The Sin of Moloch

by Andrew Gordinier

  Deanna drifted off to sleep, and her head slowly came to rest on Radha’s shoulder. She gently put an arm around her friend to steady her. It wasn’t long before Deanna was snoring gently. Radha was exhausted beyond reason but was aware that Yvonne was already asleep too, someone had to stay awake. Someone had to keep watch for the Censor, there was no doubt he would come after them, the only question was when. That danger had somehow become a distant and secondary to the more immediate threat of not being able to find proper food, or in becoming food for something else. There were growls and roars in the jungle every day and every night. Sometimes the growls were too near, and never far enough away for comfort. No one said anything, but it was clear to all three, they were being stalked by a large cat of some kind.

  Radha looked out into the darkness that surrounded them, half expecting to see glowing eyes looking back at her from the night. She had been to the zoo, seen big cats in their “habitats”, they seemed lazy and sleepy things there. She knew it was a lie even then. She had seen a tiger yawn and stretch like a bored house cat, it’s mouth opening wide to expose long sharp teeth, and when it spread its paws with claws extended, Radha understood fear. Such a bored and lazy killer that was unashamed of its raw power. A killer who bore only a distant resemblance to the cuddly lies sold in the gift shop. Looking into the dark and thinking that something like that was lurking just out of sight, watching her with hungry eyes, filled her with a fear she lacked words for. The jungle was a noisy place, even at night. Insect and what she thought had to be frogs. Chicago was far from quiet, but it was human-made noise, and this was very different. It was strange to Radha how quickly people could get used to new things, how fast the exotic could become commonplace.

  Deanna shifted in her sleep and moved closer to Radha, leaning into her in a half embrace. Radha had all but hated Deanna not that long ago, all it took was John to say that he was talking to her about his project, and she would feel her jaw clench. Now she was holding her protectively so she could enjoy the few moments of rest their situation allowed. Radha was even hoping that she was dreaming happily of home. It was not lost on Radha that she usually wouldn’t have felt this comfortable holding and caring for another woman. She couldn’t point to the exact moment it had happened, or even explain why it should surprise her. Still, at some point, Deanna and Yvonne had become sisters to her, she felt a closeness to them that she had never felt before outside the bounds of her family. Yvonne stirred and stretched her arms.

  “Is it my turn to sit watch yet?” She asked her voice was still heavy sleep.

  “I don’t know. My watch is on my other arm, and I’m holding Deanna up with it.” They both laughed gently. Yvonne stood up and stretched again. “I’ll take over for a bit, you get some sleep.”

  “Thank you.” Radha smiled and leaned back against Deanna gently. It was not perfect, but she was so exhausted that sleeping standing up would have sounded good. She took a few deep breaths, felt her eyes flutter, and she was asleep that easily.

  Radha awoke to her ears ringing as she was bodily pulled to her feet.

  “Did you get it? Did you get it?” Deanna shouted as she pulled at Radha.

  “I don’t know!” Yvonne was clutching her shotgun in a desperate manner that spoke more of fear than skill.

  “What happened?” Radha asked as she looked around, trying to understand what had sent the others to such a state of panic.

  “There was a jaguar or something, it growled at me, I shot at it,” Yvonne tried to compose herself as she spoke, her eyes scanning the darkness around them.”I don’t think I hit it.”

  “Where was it?” Deanna asked as she shouldered her own weapon.

  “Over there.” Yvonne pointed.

  Radha picked up her own shotgun and peered into the darkness. The weight of the gun gave her some reassurance but did nothing to cure her fear.

  “Did you hear that?” Whispered Deanna as she started to slowly turn in a circle with her weapon at the ready.

  “No.” Whispered Radha, who was suddenly convinced there was something behind her in the dark. She slowly turned till she was back to back with Yvonne, Deanna was still doing slow circles off to her side and saw it first.

  To Radha, the shadows seemed to explode into claws and fur. Something low with gleaming teeth lunged up out of the shadows and landed on her chest. She felt fiery pain as she was knocked backward on to Yvonne. She felt hot breath on her face and neck, Radha heard a loud blast, felt Yvonne struggling to get out from under her, and felt something heavy and painful crushing her chest. She felt warmth splash across her chest and quickly wash down to the small of her back where it pooled, there was no doubt that it was blood, lots of blood. Darkness crowded the edge of her vision, and she felt dizzy. Radha felt too weak to fight against it and passed out.

  Somewhere in the darkness of her mind, there was a last desperate thought, one last urge to fight. She was tired, hungry, and scared, but she was by no means ready to die.

  Chapter 31

  Eric sat next to Christine on the park bench and looked out over the reflecting pond. He could see the tourists wandering towards the Vietnam memorial.

  “Did you know, my father's name is on the wall?” Eric said softly.

  “No. I didn’t. We never actually managed to pin down your real identity,” Christine sensed a melancholy mood in Eric and hoped it wasn’t because of bad news.

  “You aren’t the only one with friends in the government.” Eric smiled. “Though Conrad keeps saying that this era of secrets must come to an end. I wonder what comes next? New secrets? Or just more war.”

  “Is it that bad?”

  “No. But, with John off-world, Conrad is running errands that we might have sent him on. Everyone is very busy, including your boss.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.” Christine looked away.

  “I mean that he had better be careful, he is close to being off the reservation. The powers that be have limited options to keep control of someone like that, or his underlings.”

  “Things aren’t always what they look like.”

  “No, I of all people know that all too well.” Eric held out a flash drive. “We had to kill a few people, not something that we were expecting to do. One of them was a British officer, we aren’t sure how yet, but he was clearly connected to several mages. We found some very incriminating stuff about MI6 and a few French organizations. The sort of thing that if it made it to the media would sway opinion and change the footing in favor of the US for a few more moments.”

  “Thank you.” Christine took the flash drive.

  “You should also know we lost contact with John.”

  “I thought there wasn’t a limit to the rang of magic.”

  “We don’t think it has anything to do with distance. Johns missed his daily update.”

  “Chances are he got himself killed then.” Christine paused for a moment to consider the possibility. “I’m surprised he survived this long, but he wasn’t a bad kid.”

  “We are going to alter our plans, move forward as though John isn’t coming home. So we may need help with rescuing Radha and the other girl once we find them. Our resources are spread kinda thin right now.”

  “Conrad isn’t giving up on him yet, is he?”

  “No.” Eric shook his head and looked down. “And, I don’t expect him to. He had a soft spot for John, partly because he was Owen’s student. And, partly, because as irritating as the kid is, he was right.”

  “Right or wrong won’t matter if there is no one here to talk about it.”

  “Yeah, I had that thought too.” Eric stood up to leave. “Conrad will make the next meeting. Stay safe.”

  “Before you go. You mentioned that my boss and I are close to being off the reservation. If you want more proof of that, I have a message.”

  “Really?” Eric looked surprised.

  “If things get bad you can count on us, I was told we will do what we can.”

  “Well,
that will brighten to old man’s mood.” Eric smiled and walked away.

  Christine watched Eric leave. Her cell phone was already vibrating in her coat pocket, she ignored it, and stared out over the reflecting pool. She got up and walked toward the Lincoln memorial, stopping to buy flowers from a vendor. Then she walked to the Vietnam memorial and slowly followed the full length of the wall. So many names, so many families and lives. She left the flowers by the wall, running her fingertips across the names of strangers. Christine walked away, unsure of what she felt. She only knew that there were already too many monuments to fallen heroes, and too many children needing heroes.

  Chapter 32

  John scrutinized the cloud of debris, the larger fragments looked similar to parts of other satellites that orbited the world below. The others were clearly working, sending signals regularly to the surface and each other, this one was the only one that was destroyed, not damaged, destroyed. It was also easy to see that not only were there a lot of these satellites functioning and orbiting this world, but they were also the only kind. There was nothing else, no old relics, or even newer versions. There was simply a lot of this single variety, That, without testing the theory, seemed to be loaded with weapons and sensors, all aimed away from the planet.

  John had seen enough sci-fi and was smart enough to realize that this meant these satellites were part of some sort of defense grid. That, someone, didn’t want others setting foot on their world. He wondered if this was one species fighting among itself, or two fighting some sort of interstellar war? And, were these just surviving relics, or were they still part of a living civilization. The thought of the alien silhouette burned into the ground returned to John, and he wondered if there was a connection.

  The world below did not look like anything John thought of as habitable. A thick layer of clouds covered the planet, and there were constant electrical discharges, vast arcs of electricity that flashed to life and surged for hundreds of miles before fading away. There was also nothing preventing the radiation that flooded this star system from reaching the surface, no magnetic field, and the atmosphere seemed to do little. Still, the satellites were communicating with something, or someone, on the surface. That alone merited investigation, to say nothing of the fact that it was also clearly a place that Finley had stopped at. With hesitation, John teleported to the surface close to the spot where Finley had.

  The endless clouds of this world rolled and boiled overhead, while lightning rolled and played in their depths. There was no real light, not in the visible spectrum, except for the occasional glow from above. John could see the patterns and threads of the world around him, giving him more information than a simple vision ever could. There was oxygen in the atmosphere, but nowhere enough to do him any good, mostly it was nitrogen and a wild mixture of chemicals. He wished he understood chemistry better. It seemed a waste to him that he should be here and not be able to understand the importance of the intricate details he saw. He was in what seemed to be a ruined and shattered landscape, it was some moments before he realized it was a city of some kind. The buildings and structures lacked human reference points of doors and walls. What was left of them suggested multifaceted structures of varying size, geodesic domes, and polyhedral towers. John started to wander through the strangely crooked street, assuming that this had all happened long ago till he saw movement by a collapsed section of a nearby wall. He stopped in his tracks, feeling a trickle of fear down his spine.

  He had expected his first encounter with alien life to be… well, simply put alien. But, to see a long segmented leg sticking out of a pile of rubble, covered in what could only be blood as it weakly struggled… was unsettling. John approached it slowly and saw that the rest of the creature was nearly completely buried almost fully hidden. The leg was as long as his arm, segmented into 4 equal sections, and ended in three small-clawed fingers. It had a smooth gray-black exoskeleton, and there seemed to be no restriction on how the joints bent.

  John started lifting rubble gently from around where he assumed the creature was buried. He quickly excavated other severed and smashed legs, the exoskeleton cruelly crushed with the creature's tuberous tissues exposed and torn. As John worked, he saw that the creature lacked something that he had seen on every living thing on Earth. The pulsing and rotating light in the pattern that locked it and prevented tampering, the lock that he had come to associate with living things. Was this a robot or an android of some kind? His answers were under one last large section of stone too heavy for him to move by hand alone. As he struggled with it, he saw the pattern of the creature fading, it was dying quickly now. John altered the mass of the stone and, with one hand, threw it clear of the creature.

  What he saw was pitifully mangled and ruined, it spoke to the resilience of the creature that it had been able to struggle at all against the weight on it. To say nothing of withstanding the kind of pain it must have been in. As John tried to decide how to help, his mind still thinking in terms of bandages and alien hospitals, the arm that had been freed started pulling crushed parts of the body closer together. Once they were a few inches apart, the tuberous tissues would start to weakly reach out to each other. Once they touched, they slowly began to knit back together and pull themselves closer. John at first thought the creature would be able to heal itself completely, but clearly, this amazing feat had its limits. The leg moved slower and less accurately. The creature was fading. John examined the pattern closely, interlocking hexagons, triangles, and rectangles. There was none of the spirals and curves that John had seen in life back home, this was a blessing and a curse. While John had no idea what was what, it was easier to follow the patterns and see where they were supposed to fit and work together. Watching the tissues slowly knit together and heal taught him what was more or less needed. So John started helping the leg pull parts closer, and then helping the patterns rebuild themselves. He forced energy onto the pattern when the creature didn’t improve, and that seemed to keep the process moving long enough for it to begin healing itself more seriously.

  Finally, John was able to see what the creature looked like before it had been crushed. It had a flat hex-shaped body, with legs extending from the edges. It lacked a front or back as John thought of them, but seemed to have a clear top and bottom. In the center of the top, there was an opening where strands of tissue waved and fluttered in the air for reasons John was unable to guess. On the creature's underside in the center, there was a small opening with shorter small legs around it, obviously intended to push food in the opening. The alien had asymmetry that was amazing in its detail and was, at the same time, played on what John felt was a healthy respect of spiders. He took a healthy step back from the creature, it’s pattern was quickly becoming more vibrant, and he hoped it would remember him helping it.

  The creature took a few steps back as well and stood still.

  John held up his right hand.

  The creature stood still and seemed to be watching him, though John saw no eyes on it.

  “Hello.” John was sure there had to be better words to use to great an alien species for the first time, but he couldn’t think of them.

  The creature did not respond.

  John put his hand down and stood there for a few moments considering his options, and in his mind, he had very few. John took a few steps back, the creature didn’t move, John slowly pulled out his tablet and took a few pictures of the creature. As much as he wanted to stay and try talking to this alien, he had to keep up his chase, continue his fools' errand. John didn’t want to teleport away in front of the creature, so he turned and walked away slowly. He didn’t so much as hear the creature as sense it, he turned slowly and saw that it was following him. He turned and continued walking, and the creature continued to follow him. After a while, he stopped and turned to look at the creature, it was closer than before, it slowly advanced on him, and slowly reached out to touch his armored chest with a single arm. John fought back an urge to run. The creature backed up and then
slowly held up a single arm. Then he walked away from John.

  “Just another day.” Said John to himself as he teleported away.

  What John did not see was the large group of creatures that had watched carefully. They had seen him helping one of their own, just as they were about to attack him. Once he was gone, they approached the one he had helped and examined it to make sure it was not ill or tampered with. They were confused. They knew the history, knew that creatures like the one that had just left were their ancient enemies. Knew from the deepest, most painful parts of their race memory that they were cruel and senseless creatures, like the one who had destroyed the city. What they had never seen was one of them heal, or help, another creature. It was almost as troubling as the reappearance of these beings. But not as terrifying that they might have escaped destruction for so many millennia. The group agreed that the others should know, not simply the others of their own mind, but all the others.

  Chapter 33

  Radha awoke to pain. Her chest burned with every breath, and she felt unsteady. Glowing embers of pain burned from her shoulders to her sternum and up to her throat. When she opened her eyes, she was blinded by the light flickering down the jungle canopy, she blinked and moaned.

  “She’s awake.” The voice sounded relieved and was familiar to Radha, but the name lurked just out of her reach.