I did not have a lot of time to ponder the complexities of what we had done, however. I was very busy on a new project. The largest project upon which I have ever embarked and one of unmitigated value. That of reproducing the star-map I had stolen from Azavar's mind. The map of the Palag Empire!
I had the best software that money could buy. Though astronomy has always been one of my chief loves, I was really unaware to what levels Human astronomy had progressed. They had a variety of telescopes in space, the old Hubble, but also thermal, electromagnetic and other wave particle receivers. Their knowledge of the visible, as well as the invisible Universe was far beyond what I had expected. The interactive software they provided made my task possible by inputting the number of planets and the type of star in the systems I was searching for- systems I had seen in Azavar's mind- and then when I found systems that matched labeling it with its Palag name. The only drawback to the process was the fact that Azavar's knowledge was incomplete. What I had gotten from her mind was the result of the minutest scrutiny she had one day given their star maps, but forever indelibly burned into her mind. Memories were permanent things. That was how a brain worked. It was access to those memories that sometimes became the problem. Though her knowledge was entirely incomplete, what she had seen equated to thousands of points of reference in the skies above us.
Some of the stars I indicated on the star-mapping software had already been indicated as possibly possessing Earth-like worlds, but most had not. I was sharing this file with the FBI as I worked on it from the computers in our suite which were networked to the entire FBI server-system and shared out to everyone who was in the know. There was a lot of excitement within the building. It was very much a palpable force. The federal building had been turned into a veritable fortress with new agents and armament arriving on a constant basis. Their job was to protect us at all costs.
Though we were seventeen stories underground, there was one other thing I had learned from Azavar's mind, and that was the awesome destructive power of the Explorer Mother ship. Azavar had not been an engineer- I had gleaned no valuable technical data- but she knew how powerful those weapons were. No Palag knowledgeable of their technology was allowed on Earth's surface. The assault clones were only taught one thing and that was how to fight.
Knowing what their ships were capable of left a hollow, empty feeling in the pit of my stomach. The energies they commanded were capable of destroying all life on the face of our planet should they decide to employ those energies. They would think nothing of the things which had been done to us, Vampires and Humans alike. They would consider only what had been done to them. They would take what we had done as an overt act of war.
"We may have killed enough of them to set them back a full cloning period." Sonafi said. "They may feel they have no choice but to use their weapons."
"They have one other option." I reminded her.
"Their Elders! Those who never come out of their ships!" Sonafi agreed. "Creatures so old they nearly predate Humankind entirely. We wouldn't stand a chance against those!"
"The flesh may have finite limits." I disagreed. "We do not know."
"You continue to evolve. You have not reached your full potential." Sonafi disagreed. "I think we can reasonably assume the Palag Elders will be much superior to us. We will be much Juvenile to them."
"If that turns out to be the case, then we will die with our weapons in our hands. We can ask for no more." I said, having been trying to avoid just this thought since I had been inside Azavar's mind. The Explorer Ships were huge! The spacecraft they used to travel back and forth between the Mother Ship and Earth were no more than Landers, yet some were huge and each an independent craft capable of braving the vast gulfs of interstellar space. There was only one Explorer Mother Ship here in Sol System. It spent most of its time hidden in a deep crater on the dark side of the moon while the Landers, the disc and cigar shaped craft that Humanity was familiar with, did the work. The work of transforming mankind.
"The Lander that took Azavar back went back all but empty!" Sonafi said with a vengeance. "We had that, if nothing else!" A knock on the door announced a visitor. I had to concentrate before I recognized who was there.
'Come in.' I sent telepathically, and Curt Irving joined us.
"What did you think?" Irving asked. "Brid taught me."
"Brid should be taught to recall that we were avowed enemies only such a short while ago!" Sonafi said, causing Irving's face to fall. Brid had taught him how to block his thoughts.
"I did not…"
"Only joking." Sonafi said, interrupting his stammering. He had been especially deferential since the fight. Even though he had not been there, every FBI Agent that had been there had been wearing helmet cams as well as thermal cams operating through their night scopes. Now the FBI had incontrovertible evidence to support their previous theories concerning the prowess of the Visitors. They also now had a very serious new respect for Vampires. They knew that the Palag had come to kill us and that we two had fought alone inside the house, and the odds which we had overcome. Now having a better understanding of Palag and Vampire prowess, they were very nearly ready to proclaim us gods. Or superheroes, at least!
"The main reason I came", Irving said, adjusting quickly, "was to bring something for you to sample." He was carrying a briefcase which he now put down on a table and began to unclasp. I knew what it was before he got it open, of course, but it immediately had my attention and I got right up to walk over and see it for myself. It appeared to be a bag blood.
"Synthetic!" Sonafi marveled, cutting Irving off before he could say it. This time Irving didn't seem to mind. There were two bags inside the briefcase and he handed one to each of us.
"It's new. We use it for blood transfusions, operations and who knows what else." Irving said. "We might as well see if there is one more use to which we can put it." It smelled real to me.
"One less reason for Vampires and Humans to fight." I said, but then I saw what Sonafi was thinking and I looked startled into her eyes. What Irving had been thinking, that she had seen- that to become Vampires might be the next logical step in mankind's evolution. All of mankind!
"That's preposterous!" Sonafi said, this time startling Irving. All three of us were telepathic and we did not need to use words to vocalize everything that passed between us.
"Why preposterous?" Irving asked. "Isn't all of Humankind driven by the thought of immortality? We have children to pass on our specific genes. We believe in a life after death which promises eternity in one form or another. Our search for medical cures to prolong life uses up a great portion of our resources, so I do not know why you would think Humanity would not embrace Vampirism with open arms. I believe it is the answer to all our woes."
"Your attitude may not be shared by the vast majority of Humanity," I said, "nor is being a Vampire a guarantee of eternal life. Fate is a fickle mistress and the Universe a brutal place. Few Vampires even live as long as an average Human."
"And it could give the Palag another reason to destroy us completely." Sonafi said. “If that isn’t already the plan.”
"First we’ll have to see if we can drink your synthetic!" We took our bags of blood into the kitchen and quickly poured the contents into two tall glasses. Irving followed along, watching and waiting.
"They say the process of manufacturing this is very simple." Irving said hopefully.
"It smells real enough." Sonafi granted. We had not fed yet this evening and I could see the stiltedness that came over her once she breathed in the aroma of the synthetic blood. Though synthetic, it had the same effect upon her that real blood would have. My own senses could detect no flaws, no poison, no impurities. It was, in fact, some of the sweetest smelling blood I have ever scented.
I took a large drink, and then another. Sonafi simply emptied her glass. There could be nothing poisonous or harmful to us within it. With our keen sense of smell we would certainly have noted it. It might prove to be unsatisfyi
ng, without nourishment, but it would not harm us.
I felt my system begin to assimilate the blood immediately. Like everything else about a Vampire's body, our digestive system is more highly efficient than that of a Human. It takes considerably less energy to digest our primary food source than it does for a Human. Within only moments I knew the efficacy of the synthetic blood I had imbibed. "It's as good as the real thing!" I said.
"And you say it's easy to make?" Sonafi asked.
"That's what I was told." Irving said. Then he changed the subject.
"There is a great interest in what Vampirism has to offer mankind." He said. "That has been emphasized."
"No doubt by those in the highest positions of power and influence." Sonafi said sarcastically.
"Yes," Irving agreed," but it is understood that it would have to be made available to the entire populace or it would mean nothing to the Palag. What would only a few more Vampires be, one way or the other? The other subject I wanted to bring up was that we have sent messages to all the worlds you have so far earmarked on the celestial map. That decision was out of my hands."
"Messages?" I asked, stunned, but for what other purpose had I been making this map for them, if not for them to use it.
"Tachyon-pulse." Irving answered, though how they had been sent was not exactly what I had been getting at.
"I thought the tachyon was still only theoretical?" Sonafi asked. I of course had no idea what they were talking about.
"Roswell." Irving answered simply. "From one of their own ships." Then at our looks; "Hey, this is all new to me too! I was only brought into the loop because I was the one who brought you to the table, otherwise I was only being fed scraps, like everyone else."
"If the Palag didn't know where we were before, they do now!" I said pointedly to Sonafi. "It's no longer safe here."
"I disagree." Irving said. We paused long enough to hear him out, but we were already planning our next move; that of getting out of the Federal building as quickly as possible, before it was too late. Irving continued; "The tachyon particle is a high energy, short wavelength elementary particle. It is not sent out like a radio or other broadband signal. The closest analogy would be a tight beam laser array, but even that bleeds off more than the tachyon. There is no diffusion with the tachyon. It punches a hole straight through to its destination. I was assured that none of the messages could have been intercepted."
"How long before they reach their destinations and those who receive them have time to respond?" I asked though I was absolutely sure those messages would have been intercepted. The Palag were not technological babes in the woods.
"Less than a week for those closest to Earth. Years in some cases." Irving admitted. The time it would take for the earliest did not give us a lot of time to work with, depending on what word was received from those worlds.
"So we are now counting on the benevolence of beings of whom we know nothing about?" I asked.
"Even such a fragmentary knowledge as Azavar possessed alluded to a huge civilization. We could hardly be a threat to them!" Irving asserted. “On the contrary I believe they will be outraged. We all know it’s a risk but we’re in a tenuous position… and I don’t mean just Humans.”
"Who's to say the Explorers will even listen to them?" Sonafi said. "That's if they take our side!"
"They may not." I agreed. "The Explorers were created by the original Palag, and are more the products of their genetic programming than they are Palag. Even if they received orders that we were to be left alone they may not consider them to be valid. Don't forget that the Eldest Palag are on these Explorer Ships. If they are anything like us, they will consider the Eldest to be the de facto ruler of them all."
"I wish we could have learned more from Azavar." Sonafi said. We had sensed Azavar’s remembered fear when she had crossed the path of one of the Palag Elders aboard the Explorer Ship. We had only her emotional fear response to judge the antiquity of those Elders aboard her ship, and of those she had seen only two who had really been of interest to us. The Explorer Elders did not socialize with their Juveniles. Unfortunately, we were not able to accurately judge those Elders merely by Azavar's fear response. She was so Juvenile that she had feared them all rather equally.
Nor could we judge by her response to us. She had not feared us. She had been genetically programmed not to do so.
"I wonder if she has succeeded?" Irving asked, following my train of thought almost as easily as Sonafi. His telepathic ability was growing.
"Probably dead!" Sonafi said simply. "It was a foolish hope from the beginning."
"Our options are limited." I said, not liking the fatalism I was hearing from her but if Sonafi was anything, she was a realist. The truth was that very likely we were doomed. The failed attacks they had made upon us had left the Palag dangerously short of assault clones. They had thrown everything they had at us and then walked right into a trap. Then to add insult to injury we had sent Azavar back to them infected. "But imagine if she could succeed!" I added.
"It was a bold move," Sonafi said, "but I think we have played our last trump card."
I didn't want to agree with her, but unfortunately I did.
Chapter 30
Flashing light suddenly lit up the room. We all looked up in momentary confusion.
Distantly almost to be inaudible I heard the muted sound of gunfire from far above. A lot of it! Then I felt them. Even at this distance and the levels of concrete and steel between us, I felt them. Their presence was malignant beyond comprehension. Sonafi gasped suddenly as she felt them too. Her eyes were round O's of shock and I knew that she was responding to them autonomously, that she feared them in a way that she had feared no other for eons. When I had created Sonafi there were other Vampires Elder to her, but in one way or another they had all met their ends, and now I was the only Vampire Elder to Sonafi, and had been so for many long ages. Sonafi had forgotten what it was to fear autonomously, but she remembered it now.
I felt a feeling I have never felt before, and it took me a moment to realize what it was. My breath seemed to catch in my throat. Something solid seemed to form within my gut. A shiver ran down my spine and I realized, for the very first time in my life, that I was afraid. I was afraid of the Palag Elders who had come to finish the job their Juveniles had been unable to do. The Palag Elders had finally come for me!
Agent Irving, Human and unable to be affected by the Palag Elder's presence, but suddenly acutely aware of our situation, the frozen looks on our faces and seeing in our minds the reasons for those looks, turned and ran to the table sitting in the left-hand corner of the foyer to catch up two of the riot helmet Field Generation units they had provided anew for us, turned and tossed one to each of us. "Put them on!" Irving said even as he picked up a third for himself.
I turned mine on and slipped it over my head. I admit to a moment of panic when I first felt the Palag but it was already passing before I put the helmet over my mind. It had been more surprise than any crippling fugue, as it could be for Juveniles in the presence of their Elders. They were Elder to me but there had been something else there as well, something that vanished before I could put my finger on it now that the riot helmet was in place. Some unwitting telepathic understanding occurring between myself and the Palag Elders, but that was now gone.
Sonafi threw hers on with a relief that was evident to see in the expression she wore on her face, and which cleared up as the unit slipped into place and I was looking at her through the clear faceplate. It was with evident relief that she spoke the obvious; "I think we have succeeded in making them mad!"
"You think!" I said with a grin, the lust for battle suddenly coursing through my veins. When there were no other options left but armed conflict, all doubts and reservations fall to the wayside. I greeted the prospect of that battle with eager ferocity and terrifying resolve. As Irving put his own helmet in place Sonafi and I drew cold steel and armed ourselves. I have never familiarized myself with co
mbustion weapons because I find them cumbersome and inefficient, though I had to admit that the Federal Agents had used their assault rifles to great effectiveness in our recent defense and the trap laid at Brid's home. I could hear the massive firepower being brought to bear above, automatic weapons fire, the carrumph of grenade launchers and, though not audible, felt the silenced weapons fire that was a large part of the battle being waged above.
There was a hell of death and mayhem occurring above us, but I did not believe that it was going to go in the Human defender’s favor. I could no longer sense it, with the helmet in place, but I knew what the Human agents were facing. I knew also that there was very little time to waste.
"Stay here!" I told Irving. "You will only be in the way." I sped away before his falling face had a chance to complete its change of expression. Out the door, down the corridor and into the ascending staircase. There I paused a moment, after I had opened the door, while Sonafi caught up. I saw the briefest look of surprise on her face as she went by me and up the staircase; letting my rage overwhelm me I had moved at my fullest potential, and had appeared a blur even to her hyper-accelerated senses. I followed her up the staircase, moving at Sonafi's slower pace, for once really noticing the disparity of ability that separated us.
That taste of fear had electrified me. I let my rage rise within me, not so much as to consume me, which would have doomed me, for to be consumed by rage was to lose the ability to think clearly; I only let enough of it rise to augment my strength speed and awareness, to become like a wild animal fighting for its life. I was, would be, that wild animal fighting for my life. Fighting for Sonafi and Brid and all else who mattered to me in this my existence.
We ran up the stair through the hundreds of agents pouring upward around us towards the sounds of battle above. In my long life there has been little to compare with the sound of the modern battlefield. Humans have refined to a fine art the process of killing one another, but their weapons gave them no edge this day.
The Alien Agenda Page 22
