Concept YUS (Cross-World Murder Cases Book 1)

by Set Wagner

  About a minute passed—apparently the time they needed to interpret and understand my words—before thin bluish bands emerged from the darkness, flexing like snakes, surrounding my new body, tightening their rings around it, and disappearing. Then new ones appeared and kept repeating the process. Some time passed before I figured out what was happening, and only then it became clear because I had watched Reder draw a similar, maybe exactly the same, bluish fluid from the body of the strange Yusian just hours ago. Yusian blood. And no, it wasn’t disappearing. It was flowing—into me.

  When this most unnatural blood transfusion was over, I already knew what came next—was even impatiently expecting it. They expected it too. I felt their impatience mixing with mine, growing and sharpening—like a hunger. A hunger for change.

  My body above seemed to take a breath: my chest expanded enormously and began to sparkle in many animated colors. My huge eyes blinked above me. Heavy shining wrinkles layered themselves around my neck and on my face; my lower limbs thickened and joined together.

  A strange creature, neither human nor Yusian, slowly moved down; slowly I landed on the floor. The dark fog drew aside before me like a curtain, opening to reveal those who would meet me here. As I walked toward them, energy waves surged through my body. I closed my eyes; I didn’t need them anymore. Now the world burst into me through other, more superior, senses. My senses—I, my own self, going away.

  I drifted far from myself, but still a human being was here, even though what made me human could not be seen. That bedrock faith in my self gave me the strength to offer my soul voluntarily for a vivisection.

  Chapter 39

  Garrote—a medieval device for torture by strangulation. An invention of the Holy Inquisition, a metal semiring that can be tightened using a screw until the free ends meet. Or until the victim in question is able to stand the torture without dying. Of course, in this case there is no danger of strangulation, because the victim is a creature that breathes and eats through its entire “skin” surface. The purpose of these two garrotes is to prevent it from moving during the surgical interventions and to register some of its reactions, using the electronics built into them.

  Now Elia and Reder are tightening the garrotes: she directly above the chest narrowing, and he around the lower limbs. The tissues there are shrinking and thickening, their volume decreasing. When it’s clear they have reached the limit of their density, Elia stops her actions. Reder, however, keeps tightening until the Yusian quietly indicates its pain. Then the three of us go into the sterile prep room. We throw the gloves and masks into the disposal shaft, scrub our hands with a disinfecting detergent, and put on new gloves and new sterile masks. We cover our gowns with long silicon coats with elastic hoods. We return to the other room.

  While Elia rubs the torso of the Yusian with formalin, Reder and I make sure we have enough receptacles, cylinders, and other containers close at hand to preserve whatever we might remove during the process of dismembering the body, including as well a supply of large, Plasticine pouches for the preservation of bodily organs, just in case we encounter any.

  Meanwhile Elia turns to adjusting the surgical saw. I pass behind her to take my place next to the Yusian. In this completely helpless condition, he looks even more feeble and undeveloped than he did before. He desperately tries to free himself from the garrotes, but their grip allows him only unsuccessful spasmodic efforts. His eyes are still closed, and the zones on his chest are no longer visible; the substance over them is now impenetrable. Heat rising from his body is saturated with drops of condensed steam. His surface fringe alternately settles down and bristles up in hopeless attempts to move, to escape. He radiates strong tension, panic, and fear—has finally understood what he is facing.

  Elia turns on the operating lamps and begins to outline prospective incisions on his torso with a special marker. The white lines contrast sharply with the brown space suit. As soon as she has finished, Reder attaches electrodes to the Yusian; when activated, these will temporarily paralyze his regenerative processes. Reder then removes a small pump with a rubberized catheter from a box and prepares intubation equipment for deepening the incisions. The presence of a space suit will complicate the task significantly, but it will also keep the object alive as long as possible and, even more importantly, help us determine exactly which procedure causes its death.

  Reder turns the electrodes’ power to maximum, causing the creature to convulse violently, but Elia is still able to cut his space suit very precisely. Reder grabs one end of the cut with his forceps and peels off a piece of the space suit, exposing the flesh under it. We attach the retractors and stretch the edges of the opening. Elia records the exact time, while Reder is eagerly reaching for the surgical saw. I signal him that I will make the first cut, and he reluctantly lowers his hand.

  Just as I planned, I ceased remembering exactly at this moment. It turned out to be much easier than I expected. Disturbingly easy. The fog surrounding me was even darker than before. I couldn’t decide if my eyes were open or not, even wondered if I were now blind. I had no senses, neither human nor Yusian. Nor did I have any idea where I was—or whether I was in my body or in the plasma robot that had become my double.

  But I already had a memory that wasn’t mine. Yes, an exchange of perceptions, thoughts, and feelings had taken place. Now I knew that not only do the Yusians have control over time and over matter in all its states but at one time, very long ago, they also reached even further, even deeper. They had touched a wellspring deep within themselves, and from that revelation came their ability to make use of their own substance to construct their machines and build their world. In the most profound sense, they were entirely self-reliant. This is why our scientists have been unable to uncover their secrets. The Yusians’ power came from deep within their own psyches, as was also true of their polyplanetary system: the psychic energy of the Yusians constantly courses through it! The entire system is “ordered” by their collective consciousness. In times of crisis, however, it responds instead to their instincts, as would any living being. That’s why I have been able to stay out of its reach so easily. My plan to remain apart from my double conveniently coincided with its impulse to throw me out in order to save its inhabitants from the further, already unbearable, sharing—coexperiencing—of my memory about the strange Yusian.

  I smiled in my mind: it did throw me out but not fully and completely. My physical condition, and especially my absence of feelings, proved that I was again at the threshold of the contact. I was still here, but did the system successfully eject me? No. The darkness and silence that surrounded me at the moment revealed some hesitation, painful to the point of numbness; this feeling, or any other feeling, couldn’t belong to any system. Even if the Yusians can order it with everything that animates them, no system can acquire a soul. Despite the energy provided by their collective mind, it would always be simply a colossal robot, spread out at a radius of thousands of light-years—in principle, not very different, actually, from my double, the plasma robot.

  So I had begun to establish an unprecedented contradiction between the Yusians and their system: a conflict between their instinct, which was stopping the system from renewing contact with me, and their hope that the unfortunate Yusian garotted on the operating table might still be saved. That hope also led them to prolong this already abominable contact with me.

  I didn’t intend simply to wait for the outcome of this conflict. Just the opposite: I had to act before that happened, to take advantage of their hesitation and renew the contact myself. But how? Using the plasma robot, of course! It’s my only vehicle for accessing the system, and since I’m still here, the connection between us must still be operative. I concentrated on my concept of my double, on drawing him toward me.

  He appeared as if out of nowhere, just popped up in the darkness—now unrecognizable, a huge, shining blue lump. But the closer he came, the more clearly this human-Yusian hybrid resembled me. Good! But then he stoppe
d. He too was struggling with some painful indecision.

  Well, yes, because the system is guarding the Yusians too closely, protecting them from everything—mostly from themselves. It forbids them to risk—forbids them to hope. They provide it with the highest energy, the energy of their collective spirit, which it accepts while, in the process, discarding their feelings like useless trash, actually lowering them to the level of their instincts. Those instincts thus predetermine how the system will react—always efficient, always pragmatic—based on two principles as ancient as the system itself. Namely, to guarantee complete safety for its inhabitants and to expand its borders, assimilating everything that stands in one of its numerous ways into space.

  Safety and assimilation. That was it until one of those ways carried the Yusians to Earth. To humankind. Ultimately to me in particular.

  I concentrated my attention again on the plasma robot. A machine. Extremely eccentric, unique, or a unique double at least, but in the final analysis, just a machine. Whose purpose was to serve as a conduit, allowing the Yusians to pour their collective “soul” into me and thus make me fit for assimilation, now known as contact.

  My laughter echoed, heavy with anger, and at the same time, I saw the plasma robot rock toward me as if I had pulled him by an invisible string. I continued pulling him, now silently, and he continued coming, though very slowly. Through him, somehow, I was approaching too. I could hear my heart pounding in the thick silence like the shattering of a brittle vase. My own inhuman eyes were almost upon me, gazing down at me. My other body started bending, leaning over me. When I concentrated on moving, my body above me started vibrating, and its huge chest exploded against my face into colorful flames. O yes! Even without any help I had started this—body that was mine again. My chest, that other chest, one heart. I gained command over it and moved forward with it. More and more forward, until nobody’s instincts could throw me out again.

  I take the saw and, without turning it on, bend over the Yusian and slowly run its serrated edge across his trembling flesh. He abruptly opens his eyes, and I gaze into them, absorbing both their humiliating plea for mercy and a horror of dying that flows from their depths. I pull away. His horror and humiliation are already in my mind. I can now leave with them and use them as my weapons. I throw off the mask, lay aside the surgical saw, and rip off the gloves.

  “Excellent decision!” Reder sardonically pats my shoulder and moves forward to take my place.

  “I’m glad we agree.” I reply. “There’s no sick person here to operate on.”

  “What—what are you talking about?”

  Instead of answering, I casually push Reder aside and switch off his paralyzer device. Elia says nothing, but I turn toward her in time to see her impulsively toss her mask next to mine. I know she has not yet made her choice.

  “I’m aborting the entire procedure,” I state for the recording device.

  Now red blotches appear on Reder’s face, visible even under the burn cream. The shock of my words and actions has reignited his hatred of me. I watch it flare to full power and absorb that look of pure hatred. I need it as a reminder.

  “Damn you!” he shouts hysterically. “Traitor! No, you have no right and no authority to abort the procedure!”

  “Why can’t I?”

  “We are at war, Simon!”

  “Not declared by anybody.”

  “It doesn’t matter! If you stand in the way now, you will be sentenced as a traitor! A contemptible traitor of humankind!”

  I shrug my shoulders and approach the Yusian again. Despite the retractors, his space suit has completely closed since I turned off the device.

  “Summary execution! You will be condemned to death!”

  “Yes,” I said, nodding at him, “that’s possible.”

  “No, not possible. It’s certain. And more than that, if we let the creature live, then what? We can’t let it go! The Yusians are hardly going to believe that we saved it!”

  “We won’t claim such a thing.”

  “And what are we going to tell them? What?”

  “The truth.”

  This fateful word renders Reder as silent as the grave. I begin cautiously to loosen the garrote around the chest of the Yusian.

  “Listen, Simon.” Reder is trying to address me more calmly and soberly. “We have to continue—”

  “With what?” I purposely interrupt him. “With the vivisection?”

  “Yes. Yes! This is our only chance. Because as soon as we return to Earth, Zung is going to get the colonization under way. The colonists are ready and waiting. And while the Yusians are transporting them, the Yusian bases on Earth will be destroyed. Which, Simon, will actually mean the declaration of the war.”

  I stop loosening the garrote and wave my hand, dismissing his comments. “Well, Reder, before the military operations start, we will have at our disposal as much as two hundred years, won’t we?”

  “Yes, but what if we find a way to kill them, right here, right now? That would change everything! Zung can spit on their agreement! We will immediately capture all the Yusians on Earth and take over their embassies and their starships! Their chronal centers—when we persuade the captives to cooperate. Do you realize it? Those centers will enable us to strike crushing blows against them! We might even take over their whole system, liquidate every last one of the stinking creatures, and then, then—”

  He is choking. His own daydreams have strangled the speech out of him. He throws off his mask and gasps for air. The light of reason in his eyes has been snuffed out, and in its place burns the lurid flames of rabid Yusophobia.

  Elia looks at him with distaste but also with understanding, which doesn’t surprise me. Her feelings are not far from his, though not yet maniacal. She tries to reason with him: “Ehrlich, we have failed from the beginning of these experiments. We have no reason to hope that the vivisection will lead to immediate results. On the contrary, it’s more likely that we won’t be able to determine exactly when and how—we have murdered him.”

  Reder senses her hesitation, and his look is quickly becoming clear. With so many surgical instruments around us, she would be an important ally in any forthcoming conflict. “But still we have to try, Elia! At the very least, we will gain an invaluable store of anatomic material.”

  I move to the Yusian again, finish removing the first garotte, and then turn my attention to the second. I am still wearing the silicon operating coat, and my flexor is hidden under it. No doubt Reder will do whatever he can to keep me from removing the second garotte, and I have no time to lose. I watch his every move out of the corner of my eye.

  Meanwhile, Elia takes a few steps back and slips her hands into her pockets, showing that she is not ready to take either side. For now, I have no intention of removing the second garrote. My purpose is to provoke Reder, who is slow to react. I recall that he hadn’t been as panicked as I thought he would be when the Yusian had broken free of the restraining straps. Anxious at first, but then—as if he realized that this particular Yusian posed no threat to us. That he was manageable. “His world almost vague as yours through our perceptions,” Chuks had described him.

  I reach to remove the electrodes attached to his body but, at that exact moment, am struck with an insight so stunning, so obviously true, that for just an instant, I take my eyes off Reder. That is all the time he needs. He leaps to his feet, and while one gloved hand turns on the current, the other grabs my hand and forces it onto the node. The shock throws me back against the surgical cart, overturning it, but as bottles crash to the floor, I use my body momentum to make a clumsy backward somersault. I clear the cart but slip on the shards and splinters of glass, lose my balance, and fall to the floor. A falling receptacle slams against my head, and the stench of spilled physiological solutions further disorients me.

  Reder has put his mask back on and is all over me. Holding a garotte in his hand, he swings at my forehead, but I twist away so that it hits me on the shoulder. Its metal
tightening screw hammers into my right arm, which is becoming numb. He takes another swing at me, this time hitting me in the temple, and then drags me toward the X-ray chamber by my legs. He has decided to lock me in there. I, however, have decided to do the same, but to him.

  I relax and try to appear even more disoriented than I am, which is not hard to do. Reder is puffing, trying to muster his energy to maneuver my body. Finally he reaches the chamber gate, drops my legs, and is about to push the button to open it when Elia intervenes.

  “No!” she shouts, blocking the gate from the central control panel.

  Reder frowns at her and then at me. He makes a few quick mental calculations, abruptly turns his back on me, and runs toward the operating table, where the Yusian is still immobilized by the other garotte. I spring up, my left hand feeling for the flexor under my coat, and rush after him.

  As soon as Reader reaches the operating table, he grabs the electrical saw. If he kills the Yusian, I would have no alternative but to play by his rules. Even injuring him seriously would be enough to overturn my plans.

  “He’s a child!” I shout to Elia.

  When I reach Reder, he aims the saw at me, its serrated edge spinning and glimmering under the bright operating lamps. I jump as high as I can and land a kick right on his jaw. He collapses, but I don’t have the strength to stay upright either. As we stare at each other almost face to face, the saw skitters under the operating table, continuing to drone. We both dive for it, but Reder is closer. He brandishes it at me as he totters to his feet. When he turns toward the Yusian, I catch his ankle and pull him back, forcing him to his knees. But the hand with the saw is still poised over the table, trying to reach the—child. As I pull him, the saw whines through the table’s thick rubberized covering. It’s still moving.

  Grabbing his other ankle and marshaling all my strength, I jerk him as hard as I can, much harder than before. Howling with pain, Reder stumbles, but his hand remains over the table in an unnatural position. I haul myself up—and see why: his palm is nailed to the table by a scalpel. I look at Elia, her open palm resting on the Yusian’s chest. She must have needed that extra leverage to drive the scalpel deep into the operating table from the opposite side. She glares darkly at Reder and doesn’t move when he reaches up with his good hand and pulls the scalpel out, his face wrenched with pain.