Evolution

by R S Penney

  Staring out the window with his mouth agape, Jon blinked several times. “What are you?” he whispered to the strange ship. “Where did you come from? And why haven't we ever seen your species until now?”

  The ship turned to his left – pivoting thirty-degrees with surprising maneuverability – and sped off into the starry night. Whoever they were, they were unconcerned with him. “Is this why you sent me here, Jena?”

  His orders were to scan the planet thoroughly and maintain radio silence until he could deliver a report to Jena herself. Jena and no one else. She had been quite adamant about that. Perhaps it would be a good idea to abandon that plan, or at least touch base with Jena; if there was an advanced civilization here, scanning them could provoke them.

  He began keying in a reverse course.

  Justice Keeper…

  A soft feminine voice filled his mind and nearly made him jump out of his seat. A telepath? To the best of his knowledge, Antaur was the only world in the galaxy to have developed telepathy, and the Antaurans would never let one of their prized specimens of genetic superiority run loose on a world like this.

  Justice Keeper, we have no time for speculation.

  “Who are you?”

  Someone in need of aid.

  Leaning back in his chair with his arms folded, Jon turned his face up to the ceiling. “I see,” he said, eyebrows rising. “And why exactly do you think I'd be willing to leap to the aid of a stranger on a dead world?”

  It is what you two-souls do, she answered. You came here seeking answers, Justice Keeper. Land your shuttle, and together, we will solve the greatest mystery of our time.

  The airlock slid open to reveal a woman in an old gray jumpsuit standing in the sand beneath a dark blue sky. She was pretty with a round face and hair that she wore buzzed to stubble. “Justice Keeper,” she said.

  Jon stood in the doorway with his arms crossed, smiling down at himself. “You're a telepath,” he said, stepping through. “Wasn't expecting to find one of your kind out here. Bleakness, I wasn't expecting to find anything.”

  The woman looked up at him with dark eyes that he could drown in. “You know why you've come here,” she murmured. Something in her gaze held him transfixed, and he could feel his Nassai struggling, focusing, keeping her out. “The time has come to be honest with yourself. You came to find the Overseers.”

  He felt his lips curl, then bowed his head to her. “I came because a friend asked me to scan the planet,” he insisted. “She'd heard rumors that the Overseers had been spotted in this part of space.”

  “And the ships you saw when you arrived?”

  “I don't know what they were.”

  The woman slid her hands into her pockets and casually strode past him, stopping just in front of the air-lock. “I think you do,” she said. “Come. There isn't much time. I will take you where you need to go.”

  “I'm not going anywhere with you.” He whirled around to face her with teeth bared in a snarl, his nostrils flaring as he tried to stifle his anger. “You think you're just going to pop into my thoughts and I'll take you where you want to go?”

  She stood with one hand braced against the door-frame, hunched over with her head hanging. “My name is Keli.” The exhaustion in her voice was unmistakable. “Six months ago, I encountered one of the Overseers. It nearly killed me.”

  “You're still not convincing me-”

  “I touched its mind for a mere fraction of a moment. What I saw there, I will never comprehend, but a few things stood out. This world's location, for one. After ten thousand years of silence, the Overseers have returned. Don't you want to know why?”

  “Well, of course I do, but-”

  “Then come,” she said. “Any further debate is pointless.”

  At night, the hallways of Station Twelve were lit by bulbs that cast a warm, yellow glow on the gray walls and floor tiles. In truth, all Leyrian ships and space stations used the same technology. The lights were meant to match the natural illumination of the sun, and they waxed and waned throughout the day. This kept the crew in better health, or so she had been told.

  Isara didn't really care.

  She moved through the gray-walled corridor in simple black pants and a matching short-sleeved blouse, keeping her head down. Going anywhere with her face uncovered felt wrong to her now, but she could hardly move about a space station in a long, flowing cloak. From what little she knew of the Earthers' legends, their Death figure wore similar clothing. Isara found that fitting. No one who saw her questioned her presence, and that meant her plan was still working.

  A set of double doors in the wall to her left was shut tight. Isara pressed her hand to the palm scanner and watched a horizontal line slide up and down the screen before the device let out a beep.

  She tapped one finger against the screen to bring up a menu. Her bio-metric ID had passed inspection, but she still had to input her access code. 77Xs29ge. The computer let out another soft beep of approval. One more thing before she went inside; she turned off the security cameras and ordered them to reactivate in five minutes time. Very few people could disable the station's security systems, but being a junior director had its perks.

  The doors slid apart.

  Inside, she found a dark room that was quickly illuminated by lights that turned on when they detected her arrival. A long table at the back of the room was now bare except for an inactive tablet that must have belonged to that fool Nareo. The N'Jal was gone. It seemed Harry Carlson had claimed it as his own.

  Isara clicked her tongue, then shook her head in vexation. It must be recovered, she thought, striding into the room. If the rumors are true…

  Apparently Carlson could use the device without experiencing any of the negative side-effects. No one – not even Slade – had been able to manage that. It left her feeling very uneasy.

  There were work terminals set up on the wall to her left, a table along the wall to her right with something that looked like a high-tech microscope on its surface. None of those would do. When planting a bug, you generally wanted to pick a spot where no one would accidentally come across it.

  A table near the door with nothing on its surface: that would do nicely. There was very little chance that anyone would find it there.

  Isara went to the table.

  Dropping to one knee, she stretched out her hand and attached a small device about the size of her fingernail to the underside.

  Her multi-tool lit up with confirmation that the bug was transmitting everything it recorded. Very soon now, Slade would know everything that Lenai and her friends knew about the Key.

  The shuttle's nose dipped, giving Jon a view of five jagged rocks that clawed at the sky like the curling fingers of a gnarled hand. A light wind blew dust across hard-packed clay that stretched on for miles.

  Pressing his lips together, Jon felt his eyes widen. “That's it?” he asked, shaking his head. “You're telling me there's an Overseer buried under that? And it's just been sleeping here for thousands of years?”

  Standing next to the pilot's chair with her arms folded, Keli stared out the window with a blank expression. “That's it,” she confirmed with a nod. “And I don't think that it's sleeping any longer.”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “It knows we're here.”

  Jon winced, a shiver causing him to tremble in his seat. “Well, that's just grand,” he hissed, tapping at the control console. “Do they have horror vids on your planet? Stories about foolish kids who go into a haunted house?”

  The strange woman who had somehow commandeered his shuttle just stood there, transfixed by those eerie rocks. “I wouldn't know,” she murmured absently, as if she were only half aware of his presence. “I spent most of my formative years in a prison cell. No vids for children with my special abilities.”

  A prison cell? Had he taken a criminal aboard his ship? A criminal with the power to read minds and even – to a limited degree – pierce through the natural protection that came from
bonding a Nassai. What had he gotten himself into?

  Jena had asked him to come here and scan the planet, but that was supposed to be the end of it. Come to think of it, how had Jena known about an Overseer presence this far away from Leyrian space? He knew that his old friend had a knack for digging up hard to find intel, but this?

  There was a slight jolt as the shuttle landed.

  Before he could so much as blink an eye, Keli spun on her heel and made her way toward the back of the cockpit. Why did he get the feeling that she was one of those kids who – when presented with a sign that said “keep out” – couldn't resist the temptation to poke their head inside?

  He swiveled his chair around.

  Cocking his head to one side, Jon studied the woman for a long moment. “You're really going in there,” he asked, arching one eyebrow. “You see, this is what those of us with a sense of self-preservation would call stupid.”

  She was standing with her back turned at the door to the cabin, hunching up her shoulders as if trying to conserve warmth. “I have seen them,” she whispered. “And I…I must know more.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they made us!”

  Keli turned halfway around, looking over her shoulder with a snarl so fierce you might have expected her to start foaming at the mouth. “The telepaths!” she spat. “We were their creation.”

  Jon sat with his arms crossed, frowning into his own lap. “Yeah, I get that,” he said, nodding to her. “So what's your plan then? You gonna walk into that cave and say, 'Excuse me, Mr. Overseer. Can you tell me why you tinkered with my ancestor's DNA?' ”

  “I will scan it.”

  “Bullshit!”

  “What?”

  Jon stood up with a growl and strode toward her with his fists clenched. “You really think you're just gonna poke around in that thing's head. I know next to nothing about the Overseers, but I'm pretty sure it will kill you for trying.”

  The woman lifted her chin and held his gaze until he felt himself sweating. Those eyes. Never challenge a telepath to a staring contest. “That is why you will come with me, Justice Keeper.”

  She did nothing that he could detect – no mental persuasion, no attempts to bend him to her will – and he was straining to be certain. His Nassai was wary, but there was no sign that it had been disturbed, and Keli would have to go through the symbiont to get to him. So far as he could tell, she was using only words and body language. Which was why it was so surprising that he found himself willing to go along.

  Outside, the rocks were standing tall and ominous, forming a kind of haphazard ring, but so far as Jon could tell, there was nothing in the middle. The sun was hot, and the wind that blew dust at him did little to ease his discomfort.

  He walked with an arm raised up to shield his face, grunting in displeasure. “This is insane!” he shouted at Keli. “If you want to learn about the Overseers, we'd be better off scanning those ships I saw!”

  Keli's face was set in a mask of grim determination as she strode forward. “I have come this far,” she growled over the wind. “I refuse to turn back now. Abandon me if you wish, Justice Keeper.”

  They stepped through the narrow gap between two of those towering rocks, and as expected, there was nothing here. Though being inside the ring did supply some crude protection from the dust storm.

  Biting his lower lip, Jon squinted. “Nothing,” he said, shaking his head. “There is nothing here, Keli. Have you considered the possibility that the outlaw who brought you here might have been lying?”

  “He wasn't lying.”

  When Jon spun around, Keli had her back turned and stood with her eyes fixed on the ground under her feet. She seemed to be concentrating. Perhaps – if there really was an Overseer down there – she could sense the-

  A sudden rumbling made him jump, and he had to suppress the instinct to scream. Justice Keepers sometimes let out a battle cry, but they most certainly did not scream like little children at a funhouse.

  They were sinking.

  It took him half a second to realize that the ground between the stone pillars was actually a stone plate that moved slowly down a circular shaft. After only a few moments, he was already chest-deep inside.

  Turning his face up to the sky, Jon stared longingly at the sun. “This is a bad idea,” he said with enough volume to be heard over the shaking earth. “Have I pointed out that this is a bad idea? Because it's a bad idea.”

  Had Keli managed to activate this…elevator with her telepathy? Or had she alerted the creature inside to their presence? A little Bent Gravity could have him out of this hole in a heartbeat, but that would mean leaving his companion to die. Meat for the beast. Jon didn't much care for that idea.

  The stone plate continued to descend, and now they were a good thirty paces down. From the rumbling, it felt as though the entire shaft might collapse on them any moment. Why do I let Jena talk me into these things? he wondered. I could have just been happy, doing paperwork, keeping the peace in a colony with almost no crime.

  Keli, for her part, seemed to be enjoying this far too much. She stared forward with a great big grin on her face, as if she expected to receive a present.

  A few moments later, the stone plate settled to a stop, and when he looked up, he saw that the shaft extended fifty paces or more toward the open daylight. They were in the thick of it now.

  A single tunnel ran from the platform into some unknown distance with walls that seemed to glow with a soft, reddish light. “No, that's not ominous,” he muttered. “Can you make it go up again?”

  “I'm not the one who made it go down,” Keli answered.

  “Glorious.”

  She started forward before he could say another word, stepping into the tunnel and moving with the grim purpose of a woman who intended to meet her destiny. “If you are coming,” she said without looking back, “I suggest you keep up.”

  Jon ran to catch up.

  Once he was in the tunnel, he realized that the ground beneath his feet felt squishy. One look at the walls confirmed his suspicions. They were covered in soft, membranous tissue. No, not covered. They were made of a soft membranous tissue. This was a tunnel of flesh, not of rock.

  Closing his eyes, Jon shook his head in disgust. “Why do I always let Jena talk me into these things?” he asked, falling in step beside Keli. “You do realize that we are now literally in the belly of the beast.”

  “Not its belly.”

  “I'm really not caring about semantics right now.”

  A brilliant smile split her face in half as she inspected her surroundings. She looked very much like a little girl at her first New Year's festival. “We have been invited in,” she said. “The Overseer will not kill us.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I know.”

  After a little while – more than five minutes, less than ten – the tunnel opened into a wide chamber with a high ceiling. The walls gave off a hellish red light, just enough for him to see. “Where are you?” Keli demanded. “Show yourself!”

  HOW LONG?

  The voice that boomed in Jon's ears and in his mind as well was enough to make him sink to his knees and press hands to the sides of his head. “What do you mean 'how long?” he cried out.

  HOW LONG?

  Keli was on her knees beside him with a hand pressed to her stomach, gasping for breath. “How long since what?” she pleaded. “We don't understand what you're trying to ask.”

  How long have I slumbered here, human?

  Well, that was a little better. A little. Apparently the Overseer had figured out how to adjust the volume. With his mind no longer overwhelmed by the noise, Jon found the will to stand up. Keli got to her feet beside him, dusting off her clothes. “We don't know how long,” she answered. “We were hoping you could tell us.”

  When last I saw your kind, you were nomadic bands of hunters and gatherers. You had barely learned to create stone tools. Now you come here? How is it that you have left
the confines of your little planet?

  Thrusting his chin out, Jon narrowed his eyes. “Which planet?” he asked, stepping forward. “Our people have flourished on many different worlds. Which are you referring to specifically?”

  Impossible.

  “What is?”

  How did this come to be?

  Jon was getting the distinct impression that he had just stuck his nose in something far outside his realm of expertise. At that moment, he felt very much like an ant trying to comprehend a man spraying it with pesticide.

  He moved forward with his arms crossed, his head bowed respectfully. “It was your people who took our ancestors from their homeworld,” he said. “It was you who scattered us across the galaxy.”

  In his mind's eye, Keli was watching him warily, but if she had anything to say on this topic, she kept it to herself. Maybe that was for the best. He wasn't entirely sure that opening his mouth was a good idea.

  The plan continues unhindered. Was that sadness in the Overseer's voice? Almost as if it regretted what had transpired in its absence. And why shouldn't it? Humans were never of one mind on any particular issue; why should the Overseers be any different? It should not have been allowed. They refused to listen.

  “Listen to what?”

  I must understand.

  The flesh that made up the floor of this cave suddenly began to writhe, a huge lump growing until it stood as tall as Jon's waist. Rips formed in its surface as if something was trying to rip free of a cocoon.

  He noticed a hand with fingers that were just too long followed by an arm with so much muscle it might have belonged to a professional wrestler. The creature ripped its way free of its constraints, rising to stand tall on two legs. It looked very much like a man – a man who stood over seven feet tall – but its body was pure muscle, and its face…

  Smooth skin laced with thin veins covered it from chin to scalp, broken only by two yellow eyes that glowed with a furious light. There was no mouth or nose. Jon suspected that a creature like this didn't need to eat.

  So, he had finally seen an Overseer. It occurred to him that he might actually be the only living human being who ever had. Well, him and Keli, that was. No one knew what they looked like, and he had to admit that this was a little underwhelming. He had been hoping for something truly alien.