The Alien Library: Space Mercenaries # 5 (Wolf Cyborg)

by Galen Wolf

  Nursing his lip, Gaijann walked behind Severan and Mehefin as they made their way down a corridor that sloped towards the Library's heart. Gaijann didn't know if they'd find the Count down there and he didn't much care. His goal now was to keep Severan safe - despite the giant himself if need be. He saw Mehefin walking alongside the Severan and to all intents and purposes it looked as if the two of them were on a romantic walk in the countryside. Whatever secret this place held, Gaijann suspected the Library was going to make them pay for their trespasses.

  As they strode on, the poetry holograms thinned out and then disappeared. Instead, the corridor was now lit by a red light. Gaijann grew wary and wondered what it signified. He entered the tunnel and saw everything turn the color of blood. There was a strange atmosphere in the passage as it led downwards. He felt as if something was going to happen. The atmosphere almost suggested a drum roll or a piece of dramatic music in a video story. The hairs on the back of the assassin's neck prickled and he switched on his stealth field. He knew even Severan with his cyborg eye couldn't see him once he was fully stealthed. The couple were dawdling, as if they found each other's company more compelling than what they were actually supposed to be doing there.

  Gaijann walked past them and they didn't notice. He scouted ahead and the red light became more intense and deeper crimson. The feeling of apprehension grew in him and he suddenly realized the Library was interfering with his emotions as well as his senses.

  And there, as the tunnel opened up, he saw a room he remembered from his contact with the Library mind. The light here was golden as if it came from an unseen sun. Gaijann went on, climbing a flight of marble steps to what looked like an Ancient Greek Temple. Severan and Mehefin were still behind. In the centre of the temple bubbling fountains fed limpid pools of deep cold water.

  As he entered the atrium, Gaijann saw there was a golden throne built into the far wall. A short flight of pink marble steps led up to it. Gaijann felt suddenly calm. Then he realized he had become calm and was instantly suspicious. This rapid emotional change was another of the Library's tricks. He stood still and listened hard while looking all around but he could identify no danger. He switched off his stealth field.

  "You got ahead of us," said Mehefin, coming up the steps behind him. Severan was slightly behind her, holding the hand she extended back for him.

  "This is beautiful." She stared at the marble walls, her eyes lingering on the golden throne. "Which room is this?"

  Gaijann closed his eyes to remember. Then his eyes snapped open. "It's the Room of Things Reversed."

  "What does that mean?" Mehefin said.

  The assassin spoke quietly. "This is a place where you can change the past - if you can change what happened to you."

  "What?" Mehefin and Severan said at the same instant.

  Gaijann nodded. "Whatever once befell you, you can reverse it here." He looked at Severan. "I guess it turns the idea of Fate on its head."

  "I can't believe this is possible," Mehefin said.

  Severan turned and stared at the golden throne. Gaijann saw the deep frown on the giant's face. He began to walk up the steps.

  Mehefin shook her head. "It can't be true." She watched Severan.

  Gaijann said, "What if it is?"

  Mehefin hurried up the steps and put her hand on Severan's broad back. He didn't look at her - all his focus was on the throne.

  "Are you okay?" she said.

  The Giant stood quietly.

  "Let's go on." She gave a wan smile.

  Gaijann took a step away.

  Severan put his hand up to stop them moving off. "To change my fate?" he said, his voice a question.

  "It's not true," Mehefin said. Nothing can turn back time." Gaijann thought she was anxious.

  Severan turned to Gaijann. "How does this work?"

  The assassin shrugged. "I don't know."

  "How?" the giant asked.

  Eventually, Gaijann offered, "I think you sit on the throne and it gives you what you want."

  "Simple as that?"

  Gaijann nodded. "Maybe. I think so."

  Severan clutched the medallion of the Blind God. "I knew nothing about this place. But maybe I was meant to find it. Maybe that's why the mission came to us and not another group."

  "Fate again," Gaijann said. "But a fated thing that lets you undo Fate — ironic."

  Without looking at him, Severan said, "You always were too clever for your own good." Then he glanced at the assassin. "So what would you do?"

  Gaijann said, "It's not my call."

  "You know what I want. What I always wanted."

  "Of course."

  "You know me. So, if you were me, what would you do?"

  "I don't know."

  Severan gave a hollow laugh. "You're the guy who advocates living life a day at time, taking your chances as they come."

  "That's me," the assassin said, wiping the grime from his weary face. "But it's not you."

  "No." Severan ran his hand through his long blonde hair. "Not me at all. Me - I believe your path is charted before you're born, only one road you can ever take - that free will is an illusion."

  Mehefin said, "You couldn't have saved them."

  Gaijann heard his friend exhale suddenly like he'd been punched. He turned to the assassin. "Do you think, I could have done differently, Gaijann? That day, I mean."

  "You know what I think?"

  "Tell me."

  "I think you couldn't be any different than you are."

  Mehefin watched the giant intently.

  Severan laughed sourly. "And look at this — a gold throne. You think the Library could have picked something less kitsch."

  "I don't think the Library does subtle."

  "So you could go back to a dead past," Mehefin said. "If you want. Or maybe choose the future, instead of being tied to the past."

  Gaijann looked at her. He knew if Severan chose his wife, then Mehefin lost. He'd expected her to make some play to get the giant to walk away.

  Severan twisted the medallion between his fingers, over and over. "After Oriel and the kids were killed, I just wanted to die."

  Gaijann said, "I remember."

  "But then I thought it was maybe a lesson the Blind God was teaching me, and if I passed some kind of test, and endured what he threw at me, he would grant me my family back."

  Gaijann stood watching his friend's anguish.

  Severan turned his head toward the assassin. "You know, Gaijann, if I could go back to that day long ago and the Ghazzali asked me again, 'do you yield to our god?' I would look into Oriel's face and I would see my son and daughter beside her and I would swallow the principles that I had set up higher than love. I would bow the knee to those vicious murderers and say, 'yes'. I wouldn't mean it, but I'd say it, and they'd let my family live."

  Then Severan turned to look at the throne and mounted the steps. When he got to the top, he waited a long time. He put his hand on the gilded arm. Gaijann watched. He saw Mehefin watching too. She looked anxious, like she was frightened of losing her power.

  The giant's face twisted in a rueful smile. "I want to see them again so much."

  "Then sit," Gaijann said.

  "No, Severan. Take a chance on the future. With me." The blonde aristocrat was standing right behind him. Her hand hovered as if she didn't know whether she could caress him or not.

  The giant hesitated. Tears welled in his human eye.

  Gaijann said, "They will live again. If you only sit.""

  Severan said, almost to himself, "The priests of the Blind God say that things have to be accepted, bitter as they might be."

  Gaijann said, "But now you have a second chance..."

  Severan looked at Mehefin."But maybe I've already got a second chance." Then he turned back to Gaijann. "You knew Oriel. She wouldn't begrudge me happiness, would she? She loved me. She'd want me to be happy."

  Mehefin tilted her head and whispered, "What happens if he goes back to tha
t day and reverses what he did?"

  "I don't know," Gaijann said. "I guess everything is different. We wouldn't be here. We'd go back to what alternative history we might inhabit." He covered his eyes with his hands. "I don't care. I just want him to be happy." Then he pulled his hands away.

  They both watched as Severan stood in despair, on the verge of getting back what he'd lost and not knowing if he wanted it anymore.

  "I want him to be happy too," said Mehefin.

  "Really?" Gaijann said. His tone was acid.

  The giant put both hands of the arms of the throne.

  Gaijann smiled and said to Mehefin, "I guess this is goodbye. Who knows - we might meet again."

  "But we wouldn't remember this?"

  "If I did, I'd make sure I killed you."

  And then they saw Severan straighten up. With great weariness he said, "I've made my decision. I accept my life as it is: I'm not going to ask for it to be reversed." He wiped the tears from his human eye with his alien hand, and stepped back from the throne.

  Gaijann raised his voice. "This is your one and only chance."

  The giant shook his head. He turned, and without meeting his friend's gaze, he said, "I'm choosing the future over the past - what might be instead of what was." He descended the steps, walked to Mehefin and reached out for her hand. She gave it to him, smiling. He turned to the assassin. "The past is gone, Gaijann," Severan said, "but at least now for me there will be a future."

  Gaijann watched dust motes swirl in the air. The ages of the Library weighed on him. His lip was still sore. He grunted and touched it. He looked at Mehefin was gazing up at Severan and smiling.

  Some great cosmic joke was being played out but Gaijann wasn't laughing. However stupid his friend was being, Gaijann's loyalty would not be broken. He would save the giant, whatever it took. And it was looking like it would take a long game. Fine. He could play that.

  He grunted. "So where now?"

  "Can we catch up with my father?" said Mehefin. Gaijann hated the smile on her face. The bitch had won. For now.

  Severan nodded. Behind the throne, a new tunnel suddenly loomed, as if conjured by his decision.

  "This place changes all of the time," Gaijann said.

  "Ahead then," Severan said.

  "It might be a longer way," Gaijann said, "but we'd be surer of where we were going if we backtracked to the Silver Pool and made our way from there."

  "Where is the Silver Pool from here?" Severan said sternly.

  Gaijann shrugged. "I don't exactly know. But back would be best. Back and up."

  "My father will have gone down," said Mehefin.

  "Then down we go. Come," he said to Mehefin.

  Gaijann stood. His choice was to go back alone or accept Severan's decision. For a while, he watched Mehefin and Severan walk on ahead. Then, when they were almost out of sight, with a curse, he followed them.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN: The Fall

  Severan's heavy tread echoed in the tunnel. The light from his visor showed more featureless black rock descending to the heart of the library. The tunnel was smooth and straight but kept going down.

  Behind him, Gaijann said, "Funny how the Library was keen to keep us out at the top, but no defenses since."

  "The Silver Creatures..." said Mehefin.

  "Yes, but I would have expected more traps, more tricks."

  And then as if the Library heard them, there was a monstrous cracking sound. They halted. Gaijann saw the alarm on Mehefin's face. "That sounded like rock breaking," she said.

  Gaijann for once agreed with her. He looked around him. There was no way out of their predicament other than running down or running back. The assassin shrugged and was just about to suggest moving on, when the crack came again and a shower of rock and dust fell from above. The tunnel tipped down like a freeway in an earthquake and pitched them forward. The passage was now at a 70 degree angle and they slid like the contents of a shoebox being emptied out, tumbling head over foot down the tilted passage.

  Gaijann rattled and fell and felt himself bang against the rock, knocking his head and shoulders. The wind was out of him. His armor protected him from the worst but Mehefin didn't have any and Severan's armor was badly damaged. A large rock fell from above and slammed him in the back. He was knocked forward, groaning. Then the tunnel tilted back again, almost to the horizontal, righting itself, but not quite. They still slid downward, but not so violently.

  Gaijann saw that Severan was cradling his human hand as if it were broken. Mehefin's face was covered in blood and black grit.

  They slid further.

  Mehefin grabbed a fragment of the broken floor and held onto it for dear life. It stopped her descent. Severan rolled further down and Gaijann saw he was at the lip of a hole. An ethereal white light emanated from it. Severan was about to slip helplessly into it when Gaijann thrust out his leg and Severan grasped at it with his cyborg hand. It caught, then jerked them both forward, as Severan's weight caused Gaijann to start sliding again. They were both about to tip into the ragged hole when Gaijann drew his vorpal dagger from his belt and stabbed it into the black rock of the tunnel floor. The plasma embedded itself in stone. It wouldn't do any favors to the edge of his blade, but it served as an anchor — for now.

  Severan held onto Gaijann's leg. "Thanks."

  "Your hand?"

  "Mashed."

  "Pity we don't have Torina here," Gaijann muttered.

  "Yes," Severan said. "But I'm not sure this small talk is appropriate to the situation."

  Gaijann grinned despite his pain and alarm. The boss always made him laugh in a tight spot.

  "What now?" muttered Mehefin from above them, where she clung precariously with two hands on the rock to stop her sliding into the hole.

  Severan looked down. "That hole's jumpable."

  "Not by me," she said.

  "Got any rope?" Severan asked Gaijann.

  Gaijann nodded. "In my pack."

  "Now would be a good time to unpack it."

  Gaijann's breath was labored. "I'm kind of hanging on here."

  "You've got two hands haven't you?"

  Gaijann laughed again but he heard his own nervousness. He let go of the knife hilt with his left hand, now only grasping it with his sweaty right. Severan's weight strained his bicep and shoulder as he struggled to hold on. With his left hand, he pulled his pack round to his chest. It scraped on the gritty rock surface. He was perspiring heavily. His right arm was agony. Grunting, Gaijann pulled out a coil of thin, but ultra-strong, carbon and silicon bond rope. There was also some climbing gear in the pack - most importantly, some intelligent pitons. It was all part of his infiltration equipment but in his panic when they slid, he'd not been able to get to them. He dragged them out now, weighing two pitons in his left hand, while he turned his left wrist to bind the c-s rope loosely around one of them. When placed against rock, the pitons would burrow their way in. But to burrow in, the piton had to have its nose placed against the rock face. "Want me to anchor the piton here?" asked Gaijann.

  "No," Severan said. If we do that, we won't get over - the rope end will dangle into the hole. Tie it to the rope and hand it to me."

  "Okay." Gingerly, and terrified he would drop it, Gaijann looped the rope through the eye of the piton. Then, he stretched down his body with the piton and its tail of attached c-s rope. Severan reached up with his damaged hand and winced as he took the piton. "This bit is going to be tricky. Do you think you can reach down and hold me too?"

  "Not sure." There was sweat on Gaijann's lip and his brow was furrowed with the pain of holding both himself and Severan. The knife he had dug into the rock was still holding and the grip of his right hand on the knife handle was still firm, but if he shifted it they might both begin to slide. He grunted, "Which bit do you want me to hold?"

  "I need my metal hand free," Severan said.

  "But your other's hurt. It won't have any strength. You won't be able to hold onto me with it."

>   "Grab me by the scruff of the neck," Severan said.

  "In the name of all the gods." Gaijann exhaled and drew his leg up, pulling the giant with him. Sweat ran in rivulets across his brow and dripped into his eyes, stinging and half-blinding him. The giant was an enormous weight. He thought his hamstring would snap. Gaijann groaned with pain, but the giant came up as Gaijann's leg pulled him.

  "Good," Severan grinned.

  Right hand on the dagger still, Gaijann reached tentatively with his left. He pulled up his knee to bring Severan closer, then jerked his hand and grabbed the giant's collar. Severan twisted so his robot hand could grip Gaijann's belt, then his shoulder.

  "Okay?" Severan said.

  "No, I don't have a good grip on you."

  "Then get one."

  With all the strength of his fingers, Gaijann fastened his hand on the giant's neck. "Gotcha. What now?" He muttered through clenched teeth.

  "This," Severan said and with his robot hand he flung the piton. The cyborg hand provided fantastic strength and unnatural accuracy. The piton struck the rock wall on the other side of hole. Once it had made contact, it began to bore. Gaijann heard the whine of it digging in.

  Then it was fixed.

  Severan had the other end of the rope. He drew it taut. "Okay," he said, "Let go."

  "Let go?"

  "Let go."

  "Whatever you say." Gaijann opened his fingers and the giant slid rapidly down the inclining passage. The hole glowed eerily as Severan scraped over rock and then fell into the void. He vanished. Mehefin gasped. There was a second before he hit the bottom of the rope and it snapped tight. Severan was dangling unseen in the hole but Gaijann heard his grunts as the giant pulled himself hand over damaged hand. Gaijann was sure Severan's hand was agony, but the giant did not let it stop him. Then his blond head appeared at the far edge of the hole. Gaijann watched as he got his arms on the edge of the precipice, still holding the rope. Severan dragged himself up and out onto the far side with great effort. His face was lined and covered in sweat.

  Gaijann could see how much his friend's strength had ebbed and he knew his injuries were sapping him. Without Torina, he wouldn't easily recover. Then, still holding the rope, putting it under his arm, Severan got onto his knees. The giant had run the greatest risk by getting over first but it would be dangerous for the other two even so. Still, now Severan could help them with the rope.