Despite the dozens of pursuers and his almost one hundred percent certainty he’d be captured, Harvey found a way out. He discovered a chute of some kind, long out of use, leading to parts unknown. He had no interest in taking one last look at his handiwork. He knew by the explosions and shrieks and grating, grinding rumbles he’d done plenty of damage. The whole factory hadn’t been destroyed, but he at least made things difficult. To him, that was a victory.
6.
Harvey didn’t remember falling asleep, just the terrible fit that jerked him awake. He’d heard robotic footsteps, severing him from the soft, warm dream world where Lea’s comforting embrace enveloped him, healed him.
Cold, confined walls. Darkness all around. Dread his sole companion. The recollection of his last few hours began to creep back. He remembered the factory, his campaign of disruption, and his subsequent escape. Where he was now became the real mystery. The ringing in his ears signified his worst fear—no air. Yet he was breathing fine. Must have been the deep, dense substrata, the packed soil blunting all sound.
But it was a sound that had aroused him, had him alert and ready, head throbbing, pulse pounding, pivoting constantly to survey ahead and behind, certain one of the parasitic human skeletons had found him out.
Nothing there. He’d gotten away safely, so it seemed. Then what was it that he’d heard? A sorrowful threnody from the beleaguered spirits of the dead? Then his stomach growled and he received his answer. A gastric groan so convincing, so vocal, Harvey entertained the idea he had a living entity in his gut, asking—no demanding—to be fed.
He chuckled at the clamorous hunger pangs. Soon, though, the tumult in his intestines matured from its infancy and began ruling Harvey’s every thought. Food. Now.
Hunger drives a man beyond his normal restrictions of fear, past any inhibitions regarding dangerous or otherwise life-threatening situations. Any living being, faced with starvation, is going to take risks. Harvey told himself over and over he had to do this. The food court was the only place he could eat, and if he didn’t eat he’d die. Simple as that.
So he crawled. Out of the darkness, out of the rocky crags of that goddamn dungeon. Crawled until he could crouch, then stand straight up, finding an abandoned shaft, tracks on the floor suggesting it had been planned for part of the conveyer matrix, though now, puzzlingly, it was mothballed.
The walls turned from dank and dingy to a stained off-white. He recognized a light. Bright beams cutting through the shifting dust. An arduous investigation rewarded him with an air vent. Popping the cover, he was amazed when he discovered the main visitor concourse. He was only meters from the food court. He also saw scores and scores of pilfered human figures. Host bodies with parasitic monsters in control.
He cringed and ducked down, calculating how far he needed to travel. He wanted to find the autoserve maintenance core, an area behind the food court. It was a place he knew well, from his hours and hours of tinkering, toying, begging and banging on the food printers, and he knew from there he’d have access to as much nutritious sustenance as he would ever want.
If he could reach it.
There was only one slight problem. The parasitic corpses. The food court had never been so full, even in Cemetery Planet’s heyday two hundred years earlier, in the 2300s, when the place was visited by a thousand people a day. Of course Harvey hadn’t witnessed those bustling times. He’d never seen anyone in the food court, or anywhere else in the visitor center for that matter, and he still wasn’t used to it.
The food court had turned into an all-out free-for-all. Autoserves all functioning to full capacity, churning out meals left and right. Harvey wondered how the machines kept running under such strains. The feeding frenzy made him almost lose his appetite. Hundreds of half-rotten corpses funneling food into their mouths as fast as the autoserves would print it. No lines. No polite waiting. Just a melee, almost to the point of fisticuffs. A fight probably would have broken out if not for the extreme cumbersome nature of the corpses. Only a few parasites had much control over their host bodies yet. Most were bumbling, fumbling fools, or at least they looked foolish to Harvey.
Foolish or not, they still represented a clear and present danger. If just one of them spotted him in his ensconced hiding place, he was a goner. His famine, though, superseded even his desire to remain concealed. He had to eat, and soon found himself scouting opportunities. A crust of bread on the floor. A discarded, half eaten chicken breast. A cube of rice. He spied all of these, yet getting them would have meant certain danger. Still, he had to eat.
Then a stroke of luck. In their avarice for nourishment, two parasites began arguing over a tray of food that had been left on the service counter. Harvey had been watching, and noticed the tray, loaded with potatoes and gravy, a steak, and some beautifully steamed asparagus spears—all handsomely replicated by the food printers. The sight and smell churned his guts inside out. It was within reach. He managed to crawl undetected under the counter, centimeters from the tray. And when the parasites began shoving each other, Harvey snatched the tray. He didn’t look to see if they noticed, but by the sound of it, they hadn’t, and the hostilities boiled over into the rest of the crowd.
Harvey scuttled to his hiding place and inhaled the steak without really tasting it. He could have eaten anything at that point and it would have tasted the same. He couldn’t help but recognize the parallel between his own hunger and the voraciousness exhibited by the foul monstrosities that had invaded the food court. Slavishly feeding their rapacious cravings like wild dogs. He nearly lost his own appetite as he watched, through the cracks between the food printers, the mad melee for anything and everything they could get their rotten, filthy fingers on.
Harvey conjectured why these creatures were so ravenous. Since the machines built to regenerate their bodies were malfunctioning, they had to rebuild themselves. And they needed the food to replenish, to become whole again. That must have been it. He saw evidence of his theory. Some of the more developed bodies had eyelids. Fully formed noses. Skin almost complete and real. These were the ones who ate the most, and were beginning their paths to wholeness. From there, Harvey’s conjectures darkened. He didn’t want to think about it.
He didn’t want to look at those offensive things any longer. Wolves in sheep’s clothing. Aliens in human guise. All of a sudden his steak demanded a return ticket. He swallowed hard, determined to keep it down, and squirmed out of the autoserve maintenance core, away from the repulsive smells and sounds of those hungry beasts.
In the main maintenance passage, he stood and stretched his aching muscles. His thoughts wandered to Lea, and his despondency sank to new depths. Would he ever see her again? No. Simple as that. This cruel understanding drove him to further hopelessness. He willed his thoughts away, willed them deep into space, and as he did, stared out the small view porthole on the eastern bulkhead. There, in the inkiness of night, he spotted something that completed his descent into despair.
7.
Harvey saw a craft docked to the space elevator’s orbital platform, only it wasn’t a shuttle. Triangular in shape. Gigantic in size. It was just a silhouette, a dark spot set against the darker background, and would have been invisible if not for the star-studded sky.
The orbital platform was anchored to the planet by a tether, a massive band of nano-filamentous, ultra-thin synthetic silk, strung with such great tension it vibrated in a tone redolent of a harp. Arrow straight and stunning, the immense ribbon served as the heart of the space elevator, the guide wire for the cab, a circular compartment designed to hold about a hundred passengers. It was the cab which had Harvey’s full attention. It appeared packed with people, or pseudo-people. And it was ascending to the platform.
Harvey was dismayed when he concluded the space ship had to be a superexotanker. The largest in the DeepSix fleet. Used to transport millions of metric tons of mined minerals and precious metals from all over the galaxy. His mind boggled at the idea of how many infected corpses
that tanker could hold. And, adding to his dread, he saw one more of them. Another triangular shadow, hanging in upper orbit, several thousand kilometers east of the docked ship.
After spotting the second ship, he spied another, then another. Still more obstructions shrouded the night, only smaller, yet no less threatening. If he was scared before, the sight of the new spacecraft sent him into a tailspin of emotion. He could have sworn they were combat cruisers, but he wasn’t exactly certain.
Suddenly his thirst for more information overwhelmed his terror, once again spurring him into action. He’d never felt more curious about anything, and it ate him alive from the inside out. The anxiety of not knowing.
Fortunately the maintenance tunnel had a computer terminal. When he activated the screen, his stomach dropped. The data interface exploded with a treasure-trove. Folder after folder. Document after document. All pertaining to the ongoing operation. All incriminatory beyond anything ever witnessed by human eyes. Innocent human eyes, at least.
The reports were dry and analytical in nature, most of them reading like an autoserve repair manual. Invoices. Shipping receipts and logs. Manufacturing numbers. It was the buried items, the hidden documents, the concealed files that told the whole, damning tale.
Harvey uncovered documentation of meetings between emissaries of the Unspeakable Ones and DeepSix. The topics of discussion raised the hair on his neck. Plans, cold and calculating, on how the combat cruisers and transport ships would be built and delivered. Agreements of remuneration from massive and pristine deposits of rare minerals. Not just diamonds, platinum, and gold as Broders had mentioned, but, most important of all, exotanium. Secret dossiers on the times and dates of construction for the vast subterranean body transport system. And a lengthy discussion, quite heated at times, about the reanimation receptacles. Seems DeepSix was having difficulties complying with precise specifications of the alien technology, and the Unspeakable Ones were incensed.
The dossiers, hundreds of them, added up to nothing less than a grand conspiracy. A secret scheme of deception, debasement, and destruction. The combat cruisers. The freighters. The talk of how the Earth would be divided once its population was crushed and enslaved. Promises made. Deals struck. Just as Broders had said—deals with the devil.
DeepSix was in deep. A conspiracy to end all conspiracies. But Harvey knew something even the supposed brain trust at DeepSix corporate headquarters didn’t know. The Unspeakable Ones intended on honoring no agreements with humans. Harvey wanted to shout at the screen, wanted to reach right through time and space and shake those greedy corporate bastards until their heads fell off. What were they thinking? Were they completely insane? One thing he had no doubts over—he couldn’t let those venal bastards get away with this. No matter how terrifying the Unspeakable Ones, he felt it his duty, no, his destiny to stop this crime against nature from happening. He had to stop the Unspeakable Ones from boarding those ships.
He had to bring down that space elevator.
The second he reached that conclusion, his attention was rudely and abruptly stolen by a cascading array of red and orange lights and a viciously accusatory siren, all products of the computer’s security system. He’d been detected. Now he had to make a run for it, to the service duct leading under the main concourse.
He never made it.
Before he reached the new passage, an undead minion stepped into his path. Harvey had detected the thing’s putrescent odor before he spotted it. But he’d been sprinting so fast, it was impossible to avoid running straight into the arms of the parasitical pariah.
8.
“You almost did it, human,” the beast inside Broders penetrated Harvey with its fiercely ominous eyes. It didn’t need to touch him in order to inflict pain. Just its stare was enough. “You almost ruined everything. But we will persist. And we will slaughter every sentient species in the galaxy. Including humans…and starting with you!”
Harvey had no freedom of movement inside the form-fitted receptacle, bathed in milky white liquid. The very same receptacle and the very same liquid he’d seen in use earlier. The cloudy fluid had a paralyzing effect on his muscles, and he only could watch the terrifying events unfold.
The entire metal framework shook violently. Then the conveyer started to roll. The cyborgs had been working feverishly on the motors, and, despite Harvey’s efforts, the subterranean operation was again in near full swing.
And Harvey was part of it. Riding the belt like one of the countless other dead.
He saw Lea, and that brought on a bag of mixed feelings. Staring at him with the strangest of expressions, she represented both the best and the worst of his life. The high and the low. He knew it was only her body, a shell, and inside, manipulating her every movement, controlling every word and action was a being of indefinable evil. And yet he got such a strange feeling from her, or it. He was so confused.
He watched her watching him until the conveyer shifted directions. A turn in the tracks, taking him toward the convergence point. His head wouldn’t move, so he only caught blurry glimpses of where he was going. Never had he been so anxious.
It only got worse when, with a tremendous shudder, the belt stopped. He knew what was coming. He’d tried to prepare himself for it. But nothing could ready a man’s nerves for this.
A hulking maggot slithered from its conveyer, its slimy sheath shimmering in the muted light like a malignant jewel, now near its final destination, its new home—inside Harvey’s head.
He summoned every kilogram of will left inside, fighting desperately, savagely, an animal clawing for his very survival. Nothing worked. The white, cloudy liquid held him tighter than any glue known to man. He had no options. No hope. All he could do was lay there, motionless and helpless, as the larva inched ever closer.
The mental torture began to take its toll. Harvey whimpered solemnly, a lament to whoever would listen. Why this terrible end? He imagined his corpse. His body. What kinds of odious things would this beast perpetrate once burrowed inside his brain? The horrors described to Harvey swirled in his memory like a swilling cesspool. Terrible, terrible acts. Unspeakable acts. Aggression, plundering, enslavement, and genocide on a scale unthinkable by a human mind. Yet perpetrated by human bodies. He felt he would be somehow complicit in these crimes if his body were to be used. Not crimes against humanity alone, but crimes against all of existence.
Click…click…click went the maggot as it scraped its black, jagged mandibles against his cheek. Click…click…click the gnarled mouthparts pinched his skin, and he cried out in dismal terror. He felt everything, every slithering undulation deep within the worm’s flaccid epidermis, every rippling contraction and expansion, vibrating in such a way as to induce the chills deep in Harvey’s bones. The thing was now on his jaw, only centimeters from his ear.
He cried out again, eyes darting, searching for someone, anyone with a sense of compassion. He was only fooling himself. These creatures had nothing in their genetic makeup even close to empathy. They had no such word in their shockingly obnoxious vocabulary.
Click…click…click
The deafening sound drove him to the edge of madness. Oozing. Slithering. Rippling. The maggot slid closer, until his ear vibrated with icy prickles. It tickled. Irony of ironies, this vile monster tickled Harvey’s ear as it slid up and into the canal.
Suddenly, tickling was the least of his worries. A tremendous buildup of pressure inside his ear. His brain was on fire, boiling his cerebellum mercilessly, and he knew he’d die. Or at least the part of him that was Harvey would die. In its place would be a monster. Savage. Cunning. Heartless. It pained him to contemplate such dire things. Appalling notions that would haunt his soul forever.
Then, mercifully, the insufferable pain ceased. Just like that, the pressure, the burning, the profound and maddening agony eased off to nearly nothing. His vision was blurred, his hearing gone aside from a constant ringing. Then he felt movement. Arms and legs in motion. Head bobbing and bouncin
g. Someone was half-carrying, half-dragging him, his feet swishing against the gritty ground.
Voices, loud and brusque. Curses in that despicable alien language. Harvey heard commotion from behind, and, as his senses returned, he felt his ear and concluded the ghastly maggot had been removed. He was being rescued. His eyes adjusted just as he was dragged into a dank, dark crevice, or narrow passageway, he couldn’t tell which. He had no way to see the face of his savior, and only heard light breathing. Then he felt a hand on his, and knew the touch. And when he heard his name, the voice sent him into instant convulsions of passion. His vision attuned even more to the dimness. Lea’s faint outline separated from the pitch-black background, and he fell against her, feeling her warm pulse, relishing her supple skin.
“Lea,” he wept. “It’s you!” he’d dreamt of this moment. “You did it, didn’t you?” he looked her in the eyes, holding her, taking in the sensations. She was real. Real flesh. Real blood. A real heart beating inside that chest. “You beat it, Lea, didn’t you?”
Cemetery Planet: The Complete Series Page 16