Flame Wind

by Tim Niederriter

  “Maybe.” Dara folded her arms “But we don’t know who actually encountered them first.”

  “True. What do they want us to find out?”

  “Anything and everything about tyrant physiology. Apparently, the captains have already relayed a holo of the living tyrant your team captured back to Habandra.”

  “So the empire is sending a fleet?”

  “They haven’t told me. Maybe. Maybe not.”

  Yajain frowned.

  “Dara, what exactly do they want us to find out?”

  Dara sighed.

  “The usual boneheaded military stuff. How many there might be. How to kill them.”

  Killing them seems possible enough. Damn it, I can’t think like this.

  “You alright, Yajain?” Dara asked.

  “Yes, I mean, no. They didn’t seem particularly tough for their size.”

  “Yeah, I noticed that too.” Dara hit a button and the hologram of Yajain killing the tyrant with her vare blade appeared again. “If the creature was as resilient its size should indicate to resist the universal pull, that blade shouldn’t have gone so deep so fast.”

  Yajain’s stomach flipped. I have to focus on something else. Something clean.

  The universal pull drew everything down, resulting in an abyssal fall at an acceleration of almost ten meters per second. The universal pull was what all ships and arc lifts struggled against, but it also made walking on flat surfaces perpendicular to the direction of the pull possible. Yajain took a deep breath.

  “I suppose a dissection may be necessary,” she said. “It sounds like on paper they’re not durable enough to grow to that size.”

  “Right.” Dara switched off the hologram and turned to Yajain. “I hope you’re prepared to see the Redoca again. She has both the living tyrants and all samples we need aboard her hall ship.”

  “I understand. I can handle it.”

  “That’s good.” Dara’s expression darkened. “But there is one other thing we have to do first. The Redoca won’t let us examine the tyrants without Mosam Coe.”

  Yajain’s brow furrowed.

  “Mosam? Why?”

  “She wants his expert opinion. He has been researching tyrants longer than anyone else we have.” Dara sighed. “Yajain, can I count on you? However you feel about him—”

  “You can count on me, one way or another.”

  “Good,” Dara said. She passed Yajain and descended from the hologram projection pad and picked up a uniform coat from a chair back.

  Yajain followed her out the door and to an arc mover near the entrance.

  “Do we have clearance for this?”

  “Actually yes,” Dara said, “And we have extra guards just for Coe.”

  “Just for Coe,” Yajain repeated in a murmur. Mosam, you’re finally close and I can’t even talk to you alone. If Lin said she still wanted me to punish him. Can I?

  Dara flew the mover down to the brig, where they traded it for a larger one with four cablers as guards. Two MPs escorted Mosam to them. His hands were tied in front of him, but his beard had been trimmed since Yajain last saw him. Green eyes moved over Yajain, Dara, and the cablers but betrayed no emotion. He took his seat in silence. The mover lifted off and headed for the tumbler bay.

  The lian servant led Yajain’s group from the dock where their tumbler had entered all the way to a double wide door where three fully armored and visible hunters stood guard. Dara introduced the team and the guards let them in.

  “The Redoca has been waiting for you.”

  Dara glanced at Yajain as the doors opened. Yajain set her jaw and nodded.

  Now is the time to make the most of Ogidar’s sacrifice. Is that what this is? Is it really? I’m going to live because of him.

  The room beyond the guards resembled a cross between the lab without a circular central stand, and the brig of Castenlock, which surprised Yajain after the finery of the rest of the hall ship. White tiles covered the floor panels, just like elsewhere in the ship, but four reinforced oval tables formed a row on Yajain’s left. Sealed single doors were positioned in the left wall between each pair of tables. On her right, two large vertical doors like miniature hangar entrances sealed with heavy metal curtains dragged over either side filled the entire wall.

  Helle DiKandar stood before those doors in a white robe and dark brown heatsuit with cords connected to her withered right arm. She replaced a reading pad in a pocket and turned to Yajain, Dara, and Mosam.

  “Doctors, welcome.”

  Dara bowed.

  “Thank you, Redoca DiKandar.”

  Yajain folded her arms but still gave a quick bow.

  “Redoca.”

  “My Lady,” Mosam said, matching Dara’s bow with his hands still bound.

  “Where is the tyrant?” asked Yajain. “The live one.”

  DiKandar glared at her.

  “Behind these doors.” She motioned behind her with her stronger left arm. “Don’t think I forgot your insolence from last time. But I can let it go if you can.”

  Yajain’s fingers clutched her sides digging into the material of her uniform, and pressing tight to the skin beneath.

  “People died because of what you ordered. Too many people.”

  “Did you know them?”

  I knew one.

  “That doesn’t matter.”

  “Doctor, let us focus on the task at hand. Unless your rage makes that impossible, in which case, you should leave.”

  She forced her fingers to relax and eased her breath.

  “I can handle it.”

  Dara glanced at her, a question in her eyes.

  Yajain met DiKandar’s gaze and nodded.

  “I’ll work with you, Redoca DiKandar.”

  “Good.” DiKandar turned to the doors and hit a control pad on the wall between them. The seals on one door slid open, and the metal curtain rose into the ceiling. On the other side stood a pane of transplastic behind thick steel bars.

  In the cell beyond, utterly dwarfing its surroundings, was the tyrant Yajain and the team had captured.

  The alien lay like a slug on the floor, expanding and contracting with breath. Yellow haze of stack pollen drifted within the room, though the stacks seemed not to be working at the moment. The creature’s broken leg and damaged tentacles had been dressed and bandaged.

  Yajain had expected to feel disgust, or anger, at the sight of the huge alien. This view of the imprisoned tyrant simply made her feel tired, almost sorry for it. It’s just an animal, like any other. This animal killed Ogidar. She unfolded her arms and walked toward the cell.

  “You certainly treated it well.”

  “He is my prisoner,” said DiKandar. “And we Ditari know all too well the consequences of mistreating prisoners.”

  The oblique reference to the outrage of Dilinia at how harshly some Ditari treated prisoners during their last war was not lost on Yajain. She’d been screamed at by other youngsters years ago following the time when the incident came to light. Some had thrown stones at her. At the time it seemed so unfair, Yajain had shouted back in rage.

  “I understand,” she said and glanced at the tyrant. “Is he asleep?”

  DiKandar turned to the tyrant.

  “At the moment.” She walked through the doorway and stopped before the bars. “We haven’t tried to communicate yet.”

  “They can control humans.” Mosam walked past Yajain, following the Redoca. “My master, Doctor Savar, thinks at least some of them can vocalize and speak our languages.”

  Yajain’s brow furrowed.

  “That thing can talk to us?”

  “Perhaps,” said Mosam. “And this one has three tails with stingers.”

  “What is your meaning, Doctor Coe?” DiKandar put her right hand on one of the iron bars.

  “The tyrant’s ability to control other species comes from two places as far as we can tell,” Mosam said. “The pollen fro
m their stacks confuse emotions. The stinger on each tail implants a parasite that reacts to the tyrant’s pollen. That’s part of how they control humans.”

  Dara walked to Yajain’s side.

  “How could they have evolved like this?”

  Mosam stared at the tyrant behind the bars.

  “We accept that human lines diverged. We accept that the Ditari have hollow bones the sorai their sensor tendrils, and the bandojens their shells. We accept the gate builders achieved levels of technology we have yet to replicate. Why then is this creature impossible?”

  Poetic. Has he been reading the old bionetics? Yajain glanced at Mosam, arms folded. His eyes remained locked on the tyrant. A chill emanated from the tyrant’s prison. DiKandar’s breath became visible before her. Yajain activated her heat veins in the silence.

  “I don’t know how it works, but I won’t deny it does.” She turned to Dara. “We need to dissect it to learn the rest.”

  A small nod passed from Dara to Yajain.

  “Where are the remains of the other tyrants?”

  DiKandar turned to Dara.

  “We put them in the kitchen freezers.” She grinned with teeth. “No plans to serve them, of course.”

  Yajain shivered.

  “Why is it getting so cold in here?”

  “The tyrant prefers the cold, like that around the great Pillar Vilmanorin.”

  Mosam closed his eyes and hummed for a moment. “An animal that prefers the cold?”

  Dara paced toward the cell.

  “Rare to be sure, but some organisms are adapted to live in low temperatures.”

  “Yes,” Yajain followed Dara to the bars and gazed at the sleeping tyrant. “But if Vilmanorin really is an unlit pillar these tyrants may be adapted for far lower temperatures than any large animal we’ve seen before.”

  “Another mystery,” Dara said.

  “What do you mean? Another?” DiKandar asked.

  “They’re too lightly built for their size,” Yajain said. “Even a vare blade wouldn’t be able to cut them so easily otherwise.”

  “You can be thankful they are,” DiKandar said. “You might not be here if they weren’t.”

  “Maybe so,” Yajain said, feeling numb.

  The tyrant turned onto its side, revealing a belly of pale gray, almost white. The strip of pallor led all the way up to the tyrant’s throat and across the bottom of the jaw. Two small holes sat beside each eye, possibly nostrils. The creature lacked a snout. An outgoing breath moved the yellow particles that hung in the air. The tyrant’s eye opened, dark and beady. That eye stared at Yajain.

  She stepped back in surprise. The eye followed her.

  DiKandar chuckled.

  “We’re quite safe, you know.”

  “I think he recognizes me.”

  “Of course he does. You maimed one of his limbs, and threatened one of his eyes.”

  “You’re missing the point,” Yajain said. “These creatures must know we’re individuals if they can recognize us separately. If they see us as people…” It doesn’t matter. They’re monsters. There is no such thing as a monster. “They might be able to coexist with us.”

  DiKandar raised her eyebrows.

  “Doctor Aksari, still holding to that ideal of peace?”

  Yajain’s eyes narrowed, but she kept her tone polite.

  “We need to work toward it.”

  Dara glanced at DiKandar.

  “Redoca DiKandar, I agree we should try to communicate with this tyrant.”

  DiKandar turned to Mosam, who stood, pensive with his hands bound and hanging before him.

  “What say you, Doctor Coe?”

  The tyrant shifted onto his belly, both eyes open. Mosam looked up from the alien’s face.

  “He may not be human, but an intelligent creature deserves a chance for redemption.”

  Yajain glanced at Mosam. His eyes found hers. She looked away, suddenly angry, pulse thumping inside.

  Yajain walked into the freezer in the hall ship’s kitchen, Dara on her right, Mosam on her left and on her mind. His entire fight for the Harvest had been to defend from aliens. The Doctors of Harvest from ancient times were insular and oriented on building and conserving resources.

  How did that fit in with his current mission? And he looked at me back there. Does he want my approval?

  She stared across the central chamber of the freezer, heat veins working to stave off shivers. Dara started past her to a row of six-meter long storage crates, not completely frosted over and labeled with the Ditari word for tyrant.

  “This is them,” said the young lian servant who’d led them here from the holding cell. “The remains.”

  “Thanks.” Mosam turned from the servant to the crates. “Doctor Merrant, we are looking to examine vocal cords. So far no one knows if we can vocalize sounds the tyrant will understand.”

  “I understand,” Dara said. “But there are bigger questions than that here. These creatures are too large to be as light as they are. Personally, I’d like to know how they control people with those parasites as well. The relay seems to be nearly perfect, and real time.”

  Yajain walked over to Dara.

  “At least one of those bodies should be intact enough to dissect.” Her shiver had nothing to do with the cold.

  Mosam followed her to the crates. His arm brushed her shoulder as he passed.

  “Keep in mind, these creatures probably evolved from pillar dwelling life forms. That may begin to explain why they are structured so differently from us.”

  Yajain frowned at him.

  “True. But we have to start somewhere.”

  Dara waved the lian servant over and began to explain to him that they needed the storage container with the most intact tyrant moved to Castenlock for dissection. The lian bowed and then started out of the freezer. Dara followed him, still giving directions. Mosam and Yajain stood side by side for a moment as the sounds of the other two passed them.

  He glanced at her.

  “Are you alright?”

  Her arms folded.

  “Why would you ask that?”

  “Seems like somethings wrong. That’s all.”

  “I don’t know,” Yajain said. “I’m standing in a freezer with you while we get ready to dissect a body-hijacking alien, and I’ve got a dead friend on my mind.” Tears began to well up in her eyes.

  “You mean one of your crew…” Mosam said. “I’m sorry.”

  Yajain glanced at his face, tears beginning to roll down her cheeks.

  “You’ve said that a lot since I found you again.”

  “Because I am sorry.” He hung met her gaze. “I didn’t want to hurt you or Lin.”

  “But you did.”

  “I’d fly back to the central expanses and bear my sentence if it would make things right.”

  “But you don’t think it would.”

  “No. Dilinia doesn’t believe in justice.”

  “And you do?” Yajain rounded on him. “You’ve killed people, and you’ve hurt people who trusted you. Lin loved you. I—”

  Mosam hung his head.

  “I guess its a lot to ask you to forgive me.”

  “It’s not me who needs to forgive you!” Yajain turned her back on Mosam, tears flowing freely. “It’s Lin.”

  Dara’s footsteps rang on the floor of the freezer.

  “You two alright in here?” she called “We’re heading out.”

  Yajain turned and Dara saw her tears. She didn’t say anything, but her expression softened. Yajain shook her head.

  “I’m ready.”

  The servant led a mover driven by another lian into the room. Dara stepped to one side, followed by Mosam and Yajain. Yajain wiped tears from her eyes.

  Dara faced Yajain outside Castenlock’s surgical lab wearing a hazard suit and a concerned frown.

  “Are you sure you’re ready for this?”

  “I n
eed to do it.” Yajain checked the wrist-seals of her own hazard suit. “Besides, you’re here to back me up.”

  “And what about Doctor Coe? Can you work with him?”

  “If I can work with Redoca DiKandar I can work with Mosam.” He gets under my skin, but I can work with him. She turned to the door to the lab. “Don’t worry about me.”

  “Hard not to.” Dara hit the door control before Yajain could reply.

  They stepped into the lab’s long main room. The corpse of the spiny tyrant stretched out on a low table in the center of the room. The table was over seven meters long and made of reinforced steel, but the tyrant’s body still hung over it three sides. Its black armor remained fused to the skin in places where coil bolts had melted it. The lians had stripped off the rest while preparing the corpse for travel to Castenlock.

  She dipped her head to fasten a breathing filter over her mouth. Dara did the same. A pair of MPs with laser pistols led Mosam into the room from the opposite door, his hands unbound from each other. A cold thrill ran through Yajain at the sight of him. She walked to the dead tyrant’s side and stopped between it and a table covered in surgical tools.

  Her gloved hand found a scalpel. She activated her arc lifts. Yajain flitted to the tyrant’s head where the armor was all gone and the flesh was pale, wrinkled, discolored by loss of life. She took a deep breath and looked between the giant alien’s still jaws. Predatory teeth filled the wide mouth. Yajain put her hand on the tyrant’s cold jaw. It felt rigid, almost metallic, in death. Dara landed beside her, holding a retractable pole to prop the mouth open.

  Yajain reached peered in. Her breath caught despite her mask but she forced herself to breathe. The inside of the tyrant’s mouth was blackened with burst blood vessels both on top and bottom. A swollen but very human-like tongue rested on the bottom of the mouth. Yajain could fit her arms and upper body all the way inside that gaping maw.

  She activated the light on the front of her hazard suit, angled it to shine up past her face, then glanced at Dara. Dara handed her a sample bag with a grimace. Yajain took the bag with a bit of hesitation, glad Mosam didn’t meet her gaze. She climbed into the mouth head-first.