The Kenval Incident

by Philippe Mercurio

  Annoyed by the bimbo’s little game, Sarge barked at the CEO, “You think I’m your flunky or something?”

  “Don’t be so aggressive,” he replied. “We’re in business, you and me. We have to meet from time to time.”

  “Why? My guys got everything you asked for: tanot larvae, the transponder from the destroyed ship, and even the Vohrns! I’m done with you.”

  Morsak listened to him with one ear. The glowing strips that clothed the woman changed form to unveil pubic hair the same color as the hair on her head.

  With regret, he looked away from the inside of the girl’s thigh and turned to the tattooed face, “You’re right. Let’s end our business relationship. By killing you.”

  Incredulity flashed across Sarge’s face, then he burst out laughing. The girl giggled, too. Acting as if he were smiling at a good joke, Morsak pointed his index finger at the man in the kimono and then bent it.

  Hidden in the last phalange, a small tank pressurized. A thin stream of liquid shot out and pierced his skin. Hardening in contact with the air, it sped straight toward Sarge’s forehead. It traversed his skull, nailing the pseudo-Yakuza to the seat’s headrest. The woman’s laughter stopped abruptly, replaced by the drumming of the water on the windows. The body sagged, deprived of control.

  With the deadly wire linking him to his victim, Morsak resembled a nightmarish puppeteer. He looked at the bimbo, frozen by Sarge’s sudden end, and declared, “Nanotechnology… an excellent investment.”

  The CEO flicked his wrist and the wire retracted. He held his arm out toward the girl but stopped. A report had just arrived, making the navcom in his signet ring vibrate. He lifted it to his eyes and read the words projected on the back of his hand. With a few gestures, he transferred the file to Lebrane before calling him, and apologized to the bimbo, “I just need to make a call. Can you wait for me for a moment?”

  Still paralyzed with fear, the woman didn’t say a word. Morsak paid no further attention to her. The “connecting” icon seemed to linger in the air in front of him, as if his correspondent were hesitant to answer.

  Lebrane received the call while being cared for by a masseuse chosen more for her physique than for her abilities. He got rid of her with an impatient gesture and a vague thank you and picked up.

  The image of Morsak, sitting in a car, appeared. “Lebrane!” he spat. “Your incompetence has almost cost us dearly. Look at Gamor’s report.”

  Without giving him the chance to open the document in question, he continued, “You call this ‘finding a reliable hauler’? A girl naive enough to help a stranger instead of toeing the line? Can you tell me why in the world you trusted our delivery to her? It’s a miracle that the tanots have been released on Kenval as planned!”

  Lebrane thought furiously. Hiring Mallory Sajean had been his way of taking revenge on her. He couldn’t accept that she had rejected him when he had already been imagining her in his bed. At the time, forcing her to take on Morsak’s shady job had seemed like fair turnabout to him.

  There was absolutely no way he could admit his real motive. He opted instead for a half-truth regarding the blackmail he held over the pilot. Since she was at risk of losing her ship, she was supposed to keep a low profile.

  Morsak bought the lie, but it didn’t appease his anger. “Laorcq Adrinov! I would have rather blown him up with the ship and the tanots, even if it meant starting over from scratch. That stubborn bastard is going to figure out my real goal.”

  The image changed, replaced with halting movements. Lebrane saw a pretty woman with pink hair, who must be sitting across from his boss. He saw that she was terrified, fearing the worst.

  Morsak’s hand came into frame. He pointed his finger at the girl. A black line shot forward, straight at the bimbo’s heart, and pierced it.

  Astonished, Lebrane stared at the image. That madman just filmed an execution on an open line. He really thinks he’s completely above the law!

  As if nothing had happened, Morsak ended the conversation calmly. “If Gamor doesn’t manage to liquidate them, we’ll have to use bigger weapons.”

  XV

  VERTICAL

  PROCYON had barely risen when two police officers came to retrieve Laorcq from his filthy cell. They put handcuffs on him while feigning ignorance of his cellmate’s condition.

  Tired of feeling the Sirius ape’s limbs sliding under his covers, he had taken drastic measures to resolve the problem caused by their forced cohabitation. The extraterrestrial simian’s tentacles were now tied to the bars on the bunkbed.

  Once outside, his eyes stinging in the daylight, he saw Mallory. Also flanked by a pair of guard dogs, handcuffs bit into her tattooed skin.

  She turned from the sky, which she had been contemplating with unabashed pleasure, and hailed him. “Laorcq! I thought they had forgotten us.” In order to look at him more closely, she approached. “You look pretty strung out,” she said, concerned. “You’re not going to throw in the towel now, are you? At least there hasn’t been an epidemic. I spent three weeks killing off brain cells watching the news, so I would’ve noticed.”

  “That’s the problem,” he replied. “Morsak didn’t do all this for nothing! I absolutely have to…”

  A Spican agent, easily recognizable by its four arms, interrupted in a guttural voice, “Silence! Silence!”

  It must have been the only Earth word he knew. The police officers escorted them to the station. Wordlessly, they guided the humans through the buzzing commissariat. Finally, they were brought to Alrine Lafora’s office.

  The austere room matched the tall blonde perfectly. Sitting up as straight as her chair would allow, she didn’t even give them time to open their mouths. “You really were pulling my leg with your illegal monsters!”

  Laorcq, who only wanted to put all the cards on the table, couldn’t understand why the lieutenant was being so aggressive. After all, they gave themselves up without making any waves. When he pointed this out, she dismissed it with contempt.

  “You had no choice. Your simplistic plan relied on speed of execution. If you really want to make amends, tell me why you kidnapped and killed Geekler.”

  Unnerved by the turn of the conversation, Laorcq saw in Lafora’s attitude that events really had completely gotten away from him.

  Ignoring the police officer’s hostility, he did his best to explain what had happened. His early days in the army, Morsak, meeting Mallory, Lebrane’s package, everything up to their arrest. The pilot added a detail here and there but let him speak for the most part. She seemed to have decided that the former soldier was in the best position to talk to Lafora.

  The lieutenant listened with an accusatory frown on her face. Laorcq understood that she found his story unbelievable. She crucified him with her gaze and continued, “In the end, your cargo of winged mollusks flew away and magically disappeared. And you want me to alert the hospitals, clinics, and doctors, even if it means producing a panic?”

  “Exactly,” he replied. “We’re at risk for a catastrophe, I assure you…”

  “Oh yeah? Then why have none of your creatures been found? Nor has any epidemic been reported? I’m not irresponsible. I went through your service record. It certainly helps your case, so I gave you the benefit of the doubt. It wasn’t too complicated. Our security services are required to warn us about any incidents with the mutants. I gave the data to an AI to analyze. Results after three weeks: nothing! You’ve got the rank of commander, so I thought you’d have at least a wisp of sense. I was wrong. Your vendetta has completely blinded you.”

  Continuing her verbal execution, Lafora then addressed Mallory, “As for you, even if there are extenuating circumstances, don’t think you’ll get off scot-free. The Vohrns confiscated your ship and demanded that we transfer you to them. It’s difficult to refuse: they’re in control of the entire sector.”

  With a wave of her hand, she told her men to take the prisoners away. “I have work to do. It’s too bad. I’d like to be the
re when you tell this cock-and-bull story to the big lizards. Rumor has it they’re telepathic…”

  Already diving back into her work, she left Laorcq and Mallory with many questions. Just before they left the commissariat, the police officers returned their personal effects.

  The pilot threw herself on her boots with relief. “That’s better. Walking around in these steel and concrete buildings in my socks made me feel a bit vulnerable.”

  The agents led them out of their terminal, then they climbed a landing strip toward a transport. Roughly cubical, the small utility vehicle waited with its hatch wide open. The lieutenant hadn’t lied. They wouldn’t be returning to prison. Kenval’s owners didn’t have a reputation for hospitality, which didn’t bode well.

  Two Vohrn soldiers were waiting in front of the flying vehicle to take them into custody. Mallory found it difficult to think of the conical beak in the middle of their torsos as a face. The stumbling gait that marked them could seem funny, but the absence of eyes and ears made them seem disturbing. Their combat suits and the weapons they carried further accentuated their sinister appearance.

  Torg was sitting inside the transport, chained up and apparently sedated. One of the extraterrestrials pushed Mallory into the utility vehicle with a hand on her neck. She disengaged it with an abrupt pivot. The contact with the reptile’s cold and slightly damp skin had given her goosebumps. With pure bravado, she announced, “On Earth, we don’t touch people without permission!”

  Completely indifferent, the alien indicated that the humans should sit down next to the cybrid. With one foot in the shuttle, Mallory turned back to look for the Sirgan. Her ship had completely disappeared from the landing area.

  Shit! she said to herself, a lump of anguish in her throat. I’m really going to lose my ship…

  When the utility vehicle flew away, she groped for something to hold onto. The jolt threw abruptly her to the ground.

  The interior wasn’t well-lit because the reptiles didn’t need it to be. The beaks that jutted out from their chests worked like sonar. Day or night, they could obtain a perfect visualization of their environment.

  She sat as comfortably as she could next to Laorcq.

  “Are you okay?” he asked. “Don’t pull on the handcuffs, or you’ll end up with marks.”

  “It’s nice of you to think of my wrists, but I have other concerns at the moment.”

  “I’m sorry to have dragged you into this. If only the police’s AI had found something, maybe Lafora would have listened to us. The Vohrns’ intervention didn’t help either—she doesn’t seem like the kind of person who likes to be interfered with.”

  “Please reassure me: does this whole thing have anything to do with these lizards?”

  “No… Unless Morsak made a deal with them, but I have a hard time imagining that. It’s not his style.”

  The idea seemed to make him uncomfortable. He added quickly, “Normally, the Vohrns wouldn’t waste a moment over the death of an Earthling. It must have something to do with those weird creatures we lugged here from Io.”

  Mallory shrugged, then realized the gesture was futile here in the dark. “We’ll know soon enough, I think. Our new friends with the backward knees are definitely going to talk to us about it. I’d just like to get the Sirgan back.”

  Despite the darkness, the scarred man’s hand found her forearm. He tried to reassure her. “I don’t see why you wouldn’t. These aliens have an immense flotilla at their disposal; they have no use for a transport ship.”

  With a worried tone, she retorted, “You don’t understand! My life on Earth is in the past. I’ve been flying from planet to planet for five years, and I’m more comfortable on the docks of Mars or Venus than in the streets of Nogartha. The Sirgan is my home.”

  “And because of me, you could lose it. Lafora wasn’t wrong, I’m too obsessed with vengeance.”

  Mallory sighed. She hesitated briefly, then said, “That’s not completely true. I can’t put everything on you. After the firefight on Mycenae, I could have stayed in orbit around Io and waited for the cops to come pick us up. Or I could have turned you in on Pluto, or even when we arrived at Kenval. I didn’t, for one reason: because I had finally left the solar system, and I was going to Eridane-E, Orcant territory notwithstanding, to recover the proof that my father wasn’t a traitor. And I was counting on you to help me get rid of Lebrane. Finally resolving all of my problems was worth taking a few chances. In other words, I had everything to gain by helping you win your vengeance.”

  Feeling around in the darkness, she moved closer to Torg. He was still asleep. With her hand in the giant’s fur, she concluded, “I don’t know how Morsak tried to kill you, but he must’ve given it all he had for you to be so furious with him.”

  The landing shook the hull of the small cubic vessel. Mallory noted that this distraction had allowed Laorcq to avoid the implied question, but she put that aside: the time had come to meet Procyon’s masters.

  They disembarked at the top of one of the tallest towers in Gloria City. The roof was a perfectly flat disk, mostly made of glass. Around the edge, a concrete strip ran along the circumference of the building, permitting vessels to land.

  The view took Mallory’s breath away. In the distance, a mountain chain with sharp peaks blocked the horizon. Beyond the megalopolis’ walls, the devastated ground became a pleasantly pristine plain. Climbing through the sky like a warrior assailing an enemy, the double sun encircled the city with a halo of mauve light. It seemed close enough to touch. Shrouded in darkness, the streets at the foot of the buildings had disappeared.

  Mallory was distracted from the tableau by four Vohrn soldiers who came to take Torg. They made short work despite the red and black colossus’ more than four hundred pounds and transferred him to a vehicle parked nearby. Distraught, she cried out, “Hey! Where are you taking my cybrid?”

  The aliens ignored her. Two others appeared and guided her and Laorcq to an elevator. It was hidden in the base of the staircase, in a recess at the edge of the glass floor. The cabin was composed of transparent material that was almost invisible. When it descended, she was stupefied by what she saw: an enormous well whose bottom was lost in the depths.

  The tower was a completely hollow cylinder of glass and steel, more than two miles high and five hundred yards wide. A thin wire that glowed with blue light ran through the middle. Looking like tamed lightning, it illuminated the terraces and walkways as far as the eye could see.

  Everywhere, lifeforms proliferated, each stranger than the last. Enthralled by the titanic achievement, Mallory remarked, “I feel like I’m on a different planet. Do the Vohrns travel with a complete ecosystem, or what?”

  “Excellent deduction,” Laorcq confirmed. “For them, it’s the easiest way to survive on a distant world. If I remember correctly, there are two reasons for them to make the effort. Food and a quasi-symbiosis with the flora and fauna.”

  Captivated, she temporarily forgot their situation.

  The plants were omnipresent. Multi-colored flowers with translucent petals bloomed in every corner. Climbing plants stretched across the metal trellis that lined the walls of the monumental cylinder.

  Crossing paths horizontally, gigantic trees with golden, bell-shaped leaves formed natural bridges. They supported hives inhabited by animals that looked like fat, scarlet octopi. The bodies of these big mollusks inflated and deflated to propel them from place to place. Some were twice as long as a human is tall.

  While the cabin continued its descent through the vertical world, the décor changed regularly. Different sets of passageways sheltered different kinds of biotopes: rocky desert, luxurious plains, forests, and steppes. The intersecting levels looked like a giant steel spider web. One of these accommodated a sea floor, retained by a spherical force field about a hundred yards in diameter.

  Steel arches undergirded it here and there, supporting the weight of the crystalline water in the well, near the luminous wire. The submerged port
ion of the metal structure was colonized by dazzling yellow tubular coral.

  Among them, an aquatic variant of the balloon octopi fled before a few cylindrical crustaceans. Equipped with long, sharp, pointed beaks, these predators could pierce the elastic skin of their prey and devour them from inside in a matter of seconds.

  When the elevator stopped, Mallory left it with regret. After the abundance of color and life, the hallway into which the extraterrestrials escorted them seemed painfully bare.

  They were left in a windowless room, where they could barely see that another alien was already present. The door closed behind them and they were suddenly plunged into darkness.

  Hanosk, the Vohrn in front of whom the prisoners had been left, inspected the two humans. The organs in his beak gave him a detailed picture.

  Only two genders… He supposed that their sexuality must be rather frustrating, thereby explaining the aggressiveness of which the species was capable.

  These xenological considerations nevertheless had to wait: the future of his species depended on the next few minutes.

  The Earthlings couldn’t see a thing, which suited him perfectly. Approaching the male, he let the purple robe he was wearing slide to the floor. The scales on his beak retracted with a scraping sound against his flesh that sounded like a tear. Hearing this noise, the humans broke out in a cold sweat. Irritated by the strange smell, Hanosk’s hypersensitive organ tensed.

  The extraterrestrial grabbed the man as quickly as a serpent seizing its prey. Indifferent to the human’s kicking as he sought to free himself, he watched the female.

  She was trying in vain to open the door and was emitting sounds that were incomprehensible to the Vohrn. “Let us out! We didn’t do anything wrong! What’s your problem with us?”

  Ordinarily, he would never allow himself to mistreat an Earthling. Well aware of the diplomatic risk of such behavior, Hanosk resorted to the pragmatic: the situation was too serious. He didn’t have time for inefficient vocal exchanges.