by Greig Beck
“Oh, yeah.” Mitch turned to scan the tree line, his gun lifted.
“Okay, get it down Yuri, and let’s drag it back. I’m very interested to see what our passenger looks like.” Carter gave him space.
Mitch bent closer and peered in at the wolf’s head. “Just like the bear; looks dead.”
“Yeah, not exactly the most lively of creatures, is it?” Carter said.
Yuri cut down the net and it fell in a heap in front of them. He grabbed the lead rope, keeping it taut and the purse-end of the net closed tight. Carter also called Red back in to lend a hand.
“Everyone grab hold.” Yuri started to drag the 120-pound animal, leaving a rut in the snow.
It took them 30 minutes to maneuver the animal down to the mill house laboratory where Sara was waiting for them. Once inside, they used the hoist to lift it over the open cage. Timing was going to be everything—they needed to tip it, open the net, and let the animal fall into the fortified cage, and then quickly seal it, all seamlessly.
“Well done.” Her eyes were wide as she stared at the wolf.
“Good to see I can still attract something at my age.” Carter grinned.
“I still think you’re an idiot.” She turned to give him a half-smile. “But good job.”
The animal, still in its netting, was lowered into the cage, and Carter was waiting to slam the lid closed when the net was removed. Mitch waited with a long steel pole to give it some encouragement to behave. Behind them, Anna, Nikolay, and Stefan watched with wide eyes.
“Ready?” Yuri asked.
Carter looked into the hanging bag of netting. The wolf’s head was turned to him, and its milky eyes still staring, seemingly sightless, but he felt it was watching him closely.
Carter gripped the cage top and braced himself. “On my 3… 2… 1… go!”
Yuri cut the netting, and the tight loop rapidly opened. The wolf began to fall, and it immediately spasmed. Its legs began to kick and then spread as though trying to stop itself falling fully into the cage. For a few seconds, it looked like it was going to be caught up, but Carter reached out a hand and punched down on it, forcing it in through the cage top.
The wolf fell with a thump and lay like a corpse. Carter slammed the top shut, locked it, and then jumped down and backed up with the others. He stood breathing hard, hands on hips.
“Well done, everyone.”
“Something else to tell my kids—I caught a monster,” Mitch said through his smile.
Carter grinned. “You’re having kids?”
“Yeah, one day.” Mitch looked indignant. “Just need to find a woman who’s smart, good looking… oh, and rich.”
“If I was you, I’d just settle for desperate.” Carter grinned and slapped his shoulder. He looked back at the wolf lying in the cage. “So, now what?”
“Magnificent,” Mikhail said, keeping his eyes on the beast and rubbing his hands together. He crouched to get a better perspective.
As if sensing him, the wolf finally came upright and sat on its haunches staring straight ahead. The group slowly walked around it, examining what they could while staying several feet back from the cage bars. Even though the bars were woven with a finer mesh so nothing could poke through, no one trusted the creature.
“Creepy as fuck,” Mitch said as he stared into its face. “Those dead eyes.”
Anna craned forward. “After death, the eyes drain of blood and the pigments are also leached away. That’s what makes them look that milky blue-grey.”
“Like I said, creepy as fuck. It’s dead, but still looking at us.” Mitch straightened.
“We should kill it and burn it. Now, while we can.” Yuri’s voice was a menacing rumble.
“Gets my vote,” Mitch agreed. “Burn it all.”
“No, we have an opportunity to study it.” Mikhail scowled. “We need to take it.”
Nikolay got down at ground level and then grimaced. “I can see dried blood on its stomach. I think there might be the open wound there just like the bear.”
Mikhail lifted one of the hand-held UV lights and switched it on. He moved it over the beast and then on every corner of the cage. But the blacklight showed nothing.
“I think for now our friend is staying inside its nice, warm suit of fur.” He switched off the light.
“Then we need to coax it out,” Carter said. “We won’t learn anything new by staring at a huge wolf.”
“I agree. But I don’t want to damage it.” He scratched at his short beard for a moment. “Maybe it is shy from all the attention. Maybe we should switch off the overhead lights and leave the room—observe it from a distance.” He turned and raised an eyebrow to Carter.
Carter smiled and nodded. “I think you’re right. After all, it rushed me when my back was turned. Switch on the cameras and also the UV lights.” Carter looked back at the immobile creature. “Then we’ll see what happens.”
*****
The silent darkness now filled the room. The creature waited for many more minutes just sitting and watching, using the senses of the carrier being to inform it of its surroundings.
It sensed the bipeds were still in proximity, but not so close now. The confinement it found itself in was beyond its capability to break out of quickly. But not beyond its ability to escape if it exited the carrier. It knew it could also simply take another host once outside of the barrier.
It would be vulnerable, but only for a short period, as it knew it could survive for an extended time outside of its carrier host. But it wasn’t a problem, as there were many more creatures it could adopt when it got close to one. It simply needed to empty them to make room for itself.
Slowly, it withdrew its sensory feelers from the limbs and also drew back its eyestalks from the cranial cavity. Lastly, it released its hold on the torso flaps in the belly and they swung open to let the creature slide to the ground.
The rush of new sensations was abhorrent—it immediately felt the dryness and the sensation of weakness. But it wasn’t totally defenseless.
The being slowly began to patrol the outer edge of the cage, coming to one of the welded seams, pausing to examine it further. It began to work on the knob of welding solder holding the cage bars together.
CHAPTER 39
“You have got to be shitting me.” Mitch’s mouth hung open and he turned and pointed to the screen.
The creature looked a little like a caterpillar in that it was segmented and had a soft looking body. Two eyestalks were on one end with bulb-eyes that constantly moved independently of each other as it examined its surroundings. From its front, or possibly its mouth, small tentacles waved and flexed.
Mikhail grinned like a schoolboy, and Anna beamed as she pushed in below everyone else to stare at the video feed from the makeshift containment room.
Sara began to speak softly. “Multipedal, binocular vision, segmented, perhaps with a form of chitinous armor, but also has tendril-like motility filaments or, limbs, or maybe they’re something else entirely.”
Anna beamed. “It’s so… alien.”
“It’s a fucking nightmare,” Mitch said. “That thing was in the wolf’s body driving it around.”
“And inside the bear,” Carter said.
“And also in Dmitry,” Nikolay added softly.
“But is it the same one?” Mitch looked at Carter.
“It doesn’t matter; it is an abomination,” Yuri replied.
Carter noticed for the first time that the big Russian held some sort of talisman in his hands and rubbed a thumb against it as he watched the monitor.
“Perhaps and perhaps not. It is strange and that’s all. It has been created in a place far different from here, and so reflects the biology and evolution of wherever that is.” Mikhail began to scribble notes in a small pad. “Perhaps to it, we are the abomination.”
“No, I agree with Yuri; that thing in there is the abomination.” Carter felt his stomach flip a little as he looked at it. It was only around two and a
half feet long, up on about a dozen spindly legs.
Stefan looked queasy. “Do you think… it is intelligent?”
Behind the creature lay the wolf, immobile and seeming deflated. Anyone coming across it would believe it was just like any other dead animal, desiccated and beginning to decay.
Except the skin flaps of its chest and stomach were opened out like a door left ajar, waiting for the occupant to return.
“Intelligent? Possibly,” Mikhail answered.
Mitch snorted. “How? It’s just a fucking big bug.”
Sara was wide-eyed. “See down its back? I think that dark mass running down like a spinal cord is a form of brain stem. If I’m right, then given its overall size, the brain to body ratio is far superior to humans. After all, we think it came here in some sort of craft, right?”
“Right, so definitely an intelligent species,” Anna said softly. “We just need to work out the best way to communicate with it.”
“Impossible,” Nikolay whispered.
“No, if both species are intelligent and want to communicate, then it must be possible.” Anna turned to Mikhail. “One of us should go in there.”
Mikhail held up a hand. “We need to think about this.”
She grimaced impatiently. “This is the greatest opportunity mankind has had since….”
“The Aztecs encountered Cortez,” Carter finished. “And got wiped out.”
“No, that’s not what I meant, and I don’t believe that,” Anna said a little breathlessly. “Think of what it could tell us.”
“I agree it is an enormous opportunity. But with enormous risks.” Mikhail raised an eyebrow. “So, the question is, how do we talk to it?”
“Mathematics, geometry, symbols, lights… we can try anything and everything,” Anna said, her words pouring out in a rush.
“I guess it’s like you said: if it wants to understand, it will.” Nikolay joined them.
Mikhail nodded thoughtfully. “Have either of you ever heard of a Polish philosopher and writer by the name of Stanislaw Lem?”
Anna shook her head, and the older scientist went on.
“He postulated that communication between alien species might deliver nothing but frustration.” He turned to look at her. “It’s not just the words and dialogue, but the very thought processes might be so different to our own as to be incomprehensible.”
Mikhail continued to watch the strange being. It now seemed to be examining a single place on the bars of the cage, the two eyestalks with their bulb ends bent forward as long legs tapped against the metal.
“Fascinating,” Mikhail said.
“What do you say to something like that?” Nikolay asked.
“What could we say?” Mikhail turned. “To return to Stanislaw Lem, in one of his examples, he brings up the point that in every known human language, we would be able to translate a message, say something as simple as, ‘My grandmother is dead. Her funeral is on Wednesday.’ As well as being translated, it will be understood, right?”
Anna nodded.
“But this translation is only possible because biologically and culturally, we share the same reference points needed to understand the words. You see, we humans all die, so we understand death, and therefore funerals. We reproduce between two sexes, so have mothers and fathers and also grandmothers, so we know what a grandmother is. Plus, we all mark the passing of time in terms of the dark and light periods caused by the rotation of our planet.”
He kept his eyes on the unearthly being. “But now try and imagine an alien from a world of permanent darkness, so it has no days. And reproduces asexually like an amoeba. Therefore, it would have no parents or grandmother, so it would have no concept of what one is, let alone have any attachment to one. And just think, beings that divided at the end of their life rather than dying and decomposing would not even understand the notion of death and especially of funerals.”
Anna folded her arms. “So you’re saying we can’t, so we shouldn’t even try?”
“No, no, we can try. I’m just marking out the expectations we should have.” Mikhail turned to Carter. “Mr. and Mrs. Stenson, what do you think we should do?”
Carter’s jaw was set as he looked at the weird creature. He turned to the older man. “There’s an old saying about how wolves don’t waste time negotiating with sheep.” Carter drew in a breath and looked back at the thing, and then to Sara. “Right now, I feel we’re the sheep.”
Sara nodded. “After Dmitry, my first instinct is to kill it, immediately. But, there may be more of them out there. As a scientist, I say that for now, we’ve got it in a cage, and we put it there so we could get a look at it and analyze it. But can we manage it?” She looked up into Carter’s face. “Carter, you manage risks. Can we control it?”
Carter looked across from Red to Mitch. “We’re soldiers, and right now, we see this thing as an adversary. So I want to know its weaknesses and strengths, and an effective way to eradicate it, or them. While it’s alive, we observe it, and you guys can try and speak to it if you want. And when it’s dead, we cut it up and find out what makes it tick.”
Mitch nodded his approval but then frowned. “Hey, what are you going to feed it?”
Carter looked back at the cage, immediately wondering how long it would survive—it was a good question.
“I have a theory on that,” Mikhail said. “My suspicions are that the bodies they, inhabit, they also use for sustenance. That’s why they dry out and necrotize so quickly; they’re draining them as they inhabit them.”
Yuri groaned and rubbed his face.
“Oh, poor Dmitry.” Nikolay turned away and started to gag. He slapped a hand over his mouth and rushed from the room.
“Aw Jesus, doc, that is fucked up.” Mitch’s lips turned down. “They’re moving the bodies around and eating them at the same time? Damn.”
“Please, please,” Mikhail said. “Remember, they may be as different to us, as we are to…”
He seemed to be searching around for an example, so Carter gave him one.
“Sheep.”
Anna spun back. “No, they just don’t yet know that we humans have a sophisticated civilization.” She rounded on Mikhail. “I want to go in… by myself,” she declared.
“No chance,” Carter intervened. “Somehow, one of those things, or that very thing, disemboweled Dmitry and wore him out of his cabin like a suit of clothing. We don’t yet know how it did that. I cannot allow you to be in there unprotected.”
“I won’t be; it’s in a steel cage of bars and mesh and you’re right here in the next room.” She turned to look at the monitor of the creature still investigating the bars on the cage. “I think if we all go in there, it’ll retreat into the wolf, and we’ll learn nothing. But it might not if just a single person goes in. Someone needs to gain its trust.”
“I’m against this,” Sara said. “I’m for observing it, but from a safe distance.”
Mikhail’s mouth was turned down and he folded his arms. “Science is about taking risks, not staying safe.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Carter’s mouth dropped open.
The Russian scientist turned to him. “We must know. We must try.”
“Sorry, I can’t allow it.” Sara came and stood beside Carter.
Mikhail nodded. “Please remember, you called us, Mrs. Stenson. And though this is your business, this is our jurisdiction. In this, we outrank you.”
“Then I’m the one who should go in there,” Carter declared.
“Carter.” Sara scowled.
“No.” Anna held her hand up flat. “I’m the smallest and least intimidating.”
Nikolay eased up closer to Anna. “I would like to be in there with you. Just to help you.”
She smiled and shook her head. “Thank you, Nikolay. But I should go in first. I’ll stay well back from the cage, and the creature cannot get out.”
“What do you need?” Mikhail asked.
She shrugged. “Flashlight, w
hiteboard, and pens to draw geometric shapes.” She smiled up at him. “And my wits. That’s it.”
Mikhail took one last look at the screen and then stood back. “Let her through.”
“This is a really dumb idea,” Mitch said.
“I agree, and I’m putting on record that I’m against this,” Carter said and waited for a second or two, but saw nothing but steely resolve in the young scientist’s eyes. He grabbed the door handle ready to open it, but holding it closed while he continued to look at Anna who had all her equipment under one arm and a large pillow under the other. “That thing makes one aggressive move, and it’s toast.”
She half-smiled. “Welcome to our world, spaceman.”
“That ain’t no spaceman,” Mitch said from behind her. “You got that bit about it gutting people, didn’t you? Oh yeah, and also draining them like a can of soda.”
Anna ignored him, and her face became calm. “I’m ready.”
Carter turned to his men. “Red, cover us from the outer room. I don’t want this thing silently calling to its buddies.”
The big man had been staying well back and his jaw was set. “On it.” He racked his gun and left.
Carter stared back in through the glass panel at the thing, which had moved its investigation to the top of the cage and once again to the steel bars.
“Good luck,” he said and pushed the door open.
CHAPTER 40
It was just gone midnight when Arkady Tushino waved the trucks into the shoreline a mile down from the mill house compound. The three vehicles were jammed with two dozen men. All of the bratva soldiers he had chosen were experienced and ruthless, and they could be trusted to carry out his orders to the letter.
The trucks would wait, and not for long, as they expected the entire operation to be over within a single day. He’d split his 24-strong army into three teams—two teams would approach from the left and right flanks of the mill compound, with one objective: flush out Carter Stenson and take him down.
This order had one caveat—his face must not be marked. This was because Tushino needed the head intact and recognizable.