, said, “Your appearance is strange.”

  The first guard suddenly noticed that the electrodes weren’t attached to the martial arts master in the machine. He pointed to it angrily, and began berating CB for incompetence.

  “Here goes nothing!” CB cried as he delivered a flying kick at the alien’s jaws. The other one, mystified, lumbered forward to see what the fuss was, when Rod disentangled himself from the remaining wires and leaped on top of him. The commotion had stirred up some guards from outside now. They could hear clanking and clattering from all directions. The guard whom CB had downed was now

  getting up and rubbing his head. Swiftly Matt moved to put him out of action again.

  “This way!” Rod said, pointing to a narrow p
assageway just behind the Conversion device.

  “But that leads farther into the building. . . ,”CB said. “Well, it’s better than going out and fighting a couple of hundred angry saurians, isn’t it? Come on. God, I feel like the Frankenstein monster,” he said, rubbing himself and peeling off a few more wires, some of which still dangled from his limbs and torso.

  “Right then. Let’s go,” Matt said.

  They crept into the passageway. As they entered, Rod took a small folding screen from the wall and stopped up the entrance with it. “This is how Murasaki used to come in to question me,” he said hoarsely. Water dripped down either side of the passage . . . barely more than a crawlspace. Soon they saw windows on either side opening out over more dungeons . . . this was, then, some kind of inspection passage, a vantage point from which, doubtless, jaded Visitors could come down and watch the torture and mayhem . . . Matt saw their lightless eyes, their wan expressions, and he knew they had all been Converted, all, all . . . did they plan to do this to all Japan? To the whole world, if the Mother Ships should ever return?

  “Listen,” Rod said. “They’re behind us.”

  “They can only come single file, though.”

  “Look . . . there’s more people we know!” CB hollered, pointing through the grating at what seemed to be Lex Nakashima and Kunio Yasutake.

  “Okay.” Matt listened. “They’re coming from both directions. CB, get in the middle and try to unfasten this grating.”

  “Yes, Matt.”

  Matt could see one of them now as he turned his back on his old friend Rod. Only the eyes were clearly visible, for they were wearing the ubiquitous ninja uniforms that so many of these Visitors seemed to favor; they burned like red

  hot embers in the darkness. Grabbing a piece of piping overhead, Matt lifted himself, positioned himself as though for a giant swing, and rammed into the alien’s face with his feet. He felt the lizard collide with those behind him, heard the whoosh of escaping gases that signified the collapse of the saurian’s protective pressure skin. Another clambered forth over the seething corpse of his predecessor. Matt ducked a blow, spun around to trip the alien only to find himself face to face with another who had breached Rod’s defense—“Take care of him for me!” Rod yelled. Matt despatched him with a blow to the neck. “Only if you get this one,” he said, as the one he’d been trying to catch managed to crawl under his feet and was clawing the air in Rod’s direction. Matt didn’t have time to watch what Rod would do ... he had his hands full again as several more ninjas came dashing down the passageway.