by Barry Kirwan
It went smoother from there.
Micah pushed his plate aside. Angel’s gusto for their food rations had been infectious, and he’d eaten more than he had in weeks. She seemed to him completely self-unconscious, not caring an iota what anyone thought of her, not scarred by emotional baggage like the rest of them. He found it refreshing.
She tossed the last chicken bone onto her plate – completely denuded, bones cracked and the marrow sucked out. The rest of the crew had politely and patiently deferred to him to ask the questions.
“Angelica, how –”
“Angel, call me Angel, Everyone does, you know.” She beamed.
He glanced at Sandy. “Okay, Angel. How… How the hell did you get out here? And actually, we don’t know anything.”
She kicked back in the chair, planted her boots of indeterminate material onto the metal table, and interlaced her fingers behind her head, flicking her tongue around her teeth, trying to flush out any last morsels. “Long story. The Games. Are you here for the Games?”
Micah and the rest looked from one to the other.
“Evidently not. But you’re on a Q’Roth Hunter Class vessel, here at the edge of the Grid, in one of the prime sub-stations for the Final Round.”
Micah shook his head. “Angelica … Angel, we have no idea what you’re talking about. Well, except the Q’Roth part. We stole this ship, after…” He stopped mid-sentence. He’d been watching her casual mannerisms since she’d arrived, and something had nagged at him ever since. He’d slipped into passive analyst mode during the past three quarters of an hour, and had synched an irrevocable conclusion: she doesn’t know; doesn’t know what has happened to Earth. Sandy started to say something, but Micah cut in.
“When did you leave Earth?” he asked. His crew tensed. He focused on Angel.
She rocked forward, swallowed the last morsel, and clasped her hands together on top of the table. “Two years ago. Why? When did you leave?”
“Hey,” Zack said, “she –” the rest of the sentence mutated into a grunt, Micah guessing because Sandy had kicked his shin under the table.
Micah’s mind snapped into overdrive: he didn’t know these two, or how they might react to finding out Earth had been destroyed. He reminded himself that although she looked human, and certainly the chicken-fest had been an impressively concrete demonstration, it could still be some elaborate ploy; the fate of the remnants of humanity and, most important, their existence and location, had to be carefully-guarded.
Micah elaborated the truth. “We came into contact with the Q’Roth a few months ago. They wreaked a lot of havoc before this ship was captured. I guess we were lucky they were just a scouting party.” There, that should suffice.
Starkel got up from his chair at the far end of the table, with an air of smouldering impatience. “How did you overcome the Mortix internal defence system?”
Shit! Micah felt his face begin to redden.
Hannah folded her arms. “Chameleon-DNA combined with fractal narrow-range EM bursts.”
Starkel leaned on his fists on the table, glaring at Hannah. “Then how did you repair the neural structure afterwards?”
Micah’s blush dissipated. It was like watching a lunar-style tennis match, with particularly hard hitters.
“Nannites,” Hannah parried.
“Hey, guys,” Angel jumped in, “look, we don’t have to trust each other, and we don’t have enough time to make it worthwhile in any case.” She eyed Starkel from her reclined position. “These are my people, remember? Let me handle it, okay?”
Starkel stood straight, solid as a sculpture, still aiming his attention at Hannah.
Angel spread her hands. “So, I got hijacked from Earth two years ago by Starkel and another Mannekhi called Torrann.” Her eyes glazed over. She laughed, and leaned toward Sandy, not that the two had said a word to each other yet. “Do yourself a big favour, don’t ever fall for an alien.” She ran her fingers over her scalp. “In any case, there’s some things you guys need to know, because you’re obviously new out here, and frankly you won’t last five minutes unless you know the basic rules.”
Micah started to speak but Angel shushed him with such an easy grace he didn’t doubt that even Blake would have been silenced.
“Just listen, there isn’t much time. We’ve travelled for a whole week to get here, since they posted your DNA on the Grid-net. And we totalled the Q’Roth envoy who was recalled to salvage this vessel you stole.” She made a mock bow in Zack’s direction. “Yeah, yeah, thanks can come later, I’ll give you my Mom’s address for the flowers.” She stood up, and began counting on her fingers. “Rules not to be toyed with: number one, you always need to know what level a race is. Two levels up or any level below you can address them. More levels above and you’re toast, no questions asked, no right of appeal.
Micah tried again to speak but Angel kept talking. “You’ll all need shrouders – we brought some with us – they keep all your exhaled air, body odour and shedding flesh inside a contained area about ten centimetres from your body, and will prevent any alien’s toxic, residual epidermis from entering your own body.” She glanced around at each of them. “Aliens are alien; sounds trite, I know, but sometimes you’ll be awed, sometimes you’ll be disgusted, your flesh will crawl, or you’ll just plain puke.”
As she continued with a long list of rules on how not to be pulped, Micah realised that underneath her flippant façade was a disciplined mind. He didn’t see how she’d survived this long otherwise, the only human amidst a galaxy of aliens. He had to admit that she also had their rapt attention after being starved of information for two months.
She finally paused, narrowing her eyes at all of them. She turned to Starkel, who hadn’t moved a centimetre. “We can give them a ball, can’t we? Otherwise we might as well kill them now, it’d be kinder.” She swivelled back to Zack. “Relax, big boy, just messing.” She turned to Micah. “Not all races use auditory language, quite a few use multi-dimensional mathematical constructs – roughly speaking, the higher the race, the more dimensions and parallel processing.” She shook her head. “They also think faster: we’re hillbillies to some, ants to others.”
Micah’s earlier thoughts of retreat to Ourshiwann resurfaced.
“Oh, I nearly forgot. I mentioned, the Games, didn’t I. Starkel?”
Starkel unfolded his arms. His voice boomed around the room. “Once every five thousand of your Earth years races below Level Seven have the chance to leapfrog the usual patronage system. A maximum of one hundred alien species compete in this spiral arm, each submitting a small team in what you might call a treasure hunt. Only one team will survive, and that team’s species is progressed at a much faster rate, say five hundred years to elevate to the next level, under the protection of a Level Eight species.’
‘You’re one of the teams,’ Sandy said.
Angel mock-bowed. “Well, Starkel is really. We decided the less the galaxy knows of Earth the better.”
“How are you doing?” Micah asked.
Her lips stretched into a forced smile. “We’re still alive. There’s a Q’Roth team… Vicious bastards. One of them took Torrann’s head. We’re trying to get it back.” She glazed into silence. Sandy leaned across the table so that her fingertips touched Angel’s hand. Angel looked at Sandy as if remembering something, then sat down. “It’s all in the ball, the rules, that is. What are you doing out here anyway?’
Micah’s words stalled, all except one. “Allies.”
She studied him. “What do you think, Starkel?”
“I think they should run home as fast as possible.”
Micah wanted to say there is no home anymore. But he couldn’t. “Look, Earth is worried. If the Q’Roth come back…”
Angel turned to Starkel. “Help them, Starkel. Please.”
He stared at her with an intensity Micah couldn’t interpret.
“Head to Grid Central Station 359A. There’s a Ranger outpost there. Any race of any
level can approach them, although they’re somewhat temperamental. Never stand behind one, their tails are mean. Here,” he tossed Micah a glass ball the size of an orange. It was heavier than it looked.
“It’s a basic translation globe,” Angel said. “It’s been probing all of you since we arrived, and asked for you, Micah.” She leaned forward conspiratorially and whispered, “You’re honoured, trust me.” Then she beamed at all of them, so that they didn’t react as she produced a gun from her boot and aimed it at the crew – except Micah – across the table. “Don’t move, this is normal. Sorry, Micah, this is going to hurt a little. Well, a lot actually.”
Micah stared at her nonplussed, and tried to get up. He realised he couldn’t feel his right hand, the one that held the crystal orb. He tried to let go, then reached over with his other hand to pluck it away, cursing himself immediately as his left hand stuck to its surface and began to numb.
“Everyone does that. Funny, really,” Angel said.
“This isn’t funny, Angel,” Sandy said, glaring.
“Yes, I know, but either you high-tail it to Earth or one of you gets the resident. It won’t harm him. I have one, you see.”
Micah felt like he was drowning while people sat around watching him. His whole body had turned numb, and was now heating up. He couldn’t move.
“It’s okay to scream, Micah, it’ll get really painful, but then it will pass, and there’ll be no damage.”
He found it hard to breathe as his lungs began to lock. He vaguely saw two flashes of a pistol Starkel produced with lightning speed, and heard two thumps to his right. His vision blurred and he heard white noise increasing in loudness and pitch, while his skin burned. He was sure he was on fire, though his eyes couldn’t move to check, and he smelt no burning flesh. Although his body wanted to scream, all that came out was a stuttering groan. He thought he would pass out with the pain, and then wished he could pass out just in order to stop it. And then, abruptly, as if a switch flicked, it was gone. He gasped. “Oh my God!” He could move again, and checked his limbs for burnt flesh, but they looked completely normal. “Hey, I think I’m alright,” he said, and promptly threw up.
“That’s normal,” Angel said, placing her pistol against her boot where it melded into the fabric and disappeared. “Sorry about that, but you’ll now see why.”
Starkel still had his pistol level with the rest of the table. He addressed Micah. “You now have a resident inside you. It’s a piece of Level Seven biotech only legal for Levels 5 and above – you don’t qualify, so you must conceal that you have it or pretend you are Mannekhi.”
“What does it do?” Micah said, wiping away dregs of vomit from his mouth with his sleeve.
“It is a communications device, but much more. Look at me.”
Micah was looking at him already, but as he focused, thoughts unfolded in his mind: Mannekhi, Level 5, male, central planet Grondsvissigen in Spiral sector –’ He looked away and it ceased. He looked back at Starkel, normally, and ‘heard’ nothing. On instinct he regarded the pistol and emptied his mind: Mannekhi Crasson multi-purpose sidearm; seven levels, set to stun, recently fired twice, 89% charged, four hundred rounds minimum remaining. “Shit,” he said. The wonder outranked the pain he’d just been through. He felt a wave of elation – this could be the key, their passport to the Grid. “Awesome!” He grinned and turned back to the others: Sandy and Hannah were staring at him, Zack and Ramires were on the ground, coming round. Sandy regarded him warily.
“What?” he said.
Hannah spoke up first. “Starkel was speaking in an alien language. You replied in the same language.”
“We can only spare one resident,” Angel said, “and it’s now bonded to Micah.”
Zack and Ramires got back to the table, wincing with the effort. “You are very quick, Mr. Starkel,” Ramires said.
“Evolutionary necessity. On our home planet we have very fast predators.”
Micah saw Zack about to say something, but didn’t want to get into a pissing contest when things were finally turning around. “It’s okay, this – ball – is going to be very useful. I’d decided earlier to abandon our mission and head back to … the others, but now we have a chance.”
Zack butted in. “Got any fancy weapons we could borrow?”
Angel leaned back, and for the first time Micah saw the edges of darkness around her eyes. “Our whole ship is a weapon, actually: organic metal, can pierce anything.”
The way she said it, Micah knew they had it for a very specific purpose, though he had no idea what it could be.
She stood up. “Well, it’s been great, and not just the chicken. Now we really have to go, and so do you by the way – there’s another Q’Roth hunter-destroyer inbound, one hour out. They’ve been tracking us down for two months, and they’re hunting you too, now. So we need you to do us a favour.” She glanced at the ball and Micah.
He shrugged, more than a little incredulously. “Sure,” he said, “why ever not?”
“Thanks, all of you. Sorry about our uninvited party tricks, but you may as well get used to it – the Grid Hierarchy is brutal, and what I did to you is like a snowflake on the tip of the iceberg, if you know that quaint old pre-War expression.” She smiled, ignoring the stares from everyone. “Starkel has cleared you from quarantine so you can leave as soon as you’re ready, just place that little ball on your nav console and it’ll do the rest. We’re asking you to wait until the other Q’Roth vessel arrives. As soon as it is in transit range your ball will jump you out of here.”
“And you’ll be..?” Zack asked.
“Far, far away, Zack. But don’t worry. We’ve planted a jump mine on your hull. When you jump it will release and then attach to the other vessel as soon as it tries to follow you.”
“Then what happens?” Micah asked, not sure he wanted to know.
Starkel answered. “You’ll exit the jump, they won’t. If you leave before they arrive, you won’t exit the jump.”
Angel shrugged. “Sorry – again. Funny – it’s been so long since I’ve had to use that word. This galaxy isn’t that big on sympathy, I’m afraid. Anyway, we’re going to leave you some kit. And we both hate the Q’Roth don’t we?”
Micah held up his hand. “Alright. We’ll do it.”
She looked as if she was going to offer her hand to Micah, but instead nodded to all of them, and without another word she headed for the exit, to the sounds of chairs raking across the floor as the others got up.
Starkel held up his arm, blocking her exit. “Just one more thing,” he said, producing a different pistol from somewhere inside his tunic.
Micah focused on it, letting the translation globe do its job. Starkel’s pistol was a molecular disruptor. It had only one setting. Everyone else stood perfectly still. Good, he thought, nobody move.
Angel frowned at Starkel, placing her hands on her hips. “What in Orion’s belt, Starkel –”
“The one called Hannah has Q’Roth DNA.” Starkel said, pistol aimed at Hannah’s head. “You’ll be dead before you reach them,” he added to Zack and Ramires, who were both edging towards their weapons.
Micah and Sandy exchanged glances. He looked pleadingly to Angel, but she silenced him with a raised hand, her face set in stone. Her stare towards Hannah rippled with a space-cold hatred.
“Sorry, Micah, but Starkel can smell these things – Mannekhi and Q’Roth are blood enemies you see. And if she has Q’Roth DNA in her, then it’s just a matter of time before she develops their nasty, aggressive tendencies. Frankly, if Starkel is correct, then I’m right behind him in the queue to vaporise her sorry ass.”
Chapter 16
Snow
Blake’s eyes flickered open to find Sonja’s dark face, haloed by tight black curls, staring down at him. She had a look he judged to be somewhere on the tightrope between fragile hope and outright desperation. She placed an index finger vertically across pursed lips. He felt like his head was full of wet cement. But th
e fact that she was telling him to be quiet caused his military instincts to kick in. He tried in vain to remember where he’d been before here, but it would wait. Blake trusted Sonja almost as much as he trusted Zack. Something snagged his mind when he thought of Zack – it was like a curtain, impervious. That would have to wait too, then.
Four large hooks protruded from the ceiling, and he recalled Antonia describing one of the spider dwellings in the city of Esperantia; so he was still on Ourshiwann. Rashid appeared, his tan features in stark contrast to his dolphin – a band of rainbow-tinted silver running around his head at eye level, obscuring his empty sockets. Blake had seen plenty before on soldiers who’d lost their sight in the War. The headband allowed detailed sonar perception of objects, based on dolphin physiology. The irony was, he recalled, that the nuclear War raised the ocean temperature so that krill and other plankton disappeared. Most dolphins and cetaceans followed shortly afterwards.
Sonja and Rashid man-handled him into a lev-chair. At first he instinctively tried to resist, then help, and finally he just gave up: his muscles were either damaged or atrophied due to lack of use. Taking the more optimistic of the two, it meant he’d been out for a long time; he reckoned a couple of months. Now that he knew he would be a passive participant in this event, his mind started to assemble the recent, or maybe not so recent, past. There was going to be a battle. He and Zack were in the Hohash craft, with the bomb. He remembered fighting Louise, struggling with her, she’d been stronger than he’d imagined. Then he’d blacked out. That was it, nothing more. Zack must have been knocked out or killed by Louise. The fact that Sonja was here instead of Zack was ominous. But whatever had happened, that any of them were here at all meant that Louise hadn’t been able to carry out her threat. Humanity had prevailed. A gust of relief swept over him, and no small amount of pride in mankind’s resilience.
Rashid walked on ahead as Sonja steered him from behind, the chair skimming a few centimetres above the ground down a dimly-lit tunnel. Blake saw two bodies, guards from the look of them, lying prostrate on the ground. As his eyes accommodated to the mustard light, he detected a carotid pulse in the neck of one of them. Good, he thought, it seems whatever has passed, we’re not yet in outright civil war.