The tentacles coiled and uncoiled, grasping hungrily at nothing. Its backside was a muddy-green, its belly yellow-white. Red-gold lanterns, its oversized eyes, were incandescent with hate. It studied the collapsed lab-coated figures and the machinery outside its tube. Then, it pounded the tank wall with mallet-like fists—not with frenzy but with intelligence—focusing its power onto the same small spot for maximum effect. The silica withstood his attack, frustrating the creature. Like a damned soul, it screeched. Even through the water, the sound was uncomfortable, passing quickly beyond the pickup range of the security system.
“I’m going down there,” the guardsman said. He spun toward Terrence. “You—how do I get to that level? Show me the quickest way.”
“Sure,” the man said. “Come with me. We’ll take a bubble car.”
“I’m coming too,” Rachel said.
“Is that wise?” Terrance asked.
“Don’t even try to stop me,” she said.
“You’ll both stay with the bubble car after we get there, until I tell you otherwise.” Chim’s tone warned against further argument.
Terrance led him and Rachel across the vault, to a solitary shaft. A clear globe floated on top of the tube. Terrance climbed a ladder, slid opened a section of the globe, and stepped into the shell. Chim followed. The bubble sank noticeably with the addition of his armored mass. He steadied Rachel, taking her hand as she climbed in after him.
Terrance closed the bubble’s roof and sat down on a circular bench that ran along the car’s equator. He placed his hands in the air, over a holo-interface system built into the deck. Two-dimensional shadow boards smudged the air before him. Terrance tapped the boards in various places
and color-coded patches of shadow turned red, blue, and gold.
“You getting this, Elissa?” the guardsman sub-vocalized. “I may need you to override this system at some future time, taking control quickly.”
“Don’t worry, Lover. I gotcha covered. Just be careful. I don’t like the look of those monsters. Life-forms capable of dealing with an ocean’s crushing weight may well surpass your suit’s resources.”
“Then how are these shafts containing them so easily?” Chim asked. “An induction field for added integrity?”
“No,” Elissa said. “Best I can tell through your suit’s sensors, the material is simply tougher than any silica on record. I suspect it’s self-regenerating as well--possibly alive. See if you can get me a sample.”
Sure. What else do I have to do? The bubble car dropped down its shaft as the seawater drained away. The car bobbled at its new level, several decks down. Terrance opened the roof hatch. Beyond, an iris in the wall of the shaft opened as well. Chim went through both openings like a scarlet-winged angel, his cape flaring in his wake.
A sonic burst filled the space. Chim felt the attack, but was able to shake off enough of it to stay functional within the insulation of his exo-suit. He passed collapsed workers, approaching the merman’s shaft. The creature broke off the barrage, studying Chim. He saw something in the reptilian face that might have been recognition. The beast’s mouth opened and closed as it beat on the inside of the shaft. Demanding something, it seemed to shaping words that were drowned by the water.
“Chim,” Elissa’s voice was a little painful to him in the aftermath of the sonic scream. “The readings I’m getting from this specimen … they’re human. It ... he ... was once a man.”
Surreally, a scrap of Shakespearian verse unwound within Chim’s mind:
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
He felt himself choking on a weird blend of horror and sympathy. Someone will pay for this. I swear it.
The beast was distracted by the return of the jellyfish. It dropped into view, and hung sideways in the massive tube. Its translucent tentacles surrounded the merman like ghostly sea snakes. They wrapped around one of his legs and his torso. The merman didn’t seem to care. It was
odd.
Chim’s sensor web picked up the approach of two bodies behind him. He turned for a visual check. “What are you two doing here? I told you to wait at the bubble car.”
“She wouldn’t so I couldn’t,” Terrence explained.”
“I warned you that she’d be trouble,” Elissa chimed in.
“I was drawn here by pain and a terrible rage,” Rachel explained. “It has now mellowed into despair.” The empath swept nearer, entranced, eyes wide, fixed on the tank. She put a hand up against the clear silica wall. The merman on the other side did the same, staring, as if by sheer force of will he could make his heart known.
Curious, Chim let her continue her reading. A sob broke free of her chest, as her head went forward, touching the cylinder. Chim moved to the side to see her profile. She was crying. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Their love, it’s so beautiful—all that really keeps them sane.”
“Their … love?” Terrence asked. “I thought they were fighting.”
“No,” Rachel answered. “She’s just trying to comfort him.”
“She? The jellyfish?” Chim asked.
“Yes,” Rachel said. “She has a compassionate soul.”
Chim sub-vocalized a question to Elissa. “Why didn’t you tell me she was once human too?”
There was only silence on the link.
“Elissa, answer me! There should be no secrets between us.”
She spoke last, “Chim, she was never human. She’s one of the natives I was telling you about. Don’t ask me anymore. The secrets of this place strike too close to home.”
“You know you can trust me with anything,” Chim said.
“I hope that’s true.”
“They’re going away,” Terrence said. “Dr. Gordon’s going to want you to go after it.”
Chim returned his attention to the tank. Terrence was right; the incongruous couple was sinking rapidly from sight toward the ocean floor.
A cold anger possessed Chim at a sudden realization. “Elissa, if you can tell the merman’s human through my suit sensors … then…”
Elissa completed his sub-vocalization. “Then the people here must know he’s human as well, and they still want us to kill him. That’s sick! This place is involved in human genetic manipulation, and they want us to keep it covered up.
“My gut feeling is that Rachel and Terrence aren’t in on all this. But everyone else, yeah, they’d have to know.” Chim frowned invisibly behind his visor. “I get so sick of ugly little secrets.”
“What are you going to do?” Elissa asked.
“What I have to. Prepare the skate. I’ll be along soon to get it.”
The skate was a small, one-man submersible. It resembled its namesake, having large flat water wings to either side, as well as a long tail for stabilization. Chim drove it from the base of his ship, into the black sea. His light beams created a patch of dark blue around him, highlighting whiskered schools of eyeless vertebrates.
He dove deeper, through curtains of seaweed that were miles long. The sea bottom came up quickly. There was no shallow slope, just a sharp drop off. Chim was surrounded by black coral formations that were covered with bloated starfish, meter-sized with seven radial arms. They blended in well with the coral but had different textures discernible to his digitally enhancing optic processors.
Any other time, he would have loved studying Ebon’s sea life--but not now. His anger pulled him away, toward a forest of translucent silica. These were the hollow boles that extended up into the research station. They were capped off and grounded, except for one of the largest. Its base was shattered. Something had wanted out awful bad.
Chim knew who had done this; the merman was determined to terrorize the researchers that had made him what he was. Chim scanned with sensors, loc
king on to two large forms. The merman and jellyfish approached cautiously. The guardsman knew it wouldn’t take long for them to realize that the skate was not some new aquatic lifeform. Then, anything could happen.
“Be careful, Chim.” Elissa’s voice was loud in his ears, in the insulation of the skate. Mostly a propulsion system, the device plugged into his exo-suit, becoming an extension of it the same way his exo-suit was an extension of his organic body. All three shared a neural interface. Chim could feel the chill water squeezing him from every side.
He opened a small cargo port, deposited several objects on the sea floor, and he backed away. The merman kept a wary eye on him as the jellyfish examined his gift.
Her tentacles plucked excitedly at the merman, showing him objects clipped to a coiled line that ended with a timer. Chim had spaced the magnesium and stun grenade clusters so that a dozen adjoining levels of the research base could be taken out at once.
It’s all I can do for you. Maybe it will be enough.
The jellyfish extended several tentacles. Though they were capable of delivering massive electrical damage, Chim didn’t move. His trust was rewarded. The tentacles caressed the titanium steel plating of the skate in a gesture of appreciation, and then withdrew. The merman flashed him a conspirator’s friendly but wicked grin, taking up the connected charges.
Chim left, languidly flapping toward the surface. Elissa’s voice accompanied him. “Do you think that was wise?”
“For the soul of our civilization, I think it was necessary.”
“What about Rachel?”
“I thought you didn’t care about her. Well, I don’t see why she or any of the others should be in any particular danger. When Gordon sees what the merman has and what he’s doing with it, he’ll evacuate the base to the surface level. They may have to sit in the dark a day or so until a ship can pick them up, but it will give the researcher’s time to reflect on their sins.”
“The senator could raise a big stink about this.”
“I think he’ll have a hard enough time keeping Rachel quiet about his role in funding perverted research. If she goes public, he can say farewell to all his chances at re-election. That’s the thing about politicians; they can always be trusted to put their own interests above those of the people.”
“If she were to slip in the shower and die...” Elissa said.
“Have Imperial Intelligence put a watchdog on her so that doesn’t happen,” Chim said.
“Sure, Lover.”
Chim broke the surface. The skate dug into the submerged coral and heaved itself ashore. Once he reached the IMPERIAL DRAGON the cargo winches gathered him up. Inside the ship again, he separated from the skate, and shed the exo-suit as well.
“Chim, I want you to come to me.”
“Where are you?”
“Not to my … ghost, to the real me.”
“You mean—your cyber-core?”
“Yes.”
The thought shocked him. In the years he’d been her partner, she’d never asked this of him. Sure, he knew there was an AI core in engineering, linked to the rest of the ship, but he’d always respected Elissa’s privacy too much to snoop into that aspect of her.
“Why now?” he asked.
“Seeing those other two…”
“The merman and jellyfish?”
“Yes. Seeing them made me realized that people who love each other can share everything … anything…”
“Before, you thought seeing your true nature would destroy what I feel for you?” he asked.
Her voice was very soft. “Yes.”
“This is important to you?” he asked.
“Very. If I haven’t given you every part of my soul, I haven’t given you any part of it.”
“All right. I’m heading for engineering. You’ll have to show me exactly where you are.”
He reached the core area, and stood facing a mirror ball that distorted his image. It was massive, connected to purifying and oxygenating systems. Other feeds supplied the sphere with nutrient solution. Oddly, the entire unit was self-powering somehow, not drawing on ship’s energy at all. The entire vessel could be destroyed and this core would still survive.
“I’m going to retract the mirror sheathing, Chim. I hope you don’t find me … ugly.”
“You don’t have to do this, you know.”
“Yes, I do.”
Section by section, the sheathing rolled back until Chim could see the secret it protected. Her true body shimmered—translucent and alien—pulsing with organically generated electricity. Tentacle coiled, grasping at nothing, reflecting the agitation of her thoughts.
“Ugly’s not the word for it,” Chim said. “I’d say—beautiful, ephemeral, certainly exotic, but never ugly. You never had to hide from me.”
“But, I’m a jellyfish too. I haven’t even got a spine.” Her core was a ball of electrical fire. It pulsed brighter as she grew impassioned. Her pale tentacles curled into obscure runes, playing across the inside of her silica tank.
“Maybe not, but you can teach most people a thing or two about courage. Now, if you’re done being foolish, my love…”
“Yes?”
“Let’s get outta here. Haven’t we both had enough of sitting in the dark?”
INTERLUDE
“You know how unprofessional it is to date one’s ship?” one of the agents asked.
Chim shrugged. “Our bond has served the Imperium time and again.”
“She’s not even human.”
Chim narrowed his eyes. “More human than some.”
4. ADAM AND EVIL
“Chim!” The female voice burst from his suite’s comm system, filling every room.
“What?” he asked.
He put his tools aside, next to an empty box and wrapping paper. Ribbons provided bright bursts of cheer. He studied the carved pearl he’d worked on for so long. It was larger than those pulled from Earthly oysters, having come from the seas of Ebon. The carving was a soapy blue. He’d sculpted Elissa’s true form, capturing her invertebrate beauty, the smooth shield of her bell, the trailing, sensuous flow of tentacles. She had intelligence, too; not an actual brain, but her umbrella housed an electric pattern of force: permanent memory and a nearly stable personality.
He left the pearl with the gift wrapping on the coffee table.
Elissa asked, “Why are your vids dark? I can’t see you.”
“I needed some privacy.”
“For what?”
“Use your imagination.”
There was a pause, then a pounding on his hall door let him know Elissa’s hyper-photonic body had beamed into the outer corridor. Her voice came from the door comm. “Tell me!”
“If I wanted you to know, I wouldn’t have disconnected the vid system in the first place and locked the door.” Fortunately, his quarters were inviolate to her without his permission to enter—a security feature beyond even her control.
Elissa’s voice acquired a sultry whine. “You’re keeping secrets from me? I-I don’t know what to say.”
He grinned. “Highly unlikely.”
“Open up!”
“Why?”
“It’s my job to look after you.”
“That’s what you call it?”
“I-I … never mind, there’s a mission.”
He rose off the couch and approached the door. “I’m coming.”
When he stepped out, she was gone.
He walked onto the bridge wearing a jade body sheath with silver and gold contact points for neural-interface with an exo-skeleton combat suit. Glowing saffron, Elissa stood near the captain’s chair. Her projection of energy glared at him. Her arms were crossed. And she was naked. Again.
“You know that’s against ship regulations,” he said.
“Are you getting tired of me? I can make my boobs bigger.”
“Suit yourself,” he said. “What’s the mission?”
He heard something from her that might have been a growl, t
hen she smiled sweetly. “I’ve intercepted a transmission meant for us.”
He sat in the command chair, facing the main display screen which showed the star field they were currently cruising though. “It addressed us specifically?”
“No. They were being careful, cagey. The transmission was a date and time. Nothing else.”
“So how do you know it’s meant for us?”
“The time and date pin-points our first mission, our meeting with ADAM on Eskandar.”
“ADAM! You think he’s waving to get our attention?”
“I checked with Ryker. His company’s lost track of their cyber-naut. He’s gone rogue, or native, missing on purpose they think.”
“The time had to come when he’d liberate himself from other people’s concept of ownership.” Chim watched the stars streaking past. “What concerns me is why he’s reached out to us. He’s a very capable cybernetic lifeform. If he’s found something that gives him trouble, we’re not going to have an easy time of it. I take it you’ve tracked the source of the transmission?”
Her holo-form leaned into his chair. Her hands settled on his right forearm, an illusion of a caress. “Wolf 359, a variable red dwarf star 7.8 light years from Old Earth.”
He drew upon memory. “That star doesn’t have any planets. We’ll be looking for a ship.”
“Once we reach Wolf, I’ll search with long-range scanners.”
“If he wants us, he won’t be hiding, but go ahead. We don’t know who else might be around.”
“Chim?”
“Yes?”
“You still love me?”
He considered reminding her that he’d never said that, but it seemed pointless … and cruel. He looked her in the eyes. “As much as always.”
Her face lit with a burst of joy. Then she seemed to think over his
answer. A serious expression took over. “Exactly how much is that, Chim?”
“What scale of measurement would you like me to use?” he asked. “Fathoms or lightyears?”
Agent X Page 8
