Encounters (The Spiral Slayers Book 1)

by Rusty Williamson

  Source: The Archive

  Two and a half months later…

  Youth and immortality! De Bella thought. He was in the capital alone in his office. He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. So far only 10 people knew about the miracle the Loud had performed on Adamarus. If the news got out, the masses would go crazy. He had to contain it, control it. “Youth and immortality,” he said softly into the empty office. More than anything else, he wanted it… wanted it for himself.

  His com unit buzzed and he looked at it. He knew who it was and he knew what he was going to be told. For almost three months, he had had Leewood try everything to open a dialog with the Loud with zero success. The damn ship just sat there completely unresponsive. He looked at the com unit with a resigned expression as it buzzed again. They were going to be forced into letting Adamarus open talks with the Loud and then later they’d somehow replace him. Again his com buzzed. Finally he answered it, “De Bella here.”

  On the other end Leewood said, “No response, sir.”

  “I see.” The congressman’s eyes drifted to the window. It looked across a park to the capital building. Three days of snow had created a winter wonderland but De Bella took no notice.

  “What do you want to try next?” Leewood asked.

  De Bella sighed, “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?” Leewood asked.

  “I can’t think of anything else to try, can you?”

  “No.”

  “Well…we’ll need to go ahead and let Adamarus communicate with them…at first anyway. You’re authorized to tell Adamarus about all the messages we’ve received from them.” Leewood said, “Okay,” and the congressman hung up.

  ---

  Many had heard Adamarus recount his strange dream which he only partially remembered: his wife and son, his friend Radin, and also many nurses and doctors. All this had filtered up to others who had come and questioned him about it. Eventually, someone decided that this might be much more than a dream and so Dr. Kallen came to him one day with many different experts: a hypnotist, interrogators, sketch artists and a computer graphics expert—all with security clearance to know about Adamarus. They told Adamarus that they wanted to place him under deep hypnosis in order to get all the details his mind retained of this dream. And they told him what they thought the dream might really be.

  Upon hearing their suspicions, Adamarus realized that he too had suspected the same so he agreed, but with one condition—that they bring those memories back to his conscious mind. The doctors countered with a compromise: they would allow him to access all that they learned from him under hypnosis, and then, if they thought it would be wise to give him back those memories, they would put him under again and it would be done. He agreed and they went to work at once.

  He went under easily and they took him to the deepest levels. Slowly they took him back in time. And when they reached it, they knew at once that they had been right. From his subconscious mind, Adamarus recounted everything in great detail. They got it all—from exactly what the Loud looked like, to how they moved and sounded. They got details about the inside of the ship and what various machines had looked like. Even if Adamarus had consciously remembered everything with complete clarity, they got details he didn’t realize he had.

  “Adamarus, what was behind the moving hills?”

  “Dark arches that stretched up as far as you could see.”

  “What else?”

  “That’s all.”

  “Think of those arches, Adamarus. Think about how they looked at the lowest level you see.”

  “Okay.”

  “What do you see?”

  “Dark arches.”

  “Good. And what do you see inside those arches, Adamarus?”

  “Another large room…one that lies beyond the arches.”

  “Good. And what do you see in that room beyond the arches?”

  “Video screens. Lots of video screens. They’re mounted on the ceiling, facing downward.”

  “Focus on the televisions. What do you see?”

  “I see two…no…three…all three of the news stations. A Talk show—the one called AM/PM.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No. Can’t quite see the other screens. They are angled away from me.”

  “What do you see under the televisions?”

  “Darkness.”

  “And what is below the darkness?”

  “Hills. Vast numbers of hills – the moving hills. They are watching.”

  “You mean hills like the ones around you, in the room that you are in?”

  “Yes, the same.”

  “These hills, they aren’t really hills, are they?”

  “No. That’s what I thought they were at first.”

  “What are they?”

  “The hills are the aliens. The aliens are nothing like us. Nothing like us.”

  And so it went for hour after hour.

  Over the next few days, several things happened: Adamarus kept improving, the structure rising in front of the Loud’s ship became a large dome, and the multitude of people surrounding the town continued to swell.

  Adamarus’ smaller alien bandages had fallen off and his largest bandages had turned gray, a sure sign that they would follow suit shortly. His apparent age remained unchanged.

  ---

  It was a miserable night. Gusts of freezing wind whipped the icy rain and hail into projectiles that pounded against the sides of the special team’s trailers. Like the snow, it passed right through the force field. On the ground, the snow, which had fallen the day before, was turning into a dirty slush.

  Leewood and Harrington were on duty and had tried staying in the warm vans and watching from the cameras, but after dozing off several times, they decided the freezing weather would keep them awake and went outside. They sat under the tarp drinking coffee and watched the new development—a large tube, fifteen feet in diameter, had started growing horizontally out from midway up the side of the 150-foot dome. The tube seemed to be made of concrete with tinted glass windows on its sides. The tube’s construction was moving much faster than the dome had—they could actually see the thing growing. Leewood went for pizza, and after dinner, they noticed that the tube, after reaching a length of 100 feet, had angled downwards.

  By midnight, the rain/hail was coming down so hard they could barely see. They retreated to the van where infrared cameras confirmed that the tube had reached the ground. By 1:00 a.m., the downpour had let up a little and they had ventured back outside. A small room had formed on the ground at the end of the tube and by 1:30, a door was visible at the end and confirmed what they had both hoped, that it was the entrance to the dome.

  Harrington ventured into the frozen rain for a better look. The freezing rain burned her face and stung her eyes while the two-foot snow drifts that had turned to slush crunched under her rubber boots. In between the drifts, she found herself slipping on the ice. Eventually she made her way along the edge of the force field to the closest point of the newly built room and studied it. To get a better look, she walked forward intending to push into the force field as far as she could. That was when she discovered that the force field was gone. And that was when the door at the end of the tube opened.

  It was too cold to talk so she just clicked her mic rapidly half a dozen times.

  Leewood got the message, “I’m coming.”

  The hail started pouring down again and she could just barely see Leewood scrambling out to her, encountering the same difficulties she had. When he arrived, she told him what had happened with the force field dropping and the door swinging open on its own. They looked at each other and back at the open door. Harrington shrugged, “Looks like an invitation if I ever saw one. Should we wake the others…get some backup?”

  “Not yet. They’ll only want us to wait for them and I’m tired of waiting.”

  “I hear that.”

  They walked to the door and entered. Inside it was warm and dry. Before the
m was a moving ramp. They got on and it carried them up about 150 feet to where the tube leveled out. From there it was about a 100-foot walk to another door which entered the dome itself. This door was round, made of metal and looked heavy. A rubber-like substance around the edges sealed it. To the side was a button lit by a green light. The door opened. It was several feet thick and it slid out and then rose up out of the way. They looked at each other and hesitantly proceeded.

  Inside was a room that extended out for about 50 feet. At the far end on the right were two rows of seats facing left. They counted ten seats in all, two rows of five. What they faced was an unusual window on the left side. It was about fifteen feet wide and started a few feet from the ceiling. It extended down to the floor and continued across the floor for about eight feet. A green glow came through the window from the inside of the dome beyond.

  Harrington and Leewood slowly moved forward. As they got closer, they noticed that the window was made of extremely thick glass encased in thick rubber. When they reached the window and looked out, they could see the inside of the dome which was brightly lit and bathed in green. Centered on the floor below them was a strange mound about 20 by 30 feet, and perhaps 20 feet high. It was a complicated structure and they quickly recognized it from the artist’s conception of what Adamarus had described while under hypnosis. Several long tentacles shot from its base and waved slightly in the air.

  “Shit!” Harrington yelled as they both jumped back.

  “I’ll be damned,” Leewood said. “That’s a Loud!”

  The two team members stepped closer to the window. They jumped when a screech came from the other side of the glass. They never figured out that this was a translation of their own words.

  Suddenly the organic mound filled with air, expanded outward and shot upward, its height increasing by 400 percent. It happened so suddenly that the team members staggered back. It seemed to flex then push back down. They now noticed an oval hole near the top of the mound and they could see that air was being expelled from it from the spittle flying from it. Although the room was highly soundproof, they could still hear the screech coming from the alien and it seemed to vibrate within their chests. They could see the glass in the window vibrate within the rubber it was encased in. When the screech ended and the alien had deflated to its original size, they noticed a small box above the window light up. An off white bar ran across it and it was being lit with a green light which was extending from left to right. It was obviously a progress indicator. When the light reached the end, a mechanical voice came from it causing the two to jump again.

  It said, “All is ready. That room is yours. Equip it as you see fit. We will wait three days for Adamarus. He must be alone. If he does not appear or he is not alone, we will leave.” Behind it a large door appeared and opened. Beyond the door was what looked like a lift—obviously the way the alien came and went between the dome and its ship. The creature turned and slid towards it.

  Harrington hollered out, “Wait, we need to talk to you. What’s wrong with us?” A second later, they could hear a screech coming from the other side of the glass—obviously her words being translated.

  The being paused halfway to the door, expanded again and screeched, “Nothing is wrong with you. Adamarus has been scanned, approved and prepared. Others may be at a later time.” It had never turned around and so it continued through the door, which closed behind it.

  “Shit!” they said in unison. The translator lit up and a second later, they again heard the screech on the other side of the thick glass.

  ---

  At the same time, 12 miles away, Adamarus slept soundly beneath a white sheet. The sheet rose up on the left side of his chest and then a large alien bandage which was now gray fell to the floor and the sheet dropped back down. Adamarus groaned and rolled to his left side. The gray bandage still remaining on the left side of his head fell away and rolled off the bed.

  The last of Adamarus’ bandages had fallen off.

  ---

  The next morning after breakfast, eight doctors filed into Adamarus’ room and gathered around his bed. The only one he recognized was Dr. Kallen. “Good morning, Doc, brought some friends I see.”

  “How are you feeling this morning?”

  “To be honest, great.”

  The group of doctors looked at each other. A couple cleared their throats. Dr. Kallen continued, “Yes, the aliens, or I should say, the Loud, did a rather excellent job of putting you back together, not to mention taking twenty some odd years off your age.” What Dr. Kallen did not say was that Adamarus was no longer aging and that his immune system had been supercharged. “As you may have figured out, the remaining bandages came off last night.”

  “Well, that’s good, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, yes. In fact the only reason we’re still keeping you is to…” he looked around at the other doctors, “well, we’d like very much to learn more about exactly what the Loud did to you – understand, it could help many people.” He looked around helplessly, “However, we have been…we’ve received requests from above to release you at once. I guess conducting meaningful talks with the Loud is high on the agenda and you are central to that.”

  Adamarus nodded understanding, “And you really have no medical reasons to refuse these ‘requests’…” the doctor nodded, “and even if you did…”

  The doctor smiled sadly, “Yes, and even if we did, the ‘requests’ are from the highest level and you’d be taken anyway…for a ‘second opinion’ as it were…”

  Adamarus just nodded.

  An hour later, an armored motorcade picked up Adamarus at the back door, thus avoiding the media out front. Knowing that the knowledge the doctors had wanted was so important, before being released, Adamarus assured Dr. Kallen that he would either make arrangements to get what the doctors needed from the Loud or he would make himself available to them for testing and study at some future date.

  Chapter Six – The First Meeting

  “The greatest fear is the fear of the unknown for there are no limits and the possibilities extend beyond the imagination and are boundless. No study, preparation or course of action is possible. Nameless demons must be faced standing naked on unknown terrain without armor, shield or sword.”

  Dimerities (ancient Amular philosopher 924-1008)

  Source: The Archive

  The barricade around Hillcrest had held and at last people had started leaving the surrounding areas. But an estimated 300,000 people still remained and food and water had run out days ago. The government had started airdropping supplies but this was causing riots as people fought over the drops.

  Adamarus and his family were put up in a large furnished mansion that had been unoccupied and requisitioned by the government. They were told it was the only thing available that was close to the field where the ship had landed. All the furniture was covered with dust covers. Fortunately, someone had stocked the kitchen and three wet bars.

  Adamarus lit a fire and huddled close to the fireplace with his family and watched the mayhem on video feed in disbelief. Holding each other tight, still not ready to face Adamarus’ newfound youth nor the Loud, they silently assured each other that no matter what, things would work out.

  They turned in at 10:00—all three of them piling into the master bedroom for now. Although he was to be picked up in the morning at 6:00, Adamarus was awake most of the night.

  With only about an hour’s sleep, the alarm went off at 5:00. He rolled out of bed and was ready when the limo pulled up at 6:00 a.m. Leewood and Harrington were both there and rode with him to the site where they gave him a tour. Then all three of them drove to the hotel conference room where the briefing would be held.

  The day was spent reviewing how the first meeting with the Loud—which would take place tomorrow morning—would be handled. The six-member team grilled him as he yawned and struggled to keep awake. Upon finding out that he had been up all night, a doctor was called in and he was given something to keep hi
m alert. More coffee was brought in with a dozen donuts.

  Leewood was saying, “For this first meeting tomorrow, keep it light. Get to know each other and that’s all, what kind of being it is…or he is...”

  “Or she.” Harrington injected.

  “Or she is.” Leewood continued without missing a beat, “Just keep it simple.”

  The strategy was sound. Go slow at first. Ask for nothing; offer nothing.

  That evening Adamarus got back to the mansion at 6:30. The doctor had given him something to help him sleep but he was exhausted anyway. Grace fixed him dinner, and after eating, he was headed to bed when the doorbell sounded.

  It was Radin. Grace went off to help Nero settle into bed, and Adamarus and Radin retired to a room marked as ‘The Drawing Room’ on the floor plan and he made them a couple of drinks.

  After yanking dust covers from two chairs, they sat down. Adamarus shrugged, “Every piece of furniture in the house has these blasted covers.” He took a long drink and settled back.

  “Long day?” Radin asked.

  Adamarus nodded, “Very long.” A siren could be heard in the distance. Adamarus tilted his head listening, “It’s like the entire world has gone mad.”

  “Yeah.” Radin leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Listen, I have an old friend—a member of this presidential team—filling me in on what’s going on behind the scenes…stuff we’re not supposed to know.”

  Adamarus raised an eyebrow, “Really?” He kicked his shoes off and ran the cold glass across his forehead. “Okay. Talk to me.”

  “The last thing they wanted,” Radin continued in a low voice, “was you being the contact with the Loud, but the Loud forced the issue.” Radin’s eyes darted left and right and he lowered his voice further, “They’re scheming on ways to move you out.”

  “Well, anything I can do to help,” Adamarus replied with a dour smile. “I need to talk to them, but being a full time and permanent intermediary to these aliens is quickly becoming the last thing I want.”

  “Well…” Radin looked around again, visibly nervous. “Wait,” he said, then got up and turned on the video screen and turned the volume up. Adamarus gave him a strange look as he returned to his seat. “Look…I’m told that they discussed options on how they might move you out and one of their own in. One of the options discussed was you either having a serious ‘relapse’ or an ‘accident’ of some kind. Adamarus, this was actually one of the options discussed!”