by Calista Skye
Not-Alesya looks at me with alien suspicion. “Who exactly is it that’s coming here now?”
“It’s better if you see for yourself. I can’t explain it. You’ll know when you see them.”
“There are no forces on Xren that could threaten me.”
I try to shrug with my arms still held tightly. “Should have done better research before you came here, bub. Actually, where do you come from?”
Not-Alesya leans its hip onto a control panel. “The name of our planet is secret, and so is its location.”
I don’t want her to give that panel too much attention. “Oh, you still have a planet? I’m not sure I believe it. I think they forced you to upload yourselves and then chased you away. How many of you are left? I mean, if you all live in computers, then theoretically they could all be right here. They would take up no space. But there’s only you, isn’t there? When you attacked Brax’tan and me with robots before, only one of them had conscious control. And that was you. You run like a girl, by the way.”
Alesya’s eyes shoot alien sparks. “What they did was beyond terrible. It was horrific! Massacre after bloody massacre! They eradicated our whole world! Our cities burned. All of them. They followed us everywhere we went! By the end, we were desperate. There was only one option if we wanted to survive. To flee the world, to abandon our bodies and move our minds into machines. We did. Not everyone survived it. The technology wasn’t ready. Maybe half of us made the transition complete. And there weren’t that many left of us in the first place. Still, we were safe from them. We went into space and sought peace in the infinity between the stars. But one after the other, my compatriots lost hope and terminated their existence. Living in machines is refreshing to start with. All the problems of the body go away. There’s no disease, no need to sleep, no physical limitations. Because you have no body to limit you. But after a while, you realize that something important is missing. Something that’s hard to define, but which boils down to life. There’s no life anymore. There’s just existing. A cold, mechanical existence devoid of meaning.”
“I’m sorry,” I say softly. Because right now, I am. Nobody should have to experience that.
“Finally, there was only me left. I also long for this to be over. Inhabiting this alien body is not the same. It’s not mine and it’s not alive. Not really. But I was determined to not vanish without a trace. I will stay alive and complete my mission.”
“What is your mission?”
“I will send them an overwhelming force that will do the same to them as they did to us — hunt them relentlessly! Every moment. At every turn. Until they are no more!”
Alesya’s voice turns into an ear-splitting shriek.
I want to clasp my hands to my ears, but the robots hold them firmly.
“And that includes all their helpers,” not-Alesya continues in a calmer tone. “I already shot down the Plood. Now the Earthling girls they brought here will be killed. I have so instructed Brax’tan. There will be no prisoners. They will all die. Soon. The army is on the way to your laughably primitive camp as we speak. It will lay waste to everything. And two small dragons will ensure that there’s nothing left of your pitiful girls. Or their bastards.”
Shit. “We were abducted against our will,” I try. “We never wanted to be here! All we want is to go home again! We’re innocent bystanders! You can’t do this to us!”
Not-Alesya looks at me with alien coldness in her eyes. “You have put my plan in danger. Already you have taken some of the best leaders and warriors away from their tribes and their true purpose. That will not continue.”
I try to take a step forwards, and using all my power and my weight I manage to drag the robots with me. About two inches. “If you had done the right thing and taken us into the safety of this ship before we had to run from Bune, we would not have unknowingly meddled with your plan. The only reason for your problems is your own lack of decency!”
Not-Alesya just gives me a pale smile. “I’m too old to care. I only want to leave this universe knowing that I have started the ultimate revenge rolling. When the time comes, I will harvest the warriors I’ve created. Then I can fade away. And a great relief it will be— what are you doing here?”
The light inside the room suddenly changes, and not-Alesya looks past me.
I turn my head as far as it will go. All I can see is that there’s someone behind me. Someone big.
“I called him here,” I state, taking a chance that it is who I think it is. “See that panel with the buttons? Still works. Your spaceship is lit up like a Christmas tree right now. You know, like it is whenever you want to talk to him.”
Brax’tan walks past me without a glance and faces not-Alesya. “Your Command?”
His voice is flat and disinterested. He’s still being controlled by her.
Not-Alesya raises one thin, girly arm and points right at me. “Kill the alien.”
33
- Sophia -
“There’s the smoke.”
Aurora points to the horizon.
I shade my eyes with one hand and gaze in the same direction. Far away, there’s a thin column of smoke rising to the sky. “That has to be the dragons.”
“Yep. I think we did the right thing in leaving our cave. They’re not too far away from it now.”
She turns her back and keeps walking.
We’ve been walking for many hours, hoping we’re moving about perpendicular to the dragon’s route from Bune. I’m carrying little Jaxia in a sling on my chest, and Emilia is carrying her little Ariana Carol in the same way. We’re a thin line of girls and cavemen walking as fast as we can through the jungle, while Dar’ax is flying on his dactyl high above, spying on the enemy. The reports he returns with get steadily worse and worse.
The dragons are getting closer and the army of tribal warriors has split up, probably to move into some kind of encircling maneuver to surround us. They can’t know exactly where we are, but we think there are many spies in the woods around us. Each time one of them spots our sad little caravan and rushes back to the army to report, that’s one more nail in our coffin. Because then the army is a little closer and can adjust its course to cut us off.
“Shit,” Caroline says, walking beside me and carrying a good amount of the baby stuff for Jaxia. “At some point we have to take a break. We’re close to exhaustion.”
“I think the guys feel that the first time we stop will also be the last. As in, the place where we’ll make our last stand,” Aurora says. “It has to be a hilltop. We just have to keep going until we find a suitable place. But it can’t take too long. We need time to make some simple fortifications, too. Dig some traps.”
“In a way,” Heidi wheezes, being the most pregnant and so the one who slows us down the most, “I’m glad the attack is finally coming. You kind of get sick waiting for the other shoe to drop, you know? We knew it would happen. Well, here it is.”
“Yeah,” I agree bravely. “It had to happen some time. Now is not a worse time than any other time.”
“I think we’ll handle this fine,” Tamara adds, one of the dragon girls. “We’ll make a good showing for ourselves. We’ll take down a good few of the attackers. They’ll see that they shouldn’t fuck with Earth girls.”
“That’s right,” Caroline says. “We’ll finally have the chance to kick some ass. The losers attacking us will beg to switch sides.”
I look back to the rear of our little marching column. It is longer than it has any right to be. Throughout the day, several small groups of warriors have come to offer their help. They are from five tribes, the tribes our husbands came from. They are their old friends, good warriors who have chosen to leave their villages and risk being cast out, to support a buddy. Many have come from Trak’zor’s tribe, eager to show their worth and bravery so that he will come back and be their chief. From Ar’ox’s tribe, only his father has come. But Emilia says that it’s just as well, because that tribe was no good anyway and those two were
the only tribesmen worth a damn.
Even Alice is here, Emilia’s wild little gray ghost, the mouse/spider/monkey creature that can jump twenty feet into the air and bite the throats out of passing dactyls. She trundles along beside Emilia, sometimes making little excursions into the jungle to get fruit. Her boyfriend is probably somewhere around here as well, too shy to make himself known.
Heidi’s tame dactyl circles overhead, but Heidi doesn’t want to ride on it. She says it’s more exhausting than walking.
So we’re not doing so bad. We’re in pretty good spirits, and we’re taking action.
Still, we have to find a place to fight soon.
I turn my head to look at Bune. It’s giving its spectacular light show again, in every color of the spectrum, so bright that it dazzles even in the daytime. Is Delyah still there?
My eyes fill with acid at the thought of her. She was so worried about us. Always so serious, looking to a future that she feared would be dark.
I would have loved to know what happened to her. But now it looks like I never will.
I wipe the tears and keep walking.
34
- Delyah -
Brax’tan slowly turns around and faces me. His eyes are as dead and glassy as before. The golden spark of intelligence is nowhere to be seen.
“Brax’tan,” I call to him. “It’s me. Delyah. Can you see me?”
He just stares.
“He can see you,” not-Alesya says. “Take your sword!”
Brax’tan draws his sword with a metallic zhing.
“He will never kill me,” I say, not feeling as certain as I sound. “He knows me.”
Not-Alesya cackles. “There’s a good chance he would not. If he were in control of himself.”
I try to shake the robot hands off me. “What have you done to him?”
“You said it yourself. My species has the technology to upload ourselves into computers. It has taught us many things about the mind. Brax’tan is special. I infused the Lifegiver with his seed, the seed of the best hunter among the original warriors. The Lifegiver already had much of the genetic material from the best warriors in his tribe. It chose the very best parts for him. He would be the absolute best man on the planet. I make sure there always is one. If for some reason I have to harvest my warriors before the time is ripe, there is always a leader. A general.”
“Brax’tan is your general for this generation of warriors,” I say. “But you must control that general. The men must not turn on you. Is it a device inside him?”
“A small, thin net around certain parts of his brain. So light and thin as to be invisible. Under certain circumstances it can control him. It’s not easy to do. The warriors have strong will. But no one is strong enough to defy the neural net.”
“He came here as a child; you caught him and you put that inside him.”
“Nothing as crude as that. It has been inside him since he was in the Lifegiver. It is as much a part of him as his own hands. But yes, he came here from a young age. When I called him here to check his development and to give him certain orders. He’s been here a lot. But he doesn’t know it.”
“You control him with the lights,” I say quickly, wanting time to think. “When you want him to come here, the mountain lights up. And once he’s here, he’s close enough for you to issue commands to the neural net around his brain. He’s two people. One is him. The other is your servant. Does the pad control him, too?”
“No.”
“The pad we had could turn your lights on from a large distance.”
“The pads were never intended for you! They were intended for the warriors. But nearly all were lost in the crash. They were made so that if a warrior used one, he would see this place light up and he would know that the pad had something to do with this holy mountain. He would see the pad as a sacred object. The tribe would honor it and give it a prominent place in the village, and I could keep an eye on what they were doing.”
“Spying on them.”
“Yes. Brax’tan, you have stalled for long enough. Kill the alien!”
He lifts his sword.
“No, Brax’tan! I’m Delyah! Kill the other alien! Kill Alesya!”
He half turns, clearly struggling.
“Kill the alien!” not-Alesya screams.
35
- Brax’tan -
I have a Command to kill. So I must kill.
No! I must not kill. That’s Delyah!
Delyah! A flash of an image, her face. Smiling. Teeth so white. So shy...
No, the Command is clear.
I lift my sword.
Look! The eyes! The depth of them!
I lower the sword slightly. Something about those eyes. Dark, mysterious. Always with a question in them. Always questioning the world around them. Questioning me. Questioning herself most of all.
I lift the sword again, taking a step towards my target.
No! Remember the feel of her cool skin!
Again, I falter before my stroke can fall. Her skin, the strange copper tone, as if she has stripes that have expanded to cover all of her. And yet so smooth to the touch! So responsive!
“Kill the alien!”
The Command can’t be ignored. It must be followed.
“I thought you said the chief was terrible?”
That voice. In my memory. So sweet and thin, still so mature. As if connected straight to the deepest point inside me.
Terrible pain shoots from my head down my body and turns my vision blurry.
I must obey the Command!
36
- Delyah -
“He doesn’t want to kill me. Look.”
Brax’tan has gone rigid in an awkward position, with his sword half raised and his head down, as if he’s facing a hailstorm coming at him from the front. Every one of his muscles is tense like a bowstring, and his huge, powerful body trembles.
Not-Alesya trembles with rage. “It’s not his choice to make. Kill, you giant idiot!”
I can just see one of his eyes. It flashes with light now and then. It’s him, trying to regain control of himself. “It’s me, Brax’tan. Remember when we met, escaping from the dactyls?”
“It’s impossible,” not-Alesya says in a shrill voice. “He can’t disobey. The neural net always works. Kill, Brax’tan!”
The giant warrior jerks at the words and straightens slightly. His eyes are flashing a little more now.
“Brax’tan,” I say. “Look at me. It’s me. Take control, Brax’tan! You don’t want to kill. Be strong!”
He looks at me and groans. To my horror, dark blood starts running freely out of his nose.
“Oh no!”
“He’s killing himself, trying to resist,” not-Alesya marvels. “I’ve never seen that before. But it’s useless.”
37
- Brax’tan -
The pain increases in intensity. A cold, distant part of me realizes that I’m badly injured.
The world is going dark, except for the white-hot glow of the pain in my head. Surely it’s about to split apart?
“Kill her!”
I desperately want to obey and for the pain to end. But I keep seeing that face and the deep eyes. The softness of her voice, the look on her face when I’ve said something she thinks is funny. Her laugh, so subdued, as if she’s always afraid she’s offending someone.
I see it in a blinding flash of white-hot pain: I will never harm Delyah.
I love that woman.
I drop my sword, but I can’t hear it land. The world is going red everywhere, and there’s only me there.
I see a bright tunnel. On the other side is me obeying the Command. Apart from that, there is only darkness.
Very well. It’s an easy choice. I’ll choose the darkness.
I want to laugh. Such an easy choice! Why did I ever think I’d harm her?
The floor comes up to meet me, and I welcome it. All the power drains from me. The world draws away.
I passed the t
rials. Now, all that remains is death.
38
- Delyah -
There is blood coming from his ears and his eyes before he collapses and falls to the floor.
“No! Brax’tan!”
Not-Alesya kicks his large form. “Get up! Kill, you stupid alien!”
“Stop it! You’re hurting him!”
“He’s murdered himself. Get up! Don’t resist, just obey!” She kicks him a couple of more times, but there’s a pool of blood around his head and I close my eyes.
“Oh well,” not-Alesya says calmly, mostly to herself. “It isn’t really necessary. I’ll find a new general. And I can kill this alien myself.”
She turns to me and puts her hands on her hips. “I’ve never killed anything when wearing this body. I wonder if it would provide a different sensation.”
She comes up to me. “What will kill you, alien? Most things, I’d wager. Organics are always so vulnerable. A lack of air, a lack of water. Too much air, too much water. All deadly. So delicate!”
Seeing my dead friend’s body from up this close makes my skin creep, even though I’m starting to feel emotionally numb. The alien controls that body well, but not perfectly. The eyes aren’t looking directly at me, and the mouth movements are awkward when it talks. The eyes are crusty and bloodless.
The robots are holding me firmly, just at the threshold of where their grip will start to hurt. They’re not that big, but they’re heavy. If there were only one of them holding me, I might be able to nudge it. Two, no chance.
Not-Alesya turns on her heel with an alien flourish, then bends down and picks up Brax’tan’s sword. She has to use both hands, and she has to lean back to counter the blade’s great weight. “Heavy and sharp. Perfect for killing an alien.”
The sword is probably two-thirds of her whole length, and her grip is awkward. But I know that edge is sharp. She can easily kill me with it.