7
It wasn’t suicide. Just as the squad opened fire, a forcefield shimmered across the corridor between them and the approaching warbots. It didn’t reflect the squad’s shots; instead it absorbed them.
“Cease fire!” said Kelly.
They obeyed, and stood there tensely to see what the warbots would do. Probably the forcefield would drop to allow the warbots to slaughter them.
“Move,” said Kelly, gesturing behind him. “Down the corridor.”
“Boss, it ain’t going to do no good—”
“Do it.”
Cautiously Caesar stepped back, as did 41, still hampered by carrying Phila. Beaulieu and Serula moved closer to the walls. Siggerson hovered near Kelly.
The warbots halted on the other side of the forcefield. Kelly frowned as he took a step back, then another. This was as weird as hell. He had the certain feeling that he was being watched, perhaps even toyed with.
Kelly glanced around and up at the ceiling. Beams of light came on there, dazzling him. They played over him and the others.
“My pistol!” said Siggerson, throwing his upon the floor.
About then Kelly’s grew so hot to the touch he could no longer hold it. He tried to master instinct, telling himself that it was just a mind trick, but failed. His weapon went clattering to the floor as well. His palm stung, and the skin turned red and looked slightly blistered. No mind trick, after all. The pistol had really been hot.
The forcefield dropped. The warbots stepped forward. Kelly felt a jerk of fear. He turned to give fresh orders to his squad and saw a forcefield shimmering behind them.
“We’re trapped!” said Caesar.
“Maybe we’d better surrender,” said Siggerson.
“It won’t help,” said Kelly. “Either way they mean to kill us.”
In perfect step the warbots drew close enough for Kelly to hear the low whirs as their firing arms flared muzzles, revealing long, wickedly barbed darts perhaps the length of Kelly’s hand, fitted on spring launchers. His mouth dried out, and his heart began to wham hard against his ribs. There was something primitive and cruel about those darts. He imagined one of them embedded in his chest, filling him with agony while he died slowly and horribly of blood loss. He’d rather be slagged.
A wave of malevolence from something washed over him. For a moment he thought only of the hopelessness of their situation. It would be better to stand quietly and accept their fate.
A hoarse cry from 41 behind him snapped Kelly from his momentary trance. He glanced at Siggerson and saw him staring glassy-eyed at nothing. The others were likewise frozen, except for 41 who shrugged Phila to the ground and came running forward like a wild thing. At the same time the warbots halted less than two meters away. Kelly heard a hissing sound and hastily held his breath.
He grabbed Siggerson and shook him hard, but the pilot didn’t snap out of it. Beaulieu didn’t respond either. Kelly gave up on the others. 41 passed him and ran between two of the warbots, dodging his way through the others that could not turn to get a clear shot at him in those close quarters. Kelly started after him in the same way, pushing himself to move faster and faster, praying his feet wouldn’t tangle as he dodged and twisted and ducked his way through the gigantic robots. One firing arm swung down across his shoulders, driving him to his knees.
Gasping and stunned, Kelly tried to pull himself up and get going but his legs were rubber. His mind and body seemed totally disconnected. He fought not to pass out.
By the time his mind cleared, it was too late for him. A cable had been wound around his ankles, and he was tied to a warbot. It turned slowly, dragging him on the floor.
Ahead, 41 had almost cleared the last row of warbots. He ran with an agility remarkable in someone of his height, his blond hair streaming from his shoulders.
Kelly sat up, straining to see through the forest of metal legs. “Go for it! You can do it, 41!” he yelled.
But the gas was everywhere, hissing louder from invisible vents as it filled the corridor with a milky fog. Kelly saw 41 make it beyond the warbots, then abruptly stumble. A warbot shot a cable from its side, and the cable snaked deftly about 41’s legs, yanking him off his feet. 41 yelled something in his own language, which never translated no matter how often the lab boys tinkered with the Hawk translator implants. He fought like a wild thing, twisting about and using his prong to hack at the cable. But before he could cut himself free, the warbot that had captured him struck him with its firing arm. 41 crumpled and lay still.
“No!” said Kelly.
He flailed about, but the gas sapped his strength. It smelled of apples, with a sour bite of something unpleasant underneath. Kelly coughed, foggily wondering how aliens from another dimension could know about apples. He sank down, winded and weak. His head thudded upon the polished black floor, but he scarcely felt the impact.
A voice blared over a speaker, and the warbots parted in half to move against the wall in rows facing each other. Kelly was aware of this on only the dimmest level. He wanted to stay awake, wanted to see the chief bug coming to gloat over them. But his eyes were leaden and his head roared as though it had been submerged in water. He slid deep into darkness.
He awakened with a start, dreaming that something had him by the throat. He wanted desperately to be sick. He found himself strapped on his back on a steel table that felt icy cold through his tunic. A restraint strap circled his throat and more straps held his wrists and ankles. He swallowed hard, forcing down his gorge, and waited for the clammy sweats to leave him.
The throat restraint was loose enough to permit him to turn his head. In one direction he saw what was obviously a laboratory. It was fitted with microscopes, lasers, biocom-puters, data sorters, miniature cryogenic chambers, and other pieces of equipment that Kelly could not identify. In the other direction he saw an unconscious 41 lying strapped upon a steel table as he was.
Kelly lifted his head as far as the strap would allow. “41,” he said softly but urgently. “41, wake up.”
“Do not disturb him,” said an unfamiliar voice. “He is in light trance, and it has taken half a work cycle to get the chemical balance exactly right.”
A human male in a lab smock came into Kelly’s line of vision. He was a short man, very thin and stooped. His dark hair hung in untidy streaks across his wide brow. His skin had the pallid, doughy texture that came from no exercise, improper food, and a lack of sunshine. His eyes looked tired, bloodshot. He blinked rapidly and often.
Kelly stared at him in astonishment. “Who are you? What are you doing here? Are you off one of the ships in Blue Squadron? If so, how did you manage to become more than a prisoner? What are you doing out of uniform?”
“I am Dr. Holborn, and I do not belong in uniform,” said the stranger irritably. “I have no connection to your stupid military organizations. I am here by choice.”
He picked up a syringe and plugged a module of murky green liquid into it.
Kelly watched him with a frown, not liking any of this. “Just exactly what is this place? We were engaged in routine rescue work when we were—”
“Save your story for Maon,” said Holborn. “It will be here soon enough. I have no time for conversation. This whole matter is taking me from my work. I have lost data on an entire generation, and today’s experiments will have to be started over from scratch.”
He administered the full dosage to 41, who twitched as though in pain. Kelly jerked angrily against his restraints. “What are you doing to him?”
“Getting him ready for interrogation. Be quiet, or Maon may decide to talk to you directly as well.” Holborn paused and looked at Kelly. “I assure you it is not pleasant. Be thankful that at this moment it shows no interest in you.”
“Where’s the rest of my squad? What have you done to them?”
Holborn glanced up from 41. “I have done nothing to them. I daresay they have been taken to the holding area. That’s routine for all—”
He broke off with a frown, but Kelly tugged impatiently at his restraints.
“Routine, is it?” he said grimly. “Meaning that the crew of Blue Squadron is here somewhere? Meaning that the Jefferson’s crew is here too? What’s the purpose of this piracy? What—”
Holborn looked past Kelly, and the change in his expression to one of fearful subservience made Kelly break off. Kelly looked in that direction and saw a robot entering the lab. It carried a box approximately seventeen centimeters square.
“Are preparations finished?” asked the robot, coming to a halt near 41.
Holborn stepped back. “Yes, Maon.”
“We are displeased to see this unit appear among us,” said the robot. “We thought all Svetzin had been terminated in the time of our current investigations.”
“Hey!” said Kelly in alarm. “He’s not Svetzin. He’s half human and half Salukan.”
The robot’s head swiveled in Kelly’s direction. “What is this unit that speaks outside the order?”
“I’m Commander Bryan Kelly of the Allied Intelligence Special Operations branch. That is 41, one of my operatives. We’re here investigating the disappearance of six Alliance starships. Piracy is a serious crime—”
“The Kelly unit is human such as yourself, Holborn.”
“Yes,” said Holborn.
“Rebellious. It accuses us of crimes. The genetic collections?”
“Yes. I told you these men would be interested in recovering people.”
Maon remained silent for a few moments. “Military.”
“Yes, Maon,” said Holborn.
“Kelly,” said Maon’s synthetic voice. “Trickery and lies. We have observed another unit called Kelly.”
“My father,” Kelly said eagerly. “Admiral—”
“Holborn,” broke in Maon. “Explain father.”
Holborn did so in succinct scientific terms. And what about love? thought Kelly. Love and pride and trying to emulate the old man until you were old enough to know you could never fill his shoes?
“Same genetic pattern,” said Maon. “This unit is therefore a duplicate and unnecessary.”
“Perhaps,” said Holborn before Kelly could react. “It depends on the parental cross. I still want a tissue sample.”
The robot did not reply. Instead it moved closer to 41. A series of muted flashes passed across its twin lamps. Then it bent slightly and set the box upon 41’s torso.
“Too long,” said Maon. “Too long since we have ridden a Svetzin. This one has come to us from the past, seeking to find our hiding place, but we shall turn its guile upon it and use its mind to discover the pathway back to its origin. And we shall destroy the Svetzin again.”
“No,” said Kelly in frustration, fighting his restraints although he knew it was futile. “You’ve got it wrong. He’s not a—”
The lid of the box raised by itself as though opened from within. Something black and amorphous slopped over the side, flowing down onto 41’s chest. It looked like greasy liquid, yet it moved, slowly and with purpose. The part that ran down 41 ’s side to the table drew back up to the top of 41’s chest. It left no stain behind it. Watching it, Kelly was struck by the sense of intent emanating from it.
“Holborn!” he said sharply. “What is that?”
Holborn was watching with a mixture of distaste and fascination. His eyes moved briefly to Kelly. “Maon.”
Kelly blinked, swiftly readjusting his assumptions. The robot then was just a means of transportation. But what kind of being was this thing? And what was it going to do to 41?
Maon was spreading toward 41’s chin. It spilled along his throat, pulled itself together, and moved onto 41’s face. 41 twitched as part of Maon flowed into his mouth.
“No!” cried Kelly. “Holborn, you must stop it! In God’s name, man, it will smother him!”
“No, it won’t,” said Holborn softly, holding his own mouth open. His lips worked as more of Maon flowed into 41.
Sickened, Kelly watched helplessly as the black liquid covered 41’s face, filling his mouth and nostrils, coating his eyes. 41 jerked against the restraints, and Kelly cried out again.
“Stop it! Why won’t you stop it? What kind of monster are you to let a man die this way?”
Maon vanished into 41, leaving no trace of its passage. Sweat broke out upon 41’s face. His body convulsed violently, and Kelly could feel 41’s pain grinding beneath his own breast.
“No!” he called, aware of the futility of his own voice but unable to remain silent. “41! 41!”
Adrenaline gave Kelly enough strength to snap the restraint on his right wrist. Hope surged through him. If he could just get free, somehow he’d find a way to get that thing out of 41 before it was too late.
Get free. Dammit, get free.
He clawed at the strap circling his throat. Holborn noticed and rushed toward him in alarm. But Kelly couldn’t get the strap loosened. His fingers slid uselessly over the smooth material, finding no weakness, finding no fastening within reach. He coughed, but only the sudden realization that his air was being cut off made him ease off the pressure. Choking, that was what 41 was doing. The straps cut into 41’s wrists and throat as he thrashed. He made a horrible noise somewhere between a retch and a sob. Abruptly his back crashed against the table and he lay still.
Kelly stared at him, unable to believe it, not wanting to believe, thinking that if he just went on refusing to believe it wouldn’t be true.
A sweaty sheen gilded 41’s face, a sheen now drying to leave his features drawn and smaller.
Kelly opened his mouth, but could utter nothing. His free hand curled into a fist and he felt choked as though he had swallowed something webby that stuck to the walls of his throat.
Holborn bent over 41 briefly, checking for the vital signs that were not there. The impersonal touch of his hands upon 41, the very inertness of 41’s body, brought an objectivity to Kelly that he did not want. He didn’t want to see 41 as a body, dammit. Not an object to be handled ceremoniously and disposed of.
“Maon has gone straight to the brain this time,” said Holborn. His voice seemed too brittle for the air. “Amazing how the Visci are able to flatten themselves to thicknesses of mere millimeters. Of course the cavities behind the eyes allow the quickest access inside the cranium to the back of the skull. Sometimes they want to explore other areas such as the torso cavity although access through exploding the lungs is always fatal to the host subject. Maon isn’t exploring today, however. He was probably able to touch all the brain centers, rather like an additional membrane. The Visci are fascinating beings, aren’t they?”
41 lay as still as sun-colored stone.
“No,” Kelly whispered. “My friend.”
Holborn came and bent over Kelly, snagging his wrist back under the restraint. “I am going to move you into the adjoining room for sample extractions. Don’t worry. It won’t be painful.”
Kelly wanted to spit in his face. “Damn you! That—that blob just murdered him and you did nothing to stop it.”
Holborn stared at him without comprehension. “You do not understand. The Visci cannot be stopped. They are greater than us. More evolved. They—”
“I don’t care if their IQ measures one thousand! They still kill, and that makes them no better than you or me.”
Holborn glanced fearfully around as though expecting them to be overheard. “You must be quiet or you will be terminated.”
“Killed,” said Kelly through his teeth. “Just say killed, dammit. Not terminated. Not turned off. I’m not a machine. I’m a man.”
“Y-yes, I—I know,” said Holborn, glancing back at the immobile robot that had carried Maon into the room. It appeared deactivated, but at the moment Kelly didn’t care one way or the other. He wanted to rip off his bonds and take this place apart. And he would, given half a chance.
Holborn switched on the anti-grav and propelled Kelly’s gurney into the next room, which was larger than the first. The door closed behind him. Kelly closed his eyes, shutting off the memories of 41.
Holborn paused and leaned close to Kelly. “I’m sorry,” he said very, very softly. His weak eyes filled with compassion. “Sorry for you and your friend. It’s ... they’re dying, you see. We must find a cure soon. Please don’t judge them until you understand.”
“How can I understand?” said Kelly in a voice like iron. “How does killing my friend help them live? Why are they taking our ships? Why do they need our ships when they have technology such as this?”
“It isn’t the ships they want; it’s the people. Genetic stock for my studies.”
Holborn moved to a viewscreen and activated it, then turned Kelly’s table where he could see the graphs displayed. “They have a method—I don’t understand it—of dimensional travel.”
“Time travel,” said Kelly.
“If you like although that’s not very precise. This graph, here and here, do you see how the indexes vary? They punch through to different times and take samples.”
“Why? We’re totally different species,” said Kelly. “How could any of this help them?”
“It will,” said Holborn fervently. “I’m very close to a breakthrough. With the plague stopped, they can begin expansion again, rebuild their empire, achieve—”
“Never mind the political rhetoric. Where do they come from?”
“I do not know.”
“Are they the same invading force defeated by the Svetzin? Maon called 41 a Svetzin, but he isn’t—wasn’t.”
Holborn glanced nervously at the ceiling. “Your friend had received mental training from the Svetzin. For Maon, that is enough to make him one.”
“But that’s impossible!” said Kelly. “The Svetzin have been extinct for a thousand years.”
“Yes, the Visci chose your time for that reason. Svetzin are long-lived creatures, but even they cannot linger forever. Humankind, even the Salukans, are not as strong. When Earth is cleansed—”
Holborn blinked rapidly and broke off. Kelly stared at him, feeling alarm, desperate to know more.
“Go on,” he said. “What about Earth? What do you mean, cleansed?”
“I cannot tell you.”
“You must! Dammit, Holborn, you’re human too.”
“I am a scientist,” said Holborn. “I have my work.”
“That’s bull and you know it.” Kelly paused a moment, seeing the evasion in Holborn’s eyes. On a hunch he said, “When do you come from?”
“I—I don’t remember.”
“Yes, you do! Tell me, Holborn.”
“I c-can’t.”
“Tell me.”
Holborn looked at Kelly, then began to cry. “When I first came here, Maon entered my mind. He t-took that knowledge from me. He t-took everything from me except how to do my work. Don’t you see? My God, don’t you see how alone I am here? Just these damned machines everywhere. Everywhere. I haven’t even my memories for companionship.”
Holborn buried his face in his hands. The sound of his crying was ugly, pathetic. Kelly frowned at him, realizing he was no enemy, not this feeble, emaciated man who was just as much a prisoner as the rest of them, perhaps more so.
“How long have you been here?” asked Kelly quietly.
“Years,” said Holborn, his voice muffled against his hands. “I’ve lost count. There’s so much work to do. Most of my helpers died. I can’t—”
“Holborn, get hold of yourself. We’ll help you,” said Kelly. “Help us get out of here and we’ll take you with us.”
Holborn shook his head fearfully. “No. Shut up. Don’t say such things. If they’re listening they might believe I would consider your offer.”
“Of course you’ll consider it. You belong with us, Holborn. Not with these blobs and their robots. You know that.”
“No!” Holborn backed away from Kelly. “I serve my masters. I believe in their right to exist, to survive. I won’t help you.”
“What are they going to do to Earth, Holborn?”
“Clean it of other life forms. Live there until their world is safe of the plague.”
Kelly felt cold along his spine. His hatred of the Visci turned blacker. “You mean exterminate the population.”
“No, no, they won’t do that. They aren’t barbarians, Kelly. You don’t understand them. There are other worlds for humans to live on. Other places—”
“Earth is ours.”
“It has oceans, you see. Wonderful, life-giving oceans. The pH balance can be altered to suit the Visci. They need it. Just for a while. Just until they are healthy again.”
“Altering Earth’s oceans will kill the planet. You know that. Then they’ll go out and conquer the rest of the galaxy,” said Kelly coldly. “No way. Wise up, Holborn. You’re living in a dream world.”
Holborn glanced nervously at the ceiling and straightened away from Kelly. “You are wrong, Kelly. You’re upset and you are saying things that are not true. You are twisting everything, trying to confuse me. I won’t help you. I won’t listen to you.”
“Holborn, I’m a man. Just like you. Are you going to trust the Visci more than a fellow human? Are you?”
Holborn was shaking visibly. Kelly felt sorry for him, but not enough to stop.
“When our time as guinea pigs is over, what are they going to do with us? Send us back? Or dispose of us? I know what I think, Holborn. You’re going to be alone again, one lone man among all these machines. Think about it, Holborn. Decide whose side you’re on.”
Holborn’s face reddened. “Not yours,” he said angrily. “I’ve seen your future, Kelly! You have none!”
“Holborn—”
But the scientist hurried away to gather his equipment for the samples and did not speak again despite all of Kelly’s efforts to provoke and persuade him.
At last Kelly left him alone and lay there in silence. The blood and tissue extractions were painful. Holborn made no attempt to be gentle. But Kelly had other things to think about than physical discomfort. He’d learned enough to know it was urgent that they stop the Visci here and now. Getting away had to come second.
First he had to somehow rejoin his squad, if any of the rest of them were still alive. Then they were going to rip this place apart, taking their revenge on the Visci however they found it.
Kelly put his grief and anger to work for him as he created a plan. The Visci had been beaten once. They could be beaten again. Those blobs were going to regret the day they decided to meddle with humans.