“More than three quartersss of our ssspecies was annihilated overnight. Millionsss more died in the following daysss from exposssure to the poisonsss which the Hrūll introduced into our atmosssphere,” Shikari continued. “You mussst excuse my show of emotion. It isss difficult for me to have to recount the darkessst daysss of my people.”
“There is no need to apologize,” Marcus consoled her, as Taz and Serena nodded.
“We know we are not a perfect race. We have our flawsss, asss do the others,” Shikari confessed. “We take enjoyment from thingsss such as lavisssh food and intoxxxicants, engaging in bessstial actsss of erotic pleasssure. But are we truly dessserving of sssuch a cruel fate for thisss?”
“Of course not,” Serena sighed, beginning to see the problem from Shikari’s point of view.
“Pray that you may not find yourssself in our posssition. I would not wisssh it on anyone,” Shikari concluded.
“We can’t make any decisions without first consulting with our Captain,” Marcus explained. “But I will bring this matter to his attention.”
“Oh, pleassse do. I wouldn’t want to caussse any problemsss,” Shikari agreed. “But I beg you to act hassstily. Every day we wait, the chancesss for my family’s sssurvival diminisssh.”
“I have a question,” Taz spoke up. “How can we get to this outpost? Our ship wouldn’t get us to even the nearest solar system in our lifetimes. If it could, well, we wouldn’t be in the position to need your help.”
“That isss no problem at all,” Shikari responded, turning her smooth mask to the scout. “I can arrange for a transssport vesssel which your ssship can dock with. It will take you to the outpossst.”
“What about the superluminal drive you promised us?” Dr. Gehringer demanded, still focused on the reward rather than the task at hand.
“Once the facccility hasss been liberated, my freighter will take you to the Sssheshen homeworld, Nos Ssshana, where the drive will be inssstalled. Sssecrecy isss of the utmossst importanccce.”
“Don’t worry,” Serena assured her. “Our lips are sealed.”
“We should go and inform our Captain of your offer. Given the need for secrecy, I suppose we’d be better to return our answer in person?” Marcus asked, and when the Sheshen nodded, he added “Then we’ll be back shortly.”
As they stood up from the comfortable, leather-clad couches, Shikari rose as well, embracing them each in turn and thanking them sincerely for listening to her plight, before speeding them on their way back to the Tengri.
Chapter 18
Mariko stood poised in the center of the elevator, a statuesque vision in her long, narrow skirt and matching dark jacket. A pristine white blouse pressed to perfection and a tie to match completed her outfit. She always dressed like this. In her mind, her flawless appearance – even down to her sleek black hair, which never had even a lock out of place – reflected the stability of the corporation.
As serene and controlled as she might look on the outside, how she felt on the inside was a different story. Her dulled senses sometimes made it feel as if she were living underwater, although she could still focus quite exceptionally when a pressing need arose, often with the aid of medication. At night she wanted to scream, to lash out with her voice, as if it were the only weapon that could pierce the veil that kept her thoughts and emotions muddled and out of sight. She watched her immaculate reflection in the elevator’s glass walls as it rose along the outside of the Muromoto headquarters’ inclining walls, and felt… she didn’t know what she felt. The elevator’s inside wall was made of dark metal, slanting to match the incline of the great ziggurat-shaped structure, its matte finish a far better reflection of her mood.
She had just finished a brief discussion with an investigative journalist and was running late for a meeting with the Board of Directors. What nerve, she thought. The reporter had questioned her motives for moving against her father. He’d even used the term ‘insidious’ to describe her actions! She found the accusation disturbing. She had always rationalized her decision by convincing herself that it was in best interests of the company, and that it had had nothing to do with her feelings towards her father. She’d never imagined that the outside world would view it any differently.
“Mariko, they’re at the meeting. Everyone’s ready for you,” her assistant, a chiseled young man with auburn hair, impossibly high cheekbones and broad shoulders, informed her. The cheekbones were her idea. She’d had him surgically altered to make him better suited for his role as her assistant. She enjoyed the idea that she could sculpt him to her liking, the perfect vision of devout servitude, an Adonis who followed her every footstep. His only role in life was to see to her needs… her every need.
“Thank you, Adam,” she acknowledged in a voice as toneless as the soulless drone of one of the company’s androids.
She finally broke eye contact with her own reflection, studying the ever descending cityscape. Outside in the pouring rain, millions of people went about their daily routines. They were the two only constants in the city of Sol, the endless buzzing of traffic, and the rain. It always rained, dark and bleak, just like her mood. Is this really all there is? She pondered.
She was briefly distracted by the beeping noise coming from the assistant’s datapad, a device he never let out of his sight, for it contained her schedule, her contacts, her work. That was all she was now, work. In a sense, that datapad was her, her essence.
“A message from your father,” the assistant read off the screen. “Do you want me to-”
“Ignore it,” she cut him off in the same emotionless tone.
“Yes, ma’am,” the assistant replied, lowering his datapad.
The elevator began to slow its ascent, and within seconds it came to a halt on one of the building’s uppermost levels. Mariko turned to face the doorway, arching her head to let it be scanned by the internal security sensors before being allowed admission to the structure’s inner sanctum. The door drew open with a quiet hissing sound, revealing an elaborate hall that took up the entirety of the level.
The floor was tiled with sheets of black granite. Walkways of roughly-hewn boards of cured elm lifted a few centimeters off the floor reaching across the hall towards its center. Small streams of crystal clear water ran in trenches carved into the stone floor in a seemingly chaotic arrangement, occupied by schools of minute fish which swam freely from one end of the hall to the other, many of them gathering in the shallow moat surrounding the raised island in the chamber’s center. The island itself was a platform of the same elm as the walkways, upon which rested a huge round conference table, at which sat the Board of Directors of the Muromoto Group. The lighting around the edges of the chamber was dim, so as to limit the field of view of those inside, but the center of the hall was an oasis of warm yellow light spilling from shimmering globes of various sizes suspended from the ceiling to illuminate the table.
Her father had designed the room. He had wanted it to be something other than the standard dull, cold conference room with its strictly hierarchical long conference table. He’d wanted it to be a source of comfort as well as inspiration, a haven. To Mariko, it was a distraction. Though there were security drones hidden throughout the hall, in various nooks and crannies just out of sight, Mariko felt that the non-invasive nature of the security was a mistake on her father’s behalf. It allowed the room’s occupants a feeling of comfort which she found disturbing. She preferred her rivals to be on edge when she spoke to them, unnerved and wary. Then she knew how to push them in just the right way to topple them.
“Ms. Muromoto,” one of the relics at the table, a decrepit old fool who had been her father’s strongest supporter and a staunch advocate that he should have stayed in power, greeted her. “We’ve been expecting you.”
“My apologies, Mr. Barrow,” she breathed. “I’ve been seeing to an important matter relating to Project Isis.”
She marched to her seat at the table, taking long strides that even her obedie
nt assistant had trouble keeping up with.
“Gentlemen,” she nodded calmly as she took her seat and began preparing herself for the briefing.
“Spare the pleasantries, Mariko,” Barrow insisted, defiantly slamming his frail fist on the tabletop. “We demand answers.”
“I’m sorry…,” she replied in her most patronizing tone. “I wasn’t aware that I’d been asked a question.”
“Project Isis,” Barrow seethed, easing back into his seat, his anger still apparent. “You’ve kept us in the dark for far too long. You claim this new android will bring this company into the future. No one’s doubting your success with the new household lines, but the amount of resources you’ve diverted to your special project is bordering on lunacy!”
Mariko composed herself, taking a deep breath before trying to deflect Barrow’s latest demand for answers.
“As I was about to say, Project Isis is proceeding according to plan. You will have your answers soon enough,” she lied.
“That’s not good enough,” exclaimed Ekker, a prune-faced, middle-aged man whose voice was seldom heard, but always listened to. “Frankly, there are those among us who are beginning to question whether you supplanting your father as Head of the Board was indeed the right decision.”
She was in trouble. She had known that she would have to face the consequences sooner or later. But how could she tell them that Project Isis didn’t actually exist, at least not in the form she’d lead them to believe. There were no factories, no workers, no research teams devoted to Project Isis, just an account through which she had funneled the resources in order to divert them through to their proper course. If they only knew, they would probably take her more seriously. Still, they weren’t ready. If they’d been presented with the same opportunity that she had, they would have discounted it out of hand, as would her father, she knew that much.
“You have a month to produce a viable…” Ekker continued.
“It’s time,” she heard the voice inside her head, a voice which spoke calmly but with confidence, a voice she had not heard for quite some time. “Head to the roof. A shuttle is waiting for your arrival.”
“…or else we will be forced to…” Ekker was still speaking, completely unaware of the voice sounding in Mariko’s mind.
“Gentlemen!” Mariko interrupted the elderly man, rising abruptly from her seat and drawing looks of startlement and outrage from Ekker and several others. The members of the Board, particularly Ekker and Barrow, exchanged troubled looks.
“Thirty days,” she nodded, pausing dramatically for emphasis. “You will have your answers.”
With that, she turned and strode back towards the elevator, leaving the Board to bicker and plot in her absence.
Chapter 19
Rodan Kesh had been slouching on the ornate park bench for a little over an hour, and his nerves were beginning to get the better of him. His contact was late, but given who he was, it was to be expected. Rodan had chosen this particular garden in the leisure district due to its distance from the more popular areas of the sector, and the fact that, following a string of gruesome murders in the last few years, the park was as quiet as the grave after dark.
Shielded from view by a large tree with a thick canopy of branching needles, Rodan stared out at the artificial lake in the centre of the garden, where a fountain emitted an arching cascade of sparkling water, splashing onto a grouping of flat rocks on the far bank. The reflection of artificial moonlight rippled across the water’s surface. The lone streetlamp gave the grove where he sat an eerie glow, and Rodan was beginning to wish he’d chosen a spot that wasn’t so unnerving for their rendezvous. He kept looking around, frantically aware that the sound of the cascading water could drown out the noise of a stealthy assailant. Where was he?
Rodan hated to have to use his biggest asset for a task like this. If only recent events had unfolded differently. Still, something had to be done. Some things were more important than having an ace up one’s sleeve for a future occasion. As he got up from the bench and began pacing about, a stirring in the thick underbrush nearest to him claimed his attention.
“Who’s there?” he demanded, his heart suddenly racing with anticipation.
There was no answer, not a sound save for the splashing of the water. He took a few steps closer to the lamppost, seeking security from the light. He could feel his breathing getting heavier and his mind starting to race. Despite all his rigorous training, he felt completely unprepared.
“Tishun maguri dadukaa, ronohendo. I would not have thought one such as you to have fear for the darkness,” came a deep voice resounded from only a few meters away.
Rodan was so startled that he nearly leapt into the air, his lungs frozen and unwilling to take in the cool night air.
“Silence your thoughts, old friend,” the voice spoke. “If there were demons lurking in the night waiting to prey on you, rest assured I would have slain them all by now.”
With a sudden shimmer of reflected light, the image of a tall, heavily-built humanoid being began to form in the empty air before him. The smooth, silvery suit, lined with panels and devices so numerous that Rodan couldn’t even begin to imagine their function, had never ceased to impress him. A visor of opaque darkened glass covered most of its wearer’s visage, topped by a metallic skullcap and backed by antennae protruding from the back of its head, towering over his two-meter frame. Although its armor was far heavier and more formidable than that usually worn by its kind, it bore the familiar icon of the Hiodan emblazoned on its chestplate, closely resembling the letter k, duplicated and mirrored, the two halves merging at the base.
“It is good to see you again Hanan Aru,” Rodan sighed, relaxing his muscles and breathing a heavy sigh of relief. “Thank you for coming on such short notice.”
“The timing was fair,” the silvery figure assured him. “I have just returned from my latest assignment.”
“That is fortunate,” Rodan agreed. “I have a feeling this favor will require some time.”
Hanan Aru walked over to the lake and knelt down in front of it, bathing his armored hand in its clear waters.
“Does your kind never tire of wearing those suits?” Rodan inquired.
It was a question that had loomed in his mind for quite some time.
“I have grown accustomed to it,” Hanan Aru confessed, “a second skin, you might say.”
Rodan knew that in addition to its complement of hidden weaponry and integral equipment, the Hiodan’s armor was arrayed with tactile sensors, cybernetically linked to its wearer, so in truth, it really was a second skin.
“You have chosen a good location for our meeting,” Hanan Aru praised his friend. “One might think you used to such… shady dealings.”
“Thank you Hanan Aru,” Rodan muttered, unsure whether he should view the statement as a complement or not.
“So, what is it that you require of me?” Hanan Aru asked, rising up from the banks of the lake to face him.
Rodan couldn’t help but pause briefly to admire the Hiodan powered armor. Having seen it on the battlefield up close, he knew full well what it was capable of. Even Ambassador Janosh himself would find Hanan Aru in his suit a worthy opponent.
“Do you remember Cerakan?” Rodan probed, folding his arms in front of him and adjusting his pose.
“I do,” Hanan Aru revealed, “although not with fond memories.”
“Nor I,” Rodan said with a faint smile. “So much pain… and death.”
“It was the path we chose.”
“True,” Rodan paused before continuing. “I fear the consequences of what I am about to ask you. This time you will be on your own. I cannot come with you.”
“What is to be my target?” Hanan Aru pressed, without so much as a hint of reserve.
“We have some new arrivals on Semeh’yone-” Rodan started.
“The Terrans,” the Hiodan interrupted him, reminding Rodan of his remarkable aptitude for keeping up with current events,
despite his long absences from the station.
Rodan nodded in acknowledgement. “We always knew they would show themselves sooner or later.”
“It is done,” Hanan Aru assured him.
Like an apparition, the silvery figure began to dissipate. If it weren’t for the faint impressions the Hiodan left as he strode through the grass, Rodan would never even have noticed him leave. He was perfect for the job. Confident that things were going as planned, Rodan took a moment to gaze up at the moon.
It was a bold move, one that no one would see coming. He would have to take great care to remain discrete. Not only were there eyes and ears in every corner, but he would have to protect his mind from telepathic intrusion as well. Luckily he had always been gifted when it came to keeping people from messing with his head. It was one of the qualities he believed had gotten him this far. His timepiece gave a high-pitched beep, and he glanced down at it.
“Half past two,” he read on the chronometer’s display. “Time for rain.”
He had no sooner processed the thought when the first droplets began falling from the sky. It had always amazed him the great level of detail with which the Hiodan had constructed Semeh’yone. He often forgot he was aboard a space station. He pulled the hood over his head and strolled through the empty gardens, allowing the refreshing rain to soothe the turmoil in his mind.
Chapter 20
Having repeated Shikari’s proposal to the captain, Marcus and the others joined the entire crew in the galley for a debate and a vote. Though making decisions in such a democratic method was hardly common practice on C-CORE expeditions, the captain thought it appropriate given the nature of their dilemma. Each crewmember was given the opportunity to weigh in, and, of the objectors, it was the support staff who were the most reluctant to pursue such a drastic course of action.
Merillian: 2 (Locus Origin) Page 13