Aldebaran Divided

by Philippe Mercurio

  As soon as he crossed the threshold, Alrine greeted him with a hug. He was almost surprised. The policewoman wasn’t prone to demonstrations of affection, even now that they had been in a relationship for a few months. He let the seconds elapse, savoring the contact between their bodies.

  Alrine finally broke the silence. “How’s the little butterfly?”

  “Recovering from her injury, but there’s another problem. The doctor said…” Laorcq trailed off, embarrassed, unsure of how to broach the subject. He opted for an indirect approach. “Well. She spent the night with Vassili. She wanted to clear her head, I guess. When the Gibral doctor examined her, he realized that she was carrying a nonhuman embryo. Apparently Vassili is the father.”

  As he continued his explanation, he saw Alrine grow pale. Imagining such a thing was probably even more unpleasant from the female perspective. In the end, he told her that Mallory had stayed in the hospital to have an abortion.

  “Obviously, she’s furious, and she wants to get her hands on Vassili,” he concluded.

  Laorcq was perfectly fine with this idea. That said, he preferred to take care of it himself rather than letting the pilot deal with the so-called businessman. After her somewhat extreme reaction in the Vohrn ambassador’s office, he was afraid she would put herself in danger in order to take revenge on her one-night stand.

  Alrine agreed. “You’re right. She’d chase him like a fury and set Torg on him, leaving chaos in their wake. Let me contact the local cops: they owe us one.”

  Laorcq watched her make a series of calls and saw the annoyance written all over his companion’s face.

  She finally hung up, cursing: the Solicor police force was overwhelmed by the carnage caused by the parasites.

  “They don’t know how to prioritize, so they’re running around in circles. They can’t help us. All I got was a report of a person matching Vassili’s description. He was spotted boarding a vessel, an Antarian jet still docked to the orbital ring. If we hurry, we should be able to intercept it before it leaves Solicor.”

  Laorcq didn’t have to be told twice. He rummaged through his luggage and pulled out two carefully wrapped guns. He gave one to Alrine and took the other. With fluid movements resulting from long habit, they strapped on the holsters and hid them under their jackets. Laorcq activated the door’s controls and said, “Let’s go!”

  In a cabin aboard the Fraxil, Cole Vassili stood as rigid as a statue on the narrow bunk. He waited patiently for the jet to take off from Solicor’s orbital ring.

  However, he wondered if he had not overestimated his new abilities. Usually, an embryo altered by the ktol would have developed very quickly. The pilot must have realized she was pregnant and had to be neutralized. The troublesome cybrid would be with her, driven his protective instincts. The rest of the Vohrn agents would soon show up to question him. Speculation, but probably correct.

  A small beep interrupted his thoughts. He had attached a membrane to one of the walls that would amplify sounds and vibrations transmitted through the structure of the vessel. It was a mere toy that only produced strangely blended notes, designed to create soothing background music.

  Vassili took advantage of the enhancements conferred by the ktol. His hearing was hundreds of times more sensitive than that of a human, so he could pick up all of the noises coming from the ship through the object’s sound processing.

  He focused on the melody coming from the device, setting aside the phonic textures related to the music generator with a thought. He eventually found the vocal range of the captain, who was deep in conversation with a caller with neutral intonation, probably an alien using a translator box.

  “Your flight authorization has been canceled. Please remain at the dock and do not allow anyone to board or disembark. A police squad is on its way to apprehend one of your passengers. You will have the opportunity to request compensation as soon as the process is completed.”

  Vassili smiled slightly: his plan was working. He just had to wait to find out who had been sent to get him. Still relying on the sound amplifier, he concentrated and placed his hands against the wall on either side of the membrane. His arm muscles contracted as he transmitted vibrations through the metal panel. The waves, which were regular and imperceptible to most species, propagated through the ship, then the docking clamps, continuing toward the docks. He repeated the process, more quickly, to find the ideal rhythm. Between each cycle, he analyzed the variations created by movement on and around the vessel, as he organically reproduced the function of radar.

  He built up a detailed image of the platforms. It wasn’t long before he spotted two humans, a man and a woman.

  Perfect! He intended to continue his experiments, for which he required a female. As for the male, he would surely find a use for him.

  Exercising his abilities, Vassil burst out of his cabin and sped to the control room. It wasn’t far. On an Antarian jet, most of the space was dedicated to the synergetic system, with room for travelers kept to a minimum. Crossing the tiny passageway in the blink of an eye, he grabbed the metal bar for manually opening the cockpit door and pulled it sharply down, tearing the reinforced lock in passing.

  Inside stood the captain, a Regulian whose green skin was covered with scars, and a creature with four eyes on stalks that looked like a monkey with the head of a snail. Surprised, but not completely flat-footed, the captain turned to Vassili and pointed a gun at him. He spoke with a strong accent.

  “What do you think you’re doing? Go back to your cabin. You paid for transportation, but that doesn’t give you the right to come snooping around in the cockpit!”

  Vassili didn’t even bother to answer; instead, he lunged at the alien. The Regulian opened fire. The weapon, a small lightning spitter, projected an electric arc. The bluish flash ran along Vassili’s skin, although an ordinary human would have been knocked unconscious.

  He seized the unfortunate captain by the neck and shook him violently. His grip was so strong that he crushed his larynx in a split second, cutting short the agonized rattle that rose in the Regulian’s throat. In the co-pilot’s seat, the second alien, frozen and silent in terror, had retracted his eyes and antennae.

  Vassili laid his right hand on the alien’s shoulder and the other on top of his skull, which he twisted violently. A series of horrible cracks rang out as the equivalent of the alien’s vertebrae broke one by one.

  He had just killed two people without his heart rate increasing by a single beat. He stepped away from the two corpses as if from a pile of junk and approached the control panel.

  On one of the images displayed in front of the cockpit windows, he spied the two humans who had come to arrest him. A scarred man accompanied by a tall blonde with a severe expression. He recognized them easily: two plainclothes police officers, the ones his guide had contacted when she had thought he had disappeared. He had enjoyed provoking them during their first encounter.

  He also noticed that Mallory’s cybrid was conspicuously absent. I was right! He stayed with the pilot. She must be in a hospital for an abortion, and her gorilla is too anxious to leave her.

  Vassili felt a moment of regret: he would have liked to see the embryo brought to term. He consoled himself by considering that he would have plenty of time to create others. This first attempt had achieved its purpose.

  His eyes quickly scanned the dashboard again. He found the control to open the door, activated it, and left the walkway. He closed the door to hide the carnage he had left behind and got ready to receive his visitors.

  Laorcq contemplated the Antarian jet through a series of large windows that looked out onto the vacuum of space. From the outside, it was impressive. Its engine formed a giant ring, topped by a set of large metal boxes that served as living quarters.

  He felt a hand on his shoulder. Alrine redirected him back to their mission.

  “The docking clamps are still locked. We got here in time.”

  Laorcq tore himself away from the sight
and followed the policewoman to the vessel’s airlock. They had been lucky: the orbital elevator from Solicor’s surface to this sector of the ring was still working. Given the condition of the city-planet’s infrastructure, they had expected it to be down.

  The thick steel door opened with a slight rattle once the pressures between the inside of the jet and the outside leveled out. Laorcq and Alrine saw a deserted gangway, which they took.

  The Solicor police had claimed that the captain would comply, but Laorcq was sure Vassili would be another matter.

  Confirming his fears, the airlock closed behind them. He put his hand on his gun and motioned to Alrine to draw hers.

  On this kind of ship, where everything else had been sacrificed to performance, the crew and passenger quarters were tiny. He could already see the end of the passageway. A door a bit further down on the left slid silently open. A large, brown-haired man with a leisurely gait emerged, dressed to display his impressive physique. Laorcq recognized Vassili at once. He had an unpleasant memory of their brief conversation. Vassili had acted like a young wolf who had succeeded at everything he’d tried, which had made him intensely arrogant.

  When their eyes met, he realized that the man had changed, that he had become both harder and more remote. Picking up on those kinds of details was not Laorcq’s specialty. He was worried if it was that easy to see: Either I completely missed it the last time, or else he’s an excellent actor. Well, so much for the urbane businessman act.

  Vassili’s attitude reminded him of the hubris he had seen in some drug barons he had dealt with in his old job, who were all convinced of their own invulnerability.

  As if greeting them in the captain’s place was perfectly normal, Vassili approached with outstretched arms and spoke. “Welcome aboard the Fraxil. What can I do for you?”

  The provocation was obvious, even if Laorcq disregarded the smirk that spread across the tall, brown-haired man’s face.

  “You can start with providing some information about a mutual acquaintance: a tattooed pilot. I have the feeling you haven’t treated her decently.”

  Vassili let out a contemptuous sigh. “Why? Do you wish you could have been decent to her instead of me, perhaps?” He gestured with his chin towards Alrine. “I noticed your friend, there, is standing rather close to you. I’m not sure she’d be okay with that…”

  Laorcq glanced at her. She continued to point her gun at Vassili, apparently immune to the provocation. It would take more than that to make her lose her cool.

  Tired of this game, the scarred man ordered, “Turn around and hold your wrists out behind you. Mallory’s not the only one who wants to talk to you.”

  Vassili surprised him by obeying calmly. With her free hand, Alrine grasped the handcuffs she always carried in her jacket pocket and approached.

  Laorcq was watching her put the cuffs on Vassili when he suddenly blurred. Alrine fell to the ground, apparently stunned by a shot to the temple, where a large bruise now bloomed. A shadow rose in front of Laorcq. He found himself face-to-face with the man he believed to be at their mercy.

  He squeezed the trigger of his revolver, but the ktol-modified human moved with frightening speed. Before the first shot, Vassili grabbed the barrel of the gun and turned it away while trapping Laorcq’s other arm. The bullets thunked harmlessly into the passageway wall. Laorcq unsuccessfully tried to twist away. He then tried to hit Vassili with his knee but was quickly repelled.

  He stumbled, almost falling on his backside. He had barely recovered his balance when Vassili kicked him in the head. The tip of his shoe struck the veteran point-blank on his scarred temple.

  XVI

  GIFT

  WITH pain throbbing in her abdomen, Mallory left the hospital at an angry clip. The “withdrawal” of the hybrid embryo that had been deposited in her womb had led to complications that included both physical and psychological bruising. She felt dirty, as if she had awakened one morning to discover that she had been raped during the night. The cruelest pain of all stemmed from an additional piece of information: if she wanted to have children one day, she’d have to have a new uterus cloned.

  She walked next to Torg, carrying Squish in her arms. She unconsciously gripped the telepathic animal more tightly than usual. Her hamstring injury tugged at her, relegated to the status of benign discomfort that echoed the pain in her stomach. They had traveled about a hundred yards when she received a call from Jazz.

  “Mallory! I’m glad you’re back on your feet. Unfortunately, I have bad news.”

  The pilot froze so abruptly that the cybrid almost bumped into her. “For pity’s sake! Tell me you’re joking.”

  “Unfortunately not. Laorcq and Alrine went to find Vassili. They followed him to an Antarian jet and then disappeared without a trace. After hours of fruitless searching and pointless calls, I decided to cajole the local police. I thought their AI would drive me crazy, but they eventually sent me a CCTV clip from the docks. Our friends boarded the jet. It left Solicor’s orbital ring a few minutes later… with them on board!”

  “That bastard kidnapped them!”

  Mallory’s explosion startled a female Gibral walking past her. The alien slid the tiny child she held into her pouch with a protective gesture.

  The pilot didn’t even notice—she was too busy feeling guilty: this was all because of her little “adventure.”

  While the human and her companions traversed the mazelike city-planet, dull anger grew inside her, threatening to explode at any moment. It was a bad habit to which she succumbed too easily. To channel her rage, she considered what might have motivated her one-night stand. She spoke, her voice tinged with exasperation. “This doesn’t make any sense! Vassili can’t be an alien—his body is too human.”

  Torg joined in the speculation. “Maybe he’s an artificial creature, designed by the Saharj?”

  Mallory furrowed her black eyebrows as she thought. “That doesn’t hold make sense. They want revenge on the Gibrals, so why would they need two Earthlings? And then, the…”—she stumbled over the word—“the embryo had nothing in common with the parasite, the doctor was sure. No, Vassili’s not connected to the Saharj.”

  Vassili… The pilot realized she had switched from his first name to his last. No way she was going to call him Cole. He was at best partially human, and he had just kidnapped two people she cared about. Thinking about the night she had spent with him made bile rise in her throat.

  Squish squirmed in her arms, signaling to her that he was suffering from the effects of her anger. Saddened to have caused him discomfort, she eased the pressure she was exerting on him and inhaled deeply.

  She reflected bitterly on the irony of the situation: she had lambasted the Saharj for their violence and thirst for revenge, but now she was determined to destroy the man who had injured her. At least I know he’s guilty. I wouldn’t take a chance of hurting an innocent person. This justification rang a little hollow, unfortunately. Her frown deepened. Getting lost in rationalization wasn’t like her. She shook herself and swept away all of her negative thoughts. She had gone to the Aldebaran system to work and to prove to the Vohrn that she was trustworthy. From that point of view, she hadn’t done anything wrong—on the contrary. She’d ask Hanosk for help, go after Vassili, and find the tall scarred man and Alrine at all costs.

  With a clearer mind, she realized that leaving the hospital and walking had done her good. She held Squish in the crook of her left arm and grabbed one of Torg’s big fingers with her free hand, a gesture she had repeated so often that she did it instinctively.

  Around them flocked creatures of all kinds. A few hours had been enough for the people of Solicor to resume their normal daily activities.

  This floor was particularly cosmopolitan, a real alien melting pot. The street and the buildings lining them added to the impression: the architecture varied without apparent logic every twenty or thirty feet. Looking up, Mallory paused: she expected to see the smooth metal ceiling common to ot
her Solicor’s other sectors, but instead saw a network of streets and buildings crammed with a busy and diverse crowd.

  She thought at first that it was a huge mirror overlooking the entire level. The sight of a Gibral policeman wearing an antigrav harness cleared things up for her when he “fell” from the reflection and landed a hundred yards away. With absolute confidence in their mastery of gravity, the designers of this section of the city had built two neighborhoods facing each other.

  The shop fronts along the road became rowdy and downright gaudy. Mallory and Torg plunged into the riot of color and holographic forms.

  As she passed a shop window, a movement caught the pilot’s eye. Intrigued by the store’s unusual appearance, she pulled on her bodyguard’s finger to tell him to stop. The pane of glass gave the impression of being a good three feet thick. Behind the imposing translucent block, she saw a spherical being at least six feet wide. It was some kind of monstrous sea urchin, deep black, with the exception of a beak that resembled a bird of prey, bone white and large enough to encompass a human head. The creature was bathing in a viscous substance that looked like colorless jelly, feebly waving dozens of long thorn-like appendages that emerged from its body.

  Characters appeared on the solid transparent wall, forming words in an unknown language. Mallory touched the navcom she always wore on her wrist and a translation appeared in her vision:

  ENTRUST YOUR BAD MEMORIES TO THE NEUROLITH. HE WILL KEEP THEM FOR YOU AND EASE YOUR MIND.

  COMPATIBILITY GUARANTEED FOR REGULIANS, HUMANS, AND GIBRALS.

  Mallory considered the idea. She would gladly get rid of anything that pertained to Vassili. Squish let out a high-pitched chirp, indicating how little he thought of this type of service. With a caress, she reassured him about her intentions.

  The moment of weakness passed quickly. The aquatic alien and its vat forgotten, she dragged Torg along with her once again, eager to follow Vassili.