Aldebaran Divided

by Philippe Mercurio

  During their stay on the Urkein’Naak, the situation on Solicor had apparently returned to normal. Torg went back to the Sirgan to wait for his captain, but Alrine had remained on the planet. Mallory was inspecting her ship’s main systems when Laorcq came to tell her that he was going to meet up with the policewoman.

  “I split the weapons Hanosk gave us into two caches, one in the hold of your ship, and one in the trunk of the aero.”

  She barely paid attention to these details. She felt a sharp pang of jealousy at the idea of Laorcq and Alrine together. After almost two days in the scarred man’s company, she had practically forgotten about the tall blonde and her relationship with him.

  Without letting on that anything was wrong, she said goodbye to him with a nonchalant tone. Once again, she found herself alone on the Sirgan. Jazz, Torg, and Squish formed a sort of family, but they could never replace the company of another human.

  The jufinol sensed her sadness and tried to console her. A gentle wave of calm filled Mallory’s mind, combining with her natural tendency to face adversity head on, to sweep her gloominess away.

  As a result, she was acting out of completely natural desire when she received a message from Cole Vassili proposing they meet up on Solicor.

  Without questioning the motive for the invitation, she decided she deserved a good time. Laorcq’s remark concerning Vassili’s attitude came back to her. She chased it away with a shrug. I bet he was just irritated when a cybrid, a cop, and a big scarred guy showed up, wanting to question him. It’s no surprise he wasn’t friendly…

  She turned control of the Sirgan over to Jazz and Torg, and, with a pang of guilt, explained to the jufinol that she had to go to the planet alone. Squish let out a low moan, but soon resigned himself: now that he had been reunited with Mallory, their link was sufficiently strong for him to be able to feel her presence, even from the orbital ring.

  She might have taken the multicolored worm with her, but she was concerned that he might provide a bit too much information about the man with whom she planned to spend the evening, and possibly the night. She doubted she would be more than another one-night stand to him and had no desire to have this confirmed by Squish’s mindreading ability.

  Vassili strolled through a business quarter at the heart of the city-planet. A few weeks earlier, he would have been giddy that he had managed to convince the pretty, tattooed brunette to accept his invitation. Now that his personality had been deeply modified by the ktol, he no longer considered this kind of relationship important. He was simply following the Primordials’ order: get close enough to the human to convince her to learn about the Vohrn and the events taking place in the system.

  He would transmit the information to the Primordial Axaqateq. At least, some of it. Intoxicated by the power the ktol had granted him through his transformation, he was beginning to entertain the idea of turning against his new master. He didn’t yet have a clearly defined strategy, but remaining enslaved to an alien, no matter how powerful, didn’t fit his self-image.

  He considered dizzying possibilities; plans he could carry out if he managed to free himself from the Primordial while maintaining the abilities granted by the ktol.

  A shiver of pleasure ran through him. Soon…

  Returning to the present, he got ready for his rendezvous with the pilot.

  He walked toward the restaurant he had carefully chosen to put his date at ease.

  Tucked into one of Solicor’s deepest levels, Wake was run by a human couple. The place was small and restrained. A square room, low ceilings, and warm colors emphasized the paintings and their white backgrounds. Most were prints depicting various landscapes from the solar system.

  Arriving first, Mallory gazed at the pictures of Mars’ rivers of red dust, Io’s volcanoes, and Ganymede’s desert of rock and ice.

  The pilot made eye contact with a woman working behind a light-colored wood counter. With a slight gesture of her chin, the bartender indicated she could sit where she liked.

  Mallory took a seat as she tried to chalk the tension she felt up to fatigue.

  A set of glowing blue and white lines appeared above the table. When she passed her hand through them, they rearranged themselves to display the menu. It listed a large selection of dishes, most containing raw fish and shellfish. Some came from Solicor’s oceans, while the rest were from Thalas, an aquatic world that the humans had populated with all of the Earth’s species, thus saving a number of them from total extinction.

  With a sudden jolt of embarrassment, she realized she had rushed to the rendezvous without any special preparations. Convinced she had attracted the businessman’s interest; she had simply taken a shower. She examined her reflection in the small restaurant’s front window.

  Her well-proportioned silhouette, outlined by her tight flight suit, was evidence of regular physical activity. Her short black hair, cut in an inverted bob, framed her face and its delicate makeup-free features.

  Well, he can take it or leave it, she told herself, trying and failing to believe in her own indifference.

  When he arrived, Vasilli seemed surprised to find the pilot was already there.

  She waved, then focused on the hologram floating in the middle of the table. Despite her attraction to him, she didn’t feel completely at ease. Reacting to her state of mind, her sensitive tattoos formed stems without thorns or flowers. On the backs of her hands, only small rosebuds stood out from the floral tangle.

  After customary greetings, he sat facing her and asked what she thought of the place.

  “Interesting,” she replied. “I expected something more, let’s say… worldly.”

  With a gleam of amusement in his eyes, he smiled. “I didn’t think an uptight ambiance would be your cup of tea. I’m glad I was right.”

  Without displaying too much curiosity, he asked about her work and her life in general. Mallory began to relax. Her posture softened. Unconsciously, she stopped pressing against the back of her chair and instead leaned toward her companion.

  The small talk did her good and put her at ease. Vassili was nice, and aside from his slightly artificial appearance, very attractive. She barely noticed that he always paused before responding to her questions, and, when she did, she chalked it up to a desire to choose his words carefully.

  Vassili was pleased to see that Mallory didn’t suspect anything. Thanks to his overdeveloped senses, he could feel the woman relax.

  His abilities allowed him to lead the conversation without any difficulty, even though he was completely uninterested in her. He was much more interested in practicing his new abilities in order to uncover the information the Primordial required.

  He watched the pretty brunette’s defenses fall one by one. He felt as if he could read her like a book.

  The pilot’s sensitive tattoos transformed into a multitude of cherry blossoms covering both of her forearms. When the meal ended, he knew that she had already decided to go to bed with him.

  They left the restaurant and walked toward his apartment in silence. Once in the apartment, Mallory took the initiative, cutting him off in mid-sentence with a deep kiss.

  Vassili wasn’t naïve: he doubted she had any illusions about the terms of their relationship. She seemed to just want to have a good time. Which suited him perfectly.

  Exerting complete mastery over his emotions, he displayed reciprocal desire, while his mind, which was no longer particularly human, analyzed the situation coldly. He was wondering how thoroughly he could fool her when a strange idea bloomed in his thoughts: why not test the limits of my own transformation? Thanks to the ktol, he had complete control over his own body. With a little concentration, he could feel each of the cells that made up his organs and direct their functions independently.

  He pushed his conquest toward the bed, where she removed her clothes, revealing delicate curves and muscled lines. On her knees on the mattress, she straightened her torso and placed her hands on her thighs, un-self-consciously putting he
r trim, balanced breasts and the black triangle of her pubis on display. Her dark eyes burned so intensely it would have made any man shiver.

  With a thought, he adjusted his metabolism to simulate intense excitement. He displayed his wide torso, flat stomach, and narrow hips. Ironically, this superb musculature, initially sculpted by plastic surgery, now contained an equivalent degree of physical strength.

  While he undressed and approached her, Mallory devoured Vassili with her eyes. When he finally joined her on the bed, she kissed him again and ran her hands over his body. Her fingers followed the lines of his muscles, and he began to explore her in the same way. A wave of desire rose in her: the feelings generated by his caresses was intoxicating. From light touches, they became deft stimulation. When he rocked her onto her back and straddled her, she was seized by an animalistic need to join with him.

  As both actor and spectator of these passionate acts, Vassili read the pretty brunette’s reactions easily. Slowly, he brushed her most sensitive places with his lips. Each of his partner’s touches, breaths, and sighs provided him with information she surrendered without even knowing. He interpreted them with the ease of an experienced musician deciphering a score.

  Mallory let go. She felt as if Vassili could anticipate her every wish. She was giving herself to a very attentive lover, who seemed to know her down to the smallest detail. His eyes, his hands, his mouth, his body were always exactly where she wanted them… As her last barrier fell, she surrendered completely.

  Vassili watched the woman with detachment. He decided to conduct the experiment he had imagined: by influencing his hormone levels, he forced the fluids in his genitals to refresh themselves, and then changed their composition. A few minutes later, all of the liquid was transformed. His semen was now full of gametes that contained his complete genetic code with all of the recent alterations provoked by the ktol. He only needed a receptacle to create a copy of himself.

  As the pilot drowned in supposedly shared pleasure, he triggered his own orgasm with a cold thought. He then collapsed on her, feigning exhaustion.

  Emerging from the altered man’s semen, a zygote set off in the direction of Mallory’s uterus.

  XII

  MERCHANDISE

  AN iron-gray cargo ship with a crude shape sat before Torg. Its cubical form made it seem huge despite its small size. Jazz must have been right: it was the Tal-50 Mallory had seen on Volda.

  As soon as he had been informed of the ship’s presence, the cybrid left the Sirgan to visit it in person. For his captain’s sake, he neglected to wake her to tell her he was going: she had been fast asleep since arriving barely an hour earlier.

  Leaning against a wall, Torg remained vigilant while waiting for Alrine and Laorcq. This sector of the orbital ring was crowded. A number of different species strode along the long platforms, which were also brimming with every possible kind of merchandise. The cybrid’s nose picked up the scents of food, engine lubricants, and the stress hormones of caged animals.

  In the corner of his enhanced peripheral vision, he saw the two humans approach. He quickly went to join them.

  Torg realized that he appreciated Alrine’s company, even though she was so different from Mallory, just as he had learned to like Laorcq. This other human was now part of their little family. Even if, for some unknown reason, she seemed to make his captain feel jealous. Probably one of those male-female situations that humans love so much…

  Somewhat impatient after his long wait standing in the crowd, he got straight to the point. “How are we doing this?”

  “Calmly,” the policewoman responded quickly. “I managed to get hold of a warrant in record time. Let’s follow the rules for once.”

  Torg shrugged, a gesture he had picked up from Mallory. He noticed that Laorcq had remained silent. His thoughts were probably similar to his own: if the cargo was no longer on board, nothing bad would happen, but it would also be a waste of time. As for the alternative…

  Alrine walked along the platform, up to a where a depression in the hull indicated the location of the hold. Unlike the Sirgan, which was docked outside Solicor’s orbital ring, this cargo ship was located in a hangar that functioned as a giant hold: the walls at each end opened and closed sequentially as a pumping system balanced the pressure.

  Torg and Laorcq approached while Alrine leaned over to examine a plaque bearing the ship’s registration and serial numbers. Using her navcom, she sent the order to open up immediately, accompanied by the warrant.

  With a metallic groan and a sigh from the jacks, the door to the hold descended, revealing the cargo ship’s contents.

  The cybrid exchanged a look with Laorcq: this apparent willingness to cooperate seemed fishy…

  On their guard, they moved forward into the hold. The storage areas was far from full. They saw only four large crates in a space that could have held twenty. At the other end of the ship, a sealed door opened to reveal a Spican.

  The alien was more than eight feet tall and had four thick arms whose muscles rippled like steel cables under his copper-colored skin. His smooth, hairless face was strangely similar to a human’s. The resemblance vanished as soon as he opened his mouth to speak: he had three rows of triangular teeth.

  “Humans? And a warrant?”

  His deep, powerful voice sounded like it had emerged from a long plastic tube. Located at the base of his wide neck, a translator box was barely loud enough to be heard.

  “Have you picked up cargo from Volda recently?” Alrine asked, pointing to the crates in the hold.

  Torg was pleased to see her refuse to give any ground when the copper-colored alien approached her.

  “Volda? No. We’re just back from Tepanya. My colleague and I have been making that run for years. By the Matriarch’s glands! What are you accusing us of?”

  “Nothing,” the human said soothingly. “We just want to examine the merchandise you’re transporting.”

  The Spican glared at the woman with serpent-like yellow eyes and split irises.

  “Food.”

  Although Torg had expected the Spican to categorically refuse to open the crates, he went over to one of them and put a hand on each corner. He ripped it off with an abrupt movement, punctuated by the cracking of the composite material as it snapped.

  The inside of the large box confirmed what the alien had said. Carefully wrapped and maintained in a vacuum, about twenty green slugs as long as an arm were lying on a plastic platter.

  “Floskes! Tepanya’s top export. Nothing more,” the tall alien grumbled as he walked over to another crate.

  He leaned over and opened it dramatically, throwing the heavy object aside.

  Given his apparently legitimate indignation, the cybrid wondered if Jazz had actually made a mistake. Alrine tried to calm the alien down.

  “Okay, we understand. No need to…”

  Another crack interrupted her as the Spican tore into a third package. This one was different. Suspended in an antigravity stasis field, reddish balls the size of a fist pulsed gently.

  The Spican replaced the crate he had just ripped off. Apparently fascinated by the contents of the third container, he leaned over it and froze.

  Torg reacted reflexively to this strange behavior. He reached out to grab the policewoman’s shoulder and pull her back, and then put himself between the Spican and the humans.

  The alien turned his now-empty gaze toward Torg.

  To the cybrid, it looked as if the Spican’s mind had been erased, as suddenly as if a switch had been thrown. Echoing his instincts, Laorcq murmured:

  “Torg, be careful.”

  The Spican attacked them before the scarred man could finish his sentence.

  Designed for exactly this kind of situation, Torg reacted in a fraction of a second. The two giants collided violently. The cybrid managed to block the alien’s upper arms, but the Spican used his free limbs to pummel his adversary.

  Helplessly, the two humans retreated down the loading ramp
toward the cargo ship’s exterior.

  Torg struggled under the hail of blows against his torso and ribs, and he couldn’t take the chance of releasing one of the Spican’s other arms to counterattack.

  He instead chose a radical course of action, letting himself fall backward, dragging the alien with him. Before his back touched the ship’s metal floor, he managed to get a leg between himself and the Spican. With his foot pressed against his opponent’s abdomen, he pushed violently. Surprised, the tall alien flew backwards for several yards and then smashed into the wall that separated the hold from the rest of the cargo ship.

  With unexpected quickness given his size, Torg rose and walked over to the last crate. He easily picked up the heavy box, raised it as high as he could, and smashed it cleanly down onto the Spican’s head.

  The large package shattered, exploding into pieces with the sound of broken glass, freeing its contents in a wide spray of sticky liquid containing long, greenish gastropods. Knocked unconscious, the four-armed alien crumpled at the cybrid’s feet.

  An insistent alarm drew Mallory from a deep sleep. She twisted on her narrow bunk, not particularly in the mood to wake up. Her mind was foggy and was still lingering over the time she spent with Cole Vassili, completely unaware that he had taken advantage of her.

  When she had returned to the Sirgan just before dawn in Earth time, she had felt physically drained. Chalking this up to her nocturnal “activities,” she had collapsed onto her bed as soon as she had disrobed, planning to sleep for about a dozen hours.

  Unfortunately for her, Jazz wasn’t on the same page. He added the cabin’s lights to the strident alarm. “On your feet, O Captain! My Captain!”

  The pilot mumbled unintelligibly in a jumble of curses and groans. Finally, she stood and, rubbing her fatigue-swollen face, conceded. “Okay! I’m up! I hope for your sake that there’s a good reason.”