Chim nodded, wrapping his mind around the problem. “So, something came out of the woods, disputing ownership of the planet?”
Elissa looked from the holo-screen to his face. Her irises were large, tawny ovals lacking pupils. “Yeah, something intractable and incredibly annoying. The settlers have named it a jabberwocky. It seems to hunt through a sense of echolocation, natural sonar. It runs around the forest, screeching its fool head off, harassing anyone that leaves the settlement.”
“Are the settlement leaders certain this thing isn’t just an animal, and do they know how many more of them there might be in the area to deal with?”
“They’ve only seen one so far. It doesn’t seem to use tools, but can manage a few words in Galactic. The creature is immensely powerful. If there are more we haven’t seen, and they were to turn ugly ... the colony could easily be wiped out. No one wants to exterminate this jabberwocky because of a potential threat, but it’s a damned nuisance according to reports. We’re expected to go down and fix things.”
“Of course, that’s what we’ll do.” Chim looked back to the screen. “Do you have any vid-shots of this jabberwocky? I’d like to see just what I’m up against.”
“I was sent some stills. They’re dark, but computer enhancement has brought out some details.” Elissa released his hand and climbed into his lap. He felt her snuggle against him, but not her actual weight; she wasn’t accessing the Hera stone for greater solidity.
He swallowed a sigh. He’d long given up on getting her to wear clothes, and his mock-severe threats to turn her in for sexual harassment went utterly ignored. Making Elissa do anything she didn’t want to, was like herding cats—it could be done, but only with great difficulty.
“Comfortable?” he asked.
“Very,” she murmured. “Thanks for asking.” She waved toward the holo-screen. “Take a look.”
“There was a scene set in deep forest gloom; a hulking shape with a long snaking neck and a fishy, bug-eyed head. The body seemed a mixture of reptile and avian elements. Most pronounced were three-fingered hands with scathe-like claws, and under-sized, ribbed wings protruding from its back.
Chim nodded. “Yeah, that’s a jabberwocky all right.”
“You’ve heard of them before?” Elissa asked.
“Sure. Access children’s author Lewis Carroll. Look for a poem called—”
“Got it! Ah, I see. This new alien species was named for a fantasy creature that lived in the Tulgey Woods, until a local hero snicker-snacked its fool head off with a vorpal sword.”
Chim nodded. “Hopefully, we can come up with a solution that’s a little less extreme.”
* * *
Elissa set the ship down at the edge of the community gardens, in a fire-cleared patch of undeveloped land. Dark and brooding in the evening light, the nearby woods towered high above the spherical hull of the IMPERIAL DRAGON. Chim left the ship in his armored exo-suit. Titanium bands crossed his torso, a crimson half-cape spilled from his shoulders, and his face lay behind a black visor that only gave up dark green highlights. He was greeted by several men emerging from a crawler. They clutched splatter guns that were not known for leaving much of whatever was hit.
The lead man had a small gray tuft of hair jutting from his chin, and steel-wool eyebrows in need of trimming. He wore a quilted coat, heavy pants, a holstered side arm, and worn boots. The stranger extended his hand. “I’m Bainbridge, the mayor.” He motioned at a buff man with sandy hair. “That’s Constable Crown.” The mayor indicated a third man in bushy sideburns and a long leather coat. “This is Doctor Morse, xeno-biologist. He’s here studying the sylvan ecosystem.”
Chim nodded his visor in acknowledgement. “I’ll want to talk to you about the jabberwocky. Any insights you can give me into its behavior and psychology will be useful.”
Morse cast a nervous glance towards the woods. “I am entirely at your disposal, but we should retire behind the stockade wall. The creature favors the twilight hours.”
“All of you are well armed,” Chim noted. “That doesn’t make you feel safe?”
Bainbridge snorted. “You haven’t seen this thing. It’s nearly unstoppable.”
“And yet,” Chim said, “it hasn’t wiped out the colony yet. How many of you have been killed by it?”
Constable Crown answered. “Actually,” it hasn’t killed anyone we know of. It’s just a hell of a nuisance.”
Morse said, “The beast dug up a new grave in our cemetery and hauled the body into the forest. After that, we surrounded the settlement with screamers.”
Elissa’s small voice reached Chim over their private comm link. “That makes sense. The sonic beacons are motion-activated, and probably
play havoc with the creature’s echolocation.”
“You have the situation under control,” Chim said. “Why call for help?”
Morse said, “News of these creatures has leaked out, so the Imperium has threatened to revoke our charter. We aren’t going to be allowed to expand the colony without reaching some kind of accord with the natives. The alien rights activists are stirring up quite a tempest on the Throne World. You know, it would be a shame if we had to pull out now after investing so much. Some of the pharmaceuticals developed from local flora border on the miraculous. These woods hold the keys to ending many prevalent diseases.”
Chim remembered his mother’s lingering death, the plague that had ravaged her, breaking her body but not her spirit. If the right drugs had been available then, so much would have been different.
“…Making the colony a tidy profit at the same time,” Bainbridge ended.
Having missed some of the conversation, Chim pulled his mind back to the job at hand.
Crown knelt to pick up a handful of black dirt. “Do you think you can help us? We want to build our lives and raise our families here. This is home.”
A piercing sound—like the scream of a thousand rusty hinges—disrupted conversation. Like everyone else, Chim studied the murky blue shadows behind the closest trees. “That’s the jabberwocky?” he asked.
“Yes.” Bainbridge held his weapon ready, without taking aim at anything. “It’s still a few miles away. Close up, the effect is unbearable.”
Dr. Morse nodded agreement. “Enough to scramble a man’s brain. Seven years of silence, now we have to listen to that, dusk to dawn. If I wasn’t already a drinking man, it would drive me to drink.”
Chim contacted Elissa, “I want that sound recorded for linguistic analysis. If we can understand that Gawd-awful wailing, our job will be a lot easier.”
“I’m on it.”
The mayor led him to the crawler. Chim climbed in with the rest of the settlers. The machine rumbled to life and headed back for the settlement. That was fine with him. There’s a time for plunging headlong down the slavering maw of doom, and a time for patient inquiry. I’ll seek out the jabberwocky ... when I’m ready.
Crown handled the controls, turning the crawler around. The twilight deepened as the machine rumbled down the dirt road that bisected the fields. Timber walls came into view. The screamers were deactivated long enough to let them pass the double gate. It was relocked once they were in. The pastel-painted buildings within the wall were elaborately detailed in a neo-Victorian style, using wood from the nearby forest. It made sense to use a resource so abundant. The crawler entered a bright-lit garage and was parked with several other all-terrain vehicles.
The men climbed out. Chim followed.
A young woman with auburn hair, warm brown eyes, and a grease stain along her jaw hurried over. She held an adjustable power wrench. Somehow, it seemed natural in her hand, as if it had been there all her life. She stopped short of Doctor Morse, apparently remembering at the last moment the grease stains on her one-piece Prussian-blue coverall. Otherwise, Chim was sure she would have hugged the man.
“Slow down, Charity.” Dr. Morse glowered with mock-severity. “Take a breath. You’ll have our guest thinking he’s under att
ack, waving that wrench around. People will think I’ve a hellion for a daughter!”
“Sorry, but you know how I worry when you go out.” The girl shifted curious eyes to Chim. “That’s it, the Imperial robot?”
There was an awkward lag in the conversation. While the Imperium spread misinformation to the effect that x-class agents were cybernetic in origin, officially, such speculation was denied. Most people were polite enough not to raise the subject with a guardsman actually present.
Chim found himself liking the mechanic’s honest brashness. He answered in a well-modulated voice. “I can neither confirm nor deny idle speculation.”
She absent-mindedly choked her wrench, face set in hopeful interest. “Any chance I can sneak a quick peek under your hood?”
Elissa’s voice unwound in Chim’s helmet, “Brazen hussy! Tell her to go play with her dolls!”
Chim smiled at Elissa’s jealousy, and answered the mechanic. “I regret that I cannot allow you access to the classified technology of this suit. I am, of course, human so there’s really nothing not that much to show you.”
“That’s enough, Charity. Leave the poor man alone. Besides, isn’t it your turn to help out in the community kitchen tonight?”
“Yes, Father.” She tried for suddenly-abashed, but didn’t quite sell it. “I’ll get right on that.”
Dr. Morse nodded. “Fine, we’ll be along in a bit. First, I want to take the guardsman to my office so he can review the data I’ve gathered.” He turned to Chim. “This way, please.”
Chim soon found himself ensconced behind a desk littered with digital tablets containing assorted reports. A side bar to the desk held a very large computer terminal. Activating the system, he watched the liquid crystal monitor brighten to life. He sub-vocalized a command to Elissa, “Hack the system, digest data, and feed me whatever seems relevant to our mission.”
“Working.” The screen scrolled flashing through files, making them an indecipherable blur. Chim heard a collective gasp from Dr. Morse and the others at the rate of his data acquisition. Soon, Elissa finished. “Chim, the first sighting of the jabberwocky occurred within hours of the first death among the colonists. That may not be a coincidence. The colonist, an eco-biologist named Melvin Wynn, is listed as dying of natural causes from an infected insect bite that went too long untreated.”
Chim stood. “I want to see Wynn’s grave.”
Constable Crown shrugged. “Sure. No problem. Bainbridge, you coming?”
“No. I’d best get about my own affairs.” He left without further word.
“What about you, Doc?” Crown asked.
“I think you can manage without me tagging along. Besides, Charity’s expecting me; I shouldn’t keep her waiting.”
“All right then,” the constable shifted his gaze back to Chim. “Looks like it’s just you and me. We’ll walk. It’s not far. We don’t have to leave the enclosure.”
A short time later, Chim was on the far side of the settlement in a fenced-in stretch of grassy sod. There was a lot of space and only one headstone. It marked a ragged hole in the turf. He moved to the site and knelt to better study the ground. He had an odd impression that something had fought its way out, rather than being dug up. He said as much to Elissa.
“You might be onto something,” she said. “Wynn’s body was never recovered and the jabberwocky did display a basic knowledge of Galactic. They could be one and the same, if some alien force mutated Wynn or reanimated his dead flesh.”
“We can get confirmation through a tissue sample if there are trace elements left of human DNA.” Chim stood. “If I’m right, jabberwockies are a new addition to the ecosystem and the colony won’t have to leave.”
“If colonists become monsters upon death,” Elissa said, “I don’t think they’ll want to stay. That’s not the afterlife most people dream of.”
“If we find the source of the Lazarus effect, an antidote or counter measure could be developed.” Breaking from his private conversation, Chim dismissed Crown and headed away from the graveyard. “There’s a simpler answer. The dead can be cremated instead of being buried. Of course, all this assumes we’re on the right track. We still have to confirm our speculation.”
“You’re going out to confront the jabberwocky?”
“Yes. As I pass the ship, have a drone bring some cargo nets out to me. I’ll need them to pin the creature down and get a blood sample.”
“Can you stop by the ship to get it? There’s a matter here you may
wish to attend to?”
“You have a problem with the prince?”
“He’s trying to pull rank. I’ve just been ignoring him, so now he insists on talking to a real person, you presumably. We should have left him on that resort planet.”
“What does he want?”
“He’s feeling good enough to kill himself again and climbing the walls from withdrawal. He’s upset because I won’t give him access to med-bay’s drug synthesizers. He wants to get inventive and he claims I’m strangling his creative impulses.”
Chim laughed. “Just don’t strangle him until I get there.”
“I’ll do my best, but he’s such an annoying little twerp. If he calls me cyber-bitch one more time … I won’t be held responsible.”
Chim approached the settlement’s main gates. Anticipating his need, Elissa hacked the control mechanism and opened the doors for him. Once through, she closed and locked up. The screamers in his vicinity were silent to human hearing but interfered with his audio pickups. Elissa shut them down until he was clear.
Moving in the exo-suit was effortless, like drifting through a dream, but there was nothing languid about the pace he set, unhampered by the darkness due to his visor’s optic processors. Reduced to green tones, the world around him was presented in sharply etched luminescent detail. He slowed to a stop, reaching the ship. A steel cable from a winch lifted him to the cargo bay. From there, he made his way to guest quarters.
Elissa ghosted in outside the prince’s door. “Hi, Lover.” His visor unsealed and opened of its own accord, as she stretched up against him. Her face hung inches from his, making her golden eyes the sum of his universe. For a moment, he thought he’d fall into their bright infinity. He wanted to. Her warm lips pressed against his, a soft kiss offering so much more.
Life—sweetened with dreams, energized by passion—was as strong as any addiction. Chim believed that Project X had fostered the bond he and Elissa felt; one more way to control agents destined for near limitless power. Torn from their old lives and worlds, thrown together, isolated emotionally, shared danger had completed the recipe for psychological dependency between them. Mutually addicted, their love leaped species lines. At first, he was astounded. Now, he was simply grateful.
Elissa pulled back, and his helmet resealed itself. “If you need help smacking this clown around, let me know,” she said. “I can probably find the time.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
He opened the door and went in. The prince had been busy rearranging the furniture into small broken pieces. Wearing an ill-fitted coverall, huddled in a corner, he looked up as Chim loomed over him. “I asked for the captain and what do I get? A tin can with attitude. Look, you can’t keep me here. I’ve got rights. This is kidnapping! I’ll file a formal complaint with … with … someone. You’ll see, this will not end well.”
“I so don’t need this,” Chim said. “But you are right about one thing; since this ship is not in space, and since you’re not under my command, I have no reason to exert authority over you. If you want to leave, I won’t try to stop you. But there are a few things you should know. One, this world only has a small colony with the smallest toehold. It has infrequent contact with the rest of the galaxy. Get left here, and it may be weeks before another ship comes to take you elsewhere. Two, you won’t find anyone willing to pander to your tantrums or addictions. Even your body will betray you if pushed. You may feel well enough to kick up your heels, but
your constitution is still weak and recovering. Three, I’m here because of a dangerous situation planet-side. If you leave this vessel, I cannot be held responsible for your safety. Now, do you still want to go?”
Slowly, the Prince stood, leaning against a bulkhead for support. He cobbled a weak smile together. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate the ride home. But as long as we’re going to be here a while anyway, why can’t I see a bit of the colony, meet some of the people. I’ll be good, I promise.” He crossed his heart, strengthening his smile, exuding the shadow of what was once boyish charm. “Have a heart, Tin Man, I mean, this is solitary confinement. It’s inhumane!”
“Fine. Elissa will provide an escort of drones to get you to the settlement. You will stay there and not aggravate the locals. When I’m ready to leave, I don’t want you dragging your heels. Agreed?”
“Absolutely. You have my word of honor.”
An addict has no honor. Chim had a bad feeling about this, but short of arresting the man for being a whiny pest, there was little else he could do.
“Elissa?”
She faded in beside Chim.
Getting his first look at her, the prince leaped back in surprise. Then lust kindled a fire in his eyes. The man nearly drooled, though he had to know that Elissa was a hyper-photonic projection.
“Yes, Chim?” she said.
“Give Prince Morgan some credit vouchers, and send him on his way. I have a mutant zombie to catch.”
“My pleasure,” Elissa said.
“It could be mine as well,” Morgan suggested. “I’m not in that big a hurry. How about a lap-dance, darlin’?”
“Careful,” Chim advised. “She’ll snap you in half and never look
back. Unlike holograms you’re used to, her projection can fully materialize.”
Elissa glared, crossing her arms. “Lay a finger on one of my photons, mister, and you’re dead—got me?”
Chim grinned, leaving them to work matters out. He went to the airlock where three cargo-restraint nets were waiting. He gathered them up and went dirt-side, clearing his mind of everything but the task at hand, though he doubted the jabberwocky would be hard to find with its vocal antics. He listened and sure enough, he heard a fit of wailing kick up, closer than before.
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