The sound persisted, demanding his attention despite disciplined attempts to ignore it. He wondered if his vehicle was activated and now protesting the waste of energy. He turned his head sluggishly, testing to see if he could find a direction or source. After a turn left then right he had pinpointed the sound. It came from straight ahead; from the wall that separated his cabin from hers — he was facing it directly. The noise increased in frequency, moving slowly from a hum to a squeal, irritating on many levels. His ears began to reject it, to try and block it out, and he felt the muscles in his face tighten involuntarily, forming a rictus of discomfort. The pitch seemed specifically designed to rattle his brain against his skull. It was verging on intolerable.
This could not go on he decided. He mentally reached for the guide patch with the intention of alerting the ship. He was already surprised that this intrusion had not been detected and dealt with. The ship constantly monitored every one of its thousands of passengers. His own perspiration, pulse and agitated mental activity should have triggered an intervention. His slowed mind attempted to alert the guide patch and initiate contact with the ship, but there was nothing. It was absent. No mental confirmation reached him, no sense of having communicated, no affirmation of any kind. The guide patch was notable only by its absence. The fear began to rise again. He decided it was time to move. He had been isolated and that left him vulnerable. The risk of movement was less than the risks from inaction.
He started to rise from the semi-reclining position of the transit couch. In the same prolonged instant, the wall in front of him began to change. For a moment he felt relief; this must be the ship about to communicate with him. Perhaps his plight had been recognised. But, as he looked and hoped, he understood that this was not a communication. Small sections of the wall were detaching and drifting into his cabin. They floated like ash or feathers, just like a wall should not. He sent more urgent signals to his muscles, willing adrenalin into his system, willing more speed and power. Larger sections of wall were moving inwards, separating and spinning as they drifted in. He had no doubt now, something was coming. He was under attack.
He was a little out of his seat, caught in an instant of slow motion transition from sitting to standing when the mass of floating debris that had gathered before him abruptly floated up. It was as if the artificial gravity had been reversed, but it had not. Another force was manipulating these events, and that power was now before him. Through the gap in the wall, he could clearly see her. She floated in a foetal position. The heavy red dress was gone, replaced by nothing. She was naked or perhaps clothed in some garment that fitted as closely as skin. As his pupils dilated and took in more detail he saw the thin tendrils of mucus like material that stretched from her. And, in that moment he knew. He had been followed, he had been hunted, and now they had sent their killer. She was something he had not planned for, had not imagined he would be important enough to warrant. She was par-born; conceived, grown and reared in the stretched moments of transit. She had been released to kill him in an environment that he barely tolerated but in which she thrived.
Par-born: those few whose lives existed in the slow-time of transit as easily as they did in real time. They were not conceived as people were, they could not be. They were made, somehow. Their lives were a stuttering, stretched existence, usually turned on and off as ships jumped and emerged. Exactly how the first had come to be was a mystery. Almost nothing was known of them. It was not even known if they were human. Ships said they were. Ships also said they did not welcome their kind; they had a way of staying hidden from detection both in jump and outside. It made ships uncomfortable. People had likened par-born to mythical monsters, and they feared them. The fear of them was grounded in their ability to move where people could not, and to do what people could not. Indeed a human in transit faced with a murderous par-born was as helpless as a swimmer in the night sea hunted from below.
Damp, cold sweat mixed with fear. The keening hum still plagued his ears. Perhaps it was her who made it or some machine at her command. Act, his mind screamed, and he let it, harnessing the chemicals that flooded into his body, using them to accelerate his movement and prepare him for flight or fight. And, she unfolded. Stretching out from the foetal position with more grace and speed than he imagined possible in transit. She curled and untwisted, still slow, but much faster than he could have achieved. Mucus flew from her body and droplets slowed as they detached, finding the border between her time and his. She had no noticeable sexual characteristics; her body had the hips and shoulders of a woman but there were no breasts and nothing to indicate she could conceive or produce life. She was not ‘she’ in the human sense, and her alien eyes locked with his boring, into his psyche with the power of a hunter focussed on its prey.
He was almost standing now. He had a simple plan, but he felt painfully slow and too much of his mind was distracted by the thrumming noise. It was a waking nightmare; one of those dreams where the body is paralysed while an un-named fear stalks it. She had uncurled completely and continued to hold his gaze as she arced forward, propelled by who knew what? He watched her, calculating her trajectory. She would pass over his head way before he was standing, and then land behind him. Perhaps she would release some killing blow or fire a weapon down on him before he could even raise an arm in futile protection. How strong was she? How well armed? He did not know, but her actions indicated self-confidence; she believed that she would prevail.
She sailed into his cabin, arcing closer and heading over, her arms drifting out from her body, fixing themselves like open wings. Her legs trailed behind, feet pointed. She flew in slow motion, a crucifix of inhuman murder. He was responding, slowly, clumsily, but he was responding. His plan was simple — duck. He was engineering a fall, calculating that the cabin gravity would act more quickly than his reflexes, dragging him down and away from her. If her limbs were her weapons he might get out of reach. The fact that she wanted to close on him implied she needed to touch or strike to kill. If she possessed some other killing tool hidden then he was doomed anyway. His feet were already lifting as he twisted to one side with the speed of a wasp trapped in honey. He could feel the pressure on his feet reducing. The fall would come, but would it come soon enough?
The twist was taking her out of sight. His body rolled, and head and eyes turned to keep her in view. He was moving away from her, and as he did so she was changing posture. Suspended above and in front of him she was doing something, something very alien. Her body was starting to deform. It was flowing, taking on the aspect of ink injected into water. What had been her legs were now an extended dark cloud of matter collapsing in on itself; the rearmost portions still moving forward and flowing into what had been her hips. Her upper body had taken on a deep red tone, and while the outline was still vaguely human it was morphing rapidly as the matter from behind moved into and beyond that in front. She was moving like a garment being turned inside out.
Fascination and horror filled him. A slow oath formed on his lips, and despite years of training in emotional self-control he felt his bladder begin to loosen. He was going to die, and at that moment instinct was more powerful than will. She was now a well-defined cloud of red-black gas above him. What form of death this represented he did not know, but he was certain no mere fall could protect him from such alien power. Did anyone know that par-born could do such things? His body had twisted beyond his neck’s range of movement and he would lose sight of her shortly. He would not see the strike that was to come; a small mercy. Death, he hoped, would be instant and painless, no time to form a scream of pain or feel the crushing sense of failure that his mission was ended so easily and abruptly.
He waited; each moment a gift of life and a sentence of fear. His ears tried to pierce the hum that was now a shriek, searching for the sound of attack, as his fall continued. He would land flat on his face, if he survived that long. How could it take this long for her to strike? What diabolical end was being prepared behind him? A slow and ine
xorable warm wet puddle formed in his crutch — he had lost control of his bladder. Shame and fear and pain mingled, and then a new sensation. The side of his face had made contact with the floor, the mass of his head pushing a cheek down. What would have been a cracking sudden impact outside of transit was a slow growing pressure coupled with increasing pain in jump space. He had time to feel the cheek bone flex, and the skin tear. There was time to anticipate the pain that would come. He wished for death. Better death than the timeless anticipation of it. Men had once imagined a hell for themselves. This may be what they wished others of their kind would experience in it.
His body was making contact, points of impact creating ripples of sensation as nerves fired. He had reflexively blinked on impact and now his eyes opened. For the first time since the attack started he could see behind the recliner. What he saw created new depths of horror. A second cloud of gaseous mass had formed behind his chair. They had sent two assassins. This new one was extending up and over the back of the couch the body mass flowing and billowing around itself, just as she had. Perhaps this was another par-born or some other creature from the transient state. Whatever its nature, he had no doubt this new intruder was something else he could barely comprehend or fight. She had been a decoy. Her murderous display simply a show to distract him from the real killer behind. That they considered him resourceful enough to require distracting was an indication of their preparedness not of his.
Each was now still. Even in the slow-time of transit it was clear they barely moved. Was it the fear of some hidden defence that kept them frozen? He continued to roll, his momentum bouncing him back off the floor and twisting both attackers into sight. The billowing internal shifts were barely perceptible now. The scene was like a painting of two dark storm clouds; the nebulous and floating made solid and fixed. Abruptly the keening sound increased in volume again. He felt an eardrum burst, pain lancing into his head at the only speed possible for his nervous system in transit — excruciatingly slowly. As he began the wince of pain and the cry that would accompany it, the scene changed. The cloud that was her, shifted hue to a full primary red colour, and from its mass a long thin lance shape of cloud exuded. It curved towards the second attacker like the vapour trail of a hot object in cold gas. It was impossibly fast for this environment, and to his eyes it looked threatening. He had no idea how these life forms moved and interacted. Whatever he learnt in these few moments would die with him — useless knowledge. And yet, to his human eyes and human mind, it looked as if she was attacking the second intruder.
If that long, thin lance of matter was an attack, then the mirror response by the second intruder was a counter-attack. It sent its own lance curling up towards her. The tip penetrated her form, and where it struck, her shape recoiled from it. He fought to keep his eyes open. He was on his back now, head closest to the intruder. She was directly above him; it was directly behind the crown of his head. He could see it by rolling his eyes up towards his brow. There were multiple exchanges, each being sending parts of itself into the other. The frequency of the attacks grew, and lances penetrated and sometimes emerged to loop around and attack again. To him it looked like the deadly dominance games of creatures his father had hunted; a mass of writhing arms and tentacles forming a confusion of fighting body parts. Whatever was happening, these two aliens were more intent on each other than they were on him, and for that he was infinitely grateful.
He looked through pain and fear, focussed as his kind could. He had no idea who was winning, no idea who he wanted to win, or even if victory would save him. Perhaps they fought for the right to kill him; two alien hunters warring over the spoils. Perhaps they were mating and the young would feast on him. Whatever was happening, they were now truly focused on each other only. He had been offered a reprieve, and he would return to action. He would shift from a man accepting death to one hoping for life. His training kicked in; assess, decide, act — a mantra he had been taught as war enclosed him and his people. His assessment was that she had been sent to protect him. She had not burst in to kill but to protect. He would help her if he could, and when they had triumphed he would know if he had saved himself and an ally or saved his killer.
His problem now was deciding where she ended and it began. There were dozens of arcing lances and the once distinct bodies now seemed intermingled. They had both taken on the same hue, and half the room was filled with lines of attack and counter attack. It was not at all clear where each combatant was. A second problem was knowing how to fight. He had a weapon in his pack, but he had not dreamt attack would come in the short-long moments of transit. It was not assembled, and in any case it was behind the intruder. In this time and this place it was useless. His mind flicked backed to thoughts of decoy. Earlier he had thought her a decoy, but if she was not a decoy then perhaps he could become one.
He sat up, losing sight of half the battle, and worryingly, the place where the intruder was last obviously whole. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up and the slow trickle-tickle of blood weeping from his ear made itself felt. He fought the urge to waste time by looking around. Painfully and slowly he reached forward, pulling himself up by the arm of the chair. He weaved upwards like a drunk recovering from a fall. His mind, nerves and muscles did not quite recognise their roles in the endeavour; he was reminded why moving in transit was such a bad idea, but move he must. The piercing sound fogged his brain, and pain fought for his attention. He persisted like the soldiers had taught him, and eventually stood on wavering legs that still did not seem convinced of their part in the task. Now, he would attempt to twist and kick. He would attack with the only weapon at his disposal; his body.
As he began the slow uncertain movement that would enter him into the fray, new lances curved around the room. They were just as fast, but thinner now and changing tone. Did this indicate the duellists were tiring or that one was wining? Why neither being sent one of these things into him he did not know. Perhaps his dense watery body was strong enough to resist the gassy looking tendrils. Perhaps the combatants saw each other as a far greater mutual threat than he was. Perhaps they were playing before turning off his life. No, he would retain his conviction that she was a protector because there was no profit in doubt. He would aid her if he could and then live to face the consequences. Steadying himself deliberately and letting his mind sense the new unfamiliar feel of his body, he readied a kick. He knew this movement well; his training had taught him to fight with his body. Remember and adapt he urged his mind and muscles.
Tension filled him, feeding the contraction of muscles, and winding them up like springs. A needle thin lance sped by his face followed by a trio of others. They were getting closer. For an instant he paused, mentally rehearsing the movement his body must make, visualising what would happen; showing his mind a mental picture of what it must persuade his body do. He took a breath in and then released. His torso started first, swinging in a movement that would bring him face to face with the melee and send a foot kicking into it. He was aiming where the intruder mass had been, launching a high kick just above the recliner. In real-space he could hit a target the size of a small fruit with enough power to crack a man’s jaw. In transit he had no idea what would happen. The movement of his torso transmitted spin to his waist and out through his leg. The kick was forming. It was too late now to retrieve it or consider the potential folly of this action. He was joining the fight.
He achieved the spin, leg arcing and straightening. His muscles had released most of their power in the first moments so the force of the attack would be carried by momentum. His head spun and now his eyes made contact with the battle once again. The rear of the room had become a cocoon of interwoven lances, vectors of death filling the space. There was no possibility of discerning her from it. They appeared frozen again as he watched his foot rise, focusing on the point where he willed it to impact. He could already see it would not hit where intended, but, it would be close. But close to what? The living body he attacked was like no
thing he had ever encountered. It was within striking distance now and closing. In real time, his blow would have been blindingly fast. Here it was a slow motion curiosity moving at its own pace. But move it did, and inevitably the kick struck. He saw it strike, but felt no resistance, no impact, no slowing of momentum or jarring as his body began the rapid deceleration and transfer of energy that was the kick’s power. It was as if he had touched nothing.
For a moment he expected the kick to continue on its path, dispersing gas no more dense than the air around it. Then, it happened. Multiple lances of needle thin matter arced out, around and into him. They struck his ankle, all focusing on a single point of contact. He saw his body react before he felt the pain. Just as she had recoiled from the first attack, so now his body fled from this alien matter. His flesh behaved like liquid hit by a projectile. His ankle sprayed and splattered, pieces of skin and muscle flying outward, spinning and boiling in flight.
The attack was brutal on flesh but it did not reduce momentum. His foot continued into the dense mass of cloud, losing pieces of itself as it did. A trail of his blood added a new and human arc of matter to the alien tapestry around him. And there was something else. Where he made contact with the cloud there was now a reaction. The gas turned to mucus just like that he had seen her exude. It too fled away from the impact. As the moments unfolded the place where his foot struck looked increasingly like two streams of liquid colliding in mid-air. He was hurting, and it seemed the par-born must be too. Perhaps he could fight these things. That belief filled him with new hope and a growing rage.
The Man Who Talked to Suns Page 5