14
It didn’t happen.
One moment he was falling. The next instant he hit solid metal, flat on his back, with a jarring impact that made him think he’d broken in half.
He lay there stunned in total darkness, with all the wind knocked from him.
Siggerson snapped on a torch and came running. “Ouoji did it! She did it! Kelly, you idiot, I thought you were done for. Some people have all the luck. I can’t believe her precise timing.”
Kelly couldn’t either. He tried to answer, but without any wind all he could do was make a strangled noise. Siggerson dragged him up to a sitting position, too excited to even check for broken bones, and thumped him enthusiastically.
“Come on! We’ve got to move before they realize what’s going on. There will only be a few minutes before the auxiliary plants activate to divert power here from the other generators.”
Kelly sucked in some air and began to feel like he might live. His arms and legs moved. It looked like all he had were some bruises. Lucky was right. He felt profoundly grateful to Ouoji.
Together they headed along the corridor. Siggerson’s torch beam stabbed here and there, giving them glimpses of doors half open. Two carrier robots each holding a Visci box stood immobile as though their communications-directions line had been broken by the power shutdown. Kelly and Siggerson eased cautiously past them and hurried on. The dark silence was creepy.
It seemed also empty. They passed three warbots, all immobile, frozen in midstep.
“I told you,” said Kelly. “Without their robots and power to run them, the Visci are helpless.”
They stepped through the half-open doorway at the end of the corridor and Siggerson shone his light around.
It was a spacious, circular chamber. On the far side a vast expanse of glass overlooked the hangar. Everywhere else stood silent banks of instrumentation. Even in the intermittent stabs of illumination from Siggerson’s torch, the technology’s sophistication was evident.
“To have this,” breathed Siggerson. “To be able to take even a part of this home. Do you realize just what kind of engineering geniuses they are? This whole ship the size of a city ... how do they power it? The genetics labs. The interdimensional travel—”
“Just don’t forget what they are and what they want,” said Kelly grimly. He took a few steps forward, paused, and looked around.
The silence was almost audible.
“Well,” he said. “Looks like this is our chance to—”
“I saw something!”
Kelly spun around. “Where?”
Siggerson’s torch flashed. “There. No, it’s moved. Damn!”
Kelly turned, scanning the whole shadowy room with his finger on the trigger. The darkness pressed upon him like a living thing. He could feel a menacing presence he hadn’t detected before, a malevolence that made the muscles tense in his shoulders.
The torch went out. Siggerson shook it, but to no avail.
“No,” he said, his voice shrill. “No! It has to work! It has to—”
“Siggerson,” said Kelly sharply. “Forget the torch. Get your weapon ready and put your back against mine. Now.”
Siggerson complied, his breathing audible and jerky. Somewhere in the darkness around them, a Visci waited for its chance. Kelly swallowed, remembering how 41 had died. He imagined one of the things crawling up him to his face, smothering him, going in ...
His heart jumped. He wiped his sweaty face, trying to get rid of the images in his mind.
A low hum made him flinch. An array of instrumentation lights came on, then the overhead lights returned, dazzling them.
Kelly blinked and squinted. From the corner of his eye he saw a tall shape nearby. He whirled, his launcher ready, and just in time held its fire.
“41,” he said, his voice hollow with disbelief. “41?”
Dammit, he had seen the man die. Yet here he stood with the lights gleaming upon his long tangle of blond hair. His tawny eyes stared at Kelly with the flatness of no recognition. He was breathing. His gaze shifted from Kelly to Siggerson, who lowered his weapon.
“Thank God, it’s only you, 41. I wasn’t sure what we were about to face in here. Kelly, I thought you said he was dead.”
“I thought he was,” said Kelly. He looked at 41, wanting to feel glad, wanting to feel relief. But something was wrong. He couldn’t place it, but the Visci had done something to 41 and left him ... “How do you feel? At the first chance, we’d better have Beaulieu take a look at you. Where is—”
41 looked away and flipped a switch. A synthesized voice came through a speaker: “I am Maon. I ride this body.”
Siggerson backed away, but Kelly frowned and went toward 41. Closer, he could see the signs of physical distress: a sheen of sweat over pallid skin, dilated eyes, irregulaf breathing.
“Come no closer,” said Maon.
“You must release him,” said Kelly. “We aren’t beasts of burden for your use. You’re killing him!”
“That does not matter. To ride is a sign of strength.”
“And who are you trying to impress? Where’s your audience, Maon?” Kelly swept his arm around to indicate the empty control room. “You don’t impress us.”
“You are nothing.”
“Wrong,” said Kelly. He aimed one of his launchers at a control panel and pulled the trigger. An arc of plasma spanned the distance and slagged it, sending sparks shooting.
41 turned fast, nearly lost his balance, and barely caught himself.
“No!” said Maon’s voice. “Fool, you must not destroy—”
“Release my friend,” said Kelly. “Look, Maon. We don’t have to be enemies. I know about the plague that is killing your kind. I know that you need another planet to settle upon until the plague is cleaned out. But you don’t have to conquer us just to save yourselves. Together, using all our resources, we could find a solution.”
41 stood motionless for a long moment until Kelly thought Maon might be going to relent. Then 41 reached out and pushed a rapid series of controls. Nothing happened at first, and Kelly suspected it might be a call for help.
“Kelly!” said Siggerson.
Hearing the despair in his voice, Kelly turned just as the muffled rumble of an explosion shook the windows. Lights had come on inside the hangar. Kelly ran to the glass and looked out at the nearest destroyer. The explosion had crumpled her bridge and engine areas. He could see the crumpled hull quite clearly. Another explosion shook the windows. Another destroyer disabled. Another. And so on in rapid succession until not one ship remained untouched.
Kelly watched helplessly. Their avenue home was now closed. He should have felt as sick with despair as Sigger-son looked, but instead all he knew was anger, harsh and corrosive, fueling his determination.
He turned back to Maon.
“Your defiance is futile,” said Maon. “Your actions have made little difference. You accomplish nothing against us. How can you fight us? We are your superiors.”
“No,” said Kelly. “I don’t think you are. I think you are scared and desperate, used to overwhelming other cultures with your advanced technology, and too savage to know what compassion means.”
“We do not subscribe to the lesser emotions. And we are not desperate. We shall overcome the plague as we overcome all of our problems. Already an antidote has been discovered. You, trapped inside a physical shape that is large and clumsy, are far too primitive to—”
“Too primitive for what?” broke in Kelly. “To run our own worlds? To shape our own destiny free of your interference? To resist you? To help you? If that’s true, why did you need a human researcher to find the antidote for you? Why do you need clones of humans to conquer Earth for you? Why not just go in there yourself? You have the ships, the weaponry to defeat us. Or do you?”
“We have ships,” said Maon sharply. “Many.”
“Then dispatch them.”
41 made no move. His tawny eyes stared into space, eerie and remote as though he had no cognizance at all of what was happening. Could he survive this? Or was Maon in him to stay?
“You do not order us,” said Maon at last.
His delay in answering and the feebleness of his reply caught Kelly’s attention.
“Is that all you have to say? Why not start your invasion now? We have defied you, angered you. Punish us and launch.”
Still 41 did not move.
“Who pilots your ships?” asked Kelly. “Robots or Visci?”
Maon did not reply.
Kelly stepped closer. “The Visci are stored on board this ship, aren’t they? Locked up in sterile containers to keep them safe. Is that any way to live?”
“Soon we shall be free again,” said Maon. “We shall roam the oceans of Earth once it is made safe for us.”
“I don’t think so,” said Kelly. “How many years have you been here? Eventually the robots will wear out. Then what happens? How many Visci have died inside those containers? How many remain alive? Do you know?”
“You mock our agony!” cried Maon. “You are an ignorant savage!”
“How many, Maon?”
“One triad is all that is necessary to regenerate our—”
“Where’s your triad, Maon? Those two containers that I saw being carried down the corridor, are they the rest of your triad? Why aren’t they with you?”
A green light across the room started blinking furiously. 41 staggered forward to it as though Maon had forgotten Kelly’s existence. Kelly joined him.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
“The chambers ...” whispered Maon. “Not the chambers.”
Kelly looked around at Siggerson. “Can you determine what’s happening?”
Siggerson slung his weapon and activated a surveillance screen. After a few moments he said, “Kelly, look.”
Kelly came over. The screen showed row after row of compartments containing Visci boxes. Thousands of them stretched past counting. Nothing looked wrong, yet the alarm still flashed.
Kelly frowned. “Is the whole race aboard?”
“Yes!” said Maon. “All! We are the City. Our home world is contaminated past reclaiming. Originally we were to be a colony, then we became the only ones remaining. We have searched the galaxy. We have searched time, seeking when we should claim our new home. It takes time, you see, to change the pH balance of the oceans to the proper level. Your seas are full of salt, teeming with competitive life. Without destroying everything, much time is needed to make the necessary alterations. We lack that time. That is why we use interdimensional travel.”
“Why?” asked Kelly. “Is there a limit to how long you can live inside the containers?”
“Yes. What have you done to us? Why have you breached the seal of the chambers?”
Kelly and Siggerson exchanged glances. There could be only one explanation.
“Holborn,” said Kelly. “He wanted to take the plague to you. I told him not to.”
“He must have gotten past Mohatsa,” said Siggerson.
“An easy explanation!” shouted Maon. “Easy to put the blame on Holborn, who cannot make a defense. Holborn is a fool, weak and easily controlled. Holborn would not seek our destruction. But you, you are another matter. Already we have seen your kind’s attitude toward life. You do not hold your own species dear. Why should you seek to preserve ours?”
“What are you talking about?” demanded Kelly.
41 staggered to the surveillance screen and played back the episode of Phila within the code storage facility, shouting defiance and throwing the contents of a drawer onto the floor. Kelly barely watched it, for 41 had slumped against the control panel. His eyes were sunken, his face yellow-gray. Kelly touched his arm, steadying him. Was 41’s mind still intact? Had Maon taken control of it, or destroyed it? 41 ’s face was slack. Kelly could find no spark in his eyes.
“You see?” said Maon as Phila began to weep and Beaulieu supported her out of range of the camera. “No respect. No understanding of these codes, of their entirety, of their beauty. Our bio-engineering techniques surpass anything you could know. We have cloning facilities here in the City that can resurrect any of these codes. In a matter of hours the tissue is regrown, the thoughts, memories, brain patterns, all is restored as it was before. And yet this unit Mohatsa treats it as dirt, to be bargained with, to be destroyed if necessary.
“Your kind have no understanding of what is compassion. You speak the word, Kelly. You accuse us of lacking in it. Look to yourselves.”
Kelly drew a deep breath. “She was crying. She did not enjoy what she had to do.”
“Enjoy? Is that a prerequisite for an action? Is justice enjoyable? We debate with you, yet you are too primitive to understand the issues. You think a little; therefore, you believe yourselves great. Unless an alien species evolves along a branch similar to your own, you cannot comprehend it. Unless there are legs and hands, you have no communication with it. We are a thing of horror to you, Kelly. You are shamed by that.”
“It is not you, but what you do,” said Kelly. “Manipulating us, reducing us to smears of DNA, stealing bodies to be hosts for your own pride, robbing us of our own world. We judge by actions. Yours tell us we cannot trust you.”
“And your actions? Obliterating an entire species? Will you know how to code our DNA, to save us from extinction? We have our way. We have the right to exist.”
“Yes, you do,” said Kelly. “But—”
A scream interrupted him. Startled, Kelly glanced over his shoulder in time to see Holborn come staggering into the control center. The scientist’s smock was torn and filthy. Blood trickled down his face from a cut over his left eye. His lips were drawn back, baring his teeth in a horrifying parody of a smile. He was quite mad.
Siggerson moved to intercept him, but Holborn knocked him aside with unexpected strength.
“Going to kill them all!” he said, panting.
Kelly grabbed him. “Holborn! Holborn, you’ve done it. Stop now. Stop.”
Holborn sagged in his arms, weeping with pathetic little snuffles. “Slaved for them. Honored to help them. Wanted the glory, you see? Wanted the glory. They wouldn’t let me finish my work. Wouldn’t let me ...”
He wasn’t making much sense to Kelly. Over his head Kelly nodded to Siggerson. “Help me get him into that chair.”
“This wretched unit is defective,” said Maon.
At the sound of its voice Holborn jerked upright, getting past Kelly and Siggerson. He rushed at 41 before they could stop him.
“Dead. You’re dead. Dead thing. All dead. Have to stay dead.”
He threw the contents of a vial in 41’s face before Kelly and Siggerson managed to drag him back. But Holborn had stopped struggling now. He threw back his head and laughed with a hysteric note of triumph that made Kelly shove him angrily away.
Kelly went to 41, who was standing there vacantly. The brownish liquid dripped from his cheek onto the collar of his tunic. Kelly held him by the arms, not sure what it would do to him.
41 shuddered in Kelly’s grasp.
“My ... container!” said Maon. “I am too far. I must have it. Must have it!”
“Siggerson,” said Kelly beneath Maon’s frenzied shouting. “Get Beaulieu here. On the double.”
41 sagged suddenly like a limp rag, going to the floor before Kelly could catch him.
“Help me,” said Maon. “I want to live. Help me, unit. Help me live.”
41 shuddered again, and Maon began to emerge from him, seeping out from eyes and ears and nostrils. Where Maon’s dark edge touched 41’s wet cheek, it shriveled and withdrew.
Faintly in the back of Kelly’s mind, almost as a whisper of imagination, he heard a scream. Instinct made him drop 41’s hand and suddenly back away.
“Stay close!” said Maon’s synthesized voice. “Stay close to me.”
Holborn was still laughing. Siggerson and Kelly exchanged glances, then Siggerson aimed his launcher.
“No!” said Kelly. “Not while it’s still on 41.”
Maon flowed to 41’s chest and pooled there. 41 stirred, as though coming around, then he went into convulsions, hemorrhaging from his nostrils and ears. Kelly wanted to rush to him, help him, but Maon waited like a hunter watching its quarry, and Kelly dared go no closer.
Footsteps came running. Beaulieu said breathlessly, “I’m here.”
Holborn lunged at her, and Kelly intercepted him just in time. A swift chop to the throat felled Holborn, and Kelly gripped Beaulieu’s arm.
“Quickly. 41 is still—”
A shout from Siggerson made them both turn. Maon was moving, flowing incredibly fast over the floor toward Siggerson, who was backing up frantically, knocking over a chair, and shouting.
“Siggerson!” shouted Kelly. “Shoot it!”
But Siggerson was still backing up, too panicked to remember the weapon in his hand. Kelly aimed at Maon and fired. Plasma engulfed Maon, who stopped. But as soon as Kelly stopped firing, Maon flowed forward again. It was almost to Siggerson’s boots.
Screaming, Siggerson fired on it now, with no effect. He was pinned against the controls. Frantically he climbed up onto them and crawled over the boards, shooting again and again at Maon although it did no good.
Beaulieu moved past Kelly. “I’ve got to check 41.”
Kelly seized her wrist and held her in place. “Not yet.”
“Kelly! He could be dying.”
She wrenched free and knelt beside 41. Maon had flowed halfway up onto the controls, but now it abruptly reversed direction, falling to the floor again with a soft plop, and headed for Beaulieu.
“Doctor!” yelled Kelly.
She glanced up and tried to scramble out of the way, but Maon moved too quickly for her. It flowed up her boot, and she slapped at it.
“Don’t touch it! ” yelled Kelly. “It will get to your face that much more quickly.”
Even as he spoke, Kelly was moving. He snatched the empty vial off the floor and grabbed the back of Beaulieu’s tunic with his other hand, holding her against him as he thrust the vial right to the edge of Maon.
Maon stopped at Beaulieu’s hip.
“It will not affect me,” said the synthesized voice from the speaker. “I am too strong.”
Kelly held the vial where it was, wishing to God he knew how long it took before the biotoxin had any effect. Minutes, hours, days, months? His hand was so close to Maon he could almost feel it. Goose bumps broke out along Kelly’s arms, but he did not move. Held in the circle of his arm, Beaulieu remained frozen. She scarcely breathed.
“I can halve myself,” said Maon. “Enter both of you. Holborn is a stupid unit. This was not the plague. It does not affect me.”
Maon moved, sliding over the vial and Kelly’s hand. Kelly felt a warm slickness upon his skin that left it tingling unpleasantly. Maon parted, half flowing up Kelly’s arm to his shoulder, then to his throat, the other half flowing up Beaulieu’s torso.
Kelly gritted his teeth shut and closed his eyes. He tried to tear Maon from his throat, but his fingers could get no purchase. They slid through Maon and could not grasp it. Kelly jerked away from Beaulieu, hoping that if Maon were completely parted, that would weaken it. He heard Beaulieu scream and felt the warm slickness sliding across his lips, dribbling through despite all his efforts to keep them clamped shut, forcing them apart.
His eyes flew open in horror. It was going down his throat, choking him. More of it went up his nose. He tore at his face, trying to breathe, trying to get it off.
Then Maon stopped. Kelly dropped to his knees and retched, spitting out the creature. The taste was unspeakable. He felt that he could never be clean again. Maon lay inert upon the floor, small puddles of it splattered between Kelly and Beaulieu. She was crying, holding herself and rocking back and forth.
Siggerson slid hesitantly off his perch and went to her. She clung to him, sobbing harder. Kelly had no such release. He met Siggerson’s gaze, met the sympathy and understanding there, and began to shiver.
It was only revulsion, physical shock, and reaction. He let the spasms go on without trying to stop them. In a storage bin he found a scoop and scraped Maon off the floor. Scoop and its contents went into disposal. Only then did Kelly give way to knees too shaky to support him. He sat down on the floor, thinking about how close it had been, knowing that if Maon had ever gotten completely into him he couldn’t have stood it, not for an instant.
Siggerson had been touched and he had survived. 41 had lived with that thing in him for hours. Whether he would survive remained unanswered.
“You okay, Commander?” asked Siggerson after a long while.
Kelly nodded. He sat there, drained and spent.
“Looks like we got them all, the damned dirty things. I’m glad we got them.”
“Yeah,” said Kelly. “Maon was right.”
“About what?”
“We can’t make contact yet with a species like the Visci, a species that different, that alien. We aren’t ready.”
“Good,” said Beaulieu, choking and wiping tears from her face. “I’m glad we aren’t ready. I don’t ever want to meet anything like that again. If I do, I’ll know I’ve lived too long. We can’t coexist with them. We can’t.”
“No, we can’t,” said Kelly softly.
“Anyway, they’re dead,” said Siggerson. “Dead and gone. Good riddance, I say.”
“Yeah,” said Kelly.
But there was no cheering.