She knew Chee had come to this place before — every year at this time, he sent one of his Explorers on a tobacco raid — but it was a big island, and Chee never targeted the same farm twice. How could this man be in exactly the right place at the right time to meet her? How could he resist the hypersonics? How could he know to call her "Explorer"?
From a few steps away, the man laughed. He was coming toward her through the tobacco, intentionally trampling plants as he passed. It wasn't easy — tobacco grows tall, with a tough thick stalk — but the man stamped hard, apparently from sheer spite. He seemed to relish the destruction.
The Explorer had rolled to her feet and was trying to put some distance between herself and the man; but the clothes she wore were bulky, and would slow her excessively if she tried to run…
[I had the vision of Opal in some kind of cumbersome spacesuit. Did that make sense? Yes. If she came from a world beyond our own, she might want to avoid exposure to our local microorganisms… and to prevent her own microbes from infecting Earth. Therefore she'd wear some airtight outfit like a perfectly sealed cocoon. It would be heavy and need its own oxygen supply — an unfortunate weight to bear if you wanted to flee from a threat.]
Meanwhile, the man just laughed and slashed through the tobacco after her. She tried to shoot him again, but the gun had no effect. Then he grabbed her and knocked the pistol out of her hand.
"What do you want?" she asked.
"Everything," he said. "Your weapon. Your equipment. You."
She tried to break free, but her clothes impeded her movement. The man held on. She stopped her struggles and asked, "How did you know I'd be coming here?"
He said, "Because I arranged it."
"That's not true."
"You're naive. How did you find your landing site? You followed a beacon you sent ahead of time. What would happen if someone activated a much more powerful beacon? You'd land where he wanted you to land." The man laughed. "This is the time of year you always come. I've been waiting every night for a week… but in the end, I knew you'd come to me."
[I was frustrated at the details missing from Opal's account. How did she actually land on our planet? A small flying ship? Some means of teleportation, like the ones described in OldTech fantasy fiction? What kind of beacon would that involve? As a scientist, I wanted to know… but the gist of the story was clear, despite the lack of specifics. Opal had been decoyed from her intended landing site to the place where the man was waiting. I grudgingly admitted the precise mechanism didn't matter.]
"Why do you want my equipment?" the Explorer asked. "If you're smart enough to build a beacon to lure me, can't you build other things too?"
"This is a primitive place," the man said. "Advanced materials are hard to find. Attempting to produce or procure such materials can draw unwanted attention from the Spark Lords."
"And you're hiding from the Sparks?"
"Until I'm ready." He glanced at the stun-pistol lying in the dirt. "Spark armor can resist normal weapon fire; but that's not a normal weapon. It might give me an advantage — when the time comes."
"I don't want you shooting people with my gun." And the Explorer drove her knee into the man's testicles.
He didn't try to evade it. [No automatic reflex to avoid groin attacks.] The Explorer's knee struck hard into flesh… and kept on going, like plunging into soft yielding sand. Immediately, she pulled back. Bits of the man's lower abdomen clung to the clothes around her knee. The scraps of flesh quivered for a moment, then shriveled into small dry grains reminiscent of gunpowder.
The man said, "Full of surprises, aren't I?"
His hand shot forward… but it had ceased to look like a human appendage. It was black and crusted, each finger thinning to a spikelike tip. They stabbed through the Explorer's special uniform like rusty nails driven through paper; they pierced her shoulder, bringing a gush of blood and pain.
"What are you?" the Explorer whispered, trying to pull away but too deeply impaled.
"What do you think? An alien. A shapeshifter. Trapped on this insufferable planet, forced to flee from the Spark Lords, trying to stay one step ahead…"
"And failing miserably," said a new voice.
The Explorer and shapeshifter snapped their heads toward the voice. A woman stood among crushed tobacco plants, only a pace away. She wore armor of bright yellow plastic, a shell that covered her completely from head to toe; the visor of her helmet was a blank plate showing nothing of the face beneath. In one hand, she held a long sword. She tapped the pommel against her thigh and the blade shone forth with a buttery light.
"War-Lord Vanessa of Spark," she said. "The introduction is for your benefit, Explorer. Your companion knows who I am. I've been chasing him a long time… and I finally caught up." She chuckled. "He gives off a stink that Spark Royal can smell — especially if he stays in one place for a while. Isn't that right, monster? I heard you say you've been waiting here every night for a week. Bad planning, BEM-brain. You should have stayed on the move."
As a response, the alien twisted the talons still imbedded in the Explorer's shoulder. The Explorer winced in pain. "If you come any closer," the alien told Vanessa, "I'll kill this woman."
"Feel free," the War-Lord answered. "You'll save me the trouble later. And do it as messily as you can. We have to make an example of her… for any other intruders who think they can come here in defiance of the treaties." Vanessa lifted her sword. "Here's a plan: you keep ripping the crap out of that shoulder while I decapitate the bitch. Or maybe I'll chop off her hands — that's the traditional punishment for thieves, isn't it?"
The alien growled in anger, or perhaps confusion at the War-Lord's response. In that moment, as the creature hesitated, Vanessa swung her weapon… but not at the Explorer. The glowing blade twisted at the last instant and bit deeply into the shapeshifter's neck. The trick maneuver didn't have as much strength as a full-motion swing, but it still came close to lopping off the creature's head. Furthermore, the sword's yellow shine caused as much damage as the blade itself: while the blade severed flesh, the shine seemed to wither surrounding tissues to the same black gunpowder the Explorer had seen after ramming the alien with her knee.
The force of Vanessa's blow threw the alien's head forward, nearly smashing it against the Explorer. The head lay tilted for a moment; then it suddenly shot upward, wrenching free from its body and hurtling several paces across the tobacco field. Before it landed, it had already sprouted legs from its severed throat: black spider-limbs on which it began scuttling for the shadows.
"Hold on to the body," Vanessa shouted to the Explorer; then she ran off after the head. Almost immediately, the rest of the alien began breaking into pieces too. Both legs and arms detached themselves from the torso; one arm remained stuck in the Explorer's shoulder, but the other parts fell to the ground and extruded spider-limbs of their own. The Explorer snatched up the alien's right leg before it could escape, and threw herself down on her knees to pin the torso. However, she had no way to stop the other leg and arm from scurrying into the night.
The arm that was still dug deep into the Explorer's shoulder began to writhe, trying to break free… and perhaps also trying to cause enough agony that she'd release her grip on the leg or the torso. Too much more, and the Explorer knew she'd pass out from pain; but before that could happen, Vanessa returned.
Instead of a glowing sword, the War-Lord now carried a small slim rod, as wide as a pinkie finger but three times as long. She tapped a button on the end of the rod and suddenly glitters of red and green light sparkled into life up and down the rod's length. Quickly, she slapped the rod's tip onto the arm that was speared into the Explorer's shoulder. The alien limb vanished with a soft ‹BINK›: collapsing in on itself, twisting and turning until it folded itself entirely out of this plane of existence. Two more slaps on the torso and leg, ‹BINK›, ‹BINK›… then all evidence of the alien was gone, leaving nothing but a salad of trampled tobacco.
The Explo
rer remained on her knees, trying to keep from vomiting. Vanessa crouched beside her. "You'll have to come to Spark Royal. That's the only place with facilities to clean your wound — it's sure to be infected with alien tissues."
"I thought you intended to kill me," the Explorer said. "For breaking the treaty."
Vanessa shrugged. "Usually we do kill outsiders… but your damned Admiral Chee has friends in high places. Very high. Each year the smug old bugger sends someone to steal tobacco, and each year he goes off thinking he caught Spark Royal with its pants down. It never occurs to the bastard we let him get away. Chee has no clue he's part of something larger — a long-term plan by forces far beyond him, or any other human."
"And you Sparks have to obey those forces?"
The War-Lord growled. "Sparks don't obey anyone. But we've come to an agreement with certain allies, and part of the deal is we don't kill Chee… or any other member of the Explorer Corps."
"So I'm safe," the Explorer said.
"No. You'll be dead in a week if I don't treat that wound. And don't get any stupid ideas about your own doctors dealing with it; that alien is way out of their league. Or League."
"What was that thing you killed?" the Explorer asked. "Was it really an alien? A shapeshifter?"
"Yes," Vanessa said. "I don't know the species's real name, but Spark Royal calls them Lucifers. Like a lot of advanced races, they're actually hive minds made up of millions of smaller units." She pointed to the gunpowder specks on the Explorer's knee. "Each one of those grains is a cellule, a separate organism… but it's in mental contact with almost every other Lucifer in the universe. Put a million cellules together and they can modify themselves to look like anything. Lucky for us, they don't reproduce quickly; it'll take years for those parts that got away to grow enough mass to impersonate humans again. But they're evil little shits who love to cause pain and death. I guarantee you've got at least one cellule still burrowed into your shoulder. It'll do its damnedest to kill you, just for spite… and as a shapeshifter, it's got a lot of nasty tricks at its disposal."
The Explorer tried to stand. Her legs were too weak to support her. Vanessa picked her up as easily as she would a child and started walking across the field.
"Chee expects me back," the Explorer said.
"Give him a radio call. Tell him you refuse to go home. The Explorer Corps treats you like shit and you've decided there must be better ways to spend your life."
"That's what I've decided, is it?"
"Yes," Vanessa said. She hugged the Explorer's body a little closer.
"And how will I spend my life in a place like this? I don't fit in; I don't know how people live here."
Vanessa chuckled. "Spark Royal will give you something to do. We're bastards that way. Once we save your life, you'll be in our debt and we'll exploit you shamelessly."
"How?"
"I'll have to think about that. If Explorers are as clever and resourceful as I've heard, there are lots of ways you can make yourself useful." Vanessa laughed. "Working for Spark Royal is just as dangerous as being an Explorer, but it's a hell of a lot more fun."
And the War-Lord was right. The Explorer felt no regrets at abandoning her former life. She radioed Chee and told him where he could put his missions and his tobacco; she returned to Spark Royal with Vanessa, where she received training, friendship, and a new face… this time an attractive one that didn't make "decent folk" avert their eyes; and she had many, many adventures with Vanessa all around the world.
In time she got too old for rough action; but Spark Royal had use for her, even in retirement. The Sparks controlled a network of spies in every part of the planet — not just placed at random, but in locations where trouble was expected. When Spark Royal told the Explorer she would become chancellor of an undistinguished school in Simka, she asked how such a place could possibly be considered a hot spot. "Haven't a clue," Vanessa answered, "but we've got it on good authority."
"What good authority?"
"Some high hoity-toit in the League of Peoples… an asshole who specializes in advance knowledge of where things will go wrong." Vanessa sighed. "Just between you and me, I hate the way aliens can predict the future. It's fucking spooky."
"How do they do it?"
"According to them, superior brainpower. One of them gave me this analogy: suppose you see a rock perched on the edge of a cliff. You're smart enough to know the rock will fall sooner or later; a wind will blow it over, rain will erode the ground underneath, some kid will shove it off just for kicks… however it happens, you have no doubt the rock will plummet eventually. But lesser intelligences can't make that connection — a dog or a cat or something similar just can't see what's bound to happen."
"And these aliens compare us to dogs? We're surrounded by rocks on the edges of cliffs and we're too stupid to recognize the inevitable?"
"Exactly," Vanessa said. "Also too stupid to recognize our limitations. When someone else says, 'This is obvious,' we don't believe it. We think it's a trick. We call it unfair or illogical… when really, it's ridiculous to regard ourselves as the ultimate judges of what intellect can do. Our brains are only a few million years ahead of a dog's; and some alien races evolved billions of years before we did. On the ladder of intelligence, we're barely off the ground — but it sure is a bitch living in a universe where so many species are smarter than you."
So the Explorer went where she was told. To the Feliss Academy. She didn't believe anything important could happen in such a backwater… but one should never bet against the Spark Lords.
Opal spread her hands, then let them fall into her lap. "And that's the end of my story. Or the beginning of someone else's. Take your pick."
Annah and I didn't speak for several seconds after Opal finished. I was overwhelmed by the thought that this woman I knew had come from outer space; but when I considered her scientific knowledge — and those moments during past conversations when she'd catch her breath to correct me, then fall silent like someone afraid to reveal too much — I could believe she had been born on some world more advanced than Earth.
Even more boggling was the idea that she'd been assigned to our school in anticipation of some crisis. Five years ago, when Opal became chancellor, how could anyone foresee Rosalind's arrival and the use of a bioweapon? Could Spark Royal's alien allies really be that smart?
It was Annah who finally broke the silence. "It's an amazing story, chancellor," Annah said. "But I'm… it's… why did you tell us?"
Opal gave a humorless laugh. "Because I've been dying to tell someone for years. And because a sort of a prophecy kind of thing says Phil is going on a quest. I was an Explorer once; I don't like people heading into danger when they don't know all the facts. So I thought I should tell you what I could." She paused. "But remember, Phil; it's still secret. Don't go blabbing to those drinking buddies of yours."
"I'll keep it quiet," I said, "unless it really becomes necessary to tell my friends."
"Fair enough," Opal agreed. "And let's hope that never happens. Maybe your quest will go in some completely different direction."
"At the moment, we don't have a quest," I said. "What great deed needs doing? What sacred treasure has been lost?"
"I suppose we'll find out eventually." Opal shrugged. "Meanwhile, our next move is obvious."
"What is it?"
"Call the Sparks," she said. "Let them sort out this damned mess."
5: LOCAL BOYS
Opal had no direct way of contacting Spark Royal; she could only relay a message through Governor Niome in Feliss City. While Annah helped Opal write a note, I went to fetch the school's emergency courier — a seventeen-year-old with the unfortunate name of Wallace Wallace. He was a strapping local farm boy from a strapping local farm, the latest in a line of Wallace Wallaces stretching back two centuries to an ancestor with an unfortunate sense of humor. Like most of his predecessors, the newest Wallace Wallace swore he'd never burden his own son with such a ridiculous name… bu
t considering how consistently his forefathers had surrendered to the weight of tradition, I wondered if our own Wallace-squared would stick to his resolve.
Perhaps he would. This Wallace had a distinction that set him apart from previous generations: a full scholarship at Feliss Academy. He'd earned his place through brains and discipline, not parental wealth. Each year the academy accepted a few exceptional teenagers from the Simka district, without charging a cent for tuition or board. Partly this was a ploy to placate people in the region by helping their best and brightest. Bringing in smart-and-hungry kids also increased energy levels in our classrooms, which otherwise would be populated by well-bred but second-rate plodders who'd grown accustomed to depending on family largesse rather than their own initiative. Added to that, our normal (i.e., rich) students benefited from having floormates who knew the seedier aspects of town — which tattooists used clean needles, which butcher shops sold the best lamb's-skin for condoms, which herbalists kept a supply of jinkweed hidden under the counter. Lastly, the school liked having a few spare hands who could be called upon to run errands in crises… like riding to Feliss City with a message for the governor. It was Wallace's turn to answer the call, which is why I fumbled my way through the pitch-dark corridors and tapped on his door.
He answered immediately… holding a candle and flashing a triumphant grin. The grin faltered instantly. "Dr. Dhubhai!" he said with a surprised yelp.
"Expecting someone else?" I asked.
"No, no," he answered in a transparent lie. "No, no," he said again, in case I missed his guilt the first time.
Considering the circumstances, I didn't have time to interrogate the boy… but my teacherly instincts couldn't help wondering which of our female students Wallace had expected to find knocking at his door. I couldn't remember seeing him with anyone in particular. Then again, the girl might want to keep their relationship secret; snooty elements of the student body considered kids like Wallace to be "peasant charity cases" and would mercilessly snub any high-born girl who sullied herself with a "barnyard beau." Plenty of girls would still fall for Wallace's charms — he was a smart, pleasant kid, good-looking in a fresh-from-the-cow-pen way — but the stigma of his "commoner" background might make a blue-blooded belle keep her feelings out of the public eye. The result: she'd sneak into Wallace's room at 2:00 A.M. rather than openly neck with him behind the stables. To be honest, I didn't much care if Wallace conducted a discreet cuddle session with some duchess/countess/heiress… but a horrid possibility crossed my mind.
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