by B. V. Larson
“It’s their way of bonding,” Zaxby explained, “it’s how they seal an important agreement. The process serves to make sure they can fully trust each other.”
“It is a great honor, Liberator Derek Straker,” Roentgen said. “We seldom fuse with aliens, and only at the direst need. I must confirm your worthiness to merit our trust.”
Straker’s eyes wandered to Ternus and his missing arm. Realization hit him. So, the Humbar had already made the deal, and the Fleet Bull had paid the price. But he’d survived, and seemed fine, except for the limb, which could be regenerated.
Ternus met his gaze and nodded gravely.
Could Straker do any less?
But...
He backed away to pace a few steps along the far wall, waving his sister over and speaking in a low voice. “Mara... will this guy get the location of our base from my mind?”
“I can’t rule it out,” she said.
“And they won’t trust us without this fusing?”
“That’s what he says.”
“And I’ll lose my hand again, I guess. Getting to be a habit. What’ll it do to my body?”
“Nothing good. Your organs will be flooded with radiation and isotopic particles. The only reason I’m not playing the doctor card and forbidding this is we have the rejuvenation tank. If we keep it short, do some preparation, and get you into the tank immediately after, you should be fine... physically. We can even rebuild your hand in a couple of hours. Mentally—well, most aliens who fuse with Thorians don’t go insane.” Mara made a sour face. “Most of them...”
“I know it’s risky, Mara, but this is important—not just for nonaggressive people like the Humbar and the Thorians, but for the Breakers too. We’re tough, but realistically, we’re only one battle away from disaster. We need allies—for deterrence, and for help if we call. So... I’m going to do this.”
Mara pursed her lips in resignation. “Yeah. Figured you would. I know you, and I know when you get that look on your face there’s no point in trying to talk you out of it. Let’s get you ready.”
The fusing took place in the infirmary, at Mara’s insistence. Straker wore a spacesuit with one glove removed, and at his own insistence he was strapped to a tilted medical table, double-restrained. Zaxby and Steiner stood by in suits with stunners as well, just in case the process sent him berserk.
Roentgen squatted on a stool, their usual method of sitting, as Thorians had no backs or fronts. It removed one of its gloves, revealing a gray-brown, symmetrical, four-fingered hand like a mechanical gripper. Mara’s radiation detectors beeped as their readings spiked.
Straker extended his right arm. He’d thought about using the left, as he was right-handed, but he’d already regenerated his right hand, and his left was the one he’d been born with. He felt oddly reluctant to give that one up.
The Thorian grasped his hand, and he felt it begin to itch. He resisted his urge to pull away, and let the process happen.
Soon, images filled his mind—a slow, unaware process like falling asleep. He found himself color-blind, yet able to see in so many shades of gray that it didn’t matter. He also was able to peer through the surfaces of many things—like the old “X-Ray Vision” of superhero tales. Some objects were transparent, and some were solid and opaque. This kind of sight added a tremendous complexity to the universe.
He also felt his hand grow cold, and then numb, as if it were in a bucket of ice water. Straker realized the process was uncomfortable for Roentgen as well. Though the Thorian wouldn’t lose the limb, the human cells and fluids it was taking in were slow poison.
His mind expanded, and for the time he was fused he understood Thorians in a new way—their uniqueness among those to whom radiation was a danger, not a comfort; their sense of isolation as a society and as individuals; their joy at their infrequent fusing; their complex taboos surrounding the process.
Straker also sensed that Roentgen, while an unusually strong and stable mind, was on the edge of madness from fusing with not one, but two alien species today, his senses overwhelmed with new kinds of input. Thorians had only three senses—radiation-vision, touch, and smell-taste. Dividing smell and taste, and adding hearing, was like allowing a blind-and-deaf man to see and hear for the first time, all at once.
He tried to send thoughts of calm and strength, and received the same in return. The longer he stayed fused, the more he respected these strange beings. Despite their bizarre, bleak situation, they were positive and cheerful, with a subtle culture filled with their version of literature and discourse. He felt the pull of a potentially deep friendship and connection, something rare enough in his own life to make him ache with wanting to stay and explore the universe from the Thorian perspective.
There was more, much more, but it faded like a dream as he was forced upward toward the surface of his consciousness. He resisted, but awoke to find himself sputtering with cold water running down his face.
“Sorry about that,” Mara said as she put down a bucket, but she didn’t sound sorry at all. “You don’t seem to want to let go, and you’ve suffered enough damage for one day.”
“What?” Straker stared at his right arm, still grasping Roentgen’s in a death-grip. His hand was red and puffy, as if burned. There was pain around his wrist, but everything past that was utterly numb. He tried to let go, but couldn’t move it. “I can’t... ”
Mara used her gloved hands to break the grip of Straker’s dead fingers, and Roentgen withdrew his own limb into his suit like a turtle’s head, cradling it. “Come on, brother, out of the suit and into the tank with you.”
With the fading of the connection, Straker realized he had a fever. Sweat broke out on his face. He wanted to vomit, violently, and he shook with chills. Zaxby oozed out of his own extra outer suit, now that the Thorian was fully inside his own again, and used his many tentacles to help remove Straker’s protective coverings. He lifted Straker like a baby and placed him in the regeneration tank.
Everything hurt—his joints, his skin, his nerves—everything except his dead hand.
“Good night, Derek,” Mara said with a touch of ironic affection as she closed the crystalline canopy. “See you in a few hours.”
He welcomed the merciful dark.
* * *
When he awoke, Straker felt clearheaded, but thirsty. As with every time he’d woken up in a medical tank of any sort, he had to piss. Mara was already lifting the canopy as the urge hit him. He sat up and swung his feet out onto the deck.
Suddenly he looked at his right hand. Except for being hairless and pink again, it was the same as before. “That’s amazing.”
“It’s amazing tech. Tricky, but powerful... and dangerous.”
“I can see why you brainiacs are keeping quiet about it.”
Mara nodded. “We could get a ton of money for it, but the underlying subquantum principles are at least a thousand years ahead of current tech levels—and like most discoveries, there’s no telling what evil might come of it before society adjusts. So yeah, we’re going slow. Regrowing a limb quickly is just a start. Don’t forget your golem. Crimorgs making force-grown zombie clones in months is bad enough. Do we really want them to get ahold of a tech to create perfect, short-lived copies of people in days or hours?”
“Obviously not. We’re on the same page. Thanks, sis.” He hopped down, grabbed his pants and headed for his quarters.
Showered and changed, he walked onto the bridge to see the ship was in space again, in high orbit around H-5. The chrono said five hours had passed. “Gray ought to be here soon,” he said.
Zaxby gestured at the holotank. “She is, with the whole fleet, minus only a few skimmers and Independence. If I had to venture a guess, I’d say she’s vexed that she had no battle to fight, and concerned that Utopia is left largely undefended.”
“Indy can put up one hell of a fight if it comes to that,” Straker replied. “Besides, it’s Utopia’s secrecy that protects it.”
“Speakin
g of such secrecy... ”
“I don’t think Roentgen got the coordinates from my mind, if that’s what you’re asking. The visions we shared weren’t so specific, and I don’t remember any numbers or math. It probably knows we have a secret base, maybe that it’s a Dyson-cylinder out in deep space somewhere, but even if so... I trust the guy. He’s good people. He wouldn’t screw us.”
“I hope you made a similar impression.” Zaxby adjusted the holotank view to show a star map that extended all the way to Hellheim. “What shall we do next, General?”
“Not sure.” Straker pondered as he began to pace. The fusing had diverted his thinking, muddied the waters, and he needed time to get his head on straight again. “Let’s move toward the fleet. By the time we get there, I’ll know.”
“Aye aye, sir.” Zaxby set Redwolf on course for Gray’s task force.
Chapter 10
Loco aboard Cassiel, Mechrono system.
“Bastards,” Loco growled as he glared at the displays showing an Arattak ship in orbit above Mechrono-7, their destination. “Wish we could... ”
“What?” Chiara threw up her hands. “This isn’t a warship, Loco. Besides, Mechron usually destroys any ship in space who makes aggressive moves.”
“Usually? What are the rules?”
“Boarding doesn’t seem to trigger the response, or weapons lower than a certain power and tech level.”
“Lower than what?”
“In this case, about twenty-five millimeter... which is one reason I put an old twenty-millimeter high-velocity cannon in our tail, and one in the nose.”
Loco turned to stare. “Wait... you had only a few hours to get this ship ready to launch, and you customized the ship? How is that possible?”
Chiara dropped her eyes. “The weapons are modular. Swap-in, swap-out. Only takes half an hour.”
“But that means... you’ve been here before.”
“I might have.”
Loco rolled his eyes.
“Okay, I’ve been here before. I’ve been lots of different places. So?”
“So why the hell didn’t you mention it? Oh, I remember—you’re used to working alone. And the captain doesn’t need to inform the crew of what’s going on, even if it gets them killed, right?”
“You are correct, Crewman Paloco. Why don’t you unlock the weapons panel and check it out? Might make you feel better.” She said this last in a vicious tone.
He bit his tongue to keep the peace.
For now.
The Arattak ship ignored them, and Chiara piloted Cassiel in a wide arc away from it anyway, ending up in a counter-orbit with the planet between them.
“What now?” Loco asked.
“Now we land and talk to the Living.”
“We can’t talk to them from up here?”
“They don’t like dealing with Halfers over comlink. We’ll only get what we need face to face.”
“These plant freaks have faces?”
“Sort of. You’ll see.”
Chiara slowed the ship and descended toward the Living’s largest grouping, what might be called a city, in middle of the largest of three continents, on the equator. Cassiel extended stubby wings to turn her descent into flight, and soon landed on a grassy runway as smooth and hard as a golf green.
There were a few hangars, looking aged and neglected. Ten or twelve old-fashioned aeroplanes with jets or even propellers, and some drones and aircars, were scattered around haphazardly. There was no control tower or obvious airfield operations building or terminal. Off to the side, dilapidated ground vehicles were parked around an odd jumbled structure of roofless walls.
“Raj, you and Bel stay here,” Chiara said when they’d taxied to a halt well away from the only other aerospace vessel there, an Arattak shuttle. “Keep a close eye on the spiders. Brock, gear up. You’re coming with us.”
The grass was soft and springy underfoot and the weather warm and humid as the three strode across the greensward toward the wall-jumble. This turned out to be the port of entry, such as it was. There, Loco got his first look at the Living.
They resembled small trees, with smooth red-brown bark and oval-leafed crowns. They stood three to four meters high and had multiple legs, or roots, which allowed them to move. They walked slowly by animal standards, but very fast for a plant, lifting spidery roots, reaching and stepping into the next spot, and stabbing into the soil in turn. Of the dozen he could see, though, only one or two was ever in motion at a time. It appeared they preferred to remain rooted in one spot, drinking up the sun and the moisture in the soil.
Chiara approached one standing behind a semicircular table on which stood a sign in several languages, including Earthan, that read Customs. Sitting in the lowest crotch of its branches was a sleepy-eyed creature resembling a koala bear, or a fat raccoon. Beneath the animal, on the tree’s bark, Loco saw a distinctive diamond-shaped patch of glassy material. Below that was a ring of tiny holes extending around the circumference of the tree.
“We’re checking in,” Chiara said without preamble. She dropped an optical disk into a slot on an ancient-looking computer on the table.
Faint whistles like wind proceeded from the holes in the tree. “Your presence and your account balance have been recorded,” the bear said in high-pitched Earthan. “You know our laws?”
“We do.”
“Then go in peace.”
“I need information first,” Chiara said. “Who is the current Speaker to Halfers?”
“Silaborne. You will find her in the Plaza of Halfers.”
“Of course. Thank you.”
“You are welcome.”
As they stepped away, Loco puzzled through the exchange he’d just witnessed. “That bear was some kind of translator?”
“Yeah. The trees talk with each other using low-frequency bio-radio. They communicate with Halfers using those whistles. Most trees have a Halfer to speak for them.”
“You don’t have a translator working for you.”
“That bear-like creature wouldn’t work for me; their kind hate conflict... and my life has never been what you’d call peaceful.” Chiara led them toward the parking lot. “Aircar or ground?”
“Ground,” Loco replied. “Can’t see much detail from an aircar.”
“Good choice,” she said as she looked over the rattletraps parked there. “They also don’t crash as hard when they fail. Hey, you!” This last she directed at a short rat-man very much like the one who’d tried to pickpocket Loco at the Rainbow Contractor market.
“Yes, mistress,” the creature said, delicately clawed fingers held curled downward in front of him. “I am the vehicle rental agent.” He clutched at a credential dangling from his neck.
“We’ll take... that one, for one day.” Chiara pointed at one of the ground vehicles, an open four-seater buggy with a small cargo bed in back.
“Forty credits with insurance.”
“We don’t need the insurance.”
The rat-man wrung his hands. “Oh, mistress, you certainly do. Without insurance, you are liable for—”
“We don’t need the fucking insurance,” Chiara snarled, leaning to loom over the smaller biped. “Don’t make me kick you in the nuts.”
The rat-man crossed his legs, trying to shield his prominent, white-furred testicles, and backed away. “Of course. Thirty credits. Plus tax.”
“There is no added tax here.”
“Tax included, I meant, of course, of course.”
Chiara held out the credit disk.
The agent processed the transaction. “The keys are in it. You are also liable for fuel used.”
“It’s solar-electric, you cheating piece of shit. Don’t try to con me.”
The rat-man merely smiled. “A pleasure doing business with you, mistress... ”
“I’m Captain Chiara Jilani. Tell your friends to keep their sticky paws off me and mine while we’re here, or you’ll be sorry.” She paused and cocked an eye. “On the other
hand... I’m looking for some human Contractors brought here within the last week, possibly by the spider ship in orbit. If you can get me details—pictures, locations, anything at all—I’ll pay well.”
“I’ll see what I can do, Captain. I’m Fiss, if you need to ask after me.”
“All right, Fiss. Stay low.”
Fiss bobbed his head. “Stay low, Captain.”
Chiara hopped into the buggy and checked its simple systems. Loco took shotgun and Brock climbed into the cargo bed, bracing himself facing backward, slugthrower at the ready.
They drove through the city and it was one of the oddest cities Loco had ever seen—not that he’d see many alien cities. The whole place looked more like a poorly planned and abandoned park. Rampant greenery was interspersed with roofless buildings. Some could hardly be called buildings at all. Sometimes single walls stood at angles, with Living trees standing near them surrounded by furniture of various sorts—tables, chairs for the Halfers, consoles and screens, as if a distracted child had half-disassembled a diorama and forgotten to put it back together.
“What do they do when it rains?” Loco asked as Chiara drove slowly through the meandering swards that passed for streets.
“Throw tarps over anything that can’t stand up to a soaking. Some of the buildings have clear plastic roofs, you might notice, but usually the Living want everything open to the sky. Halfers must learn to adapt here. There are a few Halfer ghettos, with normal buildings. Lots of rats live there.”
Chiara pulled over and parked in a spot no different from any other in this maze of a city, as far as Loco could see. Maybe there were more non-plant sentient Halfers around—aliens, Loco would’ve called them in any other setting. She tossed Brock the keys. “Watch the buggy.” Then she strode confidently in among the angled walls, clear roofs and freestanding furniture.
“What do they do at night?” Loco asked as they walked.
“What do trees usually do at night? They stand in place.”
“Do they sleep?”
“Not really. Their energy level is lower, and they don’t usually move much. Some turn on artificial lights and stay awake for long stretches.” She walked up to a more substantial set of three walls, nearly a true building with its clear crystal roof over half of it. On one outer wall was a sign in several scripts—none of them Earthan. Chiara ran her fingers over one, puzzling out the signs. “I think this is it.”
