Aldebaran Divided

by Philippe Mercurio

  “You know, Torg won’t always be there to watch over you. You have to learn to control yourself.”

  He released her, looking a bit distant. Mallory could see he was terribly worried about Alrine.

  Even in their worst moments on Kenval, when they were in prison or facing an army of mutants, she had never seen him so down.

  Not feeling guilty was proving to be a daunting task. If she hadn’t had that fling with Vassili, she wouldn’t have triggered the chain of events that led to the kidnapping of Laorcq and the policewoman. There’s no lack of humans on Solicor. I could have tried to find a guy who was both good-looking AND harmless.

  Shuddering with disgust, she remembered the operation that had resulted from her night of distraction. Had she slept with a man or a…

  Unable to complete this thought, she felt her stomach turn over.

  Vassili had crossed through five portals. After carefully reviewing the map of the network between the asteroids, he had selected a route that avoided the busy areas. He had nevertheless run into the Saharj twice. He had killed them easily, but the warrior-aliens’ collective consciousness would quickly become aware of the corpses.

  If they realized how dangerous he had become, they were likely to launch all of the docked ships. His superior strength would be of no use to him then. He had to reach a vessel as soon as possible.

  He glanced at the map and decided to take a detour. A note about one of the areas had aroused his interest. He approached the dark portal with the small disk containing the map in hand. With his index finger, he rotated the holographic projection and selected an asteroid on the outskirts that had only one portal as his destination.

  Before him, the portal seemed to change texture before stabilizing again. He stepped through the dark, mirrored surface without hesitation. A few dizzying seconds later, he found himself in an industrial complex.

  The place where he now stood was so large that he could barely encompass it with his gaze. Endless rows of metal tanks enclosed in a monstrous steel structure that extended up for several levels. They were bordered by a crisscrossing of wide walkways. The whole scene looked like the inside of a gigantic beehive. He understood immediately. “Incubators!”

  There were thousands, or even tens of thousands. A faint smile twisted Vassili’s attractive features: he had been correct. The Saharj didn’t really reproduce; they manufactured new generations.

  The modified human slipped between the rows of tanks. They were equipped with portholes through which he could see Saharj in various stages of development. Some were very close to adulthood. This intrigued Vassili: if they completed their growth stage in an incubator, then there must be a process for developing their intellectual abilities. What good is a fully functional body that contains an immature mind? Unless the Saharj gestalt took care of this. An interesting theory, which nevertheless didn’t quite hang together: his interactions with them had proved to him that they had real autonomy. The collective entity was thus the combination of a multitude of consciences and not an overall will driving every individual. Caring for helpless newborns wouldn’t be very effective. Vassili was missing something, and he was determined to discover what it was.

  As he moved deeper into the incubator complex, he observed the fetuses and tiny embryos. He had to admit that the idea of using them to control the Gibrals was genius. If not for the humans working for the Vohrn, the Saharj would have achieved their goal, and the Aldebaran system would be ablaze.

  In his peripheral vision, a sudden movement caught his attention: he had been spotted. Three Saharj rushed toward him, armed with curved blades.

  They moved along different levels of the metal structure supporting the tanks. Two were above him, and the third was even with him.

  Vassili let this one approach. He could have killed him quickly, but he wanted the others to reach him as well. For a few seconds, he managed to make the Saharj think he had the upper hand. He simply avoided the knife blade, without counterattacking, as if that took all of his attention. Above them, the two other aliens prepared to jump to the lower level to help their comrade.

  Vassili attacked with a single blow. While the Saharj he was fighting tried to reach him with the tip of the blade, he dodged with a sudden rotation of his torso and jumped on it. He stiffened the fingers of his right hand and plunged them into the alien’s mouth with such violence that they emerged through the back of his skull. Just as abruptly, he released the body and tore away the dagger as it fell.

  He looked up at the other Saharj, who hesitated on the steps. He raised his arm and threw the knife he was holding at the furthest alien. The blade hit it in the face and ran through it like a large caliber bullet.

  The surviving Saharj decided to retreat. Vassili flexed his legs and jumped to the upper level. He caught up with the fugitive in a split second and fell on it. Once he had wrestled the alien to the ground, he pressed a knee into its back and raised his fist to deliver a savage blow to his victim’s neck. The impact broke bones and tore flesh, and the human’s phalanxes ripped a gouge in the composite slab of the bridge. Nearly decapitated, the Saharj died and fell still in a widening pond of blue hemoglobin.

  Vassili rose and went on his way as calmly as if he had just disposed of some cockroaches. He reached his destination: the console overlooking the huge assembly of incubators. Ignoring the traces of blood he was leaving on the controls, he breeched the monstrous nursery’s data network. Using the disk he had ripped from the Saharj who had imprisoned him, he was able to impersonate it to bypass the security measures. A complex 3D projection dotted with Saharj writing appeared before him.

  He quickly understood the entire process for producing Saharj. The biological part of the process was moderately interesting: it combined a bit of cloning and genetic splicing to counteract stochasticity. Nothing new to at least a dozen species, including humans.

  However, the method used by the Saharj to accelerate the newborns’ development caught his attention. Instead of bothering to manufacture or import memories, they instead manipulated the early stages of the creatures’ growth, arranging the neurons, synapses, and other elements that constituted the equivalent of the cortex.

  The artificial beings were loaded with preprogrammed minds: language, martial arts, and a set of ready-to-use reflexes.

  Once the individual was released from its tank, properly applied stimuli “activated” these brain areas. Within six hours, a young Saharj became capable of independent movement and basic speech. To this was added the strong clan instincts of a species with a common consciousness. Within three days, they mastered language and a martial art. After three weeks, they were ready to be assigned to adult responsibilities.

  It was the perfect foundation for building a highly disciplined and trained army in a few months.

  “Just what I need!” rejoiced Vassili, scanning the thousands of drawings, reports, and charts.

  Like his body, his memory been enhanced by the ktol. A brief glance at a document was sufficient for him to be able to remember all of the information it contained.

  When he had finished, Vassili left quickly. The alarm had certainly been given by now, and he no longer had much time to reach a ship before the Saharj took drastic measures.

  Accompanied by a group of Dva, Mallory crept along a narrow passageway cluttered with pipes and equipment supporting the asteroid belt’s ecosystem. She tried not to worry too much about Laorcq. Once he had been informed of the Vohrns’ imminent arrival, his attitude had almost returned to normal. However, she wasn’t fooled, suspecting that Laorcq would now focus on his goal to the neglect of everything else. That’s what he had done when he decided to capture Morsak, the crooked CEO responsible for the murder of his wife and son. This approach to overcoming self-pity was not necessarily ideal: if he failed to save Alrine, Mallory feared he would suffer a complete collapse.

  She forced herself to think about the present moment. Wanting to help their comrade was fine, but for now, they
were still prisoners on the belt. The Saharj were numerically superior and had better equipment than the Vohrn had expected. The arrival of the Urkein’Naak could easily lead to disaster.

  The only positive fact was a significant improvement in the humans’ circumstances: thanks to a serum and discrete adjustments in the composition of the air in the asteroids, they no longer needed breathing masks. Laorcq—who had received the treatment when he had been released—and then Mallory, had been able to gradually adapt to the local atmosphere over a period of about six hours.

  She called out to the Dva trotting in front of her. “Rupo?”

  Now that she could converse with the threadlike aliens, she was trying to learn as much as possible about their environment and never missed an opportunity to talk to her new friend.

  He stopped and turned his cluster of yellow eyes toward her.

  “Do you know how many Saharj live in the belt?” she asked him.

  His thin voice was relayed by Mallory’s navcom-necklace.

  “One hundred sixty million.”

  Not many, compared to the billions of Gibrals, she thought, before remembering that all were soldiers specially designed for combat.

  “We, the Dva, are more numerous! Nearly two hundred fifty million.”

  Rupo seemed to consider this point and its implications. Mallory refrained from tamping down his enthusiasm: a Saharj could easily overcome a dozen Dva.

  She had to find a way to even out the odds a bit, preferably before the Urkein’Naak arrived. She had discussed the issue with Laorcq, and the answer had been clear.

  “We have to sabotage the portals,” the tall, scarred man concluded. “Most of the Saharj will be trapped, isolated from each other.”

  That’s why Mallory found herself tromping through the belt’s maintenance tunnels with a small group of Dva.

  The portal network had two nerve centers. They were the equivalent of “nodes” through which all portals crossed. Although both were continuously functioning, the network could operate with only one. Therefore, they had to take both of them down at the same time.

  Laorcq, also accompanied by Dva, was heading to the second node. The pilot put her hand to her neck and grasped her navcom, then immediately let go. She was being ridiculous: she wanted to contact Laorcq again although she had just spoken to him ten minutes ago. She muttered under her breath. “Fuck. Off.”

  She had to stop letting her thoughts gallivant around wildly in her head. If she didn’t, she might get skewered by a Saharj before she even saw it.

  Crouching behind her, Torg growled. “This maintenance tunnel never ends! I’m starting to feel claustrophobic.”

  She glanced back. Her bodyguard had gotten into the habit of carrying the jufinol on his shoulders. The two had progressively become accomplices. They must have heard her swearing and were trying to distract her. She welcomed the diversion with pleasure.

  “No surprise! I’m not claustrophobic, but I also feel oppressed. Hold on, we’re almost there. One more portal and you get to romp.”

  Squish let out a chirp of encouragement, directed as much at Mallory as the cybrid.

  The group finally arrived at the last portal. The inky opening seemed like a mouth ready to swallow them whole. Once on the other side, things would escalate quickly.

  The plan was simple: the Dva would sabotage the node, in complete contradiction of the purpose for which they had been created centuries ago.

  Mallory reached behind her and wrapped her fingers around the grip of a hypertrophic revolver. It was the only object the Dva had been able to retrieve from the Sirgan without being noticed. With Torg’s help, and armed with the weapon, the pilot would have to keep the Saharj busy in order to give the little aliens time to take over the node.

  Similarly equipped, Laorcq would play the same role at the other node. The motley troupe stopped. A dark expanse stood in front of them: they had reached their destination.

  Rupo turned to Mallory, seeking her approval. She nodded and then, fearing he wouldn’t understand, added, “Let’s go!”

  All of the Dva went first. Their arrival in the node wouldn’t surprise any Saharj who saw them, unlike the presence of a human and a cybrid. Finally, they entered the last portal.

  After the familiar split second of nausea, Mallory arrived in a huge space, so big she thought she was in the open on a planet and not at the heart of an asteroid. Far ahead of them, a ball so black it absorbed light sat on top of a steel tower. Thousands of dark lines emerged from the sphere and disappeared into the rock walls.

  A feeling of freezing cold flooded through Mallory, rising from her feet to her waist. Looking down, she realized that she was half immersed in bright red liquid, as viscous as water. “What is…”

  She left the sentence unfinished. In the distance, she spotted the Dva, who were making rapid progress. They moved through the vast scarlet plain, undulating like snakes, their thin limbs held tight against their bodies.

  “Oh crap!” she said. “They could have warned us. How are we going to keep up with them?”

  Mallory already imagined herself shaking the licorice-stick alien until his twenty eyes fell out of his head.

  Torg touched her shoulder with a thick finger. “Climb on my back. You can decide how to kill Rupo once the node is offline.”

  A little embarrassed that Torg had seen through her so easily, Mallory hastened to follow his suggestion. Despite the weight of both the pilot and the jufinol, the cybrid took off after the spindly aliens at a fast clip. The red fluid barely reached his knees and didn’t really impede his progress.

  He was beginning to gain some ground on the Dva when Mallory’s navcom-necklace made a screeching sound accompanied by a slight vibration.

  She picked up the small cube and established communications with Jazz.

  “Captain! We’ve got a big problem. The Dva searched the Saharj data network and found something bad.”

  A wave of fear washed over Mallory. The situation wasn’t great to begin with—there was no need to add insult to injury! “Go ahead, tell me…”

  “Vassili didn’t come here empty-handed. Someone gave him a ‘gift’ for the big walking corpses. A weapon powerful enough to defeat a Vohrn cruiser.”

  XXII

  SPACE

  MALLORY was perched on Torg’s shoulders with the jufinol in her arms. He moved briskly through the expanse of red liquid, kicking up waves of the stuff with each step. To the pilot’s relief, the depth of the strange sea didn’t seem to vary much.

  Before them, the Dva reached the tower and stepped onto a kind of pontoon. They finally seemed to notice their new comrades struggling through the liquid to keep up with them, and they began to hop up and down in encouragement.

  Almost drowned out by the splashing sounds, Jazz continued his report through Mallory’s navcom.

  “I have incomplete data on the weapon’s technology. Rather than studying it, the Saharj immediately installed it on one of their ships. One thing is certain—even if we think their estimates of its firepower are optimistic, it’s still enough to cause massive damage, even to something the size of the Urkein’Naak.”

  “Did you tell Laorcq?”

  “No, give me a second to contact him.”

  Once the soldier was online, Jazz gave him the update. For once, the scarred man lost his composure and let out a string of curses. He seemed out of breath, as if he had just run a marathon.

  The pilot guessed the reason. “You had to cross the red sea?”

  “It’s green here,” he clarified. “A large plain, smooth as a pool, about three feet deep. I had to swim to keep up with the Dva!”

  Mallory lied with aplomb. “Yeah, me too.”

  They returned to the main problem. Jazz’s news couldn’t have been worse. It was no surprise that Vassili was working for an unknown agent, but it was a bad sign that he had given such a powerful weapon to the Saharj.

  “If he provided them with such heavy-duty artillery, his
patron must still have even greater destructive capacity in reserve,” explained Laorcq. “One never shares one’s best assets, with allies or anyone else!”

  Mallory had trouble conceiving of such a frightening potential for death—it seemed impossible.

  “Technology more powerful than the Vohrn? No species is that advanced. Even the Merchants of Altair are weaklings compared to them.”

  “Officially, anyway. Our employers must have made enemies who prefer to lurk in the shadows, using people like Vassili to do their dirty work.”

  As she listened to Laorcq from the other end of the asteroid belt, Mallory imagined him gazing up at a tower identical to the one looming over her. As clearly as if she were at his side, she saw him indulging in his favorite tic: rubbing his chin to scratch his three-day beard.

  He continued, “I’ve always wondered how Morsak managed to build the monstrosity we fought on Kenval. After all, none of his laboratories had previously created anything exceptional, and he used them primarily as cover for his drug trafficking. He must have also been in cahoots with Vassili’s boss.”

  “That makes sense,” the pilot agreed. “That’s probably why Hanosk decided to set up teams like ours: he’s trying to turn the tables on their adversaries.”

  “Well done, Captain!” Jazz said approvingly. “On the other hand, this is no time for theories: this horrible weapon is going to destroy our headless friends as soon as they get here!”

  “Calm down,” Laorcq said soothingly. “Could we sabotage it? Knocking the portal network out of service is still our best option.”

  Torg reached the jetty where the Dva had assembled. Mallory got down from his back and felt the metal structure through the soles of her boots.

  She continued, “I already wasn’t thrilled with this plan. I don’t like the idea of being stuck in one of these asteroids, waiting for the Vohrn to save us. But now…”