Deep Hydra

by Michael Formichelli

  “We shouldn’t be bothering with this nonsense,” Boa muttered.

  Sanul moved his double-jointed knees back and forth as he fidgeted. “I managed to decipher part of the feed from the spy grain Baroness Cronus had you put in Revenant Tower.”

  Cygni’s heart skipped a beat. She searched his large, geode-like eyes.

  “I—” he hesitated, his tiny, wing-like ears flicked at the bottom of his horns.

  “What?” She frowned.

  “Okay, sorry. I just am worried about your reaction. Here is the feed.” He connected to her implant.

  “What do you mean about my reaction?” She told her PLIA to accept the stream. A progress circle appeared in the upper right side of her vision.

  His nostrils flared. “It involves them.”

  “The VoQuana,” Ila said.

  “You’ve seen it?” She felt her blood chill. Since that night in AgroWorlds Tower the thought of seeing the emaciated creatures made her feel like she was falling inside herself.

  Niu nodded.

  “Okay.” She took a few breaths. “I can take it. I can.”

  “Are you sure?” Ila put a hand on her shoulder.

  “I’ll be okay.” She shuddered again, feeling dizzy. The shadows seemed to deepen around her.

  [Connection complete] her PLIA stated.

  “Cygni?” Ila asked.

  She waved nium off. Play it.

  Her perspective shifted.

  She was standing in a grassy field with a panorama of stars above her. At first she thought she was on a planet, but she noticed the grass met the sky about fifty meters in front of her and there was nothing but stars past that point. She tried to look around but found her field of view was not under her own control.

  “I’ve had to accelerate my plans,” she heard a deep, honeyed voice say. The source of the sound was right on top of her—no, it is me, she realized. The recording was made from Revenant’s perspective.

  “Do you expect that to affect me? It sounds like your problem.” The reply came in hissing tones.

  Her field of vision rotated as Revenant turned. The ghostly hologram of a tall, willowy humanoid with an inverted-teardrop-shaped head, and long, flowing black hair came into view. Cygni felt her body tense even through the somatic feed.

  The VoQuana was female, and rail-thin, with slight breasts and no hips. Her large, black eyeballs held rings of neon-green sparks that seemed to pulse with unearthly power. Unlike the other VoQuana she had seen, this one had on a long, white robe that hung open down the front. The extensive circle and line tattoos covering her face touched every centimeter of her skin.

  “Some unexpected developments have forced me to return to the capital. I think I’m going to need your assistance since your man inconvenienced us by dying,” Revenant said.

  A muscle contracted on the VoQuana’s hairless brow ridge. “I have experienced Sinuthros’ hisshut. He did the job you assigned.”

  “He did the original job I assigned,” Revenant snapped. “He failed with the reporter.”

  A slow smile spread across the female’s pencil-thin lips. Cygni shuddered, realizing they were talking about her.

  “Is she causing you trouble?”

  “Nothing I can’t handle.”

  “Are you sure? Why are you contacting me? I am busy running your war.” The VoQuana’s laugh was a shrill sound with an edge resembling stones rubbing together. “You’ve made a mess of things and now you need me to clean it up?”

  “This isn’t funny, Allatu—”

  “Yes, it is. You’re human, you cannot help but be humorous to us.”

  There was a pause before he responded. “I didn’t make a mess of things, Sinuthros did. Cylus isn’t behaving according to the plan, and I don’t need your attitude about it; I need results. Are you going to come and fix his mistake or not? I need Cylus to do as expected. I need the reporter under control. If I fail, you fail.”

  “If you say so, Zalor.” Allatu licked her narrow lips with a slow, black tongue.

  There was a longer pause before Cygni heard him respond. “Well?”

  She shifted her weight and the rings of pulsing green sparks made a circuit of her glossy-black eyes. “Anything for the cause. Keeping the war going is busy work, but I can use a shakarib. When do you want to meet her?”

  “I have a signal to send, and then results to wait for. I will head to the capital after and message you when I arrive.”

  “Fine. There’s something else. I—”

  The feed cut.

  “What’s wrong?” Cygni asked, returning to herself. She was drenched in sweat and her heart was racing.

  “That’s the end of the decoded portion,” Sanul said. “The feed uses a rolling encryption, so every five to ten minutes of footage has to be decrypted with a separate cypher.”

  “My goddess, we have him.” She took in a deep breath, smelling the damp silica of the rock around them.

  “Do we?” Sanul asked with his small ears flicking at the base of his horns.

  “Conspiring with the VoQuana… This proves it! We may just get you all out of here soon after all,” she said.

  “It might be helpful to know the rest of the conversation,” Ila stated.

  “Yeah, of course, but we’ve got enough already.” She paused at the look Sanul gave her. “Look, keep at it after you get Dorsky’s assignment done if you want, but this is enough. The only thing better would be if we caught him in the act, maybe at this meeting they were talking about. Goddess, damn, this is good Sanul.”

  He blinked.

  Boa looked like she swallowed something bitter. Cygni gave her a look, but the woman remained quiet.

  “When was that message dated? Do we have that?” She was hardly able to contain herself. Finally, they had something after all of their sacrifices.

  “A little over a standard interval ago,” Sanul responded.

  “And what is a hissut?”

  “Hisshut,” Ila corrected. “It is hard to explain, but I think the closest term in Solan would be a set of memories.”

  She nodded. “So, this Allatu knows what Sinuthros knew? How could that be? He is dead.”

  “If he was near enough to other VoQuana at the time they would retain an echo of his mind. His hisshut could be retrieved from that,” Ila said.

  “But there weren’t any others there—” she stopped herself. Did she really know that? There could have been some hiding outside the greenhouse, or on the floor below. She licked her dry lips. “Never mind. There was another term in that recording I didn’t know. What is a shakareeb?”

  “A shakarib,” Ila made the last vowel sound shorter than she did. “I do not know. In VoQuanese it means a stand-in, something like a puppet. How was it used?”

  “Allatu said she would use one to meet Baron Revenant here in the capital when he arrives.”

  “Could it be some kind of drone?” Sanul asked.

  “The VoQuana do not use robots of that complexity,” Ila said.

  “Maybe it’s someone at the embassy?” Cygni asked. “Someone who will meet with Baron Revenant and then relay the information? Wait, can that telepathy stuff reach across lightyears?”

  “No, it is limited to within ten or twenty meters,” Ila said. “Well, that is what the stories indicate. I did not grow up in a VoQuana colony, so I have no direct experience.”

  She nodded, relieved in some way though she couldn’t say why. “So, it’s got to be someone on Kosfanter who will relay the information. Okay. Is there any way we can try and find out when that meeting will be?”

  “It might be later in the recording,” Sanul said. “I’ll look for that stuff.”

  “Thank you, Sanul, but it will have to wait.” Cygni touched the side of his long face with her fingers. “Dorsky wants us to find out how it is Baron Keltan was able to block Revenant’s loan to the treasury. In nine standard days it defaults, and the government will be unable to pay its debts. We have eight to figure this out and
undo it.”

  “I’ll get on it,” Sanul said.

  “Let me,” Ila cut in. “What he’s doing is more important.”

  Cygni gave nium a look.

  “This is something I can do,” Niu stuck out niur chin.

  She nodded. Ila was right. “Okay, but only if you can do it safely and stay out of sight. We can’t have the Praetor getting you.”

  “Of course, Haem Cygni.” Ila paused. “Will you be looking for Biren?”

  She sighed. “Yeah, I’ll find him.”

  “Thank you.” Ila held niur arms out.

  Cygni raised hers and stroked Ila’s from niur elbows to niur palms.

  She turned to look at Boa again. “I will find him. I promise.”

  “We’ll see,” came the response.

  Chapter Four

  Venus, Sol System

  J2400:3190-3196

  Framed by the shuttle window, the landscape of Venus raced past in golds, browns, and reds. Ichiro watched it through the faint specter of his own reflection in the polyglass. The landscape was beautiful. Barren of soil and sand, there were long stretches of fused stone plains punctuated by the rise of ancient mountains giving him the impression he was an ant in a giant’s rock garden. As majestic as the scenery of humanity’s capital world was, the more he stared the more he found himself looking into the pulsing green glow of his own eyes. They were like his beloved Setha’s as a result of the gift of Cephalon nanomachines she bestowed upon him. He wondered if he could really call them his own anymore. The humans of old once believed that eyes were the windows into the soul. If his eyes were no longer his, what did that mean?

  Tengu, her brown and tan cerberai, lay on the floor of the shuttle between the rows of seats yawning and looking sleepy.

  Off in the distance a wall of bronze-colored stone rose from the earth spanning the horizon from end to end. The sight of it pulled him from his thoughts and he leaned forward against the glass.

  “The Hestia Rupes.” Europa moved from her seat, and stepping over Tengu, slid into the one beside him. Her hip pressed into his, and she leaned in so her torso pressed against him. Her arms surrounded him, and her hands found their way to the window frame on either side of his head.

  Tengu looked up and snorted.

  “It’s one of the many features that we love about our home world,” Enéas said from the seat across the aisle.

  He and his sister, Europa LeRoux, were both tall, with athletic builds and muscles that seemed to ripple beneath their pale, gray skin. Their faces sported vivid-blue eyes, identical upturned noses, and cleft chins. With their blond hair buzz-cut in the same style they could be male and female versions of the same person. Though they wore the red and green of their father’s House, the three white lines of his rested on their shoulders above the double-helix of their own. He had to wonder for how long they could continue their dual-loyalty. If all went according to plan the question would be moot, but if not…

  “It is impressive.” Ichiro was taken with the sight and ignored the waves of infatuation coming off the twins. He looked out towards the foot of the escarpment where the land changed from arid brown to the vibrant green and gold of genetically engineered grasses. There was a broad stream running through it fed by a waterfall which plunged thousands of meters into a fine mist nurturing the plain below.

  “Father’s villa has the good fortune of resting on top,” Enéas said.

  “The view is breathtaking. We can see all the way to Astarte.” Europa cited the official name for the City of Gold and Sand, the capital of the human republic. “It is more so when you consider how much effort it took to terraform this world from a hell to a garden. Did you know this planet used to have a surface more than four-times hotter than boiling water?”

  “Amazing what some engineered microorganisms and a network of aegis satellites can do,” her brother said.

  Up in the cockpit Commander Valhalla Armstrong turned her head to look back through its open door. White, vein-like scars flowed in puckered rivers down her face and body. They were obtained in the same battle where he earned his black-plated cybernetic arm. They should have healed, especially after multiple nanomed treatments, but the scars were as tough as the woman sporting them. It was Nero Graves that came to her aid when the Greeba tried to eat her on Elmorus—the same Nero Graves aboard the Abyssian ship that destroyed his home world. Did Nero have anything to do with it? It didn’t seem possible, and yet doubt remained in his heart.

  Her eyes caught Ichiro’s and rolled in their sockets.

  “It is an impressive achievement.” Europa gave her a stern look.

  “Absolutely,” she responded. He felt her amusement battering against her self-control.

  The twins frowned in unison.

  “You know of something more impressive than the ingenuity it took to make this place?” Enéas asked.

  “Not sayin’ I do, jus’ that turning a boiling desert into a burning one ain’ among the list of things I consider truly impressive.”

  “And what do you consider, ‘truly impressive?’” Europa asked with a note of challenge. She tilted her head to the side, awaiting Armstrong’s response.

  Ichiro leaned back, watching while he stroked Tengu between the ears. He was here on Venus to allow the LeRoux twins to fulfill the promise they made to him on Phykor. In the time it took for his family’s official FTL vessel, the CSS Musashi-maru, to arrive in his home system he considered many options for how to save the Shiragawa-Zaibatsu and his people. With their home world a blackened cinder he needed help more desperately than he could have imagined.

  “Sure, a lot of technological tricks went into this landscape, but it was all done from the safety of a control board. There was no real risk in it.”

  “A typical answer from a meathead mercenary,” Enéas said and shared a nod with his sister.

  “It’s not that I can’ appreciate that, but you asked if it impressed me, not if I didn’ appreciate it. Impressing me is about rememberin’ that you’re not what matters on the field, and that your buddies do. Nero gettin’ me off that roof with the Greeba swarming around us; that’s what I’m talking about.” She shrugged and turned back to the shuttle controls.

  “Who?”

  The twins rolled their eyes, but Ichiro nodded at her. Armstrong would’ve made a fine Taiumijin.

  They crossed the savanna to the edge of the Hestia Rupes. LeRoux’s villa was a relatively humble compound; a two-level square house with an open courtyard at the cliff’s edge. Fanning out around it was a small garden with a swimming pool and a large landing pad with several air-cars parked on its tarmac. The compound was contained by a low wall that looked more for show than any practical purpose. A narrow stream ran beneath it on the west side, cut through the garden, and plunged off the edge of the escarpment into a thin line of white mist.

  “T-821 request permission to land,” Armstrong said as she brought them in towards the pad. Ichiro saw there was just enough space to set the shuttle down at its edge beside a fancy Groombridge model limousine.

  “Permission granted,” came an automated response.

  Ichiro felt the twins’ anxiety as soon as the radio clicked off. He turned and saw they had the glazed eyes of beings in cybernetic conference with each other. What did they say about the reason they were on Phykor when they found him? Whatever it was he suspected it may have been to get away from their father. It did not bode well for their deal to save his people.

  Tengu made a sound that was something between a low growl and a sigh.

  So, you sense it too, he thought. It’s too late now to reconsider, though, isn’t it?

  The shuttle settled on its landing gear and hissed like a perturbed sea-serpent before dropping its ramp down to the tarmac. The heat and bright, beige light raced in before Ichiro was even out of his restraints. He stood up and waited while Armstrong and the twins exited.

  “Clear,” Armstrong shouted over the hum of the engines.

 
He followed Tengu after the cerberai trotted down the ramp with his tail in the air.

  They crossed the manicured lawn between the landing pad and the front door of the villa. Up close it felt even stranger to have such a green thing growing here in the midst of so many shades of brown. The contrast made the oasis of the LeRoux compound appear much more vibrant and out of place.

  The door parted before them. Ichiro and his entourage entered a large foyer with a two-story tall double-helix crystal at its center. To either side a stairway curved up to a balcony on the second floor. The domed skylight above rained beams of humanity’s first star on the sculpture’s twisting backbones. He was in the midst of admiring the effect when a tall man with stark blue eyes and silken blond hair appeared above them. He was as tall as the twins were, with bulging muscles beneath the finery of his clothing. Between the square jaw and the shape of his cheekbones the man could have been the twins’ older brother. He regarded them for a brief time before his eyes settled on Ichiro.

  “You survived the destruction of your home world. This is an unexpected surprise—especially since I was not informed you arrived in-system,” Baron LeRoux said with a glare at his offspring.

  Ichiro winced but the baron didn’t seem to notice. He decided against informing him they arrived on a stealthed FTL warship that was now in orbit.

  “I chose not to announce my survival, mostly on the advice of your children. They feel that keeping my continued existence a secret offers a better tactical advantage over my enemies.” They had the conversation on board his ship before coming to Venus. It pained him to leave his life-long adviser, Mamiya-san, thinking he was dead, but he saw the wisdom in their words.

  “Did they, now?” Baron LeRoux cocked an eyebrow at his children before turning back to him.

  He bowed. “Excuse the intrusion, Baron. I hope you can forgive me for barging in on your home.”

  “It is no intrusion, Baron Mitsugawa. You are quite welcome here, but they are not.” Baron LeRoux descended the stairs. The gold trim of his long, red and green robe rippled behind him.

  The twins cringed beneath his eyes. Each stared at the floor.