by Joe Mahoney
Freshly baked cookies?
I opened my eyes.
Familiar hand-carved ornaments and inexpensive yet tasteful prints graced walls that had not been present seconds before. A mat beneath my feet bade me welcome. I did not need to step forward to know that a living room lay a few paces away, nor did I need to peer through the door on my left to know that it led to a kitchen.
The woman’s voice—almost as familiar as my own—called from the kitchen. “Cookies are ready, Barnabus.”
Whatever I saw and felt here was not to be trusted. It was all a trick—yet another tedious Necronian illusion designed to extract information from me.
Still, real or not this was a house you took your boots off in, so I untied mine and kicked them off. Leaving them where they lay, I entered the kitchen. A woman with hair the colour of autumn leaves stood with her back to me, washing dishes.
Without turning around, she said, “Pick them up, Barnabus. I’m not your slave.”
It looked and sounded like my sister. Except that Katerina was dead. It was, therefore, not my sister. I picked the boots up anyway and placed them on a rubber mat in the hallway.
Straightening up, I caught my reflection in the hallway mirror and did a double take. The reflection was of a boy no more than twelve years old. I stood there for several seconds marvelling at the boy’s impossibly fresh face and shoulder-length, jet-black hair.
A plate of oatmeal chocolate-chip cookies and a tall glass of milk sat waiting for me on the kitchen table. Suspicious, I had no intention of consuming any of it, and so was slightly flummoxed seconds later to find myself sitting at the table wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, an empty glass in front of me. Evidently I had underestimated the extent of my thirst. I had been awfully thirsty. I still was.
When the milk did me no harm, I could not resist picking up one of the cookies and tasting it. It was soft and chewy. My favourite. As I gobbled up the rest of the cookies I noticed that the kitchen was crammed with books, filling every nook and cranny, all neatly arranged. That was not at all like Katerina’s kitchen. Though an avid reader, Katerina had kept no books in her kitchen other than a few cookbooks.
When the woman who was not my sister put away some dishes I saw that even the cupboards were packed with books. I would not have been surprised to find trade paperbacks in the refrigerator and potboilers in the oven. I tilted my head to one side, attempting to read some of the titles, but the lettering was written in something resembling a Cyrillic alphabet. I was unable to decipher a single word.
When my ersatz sister finished the last of the dishes, she placed her towel on the drying rack and faced me. “I see Jacques is still bothering you.”
I studied her. She looked the way my sister had looked when I had last seen her, radiant and full of vigour. Seeing this reminder of my sister in her prime, a great sorrow welled up in me, for she had died too young, and I missed her. It seemed to me just then that I had lost everyone who had ever truly cared about me. My mother, my father, Katerina. All gone, never to return.
When I recognized my self-pity for what it was I squelched it with extreme prejudice. I would not permit Jacques to render me any more vulnerable than I already was.
I decided to play dumb. “You know about Jacques?”
“I have known about Jacques for many years.” The woman sat down at the table. “Not by that name, of course. For a long time, the Necronian had no name. More recently it has had many names.” She recited a short list of aliases in languages I couldn’t begin to decipher and couldn’t have repeated if my life depended on it.
Thirsty, I poured myself another glass of milk and downed it. It did not quench my thirst a whit.
“You’re not what you appear to be,” I observed.
“No,” she admitted.
“You know what I think? I think you’re Jacques, and this is just another one of your damned charades. Any minute now you’ll grow a tentacle and slap me across the face with it.”
Believing this, I should have fled, but I didn’t. I couldn’t have said why.
“I have many names. Jacques isn’t one of them.”
“What is one of them?”
“Akasha.”
“Who are you, Akasha, if not Jacques?”
“A prize, sought by many. Including Jacques.”
I straightened up. “Wait a minute. What are you telling me—that you’re the archive?” I had assumed the knowledge Iugurtha had placed in my head to be inert, like data. I hadn’t expected it to be conscious, to have a personality. Or look like my sister.
“I’m part of the archive. The conscious part.”
“Why do you look like my sister?”
“Your sister’s all over this place. What you’re experiencing is your brain’s attempt to reconcile my presence with hers.”
“What are you doing in one of Jacques’ illusions?”
“This is no illusion. You’ve been free of Jacques’ influence since you came here. Look in your heart, it will tell you where you are. This place—” Akasha gestured around the kitchen “—is located within your deepest unconscious. Jacques can’t get at it unless you specifically allow it. Even you can only access it in times of great stress. It’s been here since your brain was sufficiently complex to create it. It’s evolved as you’ve grown. There were toys here when you were a child, when you needed that sort of thing. When you’d skin a knee, or somebody’d call you a name.”
I might have protested that I wasn’t the sort to flee reality. I didn’t own a television set. I certainly did not read escapist literature. I had not come here to escape. I hadn’t meant to come here at all.
But that wasn’t what Akasha was talking about. She was talking about the hidden reservoirs of strength inside us all, and in my heart I knew she was right. I had drawn from this well before, and would do so again. I had deliberately sought refuge here. Not just to evade Jacques, but to find the strength to do what needed to be done.
I pushed the plate aside. “All right, I’m good. I’d like to get back to reality now. Nephews to save and all that. Thanks for the cookies, they were delicious. Did you bake them yourself? Never mind. So what now? Do I just wake up?”
“If you like.”
“What does that mean?”
“Just that Jacques is still out there. The shield is about to fail. People are dying, and will continue to die.”
“I’m aware of that. What are you suggesting—that I should just hide out here forever?”
“It’s up to you. You’d be perfectly comfortable.”
“While my body rots to death in the real world. Terrific.”
“True. But time is subjective here. As far as you’re concerned you’d live to a ripe old age.”
I stood, shoving the chair back from the table with such force that it hit the wall and clattered to the floor. “So you want me to—what? Die? Taking you with me, so Jacques can’t have you?”
Akasha shrugged. “I don’t want you to do anything. I’m merely suggesting the most prudent course of action. The Necronian is dangerous enough as it is. Imagine if it abused the knowledge I possess—no corner of the universe would ever be safe again.”
“I get that. I just have no idea what to do about it. Tell me this. Why do you even exist at all if you’re so dangerous?”
“Why do machine guns exist? Land mines? Nuclear bombs? Try putting a genie back in its bottle—it’s not easy.”
“I can’t stay here. I won’t stay here. I have a promise to keep. I told my sister I’d look out for her boy and I intend to do just that.” I paced the length of the kitchen, casting about for some way out of this predicament. “Okay look. How about I just give Jacques part of you? Enough to fool it for a little while. Buy me some time.”
“The Necronian would see through that in a heartbeat.”
“Okay. Not
a problem. Let me think.” I stopped pacing. “You’re supposed to be this vast collection of knowledge. Would it kill you to help me out here a bit? Somewhere in your reservoir of data there’s got to be some tool or trick perfect for exactly this situation.”
“There is.”
“Really? Well, why didn’t you say so? What is it?” I imagined some technology as impressive as the gate, some weapon that would allow me to shoot lasers from my eyes, or render me impervious to harm.
“Me.”
“You?”
“That’s right, me. Give me to Jacques. I can handle it long enough for you to do what needs to be done.”
“What about the universe? The one you were all worried about a minute ago. What about it?”
“The Necronian won’t get to keep me.”
“And if it does?”
“I’m not saying there’s no risk. I just don’t see that you have any choice. Not if you insist on saving your nephew.”
I did. Not just Ridley, but Sarah, too. And if I saved Sarah I’d have to save her father—that was only right, if he was still alive. And I couldn’t forget about the T’Klee—they also needed saving. And Iugurtha. And Iugurtha’s soldiers. And Schmitz, if there was anything left of him to save. And God only knew who else.
I slumped back down at the table, the weight of a world on my shoulders. “I need to save everyone. But I don’t even know where to begin. I can’t give you to Jacques—I don’t know how.”
“That’s easy. Just open the kitchen door. Let it in.”
“Seriously? That’s all that’s keeping you from Jacques? It’s not even a real door.”
“Like everything else in this place it has metaphorical significance,” Akasha said. “That milk you’re drinking, for example.”
“What about it?”
“Here it’s milk. In reality it’s a fluid someone is giving you because your corporeal body’s so severely dehydrated.”
“Huh,” I said, and promptly downed another glass of the stuff. Afterward I was still thirsty. “Whatever it is, it’s not working.”
Still, it suggested that someone out there was trying to help me. Someone who would die unless I gave Jacques what it wanted.
Had I known about the possibility of Akasha controlling Jacques earlier I could have just given her to Jacques then and avoided a whole lot of suffering. But if I’d learned one thing over the last few days it was that I could do nothing about the past—nothing except make sure I did the right thing in the present.
I got up and opened the door.
XXIII
Mist Enshrouded Pool
I awoke to find someone propping me up and giving me something to drink, something I’d never drunk before. Although bitter, with a milky aftertaste, it was undeniably refreshing, and I was grateful. Right up until the moment my benefactor’s arms flickered briefly and turned into a mass of writhing tentacles, and a stench like sewage washed over me, and the drink turned rancid.
I gagged, spitting it out all over Jack, who didn’t seem to mind.
“Easy there,” he said. “You passed out. Went down like a sack of bricks. Low blood sugar maybe.”
“I did it,” I told him. “I gave Jacques the archive.”
“Really.” Jack sat back on his haunches, or whatever passed for haunches in a Necronian. It sucked on a tentacle briefly. “Well that explains that.” He indicated the Necronians surrounding us.
Except for Jack, all the Necronians had come to a complete stand-still. Was this Akasha’s way of distracting Jacques until I could rescue Ridley and the others?
Jack offered me another sip of his mystery tonic, probably under the misapprehension that his illusions were still effective and that I was not the least bit put off by a dubious elixir cupped in a fleshy fold at the end of a slimy tentacle. If so, he was sadly mistaken. His glamour had worn off, and I could not imagine ever mistaking him for a human again. I certainly didn’t intend to accept libations out of any more tentacles anytime soon.
“No thanks,” I said.
“All done? That’s fine.” Jack cast the remainder aside and dried his tentacle on the ground. “You’ll be okay now. So will I, thanks to you. Two hundred and sixty-four years on your crazy planet and finally I get to go home. You have no idea how much this means to me.”
A part of me actually felt for Jack. He was an insignificant fragment. He had served his purpose. I could not imagine Jacques taking him back any time soon—if it was even up to Jacques anymore. If what Akasha had told me was true, she could well have assumed control by now.
Jack was staring at me with its lone eye. “No. It’s not true. It can’t be.”
Too late I realized that Jacques wasn’t the only telepath around these parts. The gate materialized a short distance away, startling both of us. Jack slipped away to melt into the mass of Necronians surrounding us. Within seconds, I could no longer distinguish him from any other Necronian.
Iugurtha’s mechanical spider stepped out of the gate, Iugurtha clinging to its carapace by a single arm. In the eerie light cast by the Necronians’ wands I could see that cuts adorned her angular face. Blood stained her torn clothing. Her hair was a tangled mess. But the changes were deeper than that. She seemed taller. Darker. Meaner.
Despite her grim mien I was delighted to see her, thinking that perhaps her presence meant that the fighting was over, and that I was safe now. That Ridley was safe too, and we could all go home.
Once through the gate, Iugurtha jumped off the spider and trotted over to me.
Rejuvenated by the presence of the gate, I climbed easily to my feet to greet her.
“You gave the enemy the archive,” she stated, before I could say anything.
My first instinct was to deny her accusation, but there was no point. It was obvious from the Necronians’ lack of motion that something was up, and the most likely explanation was that I had given Akasha to Jacques.
“That’s right,” I said. “I gave the Necronian the archive. For all the good it did it.”
The Necronians around us swayed in unison, their eyes half closed, wands dangling loosely at their sides. How long would Jacques remain in this state? Impossible to say. The thought that the Necronian might snap out of it at any second made me nervous.
“We should go now,” I said. “While the gettin’s good. Where’s Ridley?”
Iugurtha raised dark eyes to meet mine. “You weren’t supposed to get caught.”
“You used me as bait. What did you expect?”
“I expected you to be smarter. Faster.”
There was a pronounced tic beneath Iugurtha’s left eye. I chalked the tic itself up to stress, and its exaggerated nature to Iugurtha’s alien physiognomy. Clearly she was in no mood to argue. I bit my tongue. Harsh words would not help us out of this situation anyway.
A murmur arose around us, an indecipherable muttering that rose and fell like the wind—the Necronians, though they did not otherwise stir. If Jacques was trying to tell us something he was failing miserably. As I listened, the sound became an all-pervading moan. There on an alien planet, surrounded by aliens from yet another planet—in the dark no less—it was as creepy as all get out.
It had also gotten colder. I pulled the zipper on my vest up a jot. “Can we go now?”
A few steps away Iugurtha’s mechanical spider crouched still and low to the ground. Behind it, a precisely delineated grey blotch obscured a section of the night sky—the gate, leading nowhere in particular that I could tell. Before me, Iugurtha employed a distinctive flick of her head to get her bangs out of her eyes. I had seen that gesture somewhere before.
The left side of her face exploded in a paroxysm of tics.
“Holy cow,” I asked. “Are you all right?”
“Of course not,” she said. “How could I be? So much has been lost. There’s so lit
tle to go on. My database is corrupt. My crew is dead. My passengers and their descendants? Little more than savages.”
Her tic became a wave of flesh that rolled across her face like a tsunami, moulding her features into a whole other person—a person I recognized.
“My God,” I said. “Joyce?”
Iugurtha blinked and scanned her surroundings. Looking and sounding like Doctor Humphrey’s wife, she said, “Barnabus. Tell me something.”
“What?”
“Is it too much to ask that the dishes be done before I get home?”
Whereupon her body erupted into a mass of bubbling flesh. She collapsed on all fours. When she lifted her face, it was no longer Joyce I saw there but an almost featureless expanse of mottled skin, with no eyes, and only the merest hint of a nose.
“Sebastian! What’s happening to her?”
“She’s hurt.” He spoke from both the unit on my arm and the one on Iugurtha’s.
“I can see that. How bad?”
“I don’t know. I think she sustained a head wound.”
“You think? Wouldn’t you know? A part of you was with her.”
“I’m on her wrist. You try seeing a head from a wrist.”
A mouth had formed on Iugurtha’s otherwise bland face. Through grossly malformed teeth—teeth that were still mutating as she spoke—she said something that sounded like, “I am perfectly capable of diagnosing myself.”
I was completely prepared to believe that this unique being possessed some form of self-diagnostic system that even now was working to correct itself. But before she could say anything else, tics usurped her face and bulges appeared on her body, migrating from one part of her torso to another like small rodents crawling beneath her flesh. It seemed to me that her body couldn’t make up its mind what it wanted to be. In a process that was repugnant to behold, and painful looking, and impossible not to watch, it auditioned several identities in quick succession, each of them grotesque amalgams of human, animal, and alien possibilities.
Clearly she needed help. But what to do? I shuddered to think. She assimilated living creatures to sustain herself. The last thing I wanted to do was to touch her. What if she assimilated me? And she was far from the only one who needed help. We all needed to get off this damned planet before Jacques roused itself.
