Chimera Company - Rho-Torkis Box Set

by Tim C. Taylor

  Skragg!

  Her back was as bony as a stegosaurus, but before he had time for second thoughts, she was away, scrambling up the colonnades like an insect. She wasn’t fast, but her climb was assured, and they soon reached the roof of the building, watched by the line of Littoranes in the street below.

  Enthree picked up speed as she bounded across gutters, domes, and tiling to the far end of the building.

  As she was turning around to descend back end first, Bronze told her to wait up. “I can use this vantage point to look for Meatbolt.”

  “Human eyes cannot penetrate the smoke and flames,” she countered but didn’t protest as he slid off her bony back.

  Bronze looked into Enthree’s eyes, dark slits heavily shielded by eyelashes and fronting a narrow head that stretched back almost as long as his arm.

  “Okay,” he told her. “Let’s kick off the trust campaign. When I was younger, I was badly injured. Those who repaired me used ancient med-tech, which means my eyes are artificial.” He set his gaze over the ruined city, identifying zones blocked by infected mobs, or made impassable by the fiercest flames.

  “Thank you for trusting me with your secret.”

  Trust? You’re Muryani. I can trust that you’re the Federation’s ultimate enemy. I know some of your secrets too, pal.

  Bronze kept his thoughts to himself. “Sure, we can be best mates, Ndemo-327-Cerulian. Maybe by tonight the two of us will be sitting around one of those burning buildings singing Kumbaya.”

  That seemed to do the trick, shutting up the annoying alien while Bronze surveyed the city. He felt sure there was a pattern to this chaos, if only he knew what to look for.

  “What is Kumbaya?”

  Bronze sighed. He’d seen as much as he was going to from this position. He needed to get down into the action and see what was happening close up. “Kumbaya? No idea. Just an ancient human saying, its origin lost to time.”

  Maybe it was the talk of campfires, but the heat of the city finally got to Bronze. It was like a furnace in here, and he was dressed for the deep freeze. He’d already loosened his outer coat and switched off its heater, but it wasn’t nearly enough. He threw his coat onto the roof and began ripping away the shirt underneath. It was halfway off when he stopped and felt a creeping chill.

  What was he doing?

  The Muryani was studying him. Down at street level, the infected Littoranes they had run from had followed the Chimerans to their side of the building and were looking up at Bronze too. They didn’t look threatening any more, though. They seemed to be waiting. Waiting for what?

  For him to join them?

  The city pulled at him. An irresistible summoning. Here in Bresca-Brevae, a beautiful new beginning was being born and he longed to be a part of it. No, it wasn’t a summoning. It was an invitation. A precious offering to become something new that was beyond the dreams of any mortal.

  Enthree stared at him in silence.

  Bronze swallowed hard.

  Should he level with Enthree? Warn her of what he feared he might be becoming?

  No. He’d seen the strategic briefings. Muryani should never have been admitted as Federation citizens.

  He needed to find out what was happening and that meant going farther into the city. If he was pulled into the mania so deeply that he lost himself, he would just have to trust Enthree would kill him.

  “Over to the northeast,” he told the alien, pointing in the direction from which he felt the pull the strongest. “Make for that domed building in the plaza about half a mile away.”

  “Do you see Meatbolt there?”

  “No, but the plaza seems to be a center of activity. Maybe your friend was drawn there.”

  She accepted his answer without question, stooping down to present her back once more.

  He hopped on, expecting to ride his spiderlike mount down the far side of the building.

  Instead, she circled back and raced off the edge, easily jumping fifteen feet to the roof of the neighboring building. From there, she hopped onto one of the curved ornaments that arced over the street, spinning around the metal pole before climbing to its ornately sculptured top. From there, she jumped through the smoky air from one pole to the next, flinging limbs out to keep her balance as she teetered each time on the point of falling forty feet to the troubled streets below.

  The journey was more terrifying than a dropship descent, and felt more suicidal than taking point on a hull breach into an enemy battleship.

  “Thank you,” he whispered.

  He’d just discovered that the infection he’d picked up on Azoth Zol might still claim him. Riding piggyback on this crazy Muryani was the only thing in the universe that was even more terrifying.

  NDEMO-327-CERULIAN

  Humans were cunning. The one on her back had hidden his foul scent beneath a cloying perfume that Enthree suspected was undetectable by others of his species.

  When a compulsion had seized him to strip off and reveal his pheromone code to the Corrupted thronging this damned city, Enthree’s suspicions had been confirmed.

  Bronze was a part of the Corruption.

  And by the way fear gripped his face, the man understood his doom.

  Shame.

  She had disliked this one on sight, but had been eager to learn his secrets so she could weave them into intricate stories of exotic alien intrigue.

  All that remained was to absorb more of his pheromones so she could discern which strain of Corruption possessed him. Human sweat brought on by fear was particularly rich in pheromones and so she flung him from post to post, terrifying the alien to bring on the fear sweat.

  She couldn’t identify the strain herself, but that was not unexpected. She solidified a recording of his scent in the form of a memory pearl that would harden on its journey to the outside of her head, where it would join the other pearls that the humanoids mistook for warts. If she survived to make the next contact with her handler, then eventually, on a distant world within the Muryani Expansion, an anonymous archivist would identify Bronze’s strain and a new nugget of information would be added to the Expansion’s understanding of this latest invasion by the Corruption.

  Task complete, she corkscrewed down an ornamental pole – not to wring more sweat and fear from the Corrupted human, but because dancing like this through a burning city was a delightful pleasure – and proceeded at ground level in the direction Bronze had indicated, bounding over burning obstacles and scampering up the walls of buildings to avoid parties of the Corrupted.

  The destination was obvious from the overwhelming stench of Corruption. She paused a short distance from the plaza to allow the human to drop off her back and regain his feet.

  Should she kill him now or postpone his execution to see what he would do next?

  Having spent a lifetime around humanoids, she felt sure she would recognize the wide-eyed confusion and temporarily impaired motor control that would indicate the Corruption taking over. She thought she was alert to whatever he might do next, but the human surprised her.

  Bronze sat cross-legged on a soot-stained sidewalk and brought a smoking pipe out of an inner pocket.

  “We have to go back for my coat,” he informed her as he tamped rough-cut strands of synthetic tobacco into the bulb, and lit its contents by means of a button on the stem. “It’s got my best pipe and baccy. Not to mention it’s cold outside the city, have you noticed?”

  No matter how much she tilted her head first one way then the other, she could make no sense of him.

  “Truth now,” he said, “why did you really come into the city, Ndemo-327-Cerulian?”

  The human’s question made no sense.

  Was this a sign that the Corruption was consuming him? He didn’t appear dangerous at the moment, so she answered. “To retrieve my friend.”

  Bonze took a long draw and then looked up from his pipe, shaking his head as if disappointed in her. “We both know the Meatbolt who was once your friend is never coming back.
I’ve seen you watch over him. Part nursemaid. Part friend keeping a death row vigil. Part executioner in waiting. You lost Meatbolt the day that Invader bit him, and you know it.”

  The archivists of the Expansion had much to say about the Corruption, but she’d never heard of a victim who was aware of their own fate, let alone one who faced their extinction so calmly. The humans had surprised and outwitted far older races in their birthplace of the Orion Spur. Would this enclave transported to the Perseus Arm repeat that achievement, despite their seeming inability to prevent the Federation from descending into ruin? Their ability to adapt and prevail was, after all, the reason humans had been brought here in the first place.

  She brightened up. She adored humans and loved when they exceeded her expectations.

  “Corruption,” said Bronze. “You’ve used that term to describe the threat we face. What does that mean? Why the Corruption?”

  “You will never learn the answer.”

  “Really, is that a threat?” The human killed his pipe, deflated it, and returned it to an inner pocket. “I was bitten by the Corruption – is that how you phrase it? – but I got better.”

  “Impossible. Your civilization lacks the technology.”

  “I hope you noticed that we’re still doing the trusting thing, Muryani. You’re wrong about that. This civilization – of which you claim to be a member, let us not forget – has deep reserves of ingenuity and…” He shrugged. “We like to hoard stuff.”

  Enthree took a step back. The human had spoken of trust in a sarcastic mode, but his secret was potent with implications. “You used ancient technology from the Orion Era! Who are you really?”

  “I’m the guy who was issued wafers of nano meds. That’s all you need to know, pal, because that’s how I carry the Corruption’s scent even though it does not control me.”

  “I saw you. On that rooftop. It was claiming you.”

  “And that’s why I’m leveling with you, buddy. I figured I’m the reason you came deeper into the city, not Meatbolt. He is only one of thousands now, so let’s leave him be. Watch me instead. You’re right, I felt a pull stronger than I’ve ever felt before. If it pulls me too far–”

  “Then I shall kill you.”

  The man nodded. “Just make sure first, okay?” He put a finger to the headset still in place beneath his hat but paused. “The Corruption – Meatbolt – all of this we-are-doomed stuff – let’s make that our secret for now, eh?”

  “Sybutu, this is Bronze. How copy?”

  “Go for Zavage,” came the Kurlei’s voice over Enthree’s own headset as well as Bronze’s.

  “Is Sybutu hurt?”

  “His comms took a blow to the head, but he’s too thick skulled to be badly hurt. What’s your status?”

  “We’ve penetrated a mile into the city. Meatbolt is dead. Have you located the contact?”

  “No. We couldn’t enter the spaceport. We are searching for news of the contact with everyone headed that way.”

  “Then we shall search for this Captain Fitzwilliam in the city. The environment is dangerous but the Muryani is providing excellent assistance in evading obstacles and hostiles. If the going gets too hot, we shall turn back and rejoin you.”

  “Copy that. Shame about Meatbolt.” Zavage paused. The sound of sudden exertion came over the radio. “Contact. Wait out.”

  Bronze cut the link. “Sounds like our friends will be busy for a while. Let’s use this chance to root out what’s really going on in Bresca-Brevae.”

  BRONZE

  Thicker than the pall of smoke, a horrific sense of impending atrocity hung over the plaza like one of the fresh skin rugs the Gorgantheletta once sewed together from captured Federation civilians.

  Terrified citizens mostly milled around the open area. Some screamed in rage at those who had herded them there with clubs and swords and stood now in deep formations guarding the exits. Nevertheless, the guards had proved no barrier to a human–Muryani pairing prepared to enter the plaza by crawling down the outside of the buildings that ringed it. Other trapped civilians begged for mercy from friends and neighbors who had turned so suddenly on them.

  Many chose to spend their final moments in prayer, and it seemed to Bronze that they had lucked out with the perfect place to pass their final moments before death, in one sense or another, took them. In peaceful times the architectural showcase of the plaza was the enormous stone building that fronted one side of its square, and was topped by a huge copper dome that reflected the flames. Bronze statues of Littorane deities ringed the dome’s base like a crown.

  He peered more closely at one of the statues that stood out from the others. It was a lone humanoid in a pantheon of Littoranes.

  “Some do still honor the old alliance, after all,” he said to himself. “That’s the Empress Indiya.”

  Unconsciously, he found himself touching the tips of his fingers to his heart: a deep spiritual habit from his youth.

  If the likeness of the Empress was displayed here, then this was not just a temple. It was probably the first permanent structure built when this planet was settled. Bresca-Brevae would have been constructed around this temple, and it was no wonder that its frightened citizens now fought for a place of sanctuary beneath its enormous dome.

  The sight of Littoranes praying outside on the plaza told them there was not enough room inside for everyone. As Bronze and Enthree approached the throng outside the temple, they saw that there was no room at all for any who were not Littoranes.

  Humanoids were being forcibly ejected, some with heads dripping fresh blood.

  “Take it easy,” said a human male tossed out like an old rug by a pair of Littoranes. He picked himself up and dusted down his leather jacket. “I was on my way out, anyway. Place stinks of fish. You should really get it cleaned properly, you know.”

  Most of the humans they had encountered in the city had dressed like Kidson, the offshore worker from the inn. Not this man. He wore a brown leather peaked hat adorned with grubby silver braid, dark sunshades, and a brown jacket so worn that it was probably already old when prehistoric humankind first thought to stick sharpened stones in the end of sticks and go hunting for clothing.

  The man in the jacket muttered something into his collar, which was precisely where the secondary microphone pickup was usually placed on a ship suit.

  “Stick close to the human spacer,” Bronze told his partner.

  “Which one is that? Do you mean the one with the droid?”

  Droid?

  Bronze scanned the area. He didn’t see a droid. “I mean the one with the leather jacket who looks like he’s on vacation.”

  “There is none who matches your criteria,” said the irritating alien, but followed Bronze anyway as he inched toward the spacer.

  It would be so tempting to kick the big bug in the shins, but if Bronze was reading the situation correctly, Enthree’s ability to climb like a spider was going to come in handy real soon. So instead he hissed, “Brown leather jacket. Brown leather cap. Can you really not see that, or do you just get a kick out of annoying humans?”

  “That’s the individual I pointed out,” Enthree replied. “The one with the droid. Your criteria are contradictory. You said he was human.”

  Bronze stopped. “Just how not human are you suggesting this guy is?”

  “Close, but I’ve encountered many thousands of humans and never smelled one like this.”

  Not quite human. A mutant, perhaps? I wonder…

  A hush suddenly clamped down on the plaza. The citizens guarding the exits squashed themselves to the sides to allow passage for a column of...

  Oh, no. No! No! No!

  A platoon of legionaries in battle armor marched with good discipline into the plaza and began deploying into a single rank facing the silenced citizens.

  A knot of horror pulled in Bronze’s guts. Not at what was about to happen – though that was terrible enough – but what the battle armor was telling him. The legionaries wo
re a variety of armor model variants and made no attempt to unify on the camo pattern or insignia. On the far end of the line, waiting with blasters at the low ready, were a half dozen legionaries in Type C night-camo pattern with shoulder patches displaying not only the crossed lightning bolts of the 62nd Brigade, but the color flash and numerals of Bravo Company, 3rd Battalion. Insignia and camo-variant he’d worn himself when his old squad had entered the caves of Azoth Zol.

  He’d thought his captured comrades had all perished. If these legionaries removed their helms, would he recognize the faces?

  “Bronze! Snap out of it. Time to go.”

  He looked up into a Muryani face. “I’m okay. Bad memories, that’s all. Let’s grab this guy and get out of here.”

  “What do you mean we’re not leaving?” the spacer shouted into his collar.

  Bronze grabbed a small disc from his pocket and slapped it onto the man’s jacket. “Leaving is exactly what we are doing,” he told the spacer.

  “Okay, hotshot,” the guy said, unimpressed. “Surprise me. How are you planning on getting out of here?”

  Blaster bolts suddenly screamed through the air, burning through the Littoranes at the edge of the crowd. Silence crashed into screaming panic and the scene switched into pandemonium.

  A Littorane with a fancy gold collar began shouting and pointing, not at the legionaries – most of whom were still deploying and not yet opening fire – but at Bronze, Enthree, and the spacer.

  Bronze got the gist of the message. The burning of the city and the scourging of its inhabitants was divine punishment for the blasphemy of permitting filthy alien humanoids on their world.

  Filthy aliens like him.

  Angry Littoranes joined in. Never mind the blaster bolts whizzing through the air, bringing death and maiming with every shot.

  “I don’t have the time for this,” Bronze said. “You in the brown jacket, grab onto me.”

  “Seriously, kid?”

  With a quick draw of his blaster pistol, Bronze put two bolts through the rabble-rousing Littorane. Center mass.

  That got the spacer moving. He grabbed Bronze around the waist just in time for him to cling on to Enthree who whisked them away from the temple steps.