J’Vor rubbed his head as he tried to think of another explanation. “What if, faced with starvation, one or more of the Vambir went back into stasis, and for some reason the revival sequence was activated in 1519?”
“You’re constructing a theory to fit a bust,” said Tariq. “That’s putting the cart before the horse.”
“So we dismiss all we have seen as a mixture of conjecture and coincidence?” asked J’Vor.
“No,” answered Tariq. “Each piece of evidence pointing to a Vambir presence is circumstantial, but taken as a whole, it is compelling — the bust, the blood sacrifice pictographs, the mysterious disease, the vampire legend, and the three-headed comet. At the very least it warrants an investigation.”
RECEPTION
Tenochtitlan, 1519
Montezuma had departed with the high priests and officials to submit themselves to the mercy of Cortés, who they believed to be Quetzalcoatl. The citizens of Tenochtitlan were dazed and confused after the cosmic events of the previous night. The razed temple of Huitzilopochtli was still smoldering, and word had quickly spread about the great churning of boiling water in Lake Texcoco.
Acalan, a novice priest, and a group of Aztecs who had seen the lake boiling returned to the banks to await a sign from Quetzalcoatl.
As soon as the sensors of Vrin’s pod detected sunset, it surfaced from the bottom of the lake. Upon reaching the bank, the revival sequence was initiated, and the hatch opened. Vrin awoke and saw stars in the night sky, but the constellations were unfamiliar to her.
I’m alive.
As she took in her first breath, her stomach heaved with the shock of revival. Lifting herself from the pod, she felt her feet make contact with water as she stumbled out. Sinking to her knees, she braced herself as convulsions racked her body.
Panic engulfed her when she realized that J’Vor was silent. Frantically rubbing him through the sling that secured him to her, she felt intense relief as he began to cry. Unaware of her surroundings, her only concern was to comfort her baby.
The Aztecs had watched in awe as the water had bubbled and a metallic coffin with flashing lights emerged from the depths and silently glided to the shore. When the lid opened, they dropped to their knees at the sight of a mother goddess with her divine baby.
“Quetzalcoatl has returned as an infant, accompanied by his mother, Chimalma!” cried Acalan.
J’Vor was now crying healthily, much to Vrin’s relief. Hearing voices, she looked up and was startled to see several alien life forms approaching her crouched in a submissive stance.
Willing herself to remain calm, she remembered that this had been discussed during evacuation training — a planet of the same size and atmospheric make-up of Vambiri could have similar life forms. It was imperative for her not to appear weak.
The stasis pod did not contain weapons, and her first instinct was to scramble back inside for protection, but the life forms appeared to be worshiping her. If she retreated into the pod, they would sense her fear.
A male was advancing with clasped hands, attempting to communicate. Slowly backing up to the pod, she removed the palmcom and waited for the translation. Thankfully, the male was chatty, and the translation program was able to identify the rudiments of his message.
WELCOME, MOTHER DEITY.
At the conclusion of his speech, Acalan waited for the goddess Chimalma to respond. The onlookers listened in terrified silence as she spoke in a divine language then gasped in unison when the magical device in her hand translated her words into their native tongue.
PEACEFUL SALUTATIONS!
A terrible thought came to Acalan.
The sketches of Quetzalcoatl’s army were those of white-skinned humans with facial hair. They looked nothing like the gods before us!
Montezuma and his entourage were walking into a trap, and Chimalma needed to understand that she and her baby were in grave danger.
Vrin watched as the male who had greeted her made beckoning motions toward a torchlit city. Seeing that the large stone structures would offer daylight protection, she decided to accept his offer of shelter. If she could engage the natives in more conversation, the palmcom’s translation program would better understand the nuances of their language and sentence structure.
Something had gone terribly wrong with the Isla. The fact that she had not been revived onboard meant that the pods had been jettisoned, and that would only have been done if the ship had been in imminent peril. She resisted the urge to make contact with Kevak, since a new voice coming through the palmcom in a strange language would most likely further upset the natives. The pod’s homing beacon was functional, and the Isla’s crew was surely tracking her position. Her first priority was to keep up a friendly dialogue with the natives until help arrived.
Smiling at the male, she made a gesture indicating she would follow him. When he motioned for others to pick up the pod, she raised her hand in firm refusal — being feared as a mysterious deity was preferable to allowing the natives to handle Vambir technology.
“Hover!” she commanded.
The natives bowed in shocked wonder as the pod levitated and followed her.
WRECKAGE
Low Earth Orbit, 1622
“My God,” said Jasper as he looked down at the swirling clouds hovering above the landmass and sea. “It’s incredible.”
For over a century, Jasper and Kevak had been rerouting systems within the Isla’s lifeboat in order to make it capable of independent flight. The thrusters had been overhauled to include lift propulsion units. Solid rocket fuel had been painstakingly produced from sifting crushed bauxite ore they had mined and mixed with a caustic soda solution at high temperature and pressure. The Isla had been powered by hybrid rockets, where the solid fuel and the oxidizer were in separate chambers. Hybrid rockets had the advantage of throttle capability, and Jasper had enthusiastically learned everything he could about the science from Kevak. Wallachia was becoming more populated, and the risk of discovery had increased dramatically, even though the lifeboat was cloaked. It was essential that their command center be relocated to an isolated region safe from prying human eyes for centuries to come.
“How are the stabilizers?” asked Jasper.
“All levels normal,” answered Kevak.
“I’m picking up a debris trail,” said Jasper.
Kevak watched as scattered spots blipped on the radar screen and changed the lifeboat’s course to intercept them.
“They’re within range,” said Jasper.
“Lock on to them and fire,” ordered Kevak.
Although he betrayed no emotion as the smaller objects were vaporized, Kevak struggled to keep his composure when a large piece of the Isla’s hull came into view. The singed ports where the stasis pods of the passengers had been jettisoned as the ship broke apart were still visible.
The painful memories he had tried so hard to suppress surfaced once again and replayed in his mind — the shock of stasis revival when the Isla settled into orbit above Earth, the happy verbal exchange with the Commander as scanners confirmed the atmospheric conditions on the planet below would support Vambir life, the feeling of dread when it was reported that several of the passenger pods were offline, and his piercing grief upon learning that the pod assigned to his wife and infant son was one of them. He had been forced to put aside his anguish when a thruster malfunction sent the Isla spiraling out of control into Earth’s atmosphere. The lifeboat containing the crew had separated from the doomed ship, and as the Isla broke apart, the passenger pods were jettisoned. The crew had watched helplessly as the first pods that made contact with the upper atmosphere were incinerated. Barely half the pods made it to the surface intact, and more lives had been lost when curious Transylvanian villagers discovered and opened them in the daylight.
If only we had landed in an uninhabited region, then that first, bloody encounter with humans that set the Vambir on such a murderous course would never have happened.
Kevak was uni
que among the Vambir, being the only one who had never tasted human blood. Vambir who were weak in character had succumbed early to the blood addiction. The psychosis it induced made them reckless, and they were easily dispatched by humans who banded together to fight them off.
The surviving Newlunders had possessed the inner strength to resist the psychosis while existing as hybrids, but a strong personality was driven either by good or evil, and Kevak struggled daily trying to decide who was masking evil intent behind compliant words and actions.
The high-pitched hum of the laser startled him out of his thoughts about the Newlunders, and he let out a sigh as he watched the remains of the Isla’s hull disintegrate.
They continued with their sweep until all evidence of Vambir technology was eliminated. Not once did the scanners detect signals from any errant pods that could have by chance still been in orbit.
As the North American and Asian continents came into view, they anxiously watched the computers for any signs of homing beacon signals.
“Nothing,” said Jasper.
After all continents were scanned, the result was the same.
“So that’s it,” said Jasper. “The pods that landed in Transylvania were the only survivors of the Isla.”
“If any pods landed on the other side of the world, we would not have been able to receive their distress signals because the Isla was not in orbit to bounce them to our location,” said Kevak. “It’s been over a hundred and fifty years. The homing beacons would be offline by now.”
“Kevak,” said Jasper softly, “your wife and son are gone.”
“My wife and son died thousands of years ago,” retorted Kevak. “The first thing I did once I was revived was check on the status of their pod. Seconds before the Isla’s thruster malfunction, I found out it had been offline for centuries. What we did today was not personal, but necessary. Within a few hundred years, humanity will have space travel capability, and there must be no wreckage from the Isla to greet them on that first voyage.”
“I’m sorry, Kevak,” said Jasper. “I wanted as much as you to detect pod signals.”
“It would have been better if they had all burned up during atmospheric entry,” said Kevak. “The pods only had hemo-rations for a few weeks. Any survivors would have either starved to death or—”
“—be forced to hunt humans,” finished Jasper.
“Contact Kozheozersky,” said Kevak, “and inform Boris we have completed our task.”
MUTATION
Newlun, 1725
Johep briskly walked through the maze of underground tunnels. The resentment he felt over his situation had not waned in over two centuries. Thanks to the cerebral implants, no physical barrier was required to keep him and the other Vambir within the confines of Newlun. Once restricted to a diet of hemo-nectar, each of them had undergone the reverse transformation and been restored to their original form. The blood in their hybrid circulatory systems had slowly transitioned into a pink gel and finally reverted to Vambir powder. Never again would the Newlunders be able to assimilate into human society, and any future ingestion of blood would trigger the implants to swell, resulting in the instant death of the host. The underground city was their only sanctuary.
As Johep approached the chamber, he could hear the moans of a female Vambir in distress.
“What is her status?” he asked Gyran, the attending female.
“We’re losing her,” said Gyran as she felt the female’s neck to check her vital signs. “Kevak would not withhold medical assistance, if you would only ask for help.”
“No!” insisted Johep. “He must not be aware of our plans!”
Gyran sighed. “But—”
The female sat up and let out a piercing scream. After falling heavily back into the bed, she began to shake violently then suddenly stopped.
“She’s gone,” said Gyran. “Her cerebral implant will alert Kevak.”
“We’ll worry about that later,” said Johep. “Quick! Open her!”
Gyran grabbed the crude scalpel and cut into the female’s midsection. After clamping the parted skin and muscular tissue, the tiny being inside was revealed.
“Any abnormalities?” asked Johep.
“I can only see the back, but so far the Vambir features are perfect,” said Gyran as she extracted the curled-up fetus.
Gyran began to rub the fetus to stimulate its breathing.
“Give it some hemo-nectar,” said Johep.
As Gyran uncurled the fetus, the malformed face was exposed. A severe cleft palate made the mouth look like a gaping wound, and a gelatinous mixture of blood and powder spewed from it. The eye sockets bulged with clusters of tumors. Recoiling in disgust, Gyran dropped it to the floor.
“It’s dead,” she said. “A blessing.”
Johep pounded his fist into the limestone wall, dislodging a large chunk. “A breeding female lost, and all we have to show for it is this abomination!”
“We can learn from it,” said Gyran. “I’ll conduct a post-mortem with the primitive tools at our disposal.”
“Extract the implant from the female,” ordered Johep.
“For what purpose?” asked Gyran.
Johep shrugged. “Technology should not go to waste. Perhaps it will be useful someday.”
*******
The Vambir somberly carried the wrapped bodies of the female and her offspring to the surface.
“We are assembled here in the Vambir tradition of honoring the dead,” said D’Hal. “We commit her body to the sun and her ashes to the hemo-fields of Newlun. Vambir death is reborn in Vambir life. Behold, the eternal cycle!”
“The Eternal Cycle!” cried the Vambir in unison.
Each one respectfully filed passed the bodies and gave the Vambir salute of a closed fist to the chin.
“Johep,” said D’Hal. “A word with you, if you please.”
“Certainly, Primus,” he said.
As they walked together, Johep maintained his silence, waiting for D’Hal to begin.
“Why was the pregnancy a secret?” she asked.
“We have no secrets from Kevak,” said Johep. “We knew that it would come to light eventually and wanted a brief time of privacy.”
“We could have asked for help if we had known,” said D’Hal.
“It was our decision!” exclaimed Johep.
“These funeral rites were the result of that decision,” said D’Hal.
“Medical intervention would have accomplished nothing,” said Johep. “The fetus was a malformed hybrid.”
“In the fullness of time,” said D’Hal, “the reverse transformation will eliminate the human traits in us that caused the mutations.”
“You’ve been saying that for centuries,” snapped Johep.
“It is every bit as true now as it was then,” countered D’Hal. “Come, the sun is rising. Let us speak no more of this and honor the dead as they make the transition.”
As day broke on the surface, the Vambir watched from monitors in Newlun as the remains of the dead were incinerated.
*******
“We must try again,” said Senfo.
“Then we are guaranteed to produce another monster and lose yet another breeding female,” said Gyran. “The powder and fluid exchange between the fetus and the mother acted as a poison to both. Until our systems are free of the human markers, we will always produce mutations.”
“Could we grow offspring in a lab?” asked Johep.
“Yes,” answered Gyran. “We could remove the human markers in a fertilized egg and allow it to gestate in an incubation chamber containing Vambir circulatory powder.”
Senfo grimaced then let out a sarcastic laugh. “The only labs available to us are in the lifeboat, which we have no chance of approaching undetected. You’re talking in circles.”
“If we could just remove these damned implants,” said Gyran.
“Is there a chance that any Vambir are still at large?” asked Johep. “It’s been over twenty
years since the last one was brought to Newlun.”
“The Council has established there are twenty-seven unaccounted for,” said Senfo. “Twenty-three of them were at the Bistrita Monastery just before Mehmed’s surprise attack. There have been no sightings since, and they are assumed dead.”
“And the others?” asked Johep.
“Even more unlikely to have survived,” said Senfo. “Three were missing in action after skirmishes with Dracula’s forces, and one simply wandered off the day after the lifeboat first landed in Transylvania and never returned.”
“Wandered off? Who?” asked Johep.
“He called himself Dujot,” said Senfo.
“I am unfamiliar with that name,” said Gyran.
“It wasn’t on the passenger manifest,” said Senfo. “He could have been a relative of one of the crew, but none of the survivors claimed him as one of their own.”
“A Lowcaste stowaway, perhaps?” asked Gyran.
“Why else would you leave the protection of your own kind and set out alone on an alien planet?” mused Johep.
“What good does it do us if there are others out there?” asked Senfo.
“They don’t have implants,” said Gyran, “and would be able to approach Kevak’s precious lifeboat undetected.”
“If we could communicate with them—” began Johep.
Senfo let out an exasperated sigh. “We’ve got as much chance communicating with them as with the irradiated corpses we left behind on Vambiri! Don’t arrange any more meetings with me until you have something useful to suggest.”
Gyran and Johep watched as Senfo stormed out of the chamber.
“Why do you put up with him?” asked Gyran.
“He will be Primus one day,” said Johep, “and will have access to the device D’Hal uses to communicate with Kevak.”
“That won’t happen any time soon,” said Gyran.
“Who knows,” muttered Johep as he reached into his pocket and brought out the implant that Gyran had removed from the female. “Who knows?” he repeated with a smile.
The Nosferatu Chronicles: The Aztec God Page 7
