The sounds of machinery came from outside the passenger pod. Hurrying to the windowport again, Vincent saw a slow-moving engine rig rolling forward until it came to rest against the quarantined vessel. A large red drum sat on the flat body above flexible treads. An automated, versatile explorer vehicle: Vincent had seen such equipment in the repair shop on Orsini.
With a resounding thunk, a heavy suction plate pressed against the pod’s hull. The machine raised a backward-articulated arm, at the end of which buzzed a spinning carbide cutter. “That’s a lamprey drill. What is it doing?”
“The Diadem will explain,” Zairic said.
The automated rover sprayed something on the outer hull plate, scoured with an abrasive, and finally, after carefully aligning the cutting area, applied the spinning lamprey saw.
“They’re drilling in.” Vincent ran to the hatch, worked the controls, but found them frozen. “We’re sealed inside here. Why don’t they just open the access hatch if they want contact with us?”
“Perhaps the Diadem is exercising extreme caution.”
A soft plastic sheath that looked like an embryonic sac extended from the cutting arm, folding around the saw blade to seal the metal being cut. Vincent heard the teeth-grinding vibration as the cutter gnawed through the reinforced hull.
Vincent ran to the codecall screen. “Diadem, please explain what’s happening out there.”
Michella’s face reappeared, still wearing her sincere smile. “You may relax, gentlemen. We’re simply obtaining in-situ samples of the air within the pod. We will run tests to verify there’s no contamination. We can’t be too careful about letting an extraterrestrial disease organism loose on Sonjeera. I’m sure it will be fine. We’ll take care of all this – I promise.” She sounded so warm and friendly.
Vincent’s skin crawled. If the explanation was so innocuous, then why not tell them beforehand? Since regular travel and commerce from Hellhole had continued for months following the discovery of the slick-water pools, any contamination should have been obvious by now.
Dread uncoiled within him. “Zairic, listen to Fernando inside you. Ask him – isn’t he at all suspicious?” Vincent jerked his head to one side as, with a shrill whine of distressed metal, the cutter bit through the inner wall. Rotating jagged teeth slashed a raw wound into the pod’s interior.
The emotion radiating from Vincent alarmed Cippiq more than the others. The Original glided forward on his long, soft body and spoke in an incomprehensible burst of sound, and Zairic nodded. “Very well then, Vincent Jenet. Fernando would like to talk with you also.”
The voice changed, became more animated. It was Fernando Neron again. “Taking a sample of the air for quarantine testing? Hmm, it sounds reasonable, but it’s complete bullshit. We may indeed have something to worry about, my friend.”
Vincent swallowed hard. “Our companions are very trusting, Fernando – too trusting.”
The lamprey drill retracted now to be replaced by a dark, large-diameter tube that sealed around the inner hole.
Fernando nudged Vincent aside and activated the codecall. He flashed a grin, then replaced it with a grave expression. “Diadem Michella, there are a few things I neglected to tell you.” He paused, but got no response. “Eminence, are you there? You do need to hear this.”
Instead of drawing atmospheric samples from the chamber, the tube began to exhaust into the pod, blowing air, followed by a spray of puffy white balls that flew like a blizzard of tree pollen. They drifted and floated about, to the amazement of the shadow-Xayans. Several of the fluffy white spheres clung like lint to Cippiq’s soft, moist skin.
“That’s no air analysis sample!” Vincent cried. “The Diadem’s got to listen to you, Fernando. Talk to her!”
His friend spoke into the codecall again, an anxious, calculating look on his face. “Diadem, there is something important you should know about your daughter. We can tell you about the General’s plans. It’s vital information.”
Now Michella’s face appeared on the screen, her expression urgent. “What is it? Tell me quickly.”
“Only face-to-face, Diadem. You must let us out of here or you’ll never know the answer.”
Obviously alarmed, the Diadem barked orders. The fluffy white globules now filled the air inside the pod. Vincent waved them away from his face and automatically covered his nose and mouth with his shirt.
The puffballs began to spangle and spark, bursting in tiny flashes of light.
“Stop it – Ishop, stop it!” the Diadem shrieked. She was yelling to someone outside the range of the codecall screen, then turned back to the pane, wildly. “Zairic, tell me now! What about my daughter? What does the General intend to do?”
Fernando waggled his finger at her image. “Ah-ah, I told you the rules, Eminence. Get us out of here, and I’ll tell you every juicy detail.”
The Diadem was livid.
As the white balls continued to flash and vaporize, a filmy smoke oozed through the air. The shadow-Xayans began to cough and retch. On the screen, Michella yelled again to someone out of view.
Cippiq lurched forward, and rippling convulsions ran along his translucent skin. Though Fernando’s personality was dominant in his own body, the other shadow-Xayans linked together, finally feeling the desperation. As the poison swirled in the air, their telemancy throbbed. Cippiq added his own mental force, and the walls of the sealed passenger pod bowed outward, bending, ready to burst.
Michella shouted into the codecall panel, demanding answers, but Fernando blanked the screen.
“What were you going to tell her?” Vincent asked
His friend managed a weak shrug. “Nothing that would matter now. I was going to make something up.”
The air pressed against Vincent’s head, and he felt the ripples of telemancy build. The shadow-Xayans had decided to fight back at last . . . but too late.
The thick transparent pane of the nearest windowport cracked, then blasted outward. Some of the faint white vapor trailed out. The bulkhead bent, twisted; the hatch buckled and cracked.
Outside in the hangar, alarms shrieked. People fled from the breach. Vehicles rolled out, and Vincent knew the Diadem must be evacuating.
He couldn’t breathe. Cippiq had slumped down, his small caterpillar legs twitching, his soft body thrashing one way and another. The press of telemancy faltered; two of the shadow-Xayans collapsed. The passenger pod had cracked open, but the small amount of ventilation was not enough, and Cippiq’s motions were slowing. They couldn’t escape. The toxin was already inside them.
Vincent fell to the floor, feeling the poison eat away at him. He looked fatalistically over at Fernando who was also reeling. “We didn’t act in time, did we?”
“I don’t think so. Zairic should have listened to you. I’m sorry.” Fernando seemed resigned, perhaps tranquilized by the alien presence within.
Vincent closed his eyes, cursing his own foolishness. His next breath felt as if he’d inhaled caustic vapors. He had hoped that the drifting gas inside the chamber would merely render them unconscious, but that was as naïve and optimistic as Zairic’s misunderstanding of the Diadem’s true nature.
“She’s afraid of what we are.” Fernando’s voice was hoarse now. “She can’t help us, you know. If she could, she wouldn’t be so panicked. I suppose I can take some comfort in having a last little joke on her, for what she’s done to us.” He looked over at Vincent, his face filled with sadness and compassion. He could barely speak now. “Even so, I wish you had joined me in the slickwater. That way you would finally have understood what I was talking about.”
Vincent retorted with the last of his strength. “How can you say that? Wasn’t I a good enough friend to you as I am? The slickwater did this – to all of us! It’s what made the Constellation so afraid . . . and now it’s killed us.”
“Oh no, I did most of this to myself, every step of the way,” Fernando said with a beatific smile. “But I’m glad to have known you, Vincent Jenet. You were a good friend
.” He sounded like a perfectly meshed combination of himself and the alien Zairic, totally at ease with what he had become – and his fate. “It has been an adventure.”
Vincent was despairing and afraid, but Fernando clasped his hand. Vincent felt cold inside and out now. He tried to speak, but only a strange noise came from his throat. His muscles seized up.
Many of the shadow-Xayans had already collapsed to the deck, and stopped coughing. Cippiq writhed and thrashed, and his translucent skin seemed to be boiling away from his cartilaginous frame. The cracks in the pod’s hull let only wisps of fresh air inside.
Fernando held on just a moment longer, speaking through the memories of Zairic. “This reminds me of just before the asteroid impact. It is a shame we don’t have the slickwater this time . . .” He slumped to the deck.
Vincent sprawled immobile beside him. He managed to draw a few more ragged breaths: his mind filled with whiteness, followed by gray, and then nothing but black.
97
The invisible blow hit Keana with a percussive force that came out of nowhere. She felt as if the synapses and neurons of her brain had detonated from a series of hidden landmines. She could barely see as wave after wave of shock and despair flooded into her mind. Inextricably joined with Uroa, she cried out in agony and fell to the ground.
All around her in the exotic settlement, other shadow-Xayans writhed in pain, screaming words that sounded like no language at all. The telemancers in the central spiral collapsed as if their joints and bones had turned to jelly.
The living structures thrashed in response, twisting and shuddering. One fanciful tower bent sharply downward, contorting, cracking and falling. No longer sustained by telemancy, it thundered to the ground, sending dust and debris into the air. Other structures tumbled in an escalating, deafening roar; wobbly alien prototypes disintegrated and collapsed.
Several shadow-Xayan telemancers who had been flying high overhead fell to the ground and were crushed by the impact. These deaths only added to the dark resonance. Even the forest of red alien weed convulsed in a sympathetic reaction.
After interminable, confusing moments, the shuddering pain finally passed, leaving Keana incapable of thinking in her native language. Only Uroa’s alien tongue flooded her consciousness, attempting to convey the horror and disbelief of the awakened members of the Xayan race.
In a rush of nightmarish alien history, she relived the last moments before the asteroid impact, after most of the people had been dissolved into the slickwater reservoirs – but not all could be saved. Some were doomed, and she heard their ancient cries reverberating, their collective fear mounting to a crescendo that she couldn’t bear. Tears poured from her eyes like blood from a grievous wound.
But Keana realized that this new aftershock had nothing to do with the long-ago asteroid impact. It was because of something that had just occurred. This was different . . . sickening. In the entire shadow-Xayan village, half of the buildings had collapsed.
Separated from the acolyte telemancers who had been concentrating in their spiral, Keana saw Encix standing with three of the most powerful shadow-Xayans. The Original alien had come from the mountain vault to visit the new city built by the converts, and now this disaster had struck. As Encix concentrated, phantom swirls of light, glowing chains, and showers of sparks crackled in the air and shored up some of the freeform edifices, reinforcing their integrity and preventing further destruction. Encix’s alien face thrummed with agony and grief. Her facial membrane contorted and the motions of her arms and hands were graceless. Although the other two Originals, Lodo and Tryn, remained inside the mountain vault, Keana was sure they had received the same painful shock.
Keana struggled to her knees and looked around, gasping; inside her, the presence of Uroa was stunned with disbelief. “They’re dead,” Uroa said inside her head. “Cippiq is murdered. Zairic is murdered. The entire delegation. The Diadem killed them all!”
Keana knew that her mother was indeed capable of such treachery, cruelty, and ruthlessness. She found herself shaking uncontrollably and saw others reeling with the knowledge of what the Constellation had done.
“This time their lives are not stored in a slickwater pool,” Uroa said. “They are truly gone.”
98
Michella had no regrets.
Standing outside the secure hangar, breathing hard after her very close escape, the Diadem looked back at the heavy metal doors that had been hauled into place. She and a panicked Ishop, along with the guards who could run swiftly enough, had evacuated when the monstrous aliens tried to bash their way out of their confinement. Her fears had been correct.
As soon as she raced outside into the bright sunlight, holding her breath to avoid inhaling any of the released poisons or insidious alien toxins, she made frantic gestures – which Ishop correctly translated. He cried out to the guards. “Seal the hangar completely, before any contamination escapes!”
He helped slam the big door shut, yelling at the soldiers who hesitated because their comrades were inside. Anyone still inside must be sacrificed, for the good of Sonjeera, for the good of the Constellation. Michella drew in a deep gasp when she could hold her breath no longer. “Seal it . . . seal it all! Don’t let anything out!”
In a blindingly fast action, the standby security personnel encircled the building and sprayed the doors, windows, and even the smallest cracks with thick epoxy sealant, slathering it over to prevent any possible leaks. In a matter of minutes, the whole hangar was encased in a heavy, impenetrable cocoon.
Ishop ran back to her, his bald pate oily with perspiration, his skin flushed. “Eminence, I’ve tuned this to the codecall channel inside the pod.” He handed her a portable screen.
Now that the contamination was safely locked down, she could concentrate on the images of the victims on the floor of the pod. Though the hull was twisted and the windowports shattered, their escape attempt had completely failed, and now they lay still. The dead slug alien looked disgusting, dissolving into a puddle of ooze on the deck that seeped up against the contorted human bodies.
Dangerous . . . very dangerous. “And they almost got loose,” she gasped.
The slickwater converts did not merely suffer from mass hysteria – they were all truly under an irreversible, dangerous alien influence.
After hearing the Xayan guru’s frightening nonsense, Michella was convinced that his message – his disease – must not spread throughout the Constellation. And seeing the actual hideous alien that General Adolphus had dug up on his exile world gave her further justification for her actions. The bizarre cult had already run amok on Hallholme, and she could not allow it to spread here to Sonjeera. She had to stop it for the stability of her reign . . . and she could use the situation to her political advantage.
By squashing these so-called emissaries, Michella would hinder General Adolphus in his plans to destroy the legitimate government. Maybe he had been deluded or brainwashed as well . . . but she didn’t need excuses to explain his treacherous behavior.
“You were right not to let them speak further with you, or anyone else, Eminence,” said Ishop Heer. He looked queasy. “Why expose yourself to such risk?”
“It was an alien plot against all of humanity.” She thought again of the sturdy hull that had been bent and twisted by the sheer force of their minds. “Did you see the damage they caused, the destructive power? They almost escaped, Ishop!” She firmed up her voice, already imagining how it would sound when she addressed the nobles of the Crown Jewels. “And General Adolphus has formed an unholy alliance with those disgusting creatures to destroy humanity. This goes far beyond even his crimes during the rebellion.”
Ishop smiled, as he saw what she was doing. “Yes, Eminence, your harsh response was perfectly justified.”
“Yes, it was. Everyone will agree.”
Contemplating the situation, she considered cracking through the protective barrier, and sending in probes to take samples for analysis – cell scrapi
ngs and fluids, as her experts would demand. Constellation scientists would still want to dissect the remains and study the residue from the dissolved alien creature, but she didn’t intend to let them. The risk of contamination, of accidents, of human error was too great.
In fact, she would insist that Ishop Heer undergo a thorough evaluation. He had been there at the slickwater pools . . . what if he’d been contaminated somehow? She narrowed her eyes. The aliens could have planted him here as an insidious covert operative . . . What if he’d already passed on the infection to her?
No, she decided. Not him. She had never known anyone so loyal.
“See that the entire hangar is sterilized and encased in plexite, Ishop. Fill the interior with resin, wall up the outside.” She paused. “This is a quarantine zone. Post round-the-clock guards and install self-destruct incineration charges all around the building. I want to discourage anyone from tampering with it.”
“As you wish, Eminence. But even if you contain this danger zone, it doesn’t eradicate the contamination on Hallholme.”
She steadied herself. “We will take care of the General in our own way. The Army of the Constellation launches soon.” Straightening her gown and adjusting her coif, she drew a deep breath. “And now that this ordeal is over, I think I’ll have lunch.”
Michella took a last glance at her screen to see the interior of the pod, where the bodies lay sprawled. As she watched, even the human figures began to soften and slump into goo, dissolving just as the hideous alien had. She shuddered; yes, indeed, they were all contaminated. Before long, the corpses were unrecognizable grisly bits of flesh and bone in a viscous stew mixed with the slime exuded by the dying slug creature.
She felt a twinge in her stomach and a reflex that made her gag. Michella vowed to eat a fine lunch anyway, if for no other reason than to prove to herself how strong she could be, and how much she deserved to rule the Constellation.
On her way to her waiting vehicle, she paused and turned back to Ishop. “Compose a story about how the delegation from Hallholme died in an unfortunate accident. Let me sign off on the content before you disseminate it. I may want to improve on your words.”
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