Alien Alliance Box Set

by Chris Turner

  Goss’s mangled stub was repaired and wearing a broad grin, he escorted them down in an elevator of the glass tower. They were still many storeys up.

  The synthetic herded them into a plush room furnished with velvet divans, a wall of windows from tile floor to ceiling overlooking the city’s busy highways. The splendour of the artificial parks and spire-like towers sprawling before him did nothing for Yul. High ceilings, marble and chrome decorative art, gold-trimmed doors—the place was an immaculate palace, not a piece out of place, nor a speck of dust unaccounted for. Goss motioned to a tall wine jug on a glass table stocked with a tray of crystal goblets and plates of expensive foods: chilled local caviar, assorted roasted meats, warm loaves, rich casseroles, poultry, poached fish. Needing no further invitation, Yul and Frue ate wordlessly, devouring the food, paying no heed to etiquette or Goss who glared nearby.

  Uttering no word, Goss went to stand by the window with his back to them while Frue mouthed words in monosyllables as if he were still in a state of shock. Goss spoke some unrecognizable words into his com as he looked critically down on the city. Yul followed his gaze, feeling the blood returning to his cheeks, registering no emotion over his present predicament or the abundance of multi-windowed buildings clustered below. Pale sunlight streamed down from a nearly cloudless sky on their shiny summits—this world so different from the murk of the Orb in which he had scrambled for his life.

  It was yet another hour before Mathias appeared. The CEO of Cybernetics Corp, an imposing figure, strode purposefully through a door better suited for a cathedral. A short wait by Mathias’s standards, an imposition which he inflicted by dint of his executive-privilege.

  Yul had never met the man. He had only been propositioned at the last minute by a messenger of his, for the faraway mission to Xeses.

  “Well, gentlemen, it appears we meet under less than happy circumstances,” Mathias said. His long face, high cheekbones and grey, owlike eyes were part of the imposing mystique of the man. They did not mask the hard, arrogant exterior, though, that Yul had more or less expected. Mathias was of middle years, clean cut, wearing an expensive camel-hair suit, a chocolate-brown tie that highlighted the straight hair and gold cufflinks, but there was something odd about him, something that at first impression did not ring true. Yul had felt much the same upon meeting Goss—always considered himself a good judge of character. A synthetic? Could Mathias be owner of a large galactic company, and a synthetic? No, it couldn’t be. The idea was repugnant.

  He took Mathias’s outstretched hand, more out of necessity than any respect for the man—the grip was strong—a trademark of a cyborg.

  “I’m sure we can come to a resolution of this little problem of ours,” Mathias said in his disarming voice.

  Frue did not get up; the pilot sat sprawled on the nearest divan, his eyes staring listlessly past Yul and Mathias. Frue, returned from the dead, his face haggard, scratched and pale as a ghost, looked as if he had aged ten years.

  Mathias raked Frue a cursory glance, lifting a finger to indicate that he should stand. Frue paid no heed to the request.

  “He was in one of the tanks,” explained Goss.

  The word ‘tank’ seemed to snap Frue out of his daze. “I feel like it broke every bone in my body. Then it tossed me into the water. Scab-faced squid horror,” his quavering voice rasped.

  Yul recalled scenes from that grisly episode back in the Orb’s tank room: the greenish water, the lolling form of Frue.

  Mathias motioned to two of the marines that they might go.

  Goss frowned but said nothing.

  “Mr. Frue, what to do?” Mathias mused, tapping his chin. “I have other missions for you. Take him to the briefing room—with Axle.” Goss’s nearest minion saw to it and escorted the pilot away.

  Yul did not have a good feeling about Frue’s future.

  Greer dead. Hurd too. Regers... He twitched in unease, a frisson of dissatisfaction piking his veins. Regers’ death still disturbed him. What could he have done? He had tried to help him, but had been rebuked, Regers responding with violence as his usual custom.

  Yul pushed the memories out of his mind.

  Mathias glared at Goss. “Drag me into a war with the Zikri? You flub the job and lose another of my ships?”

  Goss shrugged. “Couldn’t be avoided, sir. You wanted the samples.”

  Mathias’s teeth flashed in anger. “You left men down there.”

  “They have nothing to tie them to you.”

  “Bullshit! The Zikri aren’t fools. What’s the first thing they’re going to do when they round up the strays?”

  “The bodies and suits had no markings.”

  “What about my Wren?”

  “Destroyed utterly.”

  Mathias scowled, looking as if he trusted neither Goss nor Yul. “Not the Albatross, though. Just the Wren.”

  Mathias pierced Yul with an invasive stare, as if studying a disobedient attack dog. “That you survived this utter fiasco is a testament to your skill. Or perhaps your tenacity, as I see it.”

  Goss trembled with anger. “The man’s a menace, Mathias. He’s not to be trusted.”

  “My captain doesn’t agree with me,” Mathias laughed, jerking a thumb at his fuming commando. “I’ve another mission for you.”

  Yul’s mouth twisted in defiance.

  Mathias held up his hand. “Don’t say a word. Regers and Hurd didn’t make it. Frue only lived because of your efforts. The facts speak for themselves.”

  “Get somebody else to do your dirty work,” grunted Yul.

  Mathias balled a fist. “I don’t think so. You’ll do as I say. As I see it, you pay back the ship you owe me, until then, you’re mine.”

  “You mean the ship that Frue, Regers and the others owe you too.”

  “If dead men could pay, I’d agree.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  Mathias glowered. “Two years ago my chief scientist, a man called Hresh, started building something. The bastard could have made me millions with his breakthrough, but took off with everything: designs, schematics, formulae, for the next generation of AI that could have shocked the galactic worlds. If I ever find him, I’ll hang him out to dry. They were legally the property of Cybernetics Corp.”

  Yul shrugged. “So? I’ve heard this sob story before. I’m sure Hresh thought differently.”

  “I don’t give a shit what Hresh thinks!” roared Mathias. “I want the man buried and the plans to the tech back in my hands. He’s a mild-mannered genius, but a deadly viper. It’s revolutionary technology worth 80 million credits and possibly billions in the future. Reports indicate he has formed his own company, or umbrella firm in direct competition to my own.”

  “So, what do I care? What does this have to do with those plants?”

  Mathias looked off into the air, as if trying to control his rage. “Where should I begin? I dug up a ship’s log in the archives a while back, written by some biologists. ‘A set of rare, most extraordinary creatures’ wrote the chief biologist, ‘exhibiting remarkable intelligence in their ability to adapt to sudden pressures. We subjected them to all sorts of tests before the accident happened. They seem to have no ambition, other than to protect their environment, stasis and habitat, to an obsessive degree.’” Mathias fixed his eyes on Yul. “It seems you witnessed the phenomenon, or were privileged to see first-hand the aliens in action.”

  Yul set his jaw.

  “The tragedy is that the Ventura Explorer never returned from out in the Dim Zone to report its full findings or accumulate workable data or samples. If they did make it off the planet, they were either horribly attacked or waylaid by outer-zone pirates before reaching safe haven at Pzison gate. It’s the Dim Zone after all.”

  Yul twitched. That explained the expedition to Xeses. “But why the fuss about acquiring the plants?”

  “Xeses was a planet of only moderate interest to explorers, colonists, or a few curious scientists, even miners, owing t
o its large deposits of selenium. I’m thinking that’s what gave the plants their innate intelligence.”

  Recalling the strength and instantaneous adaptive morphing, somehow Yul thought not.

  “Consider their super-adaptive abilities—it’s a trait embedded in their DNA. Lucky for you, you secured a small sample for us, or I’d have terminated you. Goss, here, says more by accident than generosity did you deliver us the sample. We want to channel these capabilities into a new line of mechnobots.”

  Yul’s mind flashed on the butterfly creature and he gave a cold shudder. The insect, he recalled, was content to sit in its contained environment biding its time, even though it had the ability to wrest itself out of its prison. But it chose not to.

  An advanced form of life, unknown to anything on earth-like worlds. What could the thing not do or become in the hands of some ambitious madman like Mathias...? Yul stifled his rising anger. It was unproductive at this time. “I’ve given you your sample. My work is done.”

  “You’ve only just begun.”

  “If I refuse?”

  “Things could get very ugly for you.”

  Yul grinned sourly. Both men—Mathias and Hresh, ruthless technocrats in their own right, were unpredictable, and he was caught in the middle. The little voice in his head that he should have heeded, and didn’t, was speaking again—

  Sensing hesitation, Mathias nodded to Goss. Before Yul could act, Goss drew a star-shaped weapon from his hip. A blue flare shot out blasting Yul with nanoparticles. Yul felt two pinpricks of heat enter his upper shoulder and he cried out, reeling. “Ow! What’d you do?”

  A wave of fire seeped into his blood, filtered throughout his entire body. Bastards! They had impaled him with some kind of drug. It jolted him with a deep searing pain.

  “Should you try to remove those particles—” Mathias’s face assumed a dark grin “—the effect would be like a long time addict trying to come down off of cocaine. Only worse.”

  “Son of a bitch!” croaked Yul, feeling whatever it was, nanoparticles or microscopic dye, suffusing his blood stream.

  “I’ve been called worse. Your final instructions will come soon enough. Don’t defy me, Vrean.” Mathias’s eyes bored daggers into him.

  Yul hunched, eyes darting around for options. He had to get out of here.

  “The beauty, simplicity of the implant—is that it is undetectable by modern instruments—MRI, surveillance scanners, probing extractors—the dye could be in any part of your body. We experimented with it on synthetics, pure cyborgs, until we found a compound mix effective on humans. The mixture which cycles in your blood now.”

  “Spare me the technobabble.”

  “No, this is too much fun. The gun uses light highways for tracking, relaying your coordinates and body signature back from any open local carrier, via radio towers. So, if you wander afield in any way, in some zone, on a ship, near a transmitter, communicator, anything, we will know where you are and can transmit a signal of horrendous pain to your nerve centres. You don’t believe me?” He motioned to Goss.

  Goss depressed a button on the star-shaped weapon and it clicked.

  Yul felt searing pain crawl over his skin and into his bones, forcing him to his knees.

  Mathias chuckled, a wolf’s grin suffusing his face. “That gun is worth 10 million credits. The only one of its kind. I hope this suffices as an adequate demonstration?”

  Yul snarled, resentment glaring through his tearing eyes.

  “You wonder now why I chose you. You were survivors, commissioned to go out in alien territory, with proven skills to survive and deliver the goods. I didn’t care how you did it or the details. I just wanted the job done and the samples in my hands. Which I got. At least one. But I didn’t expect half of you dead and my ship destroyed. I believe Goss quoted you as saying, ‘I’m nobody’s bitch.’ Well, guess what, you’re mine.”

  Yul staggered to his feet, clutching for balance. He had only one advantage—that they still underestimated him.

  “Come, I want to show you something. You can be part of something big, Vrean, knowing that with your efforts, you will be participating in forging a new techno-empire.” He waved a hand and the massive door opened. He swept through like a prince, his swagger confident, his spirits high. Yul limped after, goaded by Goss’s pain dispenser in his back, feeling the aching tingling in his nerves, his spine seizing up after the nanoparticle invasion.

  Mathias took them through a high-ceilinged chamber, then down a ramp into a luminous glass elevator which descended several storeys below ground. Goss kept his weapon trained on Yul.

  The elevator slid open and Yul gazed into a spacious hall full of robotic exhibits.

  “The Cybernetics Museum,” declared Mathias proudly. “Some of our earliest models are here.” Mathias spread an arm. “The A3-Remnot, for example”. He motioned to a knee-high white cube with rounded edges that rolled on small wheels. Three green lights glowed on its frontal turret which could have been eyes, but were most likely sensors.

  Mathias’s conceited smirk irritated Yul for reasons that were evident. The industrialist continued to look affectionately upon the bot, as if it were a favourite pet of his.

  “A household pick. The model could vacuum, dust, answer the door. Rudimentary intelligence permeated its thinking matrix and limited voice modulation, with voice recognition systems that kept it as a faddish impulse buy, but otherwise serviceable. Over here, we have the Bizbell M9.”

  Yul stared at a larger, more human-like shape, with legs for walking. Mathias hit a switch on the command post and the synthetic quivered to life, jerked over with its head bobbing like a parrot, its neck swivelling.

  “We expanded our reach to sell a whole line of these. They could take the roles of business people, valets, chauffeurs, you name it. They can cook, clean, answer portable devices, serve as general servants, factotums, or consorts.

  Yul saw a whole series of them in ranked rows, looking starkly identical: grey-black, elasti-plast steel and porcelain with gaping eye sockets, o’s for mouth holes fixed in an expression of surprised elation. “Colour, height and sex are modifiable,” Mathias added with a smug grin, glimpsing Yul’s critical look. “Why don’t we step back over here?”

  “Why not?” Yul muttered sardonically. He yearned to get his mechanical fingers around Mathias’s neck and squeeze the life out of him. He leaned forward, but Goss, reading his intent, took a step forward. “Back off.”

  “Those are more advanced models, though still quite antiquated,” remarked Mathias, “if not obsolete as little as a generation ago.”

  Yul saw a more intriguing series of synthetics standing by the wall that wore clothes and looked more human-like than any thus far.

  One of them approached with jerky steps. “Can I take your coat, sir?”

  Yul stiffened, unimpressed. The machine stepped back.

  “Quaint,” Yul grunted.

  Mathias gave a dry chuckle. “That one’s a bit overzealous. We have advanced quite a ways to produce models like Goss here.”

  Mathias took them down an elevator to a lower floor. They entered a large lab, Yul simmering with hostility. Goss trailed behind, his fingers brushing at the trigger of his blaster, owner of an anxious frown.

  The noise of machine parts and computer sounds greeted them, mixed with a babel of voices. Yul glared at the many shifty-eyed technicians garbed in their white lab coats. Others monitored tall, multi-dialed instruments while some bent over crowded tables working on artificial limbs, not dissimilar to his own. A few tinkered with unusual, if not weird hybrids of limbs and appendages, many of which defied Yul’s understanding.

  Scientists, engineers, technicians, all wore protective glassware and soldered wires, or welded machine parts. More of them milled about, figures with dark eyes and serious looks: social misfits, Yul guessed, by the look of their bird-like movements. He did not doubt they were mechanical and electrical geniuses.

  A man with wispy, straw-
coloured hair controlled a shin-high spider-like thing with a remote device. Several consoles and monitors ranged on his desk, flashing wire-frame diagrams of force fields and impetus vectors as the mechnobot moved. The bot jumped up the wall, trained laser eyes on a dark form, a blot or target which smoked and fell on the tiles in a smoking heap.

  Was it a prototype weapon? Yul blinked in amazement.

  Mathias turned back to the spider, now chasing a similar mechanical beetle-like shape along the floor. “Charming. An experimental model only, created for my own amusement. I know the military have much more deadly mechanisms than this, but perhaps with some innovations of my own, it will be a precursor to a future weapon.”

  The man in the lab coat laughed. “Dream on, Mathias. It was my idea, and a dumb one at that.”

  Mathias motioned. “Dezmin here, is our most prolific engineer. He has a fecund imagination beyond my own. Currently he is ranked highest on the payroll. This is his other ‘brainchild’ or was Hresh’s before he ran off, which I specifically wanted to show you.” Mathias led him along to a long steel table on which rested a glass case, connected with many wires and panels hooked to a central computer. “Perhaps you would care to look?”

  Yul stumped forward. Behind the glass, he saw none other than the pod Goss had snatched from his suit.

  “A sight perhaps to encourage you on your upcoming mission and ferret out Hresh.”

  “It’s just one of those wretched pods,” grunted Yul.

  “It’s much more than that.”

  Yul glowered.

  “Any progress so far, Dez? I see you’re picking up where Hresh left off.”

  The engineer shrugged. “The pod shows unusual signs of integration. But sees us as no hostile threat. I’m reluctant to prod it further.”

  “Good. Exercise caution, Dezmin. I trust you have a sure-fire method in mind with our only sample at stake. We will return to gather more when the heat is off Xeses.”