by M. R. Forbes
All four of them looked to the newcomer—an older gentleman in an expensive suit with salt and pepper hair and a handsome face. Colonel Ae and Sergeant Harai fell to their knees, dropping their heads all the way to the floor.
“Most Gracious and Mighty Lord Arluthu,” Colonel Ae said. “It is an honor of all honors to be in your presence.”
Chapter 20
Caleb kept staring at the man. This was Arluthu?
Of course, the holographic nature of the room was hiding his true appearance. What did the Relyeh really look like?
“Get on your knees, Earther,” Arluthu said. His voice was soft and gentle, and Caleb found himself kneeling before he had time to give the command a second thought.
Riley was kneeling too, bowed low before Arluthu.
“All the way,” Arluthu said to Caleb.
Caleb felt it this time. The pressure against his mind, seizing him the way Ishek had. He couldn’t fight it. His head lowered to the floor.
“Better,” Arluthu said. “I will forgive you this one time, Earther, because you are weak-minded and uninitiated. Enough. Rise. All of you.”
Caleb’s body did as Arluthu asked. The others stood with him. A dozen waiters came out of the same door where Arluthu had appeared, rushing past him with cups, plates, and cutlery, and quickly placing it all on a table that hadn’t been there a few seconds earlier.
“It has been many ens since I shared a meal with anyone,” Arluthu said. “But this is an occasion worth sharing. Never did I expect when I launched the assault on Earth that any of its inhabitants would find their way to my home.” He looked at Riley. “And never did I expect they would bring the secret of Axon portal technology with them.”
Caleb glanced at Riley. He noticed the slight twitch in her eye muscles revealing her nervousness. Did Arluthu see it too? He still believed she was lying about the Axon portals, and the Relyeh had already made it clear how valuable the information was to him. If she were lying, she would surely come to wish she weren’t.
“Come. Sit.” Arluthu motioned to the table. “Doctor Valentine on my left. Sergeant Card on my right. Colonel Ae and Sergeant Harai beside them.”
They all sat in the ordered formation, with Arluthu at the head. The waiters had delivered glasses of a thick red liquid to all of them. It looked like wine, but Caleb assumed it was grogsh. Arluthu picked his up and held it. Caleb followed his lead, as did the others.
“A toast to new allies,” Arluthu said.
“To new allies,” they replied. They reached across the table to clink glasses before taking a drink.
Caleb brought in only a sip of the liquid. It was thick and almost too sweet for him to manage, with a hard aftertaste that reminded him of raw meat.
Arluthu put his cup down and glanced at Caleb. “To further answer your question, Caleb, I know what this room looked like, what your city looked like, because two hundred thirty-eight years ago, a Relyeh was standing in this place, looking out the windows and capturing the data.”
Caleb almost dropped his glass. “What?”
Arluthu smiled. “My agents were on your planet before the uluth arrived. The Axon technology prevented your kind from ever knowing it. You are a primitive species, Caleb. It’s not something to be ashamed about. You don’t decide whether to be primitive or advanced. That comes with time.”
“Time you didn’t give us,” Caleb said.
“Yes. An unfortunate side-effect.”
“Side-effect? You killed billions of people.” Caleb tried to contain his anger. He failed. He started to rise from his seat but found himself locked in place by the inhibitor.
“I appreciate your anger, Caleb,” Arluthu said. “I acknowledge the harm I have done to your people. It was necessary for me to reach my goals. To meet my needs. One of your scientists had a theory. Survival of the fittest. It’s a universal truth. The Relyeh are more fit than you. I am more fit than you. We survive. I survive. Simple. Elegant. Your base nature feeds you with anger over it, but res ipsa loquitur.”
“That’s easy for you to say from where you’re sitting,” Caleb said. “You weren’t there.”
“Yes, it is easy. The universe belongs to the Relyeh, Caleb. You passed through the city on the way here. You saw the residents. They are all Relyeh, but they were not always Relyeh. Their genetics were taken from the races we conquered. Mixed and mingled with our own to create something new. Something different. Better? Worse? That isn’t the point. It’s our nature to spread this way, to conquer this way, to expand and integrate. It’s a basic need for our kind, like eating or breathing. Maybe you expect me to be a monster because I willingly and eagerly destroyed your world and because if you saw me in my true form, you would see what you would call a monster. But nothing is so simple as that.”
Arluthu paused to drink. He seemed to be enjoying the chance to explain himself.
“You want to kill me,” he said. “You don’t have to say it. It stands to reason. You think that by killing me, you can save your world or maybe just your ship. You can’t. I need your people, as primitive as they are. The Axon represent the greatest challenge to us that we have yet encountered. I need every resource I can collect.”
Caleb didn’t bother with the bravado of telling Arluthu he was going to save the colony. They were empty words he wasn’t sure he could follow through with anyway.
After two years with the trife, there wasn’t much that scared him.
He was terrified of Arluthu.
The Relyeh gave himself a refined human form, spoke in a refined voice, drank with refined class. But Caleb could sense what was hiding beneath the outer shell. The power and malevolence. It leaked through the exterior in a rank stench he couldn’t ignore.
Worse, Arluthu could sense his fear. He was enjoying it. The waiters had brought out drinks but no food. Could it be because Caleb’s fear was the food?
The thought frightened him even more.
Chapter 21
“You can have them all, as far as I’m concerned,” Riley said. Arluthu shifted his attention to her.
“Ah, yes. The Scientist. Your mind is ahead of theirs, isn’t it, Doctor Valentine? You’re a pragmatist. You can see the forest for the trees. I have you to thank for the modulator. And for the teleportation technology?”
“We’ll see,” Riley replied, clearly enjoying the fact that she had something Arluthu didn’t. “Card was brought to your sanctorium and put back together. But they made me come to see you like this.”
Arluthu stared at her. “I don’t see the problem. You are beautiful, Doctor Valentine.”
Caleb was glad Arluthu wasn’t looking at him. Beautiful?
“It intrigues me that someone with a mind like yours would still place so much emphasis on external appearance,” Arluthu added. “What does it matter if your skin hardens? If your body changes?”
“I’m losing my mind too,” Riley said. “Becoming more primal. I can feel it.”
“Yes. You brought me a sample of the compound that did this.”
“I did. And a sample for a potential cure.”
“It isn’t a cure,” Arluthu said.
“You’ve examined it already?”
“Yes. I can fix you, Doctor, if that’s truly what you desire. But I think you’re losing that pragmatism because of your personal involvement. The people of the Deliverance are strangers to you, so you’ll gladly give them up to get what you want.”
“Survival of the fittest,” Riley said.
“Exactly. But being human doesn’t put you in that position. You’re limiting yourself, though you may not realize it.”
Riley’s eyes got bigger as she considered the statement. “In what way?”
“The Relyeh share a collective knowledge that spans millions of years,” Arluthu said. “What if you could choose to be Relyeh?”
“I don’t know,” Riley replied. “I gave Sergeant Harai the modulator for the chance to petition you to free Earth from your assault. I know there a
re still people fighting against you there.”
“And you care about Earth because it was your home. Because your family came from the planet, and because I killed them indirectly. It may be the only thing you’re loyal to beside yourself.”
“Why Earth?” Caleb asked suddenly, interrupting the exchange.
Arluthu turned his head. Riley glared at him.
“What do you mean?” Arluthu said.
“The Axon Intellect said you’re moving out of turn. Breaking your typical pattern of advancement through the galaxy. Why?”
Caleb’s heart pounded in his chest. He hated the way Arluthu made him feel, and damned if he wasn’t going to fight it by challenging the Relyeh for answers. Arluthu wanted the sit-down. He wanted the discussion. It shouldn’t be so easy.
Besides, there was something about it that Caleb didn’t entirely trust. Like Arluthu had said, nothing was so simple as that. The Relyeh had a shared knowledge as if they were a collective unit. And yet here he was alone on this world.
“I am considered a bit of a rogue among my kind,” Arluthu said. “A free-thinker. I have plans of my own that don’t always fit with the other elders.” He shifted his attention back to Riley, unfazed by the question. “Which is why I can’t consider changing my plans for Earth. It is my planet now, and I need it.”
“I gave you the tool you needed to take the war to the Axon,” Riley said. “You can use it to claim how many worlds? I’m only asking for you to free one of thousands.”
“I currently control only two,” Arluthu replied. “And yes, I will soon control many more thanks to you. But each of them is strategically valuable to me, and I promised only to hear your request, not to grant it.”
Caleb sat back in his seat. He had known this was coming. Ishek had confirmed it. She had traded the modulator for nothing. Literally nothing. For someone who claimed to be so intelligent, she was an idiot.
“Then at least allow me to argue my point of view,” Riley said. “If you need more resources, I believe an alliance between you and the United States Space Force Command could be more valuable than holding onto a broken world.”
Arluthu laughed. “Broken? Earth is becoming everything I want it to be.”
“Even so,” Riley started to say.
“Even so, what value can your Space Force Command offer me?”
“Trained fighters. A lot of them.”
“And how do you know they’re still alive?”
“Valentine,” Caleb said, getting a sense of where the conversation was going.
“Shut it, Card. The Deliverance wasn’t the only ship that left Earth. I’m sure you know that.”
“I do. There were more. They haven’t emerged into Relyeh territory, or I would know it. But you know where they were headed.”
“And I’m confident they’re still alive. And I believe we can work something out.”
“Valentine,” Caleb said again.
“I told you to shut it, Card,” Riley snapped. “This is how we get our planet back.”
“No, this is how you get—”
Caleb winced as the pressure tightened on his mind and the words stopped coming. Of course Arluthu shut him up.
“It’s an intriguing idea,” Arluthu said. “Perhaps worth consideration. I would need to hold Earth for some time, but I could see releasing it once I begin taking Axon worlds if the return is great enough.”
And how would that keep the other Relyeh from retaking it? Caleb wanted to ask, but couldn’t.
“A pre-existing, trained military to add to your Might?” Riley said. “That sounds valuable to me.”
“I’ll consider it,” Arluthu said. “For now, we will move on to the next subject. Axon teleportation. You said you know how it is accomplished.”
“Yes. Not perfectly, but I understand the basic mechanics.”
“It’s a good place to start. Tell me.”
“The Axon create wormholes in space. Point-to-point. As long as they have a source and destination, they can make them pretty much at will, whether that’s from here to another world or from here to there.” She pointed to the other side of the room. “The algorithms to create the wormholes are intense, but I understood the simple math. The real challenge is in the power supply. Since you needed their modulator, I assume the Relyeh don’t possess the same ability to create an energy source like it.”
“Not exactly,” Arluthu admitted. “Another technology we wish to claim from them, and will.”
“You can’t really do one without the other,” Riley said. “At least not on a large scale. Shorter distances take less power. I can explain the math.”
“No need. I thought that would be the case. Still, the knowledge is valuable, and you seem to have a more basic understanding of it than any of the Inahri. I am impressed.”
“Thank you.”
Arluthu fell silent. He looked straight ahead, past the table and out the windows. It didn’t seem out of place for the first few seconds, but when it continued Riley and the others started to get uncomfortable.
Caleb was already uncomfortable. Arluthu had stopped his voice, leaving him unable to speak out. Valentine was so blinded by her own wants she couldn’t see how the Relyeh was manipulating her. It would be one thing if she were the only one who would pay for her stupidity, but she had managed to escalate the situation. Not only was the Deliverance in trouble.
Now Proxima was at risk too.
Chapter 22
It was clear Arluthu didn’t know where the other human starships had gone. Not yet, for whatever reason. Ishek must have seen it when it collected Caleb’s memories, but it was such a small detail in his entire lifetime—especially during the height of his battle against the trife—that the Advocate either missed it or was intentionally staying quiet. He couldn’t believe it would be the latter. What benefit could that bring?
But it was more than Proxima. What if Valentine could help figure out the Axon teleportation tech? Arluthu had a modulator. What if he could teleport his army to the Axon worlds? He could take the Axon completely by surprise.
Or what if he had some other reason to desire the technology so strongly?
The silence continued for another minute. Caleb stared at Riley across the table. She looked back at him, becoming more fearful with each passing second. Had she realized she had said too much?
“That’s good,” Arluthu said suddenly.
The waiters returned. They gathered around Riley, crowding in on her.
“What is this?” Riley asked in response.
“I’ve decided what I’m going to do,” Arluthu replied. “I’m going to give you what you need, Doctor Riley Valentine, instead of what you want. I’m going to open your mind to the power of the Hunger. I will save you from the mutation, but not in the way you asked. I can do better. Much better.”
“What about Earth? What about the alliance?”
“When you are part of the Relyeh, all of your knowledge will be all of our knowledge. It will spread across the Hunger, starting with me. I will take what I want, Doctor Valentine. And when you are part of the Relyeh, you will take what I want with me.”
Riley’s eyes widened, and she shot a glance at Caleb, visibly afraid. He stared back at her, angry. How could she have not seen this coming?
She had given their greatest enemy everything and gotten nothing in return.
Arluthu wouldn’t let him speak. The inhibitor wouldn’t let him move. If he could, he would have done anything to kill Valentine before she could give all of her knowledge away.
If he could.
He was stuck in his seat, watching in silence.
Powerless.
Riley wasn’t. She seemed immune to Arluthu’s control. Did she have an inhibitor? She shoved her chair back with enough force to knock over the waiter behind her. She bounced to her feet, eyes wild.
“We had a deal,” she hissed. “And it didn’t involve turning me into you.”
“I would think you’d prefer t
o be more like me, and less like you,” Arluthu replied calmly. “One of us has conquered two planets. The other has done, what, exactly?”
Riley growled and threw herself at Arluthu. Two of the waiters got in front of him, trying to stop her. She reached out, grabbing one by the neck and throwing him into the other, but she was still kept from Arluthu when two more took hold of her from behind. She used them to lift herself up and over, landing in the midst of the group. She kicked one in the chest, sending him tumbling. Then she spun and punched another before grabbing the head of a third and breaking his neck.
“Impressive,” Colonel Ae said, watching her.
“A little help, Card?” Riley said.
“I can’t move,” Caleb replied, suddenly able to speak again.
“Damn it.” She broke free of the waiters, lunging at Arluthu. The Relyeh remained calm and composed. He turned slightly in his chair, raising his arm as she came in at him.
A large, dark, gnarled hand reached out past the hologram, a single long finger tapping Riley’s forehead. It was as if Arluthu sent a jolt of electricity through her because her body jolted, and then she dropped to the ground at his feet.
He stared at her a moment. Her body was still convulsing. She was still alive.
“Take her,” he said to the waiters, who were recovering from the attack. They huddled over Riley, lifting her and carrying her out of the room.
Arluthu turned his attention back to Caleb. “This is why I so rarely have dinner guests. They don’t understand what it takes to keep a god alive. Consider all that I’ve said and all that you’ve seen, Sergeant Card. You have the skills and experience to be a valuable member of my Might. You could even rise to the rank of General one day if you put your mind to it. Or you can stay focused on saving your doomed populace from a fate better than any other they will receive. But trust me, Caleb. There is no room for distraction in the Kuu. One way or another, you will serve me.” Arluthu rose to his feet. “Sergeant Harai, in reward for bringing the Earthers here and recovering the modulator, you are to be promoted to the rank of Lieutenant under Colonel Ae and afforded all of the rights and privileges that are due. Corporal Novai will be promoted to Sergeant of Dojo Shing.”
