by M. R. Forbes
"Tea'va, please, stand up," Gabriel said.
Tea'va opened his eyes. He noticed the caretaker's plasma gun at the tip of Shielle's fingers. She had been reaching for it when she died. No wonder they were concerned about him. He breathed in. He would have time for one shot. As far as he knew, only Sergeant Hafizi was armed.
"Tea'va. Now," Gabriel said.
He wasn't going to let them imprison him. His life was forfeit. He had failed. He didn't want to know how it was all going to end. All he had to do now was choose a target. If he shot Hafizi, he might be able to kill the others, but there was no guarantee. If he shot Gabriel, he would finally have his victory against the Heil'bek. If he shot Zoelle, he would have his revenge for her betrayal. There was no value in killing Miranda.
He breathed in again, tensing slightly as he made his decision.
"Tea'va."
He reached for the gun, grabbing it and turning as the Sergeant fired his rifle. The bolt hit him in the side, digging deep into him and causing a wave of immense pain. He didn't let it stop him, continuing to turn, bringing the weapon to bear on its target.
He fired, falling over as he watched the bolt streak toward Gabriel. If he had killed the Heil'bek back on Earth, none of this would have ever happened. He would have been a hero before he ever had to leave the planet. It was only fair.
He landed on his chest, his head up so he could see Gabriel die.
As his own life faded, he watched as Zoelle moved, faster than any human could, throwing herself in front of the plasma, taking the hit and falling to the ground.
Tea'va hissed softly, a final hiss of despair.
Then he died.
THIRTY-FIVE
GABRIEL FELL TO HIS knees beside Zoelle. The plasma had hit her square in the side of her face, tearing through her eye and into her skull, burning a hole right through to her brain. She was dead already, he knew, but it didn't stop him from leaning over her, feeling for a pulse and hoping beyond hope.
Maybe she wasn't the real Juliet St. Martin, but she was the closest thing he would ever have.
Now she was gone.
"Gabriel," Miranda said, coming to kneel next to him. He felt her arm over his shoulders. "Oh, my. I'm so sorry."
He didn't react. He stared at the mess the bolt had made of Zoelle's face. Then he looked to the traitorous bek'hai who had caused it. Tea'va had fired his weapon at him. The shot was meant for his face. He could barely believe it after he had come to think that at the very least they held a mutual respect for one another.
He could barely believe any of it.
"Hafizi, find a comm station and report in to Colonel Choi," he said, his voice weak. "Tell her what happened. Do not tell the General. Do you understand?"
"Yes, sir," Hafizi said.
Gabriel reached under his shirt, pulling out his crucifix. He squeezed it tightly as he made the sign of the cross over Zoelle's body and forced back his tears. He wasn't sure why he did it. It just seemed appropriate. She had never asked to be brought into the world as a clone. None of them did. It wasn't their fault for being what they were.
Then he made himself stand up. He looked over at Tea'va again, face down on the floor, his blood spilling out around him. The other Juliet clone, Shielle, was behind him, her neck purple, her eyes bulging. She had sent something to the Dread on Earth. She had exhibited more free will than any of them expected. It seemed at least some portion of the Juliet clones were capable.
He clenched his teeth, realizing that he had lost more than the best connection to his mother he would ever have, and more than a friend. They had lost their translators as well. Their guides through the Dread technology. Had they learned enough to use it on their own?
"Hafizi," Gabriel shouted, catching the Sergeant near the room's exit.
"Yes, sir?"
"Tell Colonel Choi to bring Reza and Guy with her."
"Yes, sir."
"We need to know what she told them," Gabriel said.
"Whatever it was, it's going to hurt us," Miranda replied.
"Yes."
"Your father-"
"I know."
"You have to tell him she wasn't really his wife."
"I know. I'll try. I tried before. I don't know if he'll believe me. Maybe if he had heard Shielle himself? I don't know."
He paused, his emotions in turmoil. His real mother had been dead for years. From the moment they had cloned her. He had always known she was gone, but Zoelle had brought her back to life somewhat. Now she was gone again.
"I'm sorry," Miranda said again, embracing him.
He held her back, letting the tears come. It wasn't just pain for himself. He knew what his father would go through. Even twenty years after he had left Earth, Theodore's wounds had been raw.
He gave himself thirty seconds. Then he broke away from Miranda, wiped his eyes, and straightened up. He would let her see him like that. Nobody else. He was still an officer, and he still had a job to do.
He walked over to one of the maturation chambers, looking in at the still form. She had destroyed all of the clones, as well. As much as he was against creating people this way, they had been looking forward to adding to their small numbers. They had been especially eager for the new engineers, who could help them accelerate their uptake of the Dread technology. That was lost as well.
Should he have seen this coming? He wasn't sure. Tea'va had been so convincing in his desire to help them, and in his anger at the Domo'dahm for his initial betrayal. And Shielle? She had responded as any subservient clone would. The only way to know for sure that they were secure would have been to lock up or kill every single clone, and they didn't have enough crew of their own to run a ship like the Ishur that way. For better or worse, they needed the clones. They were forced to trust them.
One of the caretakers came over as he stood in the chamber. It eyed him suspiciously, holding its weapon toward him. He backed away, and it went about its business. Some of the clones were so simple. So basic. Like the caretakers, or the cleaners. Others, like the keepers, or the Juliets, were so much more. None of them were the enemy. Not really.
He heard Colonel Choi coming, her boots clacking stiffly against the floor in an even cadence. He retreated back to where Zoelle was resting, Miranda joining him at his side. He felt a growing sense of dread as the echoes grew louder. The pace of her walk was familiar, and not in a good way.
His stomach dropped as she entered, with Theodore at her side and Reza, Guy, Hafizi and Diallo behind them. He could see the relief on his father's face when Theodore saw that he was unharmed.
He also saw the immediate agony when Theodore's eyes landed on Zoelle behind him.
"General," Gabriel said.
Theodore stopped moving. His face turned white. His eyes darted away from the body, back to it, and away again. His jaw clenched tight. His hands tore at the edges of the chair.
Gabriel felt it too. His father's pain. He headed for him, to do what he could to comfort him. To tell him that she wasn't the real Juliet, for all the good it would do.
"Dad," he said, breaking formality. "She-"
That was all he managed to get out. His father wheeled his chair around, retreating from the scene as quickly as he could.
"Dad," he said again, ready to give chase.
"Let him go," Colonel Choi said. "Major, let him go."
"I told you not to tell him," Gabriel shouted at Hafizi.
"He tried," Choi said. "Your father wandered onto the bridge while he was briefing me."
"Damn it. This disaster is getting worse by the second." He looked over Choi's shoulder. His father's back vanished ahead of him.
"What happened down here?" she asked.
Gabriel closed his eyes tight, pushing at the emotion. It killed him to see his father like that, but Choi was right. They didn't have time for that right now.
"We discovered that the clone, Shielle, sent an encrypted message to the Domo'dahm when we passed Earth."
"W
hat kind of message?"
"We don't know. That's why I asked you to bring Reza and Guy. We need to figure it out."
"How are we going to do that?" Guy asked, his face paled by the violence. He looked like he was going to be sick. "I see our translators are all dead."
"Reza, how much of the language have you translated?" Gabriel asked, ignoring Guy. He had never been one for tact.
"I'm not completely sure. I don't think I know all of the symbols yet. Based on what I've done so far, maybe fifty percent."
"Do you think you can get a copy of the message that was sent, and break the encryption?"
"Uh. I don't know, Gabriel. With everything else you have me working on?"
"Guy, what about you?"
"I am willing to try, but I have other duties as well, Major. I'm to ensure the Magellan's systems are ready for the drop to Earth."
The pain of the loss kept growing. Did Tea'va have any idea of what he had done before he died?
"Colonel?" Gabriel said.
"The message has already been sent," she said. "We're struggling for hands as it is, and this is going to make it harder for us. Reza, Guy, find Shielle's quarters and see if there is anything you can do within the next hour. If not, we'll have to drop it for now. If we manage to get everything else ready ahead of time, we can come back to it, but what's done is done. We'll have to do our best to anticipate what the Dread could know that we don't want them to."
Gabriel didn't like it, but he knew she was right. "Yes, ma'am."
"Spaceman Locke, you're dismissed. You have three hours until your next shift."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Major St. Martin, you'll need to increase your familiarity with the flight controls. You won't have a co-pilot to guide you going forward."
"Yes, ma'am," Gabriel said. He paused. "Permission to speak to General St. Martin first?"
Choi nodded. "Granted."
"I'll need a little time, Colonel," Gabriel said. "Can we leave the bodies here for now?"
"You aren't going to bring him back down here, are you?"
"No, ma'am. I am going to bring someone to examine the body, though. His name is It'kek."
She eyed him curiously. "I don't know what you're thinking, Major, but I trust you. Make sure you alert Sergeant Hafizi when we can send in a team to clean up this mess."
"Yes, ma'am," Gabriel replied.
He wasn't quite sure what he was thinking either, but step one was confirming once and for all that the dead woman on the floor wasn't the real Juliet St. Martin. Shielle might have said she couldn't be, but all it took was one lie to put everything else into question.
Step two was to convince his father of that fact. It wouldn't ease all of his pain, but it would help, and he needed to get him through this as quickly as possible.
Too many people depended on them.
THIRTY-SIX
GABRIEL WENT TO THE assemblers first, and then traced his path backward to where It'kek had shown him the keepers could be reached. The deepest corridors of the Ishur were faintly lit with the luminescent moss that seemed to hang from everything in the lower decks, and as he walked he began to feel the familiar sting of the legri'shah scent in his nose. It was a difficult feeling to ignore, and he wondered if that was part of the reason so few had ever met the keepers. He also wondered if it might be intentional, a defense to keep others away. The creatures were almost extinct, so rare that they were kept hidden in starships, far from freedom.
He cringed a little as he realized they had likely killed at least one of the beasts when they had destroyed the Dread fortress, along with the keepers who were raising them. He wished there was another way.
He rounded a bend in the corridor, reaching the larger common area of the keeper's community. It was a compact space surrounded by even more compact cells where the keepers slept, near the center of the pens where the legri'shah were kept. He had tried to count the clones' numbers when he had been through the first time, and had guessed that there were at most twelve of them on board, for two or three of the mature creatures and a growing number of younger ones.
He had been surprised to learn that the gori'shah the Dread wore were actually colonies of legri'shah larvae, microscopic creatures that fed on a silk-like substance spun by the second phase of the creature's growth. The entire life-cycle of the legri'shah was too complicated for him to fully grasp, but he appreciated how self-sustaining it was. When he had more time, he wanted nothing more than to learn all he could about them.
Two of the keepers were sitting on the floor in the common area when he arrived. They looked perpetually tired, and they smelled almost as strongly as the legri'shah themselves.
"It'kek?" Gabriel said, unable to tell any of the clones apart.
"He is with the legri'shah," one of them said. "Can I help you, Son of Juliet?"
He was still surprised that the keepers knew who he was without ever having met him. "I don't know. I need one of you to come up to the cloning factory. Zoelle is dead."
"Yes. We heard your Sergeant Hafizi send a message to the bridge. If she is dead, why do you need us? We do not keep the dead."
"It'kek told me he would know if she were the real Juliet, or a clone. I'm pretty sure she's a clone, but I need to know for certain."
"We do not go that high," the keeper said.
"I know you don't usually, but this is very important. Please."
The two clones looked at one another. "Did It'kek agree to do this, if you ever asked?"
Gabriel considered lying. He didn't. There had been enough deceit already. "No. I never asked."
"We are not permitted to be seen by any drumhr. Our form is outlawed among the bek'hai."
"You don't have to worry about that. There are no drumhr remaining on the Ishur."
"None?"
"Tea'va was the only one who survived the attack and Gr'el's betrayal. He's dead, too."
The clones smiled. "Can we both go?"
Gabriel nodded. "You can all come, if you want."
"The others must stay to watch the legri'shah, but we will come now. They will come later. It has been many years since a keeper was able to visit the upper decks of a domo'shah."
The two keepers stood and followed Gabriel as he made his way back to the cloning facility once more. Sergeant Hafizi was standing watch over the area when he arrived, and he drew back slightly at the sight of the keepers.
"Major?" he said, unsure.
"It's okay, Sergeant. They're with me."
"Things have changed," one of the keepers said to the other.
"Yes. Many things."
"How old are you?" Gabriel asked.
"I am three thousand Earth years old, give or take," one of them said.
"I am two-thousand, seven hundred and twelve," the other said.
"And you used to be able to roam around the ship?"
"Yes. Before we were banned, back when the bek'hai left their home world. Back then, even the legri'shah were allowed some measure of freedom. They did not fear their masters then." He smiled. "It is good to roam once more."
"Where is the un'hai, Zoelle?" the other keeper asked.
"This way," Hafizi said, leading them into the maturation hall.
"I smell blood," one of them said.
"Too much blood," the other agreed.
"She's there," Gabriel said, trying to direct them without looking at her.
The keepers walked over to where Zoelle's corpse was resting. One of them leaned down and touched her face. Then he stood and looked back at Gabriel.
Gabriel felt his throat constrict, a sudden fear washing over him that the keeper might say the words he least expected, and least wanted to hear.
"She is a clone," the keeper said, allowing him to breathe once more. "It is certain."
"Thank you," Gabriel said. "Shielle said that clones can't be made without killing the source."
"That was true many years ago. Is it still true? It seems we should have overcome that
limitation by now."
"Yes, we should have," the other keeper agreed.
"It doesn't matter," Gabriel said. "This isn't my mother."
"No, it isn't."
"Can you come with me?"
"Where now, Son of Juliet?"
"Please, call me Gabriel. I want you to tell my father she's a copy. He thinks he saw his wife dead on the floor."
"We will tell him, Gabriel. You have given us what freedom you can. We will help you however we can."
"Thank you," Gabriel said. Then he turned to Hafizi. "Have the bodies taken to storage somewhere. Make sure to keep Zoelle separate from those two. I know the Dread have some kind of recycling system for corpses, but I don't know where it is or how it works."
"I will show you," one of the keepers said.
"And I will go with you, Gabriel."
"Thank you again," Gabriel said, impressed with their kindness.
If these keepers were the closest thing to the original bek'hai, what the hell had happened to their race?
THIRTY-SEVEN
GABRIEL KNEW HIS FATHER would be in his quarters. Where else could the General go to be left alone, after all?
He wasn't surprised when Theodore wouldn't answer his knocks. The most traumatic thing his father had ever done was leave his mother behind on Earth, even if it had saved thousands of people from death and enslavement. Was that easier than seeing a duplicate of her dead? At least then he was able to hope, and gradually become accustomed to the idea that she couldn't have survived. To have her come to life again? He would never say he knew how Theodore felt.
He knew how he felt, just to think for a moment, even a little bit, that she had been his mother.
He knew how he felt to find a certain closeness to her memory, and then have it taken away by a plasma bolt meant for him.
He was sure he would have time to fall into his own emotional upset later. But not now. Not when they were trying to prepare for all-out war. Not when every human in the universe was counting on them. He knew he could convince his father of the same thing, especially with the help of the keeper, who said his name was Pil'kek.
