V 07 - The Alien Swordmaster

by Somtow Sucharitkul (UC) (epub)

  “What impertinence!” Murasaki said. “You are vastly outnumbered! And even if you kill those present, do you think you can continue for long? Soon your thermal pressure skins will no longer even be necessary! And the Mother Ships will return, Fieh Chan. You’ll be taken back, court-martialled—if someone doesn’t summarily execute you first—and punished severely.”

  At that point Matt, Rod and CB and a dozen other ninjas came bursting, weapons drawn, into the hall. Tomoko saw how Matt was bleeding, his cheek was gashed. She cried out his name. His lizard skin was hanging loose from his face; only patches of CB’s remained. A scratching, ratchety sound against the walls outside . . . then they saw more ninjas, enemy ones, climbing in through the balcony window. Swords were out and swinging now.

  “Stop! I command you, I, Fieh Chan!” Fieh Chan shouted.

  “Who the hell is that?” Matt screamed, as his sword sliced off an alien hand and CB, diving between a lizard’s legs, escaped being cut in two.

  “That’s Fieh Chan, but he’s also Sugihara—I don’t have time to explain!” Tomoko screamed as Murasaki wrested free, punched a larger hole in the shoji wall, clawed around, and pulled out a samurai sword! Quickly Tomoko fired blindly. The sword splintered against a bolt of blue lightning, and Murasaki cursed.

  “Well, who’s side is he on?” Matt shouted over the hubbub.

  “Ours, I think!” Tomoko shouted back, firing at anything that seemed to want to attack her.

  Above the tumult, Fieh Chan shouted out a few harsh words in the alien speech—

  Walls moved behind them! Closets were flung wide to reveal a computer console with monitors and keyboards with bizarre hieroglyphs! Fieh Chan moved toward the console, his hands upraised, uttering more sounds in their language . . . but to Tomoko’s surprise they were less grating than she had ever heard before; there was a kind of austere music to them, though she could not of course understand them.

  Next to the computer console was a low table with votive objects and with a small Buddha image that seemed familiar to Tomoko. Yes, she had seen it before somewhere.

  Tomoko went up to Fieh Chan’s side. Rod, Matt, and CB, their swords trained on the enemies, joined them.

  Fieh Chan said: “Since you failed to find a way to destroy the red dust, Murasaki, you sought instead to filter it out. The filtration system of this castle is not terribly effective, though you had to knock out most of the electrical power in this section of the country to do it. When someone is exposed, they still die . . . but even more painful and agonizingly than if they had simply succumbed immediately to the full dosage! I tell you this now because you are all going to experience it soon-—”

  “Nonsense! We are wearing the thermal pressure skins you yourself invented!” Murasaki said defiantly.

  “But, my dear would-be rival,” Fieh Chan said, and there was a hint of sadness in his voice, “what has been given can be taken away . . . and I had plans for such a contingency. There is in this castle’s heating ducts, keyed to this computer and to my voice alone ... a system for releasing an enzyme into the atmosphere ... an enzyme that will dissolve the pseudo-protoplasmic bonds that hold

  my thermal pressure skins together! That enzyme has already been released . . . it will take effect in minutes!” “Nonsense! It’s a bluff! Even you, Fieh Chan, are not so callous as to betray your own people!”

  “I have not betrayed them! On the contrary, I have exercised principles basic to my people’s culture—principles suppressed for centuries, which yet hold true!” He spoke to Tomoko now. “That Buddha,” he said. “You know what to do.”

  She remembered now. There had been one just like it in Fieh Chan’s bedchamber, the day she had been brought before him. She lifted it gingerly from the low table. At once another wall peeled wide and she saw that beyond it lay a secret docking bay like she had been in once before, on the Mother Ship.

  Two or three skyfighters were there for the taking. “Quick!” Tomoko shouted. They ran for the nearest one, their swords and guns still pointed at the assembly.

  Fieh Chan refused to step on the shuttlecraft with them. “Why?” Matt said. “You’ve done so much, and if you stay here—”

  “You’ll die,” CB said. And Tomoko saw that the kid was on the verge of tears.

  “I must die,” Fieh Chan said. “I have betrayed my people. And it was not entirely out of noble causes that I did it. I was also sustained by ... a strong feeling ... for a woman of an alien species . . . one that I knew I could never truly have. Tell me, Tomoko ... did you not love me? Even a little?”

  She felt Matt’s hands clutching her arms, warm and strong. She knew that Matt’s love would always be with her. She began to weep, the tears running freely down her cheeks, like sweat . . . “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, I was tempted, Fieh Chan.” And she knew also why the alien swordmaster had committed himself to die. He did not want to come between them. Because of (his sacrifice, he was giving Matt and Tomoko the gift of a new chance, a renewed love.

  “You must go now!” Fieh Chan drew his sword and stood straight, the blade catching the glow of the artificial lights in the banqueting hall. “They’re coming after you. Into the hatch, quick! I’ll try to fend them off. Up, up!” Then: "Sayonara . . . farewell, my temptress ape. ...”

  Choking back her tears, Tomoko leaped into the sky-fighter and dashed for the controls.

  “She knows how to fly this thing?” Rod said, awed, as he, CB and Matt scrambled in after her.

  “My wife is very smart,” Matt said proudly.

  “Look!” CB yelled, pointing out of the windows, where they saw—

  Dozens of aliens, beating each other out of the way in their haste to reach the remaining two skyfighters and avoid their impending death! They were no longer taking sides; it was a mad free-for-all as they jammed into the skyfighters, kicking each other on and off in their frenzy.

  “No time to watch!” Tomoko said, as she pushed the button that sent them crashing into the night.

  “They’re coming after us!” CB said.

  “I’d better do some fancy manuevers,” Tomoko said. “If I can figure out how!”

  Chapter 27

  “They’re coming too fast!” CB said in panic as they zoomed through a layer of cloud. Matt felt his stomach churning as they curved abruptly. Around them: night over rural Japan. Below: the Castle dimly visible in the moonlight.

  And behind them . . . skyfighters . . . gaining fast!

  “Try ducking!” Matt said.

  “I need your help,” Tomoko said. “Here, hold these controls steady and watch the altimeter . . . that’s that

  thing.” Matt slid into place beside Tomoko. It was amazing, watching her adapt so easily to the alien craft after only two previous attempts at flying one . . . was it due to her culturally complex background, perhaps, making her more chameleonlike? He soon started to get the hang of it too. Together they dived sharply, leaving the two pursuers nosing the moon.

  Lowei; lower they climbed. . . .

  “Look at the Castle!” CB shouted as they swooped down close enough to see the courtyard and the steps. “People are running amok . . . there are corpses everywhere ... a lot of people are fleeing from the Castle, down the hill. ...”

  “Good, they’re escaping that living hell inside,” Rod said. “If we confused them enough with our conflicting

  commands, maybe their minds were jolted back into reality.”

  “I hope so.”

  They were streaming from the Castle like ants now, thousands of them.

  “Careful! They’re coming back now!” CB screamed. There they came, diving down from the face of the moon—

  They separated! The two sky fighters came bearing down from either side of them. Swiftly they jerked up to another level and—

  “Doesn’t this thing have lasers, or something?” Rod said. “We can’t outrun them forever”

  “Yes,” Tomoko said. Somewhere aft there’s a control— CB had found it. “Looks l
ike a video game ... I can handle it.”

  “Go for it, kid!” Matt said.

  CB quickly found the scanners and the computer tracking device and activated them. A volley of blue light lanced the night air—

  “Missed!” CB said.

  Just then a blast rocked them. Matt felt out of his chair and banged his arm on the floor “Hold the altitude!” Tomoko shouted. He clawed at the console, trying blindly to find the right controls, screaming for Rod to help. Rod rushed over. All three of them were hunched over the console, trying to straighten out the sky fighter while one of the enemy ships was bearing down on them.

  “What about CB? Should he be alone with those lethal weapons?” Rod said.

  “With all the practice he’s had at ‘Galaga’,” Matt said, “it should be a breeze.”

  “I’m gonna blow them out of the sky,” CB said, jabbing at the controls again—

  A huge explosion filled the darkness! It opened out in the black night like an incandescent flower fringing the clouds with gilt and silver. Matt watched it for a few seconds in awe. But they couldn’t dawdle. The second skyfighter was rapidly approaching them, spraying them with spurts of laser fire that crackled in the air like the lightning bolts from a Frankenstein machine.

  They soared! Caromed over the roaring starburst of the exploded vessel! Zigzagged above the Castle from which throngs of people were still escaping! “1 can’t throw it off!” Tomoko cried. “1 can’t lose it!”

  “We’ll have to gun it down,” CB said. “Awesome!” He let fly. “Take that, lizard scum . . . it’s a hit!”

  Matt took a look in the aft scanners. “I can see the face of the pilot . . . it’s Murasaki herself,” he said.

  “Wow! Like if 1 blow her away I can get on to the next level?” CB said, his finger dancing madly on the controls.

  They were spiralling over Osaka Castle. The enemy ship was practically on top of them. Its fire was skidding along the sides of their own ship. If they didn’t score a hit soon— At that moment it happened. A tremendous beam of brilliant light burst from the laser cannon—was hurled up at Murasaki’s skyfighter—fireworks now, as the ship shattered into a thousand flaming fragments and began to rain down on the Castle. The river of people seemed to accelerate. For a moment it seemed that nothing had happened except for a few pockets of ruddy glowing within the Castle compound. Then, all at once, the Castle seemed to burst into flames all over. Smoke poured skyward. Clouds of bricks were flung into the air. Some of the last people to get out fell prey to the Castle’s destruction, though most seemed to have gotten away.

  “We did it! We did it!” CB was hollering. He ran to Matt and Tomoko and it was all too much for him suddenly ... he began to cry. He was just a small boy far from home, after all.

  Matt held him and said, “I’ll never complain about missing quarters again.”

  The kid winked at him through his tears and said, “Hey, dude, it’s casual.”

  “Now the big question is,” Tomoko said, “which way is America?” She began to laugh.

  “We can take as long as we want looking for it now!” Matt said. “We’ll have our second honeymoon in Hawaii . . . double back to Australia. . .

  “Do you think our friend made it out OK?” Rod said.

  “I don’t know,” Matt said. “Maybe he had something up his sleeve. It wouldn’t surprise me to find him waiting in California for me with divorce papers ready to sign!”

  “Now don’t be mean,” Tomoko said. “You know, that man loved me.”

  “How can you call him a man?” Rod said angrily. “He was one of them ... a stinking lizard.”

  “I think,” Matt said, “we can all take a leaf out of his preta-na-ma book. And I think that if to be human means ... to have compassion for other creatures . . . to love goodness ... to strive against evil, no matter where that struggle may lead you . . . then Fieh Chan fits that description as well as any human being I’ve ever known.”

  “That’s a very wise thing you’ve said,” said Tomoko gently. And kissed him softly on the lips.

  “That doesn’t mean he can fool around with my wife, though,” Matt added.

  Tomoko laughed.

  The skyfighter made its way across the sky. They flew low, so that they could see the hillsides with their terraced paddyfields, silver-etched by the moon.

  “It’s not too bad to be Batman and Robin and all those characters after all, huh?” he said. “I mean, saving the universe every day before dinner. Look at that countryside.”

  “It’s good to be together;” Tomoko said.

  “You know,” Rod said, “maybe I won’t bother with that electrified fence after all . . . just too much damned trouble, keeping the whole world out . . . might as well join them.”

  “Do you think it’s true, what Tomoko heard them say?” CB said at last. “That there may be a way of defeating the red dust, that the Mother Ships may soon return?”

  “1 don’t know,” Matt said. “But we’ll be ready for them. When we stop off in Tokyo we’re going to tell Setsuko and Dr. Schwabauer all that’s happened, so the Japanese will be ready and waiting.”

  “Why can’t we just go home?” said CB.

  “Because our friend didn’t tell which of these doodads is the compass,” Tomoko said. “Remember, I always had Sugihara to tell me the way before. Besides, maybe we should turn over this thing to them so their scientists can study it . . . maybe even copy it. Then we’ll really be ready for them if they return.”

  Matt said, “Besides which . . . maybe we can get some tourist sort of stuff done.”

  “What about my homework?” CB said, although Matt could tell he was only asking rhetorically, out of some kind of sense of duty.

  “I for one,” Rod Casilli said, “will be glad to get to Tokyo. The swill they’ve been feeding us prisoners at Osaka Castle was incredible! I probably wouldn’t have eaten it if I’d known what was in it.”

  “Ah,” Tomoko said. “You’re ready for some nice raw fish?”

  “Hell, no. I can’t wait to get to Tokyo so I can get a decent hamburger!”