Scales of Empire

by Kylie Chan

  ‘No, but don’t worry – I’ll have one of my spheres delay her until I arrive. I’d better get Richard out of bed and pick up his gift as well.’

  ‘Thanks, Marque.’ I held up the gift. ‘Run!’

  The sphere grew larger, enclosed the package, then zipped away.

  I pinged Shiumo back. She appeared on the screen almost immediately.

  ‘Jian! I heard what happened. Are you okay?’

  I rubbed one hand over my face, still half-asleep. ‘I’m fine. They’re gone.’

  ‘It wasn’t because of me, was it?’

  ‘Exactly the opposite. We’d been drifting apart for a while – my military career came first. They only asked me to marry them because of my new status as a celebrity.’

  ‘I am so sorry I messed up your life. I will make up for it, believe me.’

  ‘No need. Hey, don’t leave until my Marque sphere reaches you. It has something for you.’

  ‘You don’t need to give me anything.’

  ‘I want to.’

  She looked away. ‘The first capsule load is nearly done. I have to take it up to the ship soon if we’re to keep to the schedule you made so efficiently. I’ll ping you when I’m back down here.’

  ‘I’ll talk to you then. Big hugs, girlfriend.’

  ‘Hugs back at you, lovely Jian,’ she said, and the screen blinked out.

  I rubbed my hands over my throbbing face, and pulled myself to my feet to head to the bathroom. I was making coffee from the last of Mum’s excellent beans when my tablet pinged again: Richard. I opened the channel. He looked as scruffy as me: unshaven and red-eyed on the natural half of his face.

  ‘Good lord, Jian, what happened to you?’

  ‘Check the network – it’ll be all over it by midday. I just did the most humiliating thing in my entire life, and the whole world will see it. On top of that, my mother has absolutely no pain relief anywhere in this house and my head is killing me. Is there a problem, sir?’

  ‘Is your Marque there?’

  ‘No, I sent it to Shiumo with a gift for her.’ I studied the tablet, wishing I could sense his emotions. ‘Is everything okay?’

  ‘Stop for a moment and think. Is Shiumo controlling us?’

  ‘Of course not. She’s helping humanity. She’s on her way to Kapteyn right now with the Japanese colony.’

  ‘Have you told her anything you were ordered not to?’

  ‘Well, yeah, but if the orders go against mission goals –’

  ‘Jian,’ he said, cutting me off, ‘remember what General Maxwell said? If she and Shiumo had guns pointed at each other, who would you jump in front of?’

  ‘The general’s so paranoid,’ I said dismissively.

  ‘Have you disobeyed orders?’

  ‘Well, yeah …’ I had a niggling feeling of doubt. ‘She’s helping humanity …’

  ‘What do you do for a living, Jian? What’s your life’s work?’

  ‘I’m Shiumo’s …’ It all hit me with a rush of guilt and betrayal. I was a soldier defending Euroterre, humanity and Earth, dammit, not some alien’s toy. ‘Holy shit, what have I been doing?’

  My eyes filled with tears of frustration. What had she done to me? I’d told her things I’d been explicitly ordered not to. She’d seduced Richard, and attempted to seduce me. She was very charming, and living on her ship was the best experience I’d ever had, but there was something else going on, and I was only aware of it when I wasn’t near her. On the train, I’d asked myself if I’d been mind-controlled, and immediately dismissed it without a second thought.

  I felt a horrible uncertainty: had I just broken up with my spouses because I wanted to be with Shiumo? It was more than just avoiding commitment. Had I betrayed humanity?

  I tried to recall what I’d told her – and realised it was everything. I had level-four security clearance and I’d told this damn alien everything. My dismay turned to cold fury. She’d compromised my honour as a soldier defending my people.

  ‘She’s manipulating us,’ I said. ‘I wish I knew how. I can’t sense anything.’

  ‘It took a couple of days for her influence to wear off, then I used the code the general gave me,’ Richard said. ‘She wants to debrief us now that we’re clear of Shiumo’s control.’

  ‘Understood. I’ll take the next train into New London.’

  ‘No need, there’ll be a rotocopter there in an hour to take you to New Whitehall. Sorry to drag you away from your family, but we need to debrief without those damn spheres hanging around. Pack up and be ready, Corporal. That’s an order.’

  ‘Sir,’ I said. ‘Thank heaven for small mercies,’ I added under my breath.

  I signed out, and tapped on Mum’s bedroom door. ‘Mum? I have to go. I have new orders.’

  The rotocopter landed outside New Whitehall: a two-storey white building with a wide gravel drive in front, and guarded by King’s Guards in their formal red livery.

  General Maxwell was waiting for me at the entrance portico. She raised her hand before I could speak. ‘Wait until we’re below ground and secure.’

  We went through the atrium, where the King’s coat of arms was inlaid into the marble floor, and navigated a maze of corridors until we reached a plain stainless-steel service elevator. The general pressed the single button, and we descended a long way.

  Richard was waiting in a debriefing room, clean-shaven and in uniform. The general gestured for me to sit at the table, and took a seat herself at the end.

  ‘Begin the recording,’ she said. ‘This is a debriefing of Commander Alto and Corporal Choumali post their extraction from the alien’s control field. Corporal Choumali, describe your feelings for the alien.’

  That stopped me dead. How did I feel about Shiumo? Was she my friend? Was I attracted to her? I was conflicted: I wanted to be with her again, travelling the stars, but she’d been controlling me. Did I want to make love to her two-legged form? The response came from inside me – hell yeah! – but the general and Richard were watching me with curiosity and I had to answer. I voiced the emotion that I felt most strongly.

  ‘I’m absolutely furious that she’s been messing with my head and made me betray my own people.’

  ‘Are you desperate to return to her? Does her proximity make you feel euphoric?’

  I searched my feelings. ‘No.’

  ‘Commander Alto?’

  ‘She has me enthralled; I’m completely in love with her. I have no idea how she’s doing it – hell, I still love her – but at least now I know it’s happening.’ Richard sipped from a water glass in front of him. ‘She’s controlling me.’

  ‘Corporal Choumali, you said you don’t feel desperate to return to her?’ the general asked again.

  ‘No, ma’am.’

  ‘So you don’t care if we keep you away from her?’

  I felt a moment of panic at being kept from Shiumo, then controlled it.

  ‘Initially, yes. But when I think about it: no, ma’am. She’s been controlling me, messing with my head. I don’t want to be near her any more.’

  ‘Good.’ She turned to Richard. ‘Tell me about the sex. How is that even happening?’

  ‘Do you want me to go out, sir?’ I asked Richard softly.

  ‘No, stay. You can help me.’ Richard wiped his hand over his natural eye. ‘She takes a human form. It’s an illusion, but her body changes. Choumali’s seen the change.’

  ‘Describe it, Choumali,’ Maxwell said.

  ‘She changes to a tall handsome black man,’ I said.

  ‘And you see something different, Alto?’

  ‘I see a tall beautiful South Asian woman.’

  ‘So she mimics your own appearance, but in the opposite sex. You both said tall. How tall?’

  ‘As tall as her dragon body is long,’ Richard said, and I nodded agreement. ‘Close on three metres.’

  ‘And you had sex with the alien while she was in that form?’ the general said.

  ‘I did, ma’am.’ Richa
rd quirked a small smile. ‘Best damn sex of my life, actually.’

  ‘With no genitals,’ the general said grimly.

  Richard shrugged. ‘She manipulated my brain directly. The experience was so close to physical lovemaking I couldn’t tell the difference.’ His expression softened. ‘Something I thought I’d never have again.’

  ‘Is that how she’s controlling you?’ the general said.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Richard looked away. ‘It just seems to happen. Jian might be right – we’re weak-minded, and Shiumo’s not doing it deliberately.’

  ‘Is she having sex with you as well, Choumali?’

  ‘No.’

  The general raised an eyebrow at me.

  ‘No, ma’am,’ I said more vehemently.

  ‘What would you do if she offered?’

  I shrugged. ‘I made it clear that I’m already in … I was already in a relationship, but I have to admit I thought about it.’

  ‘You just terminated that relationship,’ the general said.

  I moaned softly. ‘I know.’

  ‘Frankly I’m surprised that Shiumo didn’t pursue Jian more vigorously,’ Richard said.

  ‘She made overtures,’ I said, thinking about the swimming pool.

  ‘This is important,’ the general said. ‘How much access does Marque have to our secure information?’

  ‘Complete,’ Richard said.

  ‘Do you think it knows what we’re talking about right now?’

  ‘Knowing its personality, I doubt it could resist the urge to say something insulting about you.’

  The general grunted a short laugh. ‘Yes.’

  ‘So sending it off with the gifts has probably diverted it,’ Richard continued. ‘I’m quite sure it will find us eventually, though, even without X-ray vision.’

  ‘So our time is limited. And we have to decide what to do with the two of you.’

  ‘We need to keep her happy, ma’am,’ I said. ‘It’s very likely that our colonies will need her help once they’re established.’

  ‘I know. Do you think she’d abandon our colonies if you left her?’

  Richard and I shared a look, then turned back to the general.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said.

  ‘She’s always said we can leave any time,’ Richard said. ‘Are we willing to risk our colonies to find out if she meant it?’

  ‘To be honest, my friend …’ Maxwell’s voice petered out.

  Richard straightened. ‘Then give me back to her if it keeps her happy.’

  ‘I don’t give my best people away to have their minds controlled and be used as slaves, Alto.’ She studied us both. ‘For the record: if you had a choice, would you stay with her or leave her service?’

  ‘She’s been using me,’ Richard said. ‘She has me so enthralled that I don’t even know if the sex was fully consensual. I’ll stay with her if you order me, ma’am – I know it’s for the good of humanity – but my preference is to be reassigned a long way away from her.’

  ‘Choumali?’

  ‘It’s not as bad for me, ma’am, and if you order me to, I’ll stay with her. But she’ll seduce me in the end – particularly now I’ve separated from my spouses – and it’s only a matter of time before I’m as controlled as Richard is.’

  ‘You want out?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘Very well. I’ll tell Shiumo that you’ve both been reassigned, and if she has a problem she can take it up with me.’

  I felt a shot of pain and grief at the idea of never going back to that glorious ship and exploring space with Shiumo, then locked it down. She’d been manipulating us.

  The general rose. ‘I want a joint report completed by the end of the day. Let’s make the most of the time we have until Marque finds you and the shit hits the fan.’

  ‘Before you go, General,’ Richard said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s about their reproduction. You need to know this.’

  ‘You really need to know this,’ I said.

  The general studied our faces and sat again.

  Richard and I took three hours to finish our joint report, and I was checked by a doctor.

  He removed the cuff from my arm. ‘Same as Commander Alto: slightly lowered blood pressure and blood oxygen levels. You said the ship seemed to have more oxygen in the air?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  He nodded. ‘That would explain it. Your body has had time to acclimatise to the greater air density and needs to accustom itself to the thinner air. You may feel tired and dizzy for a few weeks as it compensates. Take it easy.’

  ‘I understand.’

  He folded the cuff and put it on the table. ‘So what was it like living on the ship?’

  ‘Spectacular.’

  I heard a commotion and looked out into the corridor. General Maxwell and Richard, together with a small mixed group of military and civilians, were standing outside the med room.

  ‘We have more visitors,’ the general said, and passed me a tablet, then gestured for me to follow her.

  The screen was full of alerts. I flipped through the feed as I followed the group out of the bunker and to the waiting rotocopter. Four dragon ships had appeared in Earth’s orbit. A news broadcast pinged as I read the story – another ship had appeared. Five alien ships, none of them Shiumo’s, were now orbiting Earth.

  ‘What do they want?’ I said.

  ‘Our opals,’ Richard said. ‘They saw the jewellery I gave to Shiumo –’

  ‘Damn idiotic stupid thing to do,’ the general said. ‘This time it’s not just dragons; a variety of species have arrived and want to trade for opals. We’re meeting them at the New Chelsea football field.’ She entered the ’copter and the rest of us followed her. ‘Apparently Shiumo dropped in on the dragon homeworld halfway through surveying the location for the Japanese colony and showed one of her sisters the opal ring Alto gave her. The species currently in orbit have already offered us ships, staff, robotic intelligent workers, and, would you believe, holidays on resort planets for the entire population of Earth, in trade for our opals.’

  Maxwell gestured towards a tall, full-figured black woman in the group. ‘This is Dr Evie Mogambo, Euroterre’s chief economist, and her staff.’ I nodded to her, and she nodded back. ‘She’s going to attempt to set up a shiny new galactic trade model for us in the shortest time in history.’

  Dr Mogambo smiled. ‘Not a small task.’ She became serious. ‘Don’t agree to anything. Let me do the talking.’

  The ’copter landed at the football field. The aliens were waiting for us, chatting together in a group. The variety of species was astounding. A few of them required breathing apparatuses; and three were in spacesuits that seemed to be four legs connected together with no head or body. Five dragons, the same size as Shiumo, stood with them; three were different shades of green, one was a soft duck-egg blue, and one was red like Shiumo. They all had a faceted stone, the same colour as their eyes, in the middle of their forehead. From what I could see, the non-dragon aliens did as well.

  The sight of a dragon so similar to Shiumo – and yet so different; this one’s tail was shorter and its scales weren’t the same shade of scarlet – hit Richard and me hard. We both filled with longing to be with Shiumo again.

  I sensed Richard gather himself, and reminded myself that she’d been controlling us.

  ‘Welcome to Earth,’ General Maxwell said. ‘I understand that you wish to trade with us for our opals?’

  ‘We can give you five hundred planets with similar atmospheres and gravities to this one in exchange for your opals,’ one of the spacesuits said through a voicebox that sounded like fingernails on a blackboard.

  ‘That’s a worthless offer because they don’t use Earth-type planets,’ a Marque sphere said.

  ‘We need to establish trade amounts and values,’ Dr Mogambo said. She gestured. ‘Please come this way, and we will show you our hospitality.’

  ‘There’s reall
y no need for that,’ said an alien that looked like a large raven, except its plumage was bright green and it didn’t have a beak. It was taller than me, and had a long leathery snout with small sharp teeth. My perception shifted and I realised I was looking at a feathered dinosaur, with four fingers halfway down each short-feathered wing. ‘Just accept one of our offers for the opals, we’ll do the trade, and we can all go home.’

  ‘How many opals?’ Evie said.

  ‘All of them,’ a metre-long copper-coloured slug said through a voicebox. ‘We pay, we find the deposits, we take all of them.’

  ‘Dr Mogambo,’ the general began.

  ‘Honoured delegates,’ Evie said, clasping her hands in front of her and smiling indulgently, ‘come with us inside, and we will discuss the small amount of raw opals we are willing to part with immediately, and how much you are willing to pay for them.’

  An alien very much like a three-metre-long six-legged Old English sheepdog, shaggy grey fur and all, looked around, then rose onto its four back legs. ‘What is that amazing scent? You are cooking something nearby and it smells delicious.’

  ‘Better not be us,’ the general said under her breath.

  ‘You are delicious?’ the slug said.

  ‘No, we aren’t!’ the general said more loudly.

  The sheepdog opened its jaws, disconcertingly much wider than an Earth dog could, and blinked the eyes on the end of its snout. ‘Can one of you escort me to the source of this scent? I would love to taste whatever foodstuff that is.’

  The humans all sniffed the air, then shared a look and a shrug.

  ‘Our sense of smell is quite dull compared to most organisms,’ the general said. ‘We can’t smell anything. Could you describe the scent?’

  ‘Disgusting,’ one of the slugs said. ‘Hot lipids.’ It made a loud watery sound of distaste.

  ‘Hot lipids?’ I said. ‘Hot fat?’ I checked my tablet. ‘There’s a cluster of fast-food stalls nearby for the football fans.’

  ‘How fast is the food?’ the sheepdog said, dropping back onto six legs. It wagged its back end so hard it nearly fell over. ‘Do you chase it down?’

  ‘This is really becoming interesting,’ the dinosaur said. ‘Those magnificent stones and fast-moving food?’