Telisa nodded. “A meat shack.”
“Makes sense, right? They’re advanced. Highly automated.”
“Shiny barely seems to eat, though. And he survives on our ship for long periods of time without eating or drinking. This seems like a lot of hookups for something so independent.”
“Maybe they stayed here for years at a time,” Magnus said.
“I don’t know. We’re missing something.”
“Hospital?”
“Maybe. I would expect something more advanced, less intrusive, from them in curing injury or sickness, but that may depend on how severe the problem was.”
Telisa looked over the creature before her carefully. “I don’t see any wounds. It must have died some other—ah!”
A small creature darted over the surface, then dodged into a hole in the outer husk. Telisa recoiled.
“Five Holies! Did you see it? Oh. It must be living in the body. Eating it.”
“That’s one theory,” Magnus said.
Telisa smiled. “Point taken. Dangerous assumptions. Okay, what else could it be? Let’s see. An infinitude of possibilities, such as...Vovokans reproduce by mating in threes, then the body of one fills with larvae and dies. The parent is eaten by the larvae, and I just saw a baby Vovokan.”
Magnus shrugged. “It’s totally possible.”
“Another question for him. I felt like I was asking him a lot of questions on the voyage, but more keep coming up.”
“Well, it’s a little hard to talk with him. He speaks well enough, though not fast or with many details. Maybe he holds out on us. It’s not fair that he learns huge amounts about us through the network, but we have to phrase each and every question carefully and still get a vague answer. It felt like I was imposing on him if I grilled him for more than ten minutes at a time. It was just, ask, get an answer, over and over; it’s not a two way exchange.”
“And the map he provided us of this place has a lot of physical detail, but it’s lacking in background. Come to think of it, he must be holding out on us on purpose. He could have provided me with an encyclopedia on his house, but he didn’t. He just gave me a 3D diagram.”
“We need to ask him for data packages about whole subjects: his government, society, technology, history, things we can absorb offline. I half think he may refuse to tell us everything.”
“A competitive advantage to keep us in the dark?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
Magnus signaled Scout to move ahead. So far, they were on the course Shiny had provided. Magnus hoped their luck held out. The farther they could get on the planned route before coming across a collapsed section, the faster they would be able to get in and out with the seed.
Magnus noticed unusual movement in Scout’s vision feed.
“Telisa. Heads up,” he transmitted.
She gave him a curious look, then scanned around. She must have seen the input from Scout, because she stopped looking frantically around and grew still.
Through the feed from Scout came the image of a large room filled with moving shapes and flickering lights in bright colors.
“Five Entities, it’s beautiful,” Telisa breathed.
Spheres floated through the room. They were metallic, shining, with lights of rapidly shifting colors of the rainbow.
Many similar spheres lay piled on the sandy floor.
“A lot of them have run out of juice.”
“Let’s go there now! I want to see those things, grab a couple of them.”
Magnus stared at the moving spheres. They moved like schools of fish, carefully synchronized in groups of ten or twenty that flowed around the scene in complex patterns.
“Maybe we should figure out what they are first?”
“They aren’t concerned about Scout.”
“Yeah. Let’s be ready, though.”
“Of course.”
Magnus picked his way through the sandy debris toward Scout. He swept his light over the dead Vovokans behind them one last time before they left. The golden corpses reflected his light brilliantly, utterly still and silent. I hope they died peacefully. Maybe they didn’t even know anything was wrong.
Telisa walked eagerly ahead. Magnus considered warning her, but decided to just stay alert himself. Scout wandered in the room among the floating spheres.
When they saw the room with their own eyes, it was even more beautiful. The floating spheres went through the colors of the spectrum in four or five seconds before starting over. The tiny machines didn’t seem to react to their presence, but neither did any of them collide with Scout or Telisa as she stepped out into the open area.
“I think I know what this is. It’s very much like a dance club,” Telisa said.
“Well, yeah...”
“Think about it. Bright lights. But Vovokans can’t hear music. They sense moving mass. All those spheres, and the ones on the floor used to be moving the same way. It’s an aesthetic display. It must be very pleasing to them.”
“That’s a better theory that I have.”
“What were you thinking?”
“I thought maybe it was designed to confuse. So many moving bits of mass, so many lights...it might overwhelm a Vovokan’s senses.”
“For what purpose?”
“Obscure something. Hide something. I don’t know. I said your theory was better.”
Telisa made a face.
“Scout saw something. Something warm,” she said.
Damn, I missed it, Magnus thought. He watched Scout’s feed and caught a glimpse of a long, thin signature of heat. It moved behind something and Scout lost it. “Another critter, maybe,” he said. Magnus checked his rifle. It was ready to shoot a lethal slug. He turned in the direction of Scout.
“Don’t shoot a Vovokan,” Telisa said.
“We’d probably already be dead if it was one,” Magnus said.
Remember Jack and Thomas?
Magnus caught sight of it—a large, ugly creature, like a cross between a giant worm and a scorpion. It was mottled brown with gold flecks. Magnus tracked it from about six meters away. The little spheres kept floating in and out of the way.
“I think it spotted us,” Telisa transmitted. The creature moved straight for them.
“It’s bigger than I thought. Bigger than the other thing,” Magnus said quickly.
“Should we shoot?”
Magnus pointed his weapon but held his fire. He logged the creature as a target.
“Don’t move. It probably detects mass like Shiny,” Magnus said through his link.
“This place is like a horror VR.”
Magnus got a better look through the spinning objects and their bright lights. He saw mandibles. They were unmistakable, even on an alien creature. Those were meant to apply huge pressure and break something up. Possibly something to eat. The mandibles opened and the creature moved the last couple of meters right toward him.
Magnus fired his weapon. The sound exploded through the tight space. The creature bucked upward in response, then it darted forward toward Magnus. He shot again. The mandibles snapped, but Magnus shuffled back, just avoiding its jaws. I wonder if Momma Veer would have saved me that time?
The creature slowed and stopped, its mandibles frozen open in death. Some of its many legs still twitched.
“There. Easy enough. It was just another critter. But bigger than the others,” he said.
Telisa looked it over, then she seemed satisfied. There were no signs of any clothes or machine enhancements like Shiny had.
“I hope it was a Vovokan Rover and not a Vovokan teenager,” she said.
“Rover?”
“You know. Like a pet?”
“A pet or wild, yeah. Vovokans have their mouths in back, remember?”
“It almost bit you. How do you keep so calm? You’re a damn machine.”
Magnus didn’t answer at first. He didn’t have to say anything. He felt closer to Telisa than he had to anyone else before, and she risked her life alongs
ide him. I can share anything with her.
“The war. Those orbital attacks. For the first few weeks, I was constantly terrified. Then, slowly, something changed. My emotions dried up. Kind of like accepting death, but not giving up.” He grimaced. “That’s not exactly it. I haven’t tried to say it before. Something inside me changed. Everyone who knew me before saw it when I got back, but they didn’t say it out loud, because they knew it was the war.”
“An insane solution for an impossible situation,” she said.
“It serves me well enough now,” Magnus said. “I wish I could say it was a triumph of mind over fear, but I think it was probably more of a natural reaction to stress. Some kind of a shutdown of the part of my mind that was in drowning in anxiety and taking the rest of me with it.”
“I’m sorry you had to go through that. But you know what? I’m glad you’re strong enough for both of us. I knew there was something different about you from the beginning. You were distant, but you trained me so well. I could tell you liked me, even though you never said it.”
He nodded. She must have seen something on his face.
“Tell me more,” she said.
“I’m starting to feel some of the old fear return. Not for me, though.”
“For me?”
“For you. I care about you, and I feel the anxiety returning, the fear that you’ll die.”
Telisa reached out and put her hand on his shoulder. “I’m an adult. I know this is dangerous. It’s worth it, though. We’ll explore this in depth when we get back to the Iridar,” she said with a tentative smile.
Magnus laughed out loud at the unexpected reply. “Here I thought I was opening up to please you, but you don’t want to hear about it any more than I want to talk about it!”
Telisa laughed too. “Just means we’re a good couple. We can both keep our respective emotional messes canned up.”
Chapter 11
Relachik missed having a battalion of Space Force troopers at his command as he walked out of the spaceport on Brighter Walken. He realized it was one thing to face danger at the helm of a ship and another to face it in the flesh. Here, every man and woman had to exude a sense of hardness to avoid being seen as prey. Relachik adapted himself quickly. He was fit, armed, and backed by two friends, one of whom was ex-military. His determination was high. So they marched out of the Vandivier and headed for the Vain Vothrile.
The surface was bright, as the name of the colony hinted. The white star was far away, but it still shone with a fierce intensity that made eye protection a must.
The spaceport looked fairly primitive. The gritty pavement resisted a few cleaning machines wandering about. It suited Relachik just fine. The frontier worlds felt frozen in time, but it was a time Relachik was familiar with. The core worlds believed in a glitz more virtual than real. They held billions of eccentrics who spent more time in imaginary worlds than in the real one.
The club was barely open when they arrived. Only a couple of people were inside. It looked similar to their simulation, though the wall decor was considerably more obscene. Half of the booths appeared to have active pornographic holos running. The images weren’t real, but had been broadcast straight to link and overlaid onto reality. Relachik screened them out. The feeds were meant to allow other patrons to see who was interested in what. The feeds could be made private, but the social atmosphere was all about sharing while under the influence of your favorite mind-altering chemicals.
Good. So far, so good.
“Ready?” Cilreth asked.
Relachik gave the go signal over his link. Cilreth got to work first. Relachik knew she would break into the club controls and mark the club as closed. They had concocted some excuse about a fire that morning which had damaged the club, to help draw off any suspicion. The announcement would go out to anyone seeking entrance, or to any queries over the net from people at home planning their evening.
Once Cilreth had closed the place down electronically, including bringing the internal cameras down for maintenance, Arlin and Relachik used their stunners. They broke a few glasses and knocked out the men inside, but it didn’t cause much of a stir.
“This one looks like Frankie. Supposed to be the owner,” Relachik said over his link to Arlin and Cilreth.
“Hadrian better be back there somewhere,” Arlin said.
As soon as Relachik noticed that Cilreth had the place closed down, he went into the back, Arlin at his side. They found a short, broad-shouldered man sitting in a back room. The man was bald, yet his face was covered in stubble. The retro desk before him looked chipped and worn almost like the damn thing had been shipped here from Earth itself.
You go in the side door there, Arlin suggested. Relachik kept going, headed to the side.
Arlin walked in first.
“Hadrian?” Arlin asked.
“Yeah?” the man replied, already suspicious.
Got to give the guy credit. He’s already arming his weapon. Probably wiping any tracking keys he’s got, too.
Relachik shocked Hadrian with his stunner from the other side. The man collapsed. His weapon remained under the counter, untouched.
“In here,” Relachik directed, finding his way toward the back. A private room beside the bar was empty.
Arlin threw a table aside to open up some space. They worked to tie Hadrian up in a chair.
Cilreth hovered near the entrance of the private room.
You don’t want to be here. Maybe just make sure no one comes in? Relachik suggested over his link.
Copy that, Cilreth replied eagerly, disappearing.
Relachik broke out the robokit he’d brought from Vandivier.
“Need anything else?” Arlin asked.
“Yeah. Get me a whiskey,” Relachik said.
“Coming up.”
Relachik had never personally tortured anyone before, though he’d been around and seen it done. Putting the subject into a virtual reality was pretty typical procedure, but he didn’t have that luxury. It would have to be the old-fashioned way. He took out an illegal tool he had rigged up to use on Hadrian. He activated it against the man’s head, disabling his link.
Telisa, I hope I find you.
Relachik used the kit to give Hadrian a stimulant. The man stirred.
“So, who’s our lucky man today?” Relachik said, feigning enthusiasm.
“His name is Hadrian,” Arlin supplied.
“The club’s all shut down, Hadrian,” Relachik said. “We have plenty of time.”
“You know I can’t talk. Waste of time,” Hadrian said.
Relachik hooked up the Vandivier’s medical robokit to Hadrian.
“What you doin’ there?”
“I’m making sure you don’t pass out. We want to make sure you’re awake for the full experience.” Relachik took out an injector and pressed it against Hadrian’s shoulder.
“What is that shit?”
“The Space Force has a wide selection of useful drugs,” Relachik said. “This particular number intensifies pain in the subject.”
Hadrian’s breathing and heart rate increased. Actually Relachik had injected an alertness drug that did have a mild side effect of pain enhancement, but it was hardly the purpose of the drug.
“There. There. Now we’re ready to have some fun,” Relachik said.
“I ain’t saying nothing. You’re nothing compared to my bosses. I’m not afraid of you at all,” Hadrian claimed.
“Tell me Hadrian. Where does the F-clave keep its main storage? The important storage, with the client information on it, the one that can unscramble all the queries and give out tracking keys.”
“I dunno, man.”
“You’re going to know where it is soon enough,” Relachik said. He stabbed the needle into the man’s leg and started to inject the contents.
Hadrian started to scream. A sizzling sound rose from his leg along with a bit of smoke. An awful smell filled the air.
Relachik sprayed some quickskin over
the gaping wound to stanch the bleeding.
“I wouldn’t want you to bleed out. We’re just getting started,” he said.
Hadrian shook his head.
“I can’t tell you nothin’, man.” Tears streamed down his face. “Iz not just me. Iz my family I’m protectin’.”
“Your boss isn’t going to get your family. We’re the fucking Space Force. We’re going after them. Don’t you see? They screwed up, got our attention. The F-clave is going down. The ones left alive, if we leave any alive, are going to be mining ore out of some asteroid until one of them screws up and depressurizes the whole thing. Then they’ll be dead, too.”
Hadrian hesitated. “I know this ain’t real,” he said. “You blocked my link. This ain’t real.”
He’s mine now. Relachik filled another hypodermic slowly as he talked. “You think you’re not incarnate, Hadrian? You’re dumber than you look. I shot you with Frankie’s zapper when I walked in. You forget that already? Your link was fried the second I hit you with it.”
Hadrian’s eyes bulged for a moment.
“That’s right, this is real-world shit. We aren’t in a VR.”
Hadrian deflated.
“You got four balls. Two in your eyesockets and two in your sack. This one’s going into one of them,” Relachik said.
The needle descended.
“No, no, I tell you what you wanna know.”
“Then tell me where’s the storage with your client info. The UNSF wants to get it intact before grabbing the F-clave leaders.”
Hadrian vomited over himself.
The sound of breaking glass came from the other room. Arlin went to investigate.
“You’d better hope that’s not a marshal. If I’m forced to run before I get what I need from you, I’m going to shoot you and take off.”
“Okay, okay. I said I’d tell you. The storage is on Halthia Hyri Three.”
“Say it again,” Relachik ordered.
“Halthia Hyri Three. The storage is on Halthia Hyri Three. It’s on the map as the Natali Compound. It ain’t gonna do you no good, man. That place is a death palace. Real nice, real deadly. You’ll never get in there.”
“Shut up and answer my questions,” Relachik said.
Arlin walked back in. “There was another local in the bar. Cilreth took care of it,” he said.
The Trilisk AI (Parker Interstellar Travels #2) Page 10
