Alien Nation #2 - Dark Horizon

by K. W. Jeter

  Ahpossno drew his stone fist back to himself. “I do not intend to fail.”

  He was the point of the knife, its cutting edge. He alone was the mission.

  “As you have spoken, brother.” The officer had recovered himself, contained inside the armor of his body, his face a mask again. “The will is the deed.” He stepped back from the chamber’s opening and turned away.

  Ahpossno sat on the hard edge of the bunk, listening to the ring of the officer’s boots fading with distance. There were other sounds, softer ones, that only the sharpened senses of a Chekkah could detect through the mother ship’s constant high-pitched vibration. The presence of his brothers in the small chambers on either side of him, their consciously paced breathing and the twinned surge of their blood as they descended through their own meditations, or tensed their muscles through the cycle of the small masteries. So they honed the edges of their own knives, the gross matter of the body, and the subtler, deadlier one of the soul . . .

  The soul. Ahpossno turned his head, looking over at the niche in the wall that held his own Serdsos. He reached and with a single fingertip touched the smooth, crystalline surface. A sphere only slightly larger than his clenched fist—at its core, diamond-faceted lights shifted, responding to the warmth of his blood and the turnings of his unspoken thoughts.

  At another time, after the mission was over, he would have to think about the commanding officer. A Chekkah—a higher-ranking one—who had let the seed of fear blossom inside himself; that presented certain opportunities.

  Military etiquette allowed for other types of duels, besides the frivolous amusements that had given the officer his pretty head-scars. Duels that called for greater stakes, and with greater rewards to the victor.

  The greatest wager of all—the image of one’s own soul.

  Ahpossno picked up his Serdsos, let its weight rest in the hollow of his palm; he watched the flickering glints of light at its core.

  To challenge a superior ranking, to defeat him, to claim his wager, his Serdsos . . . that meant not only glory, but promotion. It was not the only means of rising in the Chekkah hierarchy, but it was the fastest.

  He set the Serdsos back in its niche. There would be a time to act upon this opportunity. At this moment, he could not divide his thoughts; all had to be concentrated upon the mission, and its success.

  Soon; he made that vow to himself. Soon enough, in the reckoning of the universe outside himself, that time would come.

  But for now . . .

  Now there was no time, and no space. The mother ship, and the emptiness through which it passed, ceased to exist for him. He laid his hands upon his knees. With his eyes still open, his warrior gaze the only door necessary, he descended into his dark meditations.

  C H A P T E R 2

  THE TELEPHONE WAS RINGING. It could have been a million miles away, for all the good it did him.

  He lived in a world of voices. All day long—voices and faces, human and Newcomer alike, appearing before his bench to plead their cases, wrangling over the sharp points of the law, awaiting his careful deliberation and the rendering of his decisions. All those voices, attorneys and plaintiffs and defendants, who would have halted their arguments and testimonies in midsentence, turned their faces in alarm toward the sight of the judge clutching his throat and gasping for breath. Rushing to his aid as he crumpled from his chair, the bailiff reaching him first, tearing open the collar of his black robes, the court clerk already calling for the paramedics . . .

  But he wasn’t in the courtroom, with voices and faces all around him. Court had been adjourned hours ago; he was probably the only person left in the building, except for the janitors buffing the marble and brass-inlaid floors of the lobby, and they were too far away to hear him, even if he had been able to cry out, past the invisible fist squeezing the life and air from him. There was no one to see him lying sprawled upon the Persian rug in his chambers, his fingers clawing at the interlaced Tabriz pattern. No one to hear the hammer of his laboring hearts, louder than the single word he shouted inside his skull.

  The phone rang again, its metallic shriek cutting through the deafening blows of his pulse.

  There was a voice inside the phone. Human or Newcomer, it didn’t matter. A thread that ran to a living person, someone to whom he could gasp out his agony and fright; even if he couldn’t batter the word Help past the fist, his struggle for breath would alert the caller that something was terribly wrong, he was dying, he needed help right away . . . And then, in time, just in time, there would be a siren wailing toward the courthouse, he’d hear it coming, and then running footsteps and shouts in the corridor, and the door to his chambers bursting open . . .

  If he could reach the phone.

  He managed to push himself up on one elbow, pain and dizziness flooding across him. Far above him, on top of his desk, the phone’s ringing was cut short as the answering machine clicked on.

  “Hello, this is Judge Kaiser—”

  His own voice mocked him.

  “I’m unable to come to the phone right now.” The microchip inside the answering machine delivered its simulation of calm, wise authority. “Please leave a message when you hear the tone, and I’ll call you back as soon as possible.”

  Delirium touched his oxygen-starved brain cells. Crazy thoughts—if that was the judge speaking, the voice on the machine, then what was this trembling creature trying to claw its way up the mahogany side panel of the desk? It didn’t make sense.

  Deeet. A tiny electronic sound. He’d hooked his fingers over the top and pulled himself to his knees. His fingertips scraped parallel lines into the wood’s burnished expanse. Through a black-spotted haze, he could see the red LED on the answering machine blinking steadily.

  “Jules, this is Marsha. Are you there?” The woman’s voice paused, then went on. “Well, anyway—we missed you at the mayor’s reception this evening.”

  The black spots in his vision grew larger, their edges fusing into one another. Beyond them, the somber human colors of the chambers, polished woods, the mute spines of books, row after row of legal volumes, his black robes draped on a coat stand—all of that fell into the darkness filling the room. The bright colors of three cloth balls, red and green and blue, each just big enough to hold and squeeze in one’s hand, leapt through the inky mist to his eyes. The box and the brown-paper wrappings the balls had arrived in slid off the desktop as he inched his trembling hand closer to the phone.

  “I called your house—there was no answer,” the woman’s voice, a living thing, went on. “I’m at least glad to know you’re not working late again. You drive yourself so hard—it’s terrible for your health.”

  The voice, and the hammer in his chest, the staggering beat of his hearts—his skull filled with those, light dimming under the black waves surging with each slowing pulse. His wrist brushed one of the colored cloth balls, and a trace of its scent turned giddily in his nostrils and open, gasping mouth.

  Just a few inches away—his fingertips curled toward the phone’s receiver.

  “Don’t forget, Doug and I are taking you to the Bolshoi on Saturday. They’re doing the Grigorovich Spartacus—”

  The scent from the colored ball cut through the darkness, intoxicating him, sending a part of his brain on a spiral separate from his dying and the pain bursting in his chest. The Bolshoi, yes, of course, he could hear his own voice in some other world, the one where nothing had happened and he’d been sitting at his desk going over his calendar when the phone had rung. Spartacus, that’s wonderful, that’s every Newcomer’s favorite ballet—well, the ones that go to the ballet—the great rebellion of the slaves against their oppressors, freedom and joy, and breath and life, and then—and then the darkness and death at the end, the gladiator’s corpse hoisted on the Roman spears.

  His chest felt as though it were being riven apart, the pain sharp as any spearpoint, but larger, big enough to tilt the room and all the world beyond on its side, as his fingertips touched
the smooth plastic of the telephone.

  “Don’t worry about calling back. Talk to you soon. ’Bye.”

  A mechanical click followed the woman’s voice, then a split second of silence. The phone sang its small electronic tone as the microcassette halted inside the answering machine.

  No . . .

  The shout inside his skull, the single word. The telephone fell away from him, he was falling, the room spinning as his chest slid across the edge of the desk. His hand struck something soft, he couldn’t see what it was, there was only darkness now, the hammer inside his pulse silenced at last.

  Judge Jules Kaiser of the State Appellate Court crumpled backwards onto the floor of his chambers. His face had already begun to gray, the pattern of spots on the smooth curve of his head dulling slightly. As with humans, the cerebral contents lost temperature rapidly upon the cessation of life.

  One of the colored balls, the red one brushed by the judge’s hand, rolled to the edge of the desk, then fell. It bounced once and came to rest near the corpse’s knee.

  C H A P T E R 3

  FULL MOON IN a starry sky, up on a rooftop with a female—at a time like this, he’d ordinarily have been thinking about putting on the charm, however rough-around-the-edges his brand might be. It usually worked, he had a good track record in that department. The charm, the moves, then the ashes hauled. So what was the problem?

  “Have you spotted it yet?” Cathy stood close enough to him that, in the cool night air, he could feel her as a heat source. That wasn’t helping.

  “Just . . . a sec.” Sikes kept his eye to the small finder scope. It was her telescope, a nice big Bushnell on an orbital-mount tripod, all of which he’d hauled up the building’s stairwell for her. The old brass-bound telescope, which had been left to him by his uncle Jack and which he had then given to her, had a place of pride down in her apartment. Most Newcomers were nuts about astronomy, but then, it figured they would be. Like the old micks, the retired beat cops who hung around the downtown stations, boiling their ulcers with squad-room coffee and telling their grandparents’ stories about the auld sod. Homesick for someplace they’d never even seen. Sikes tapped on the barrel of the big scope, shifting its angle just a hair. “I think . . . I got it.”

  “Let me see!”

  He stepped back from the telescope and let Cathy take his place. Picking up the glass of wine he’d poured himself, a nice little ’95 Oregon Pinot, he watched her bending over the scope. She had on a nicely fitted pair of jeans, an expensive designer brand with elaborate gold stitching on the back pockets. Her pose, head lowered to the telescope’s eyepiece, had tautened the denim over her can. The stupidest male part of his brain went rolling on, speculating on the worthwhile effort it would take to slide his hands into those pockets . . .

  Back off, he told himself. Tie a ribbon on it, for Christ’s sake.

  “That should be Space Lab,” he said aloud. On the little patio table was a copy of that day’s newspaper, folded open to the science page; the necessary coordinates and times were all listed there. “At least it should be.” Sikes’s battered portable stereo, murmuring some soft Gerry Mulligan, sat on the table as well, along with the wine and a bottle of sour milk. He had already gotten a third down the wine bottle, way ahead of Cathy’s sipping of the off-smelling white fluid.

  “No, you’re right. It is!” The excitement rose in her voice. “You can tell by how fast it’s moving.” She straightened up to glance at her watch. “We’ve got three minutes till they test the communications laser.”

  She started to bend down to the eyepiece again, then turned and looked back at him. “I’m sorry, Matt.” She gave him a sweet, apologetic smile that pierced his heart like a tandoori skewer. “You found it, you should get a chance to look at it.”

  “Nahh . . .” He held up the palm of his empty hand, and shook his head. “Knock yourself out.” He lifted his chin to drain what was left in his wineglass.

  Cathy hesitated, as if she were about to protest, insist; then her smile turned to a grin. She spun around and leaned over the telescope.

  With his arms folded, dangling the empty glass by its rim, Sikes regarded the bottom of her Joffrey Ballet sweatshirt, now rising above the waistband of the jeans to reveal a couple of inches of her bare skin. Along the bumps of her spine, a tapering pattern of spots, the comet’s tail of the ones that covered her head—that wasn’t helping, either, this little innocent show of what he knew was one of the major erogenous zones for Newcomers. Would he get anywhere if he started ‘humming’ like an average pink-blooded Tenctonese male?

  Get real. She’d turn around and look at you like you were a total jerk. Which is exactly what you would be. He didn’t stop looking at the spots.

  There was a bigger problem involved. He didn’t even know if he wanted to get somewhere. Or if he was supposed to want to, or anything.

  It was too much to think about right now. He cleared his throat and managed to speak.

  “A real space station—incredible.” He looked up at the smaller specks of the stars. Without the telescope’s magnification, it was impossible to pick out the Space Lab. “Seems like it was just yesterday they put a man on the moon.” He rubbed the wineglass with his thumb. “You must be proud—a Newcomer astronaut and all.” A sigh, feeling the first of the buzz from the wine. “The guy must be having a trip up there.”

  Cathy looked over her shoulder at him, her gaze somber now, as though his emotion had touched her own.

  “I guess I’m like every kid in America.” It wasn’t a line, a prelude to a set of moves. “We all wanna be astronauts. Like sailing the seven seas—ya know?” One corner of his mouth lifted in a rueful half smile. “Just to go over the hill and see what’s on the other side . . .”

  His words hung in the air between them. Cathy had stepped back from the telescope, closer to him. Beyond the edge of the roof was another river of stars, the flow of traffic along the L.A. streets; the murmur from the freeway’s thicker band of lights reached their ears.

  She was still looking at him, he knew, and for a moment he couldn’t bring his gaze down to hers, just because he did know that. Then he managed, and their eyes met in silence.

  He shivered, gooseflesh raising the hair on his arms.

  “You’re cold.” She reached toward him. “You should’ve brought a jacket.”

  That wasn’t gooseflesh; he could feel her touch, like electricity, up his arm and across his shoulders. He turned and looked into her eyes. She had seen his reaction, and knew what it meant.

  She looked away, suddenly shy. With his finger under her chin, he brought her face back toward him.

  “Cathy . . .”

  He could barely speak, but then, it wasn’t necessary. He leaned forward and kissed her.

  She doesn’t know what to do—part of his brain, the dispassionate observer, told him that. A kiss was a human thing. He could feel her awkwardness, but didn’t care. The kiss lingered as he raised his hand, caressing her cheek. Then to the back of her neck, the sensitive dappling that ran all the way down her spine. That was something Newcomers did, to touch there.

  He felt her response, the delicate skin tensing, then relaxing, beneath his fingertips.

  That was something different, something he’d never felt with a woman before.

  Different . . .

  He opened his eyes, and pulled back from her.

  Cathy’s gaze searched his eyes. She spoke softly, a whisper. “I don’t feel like a human woman, do I?”

  Sikes had to find his voice, locked behind his tightened throat. “No . . .” He shook his head. “Not really . . . but that’s okay.”

  She looked up through her lashes at him. “So you liked it?”

  “Uh . . .” Say something, you jerk. “Did you?”

  “I think so.” Her hand still rested on his arm. “I feel . . .”

  The traffic crawled by in the streets below, an unending current of lights on the distant freeways. And farther away, a sp
ot of light among the stars, the satellite continued its progress through the darkness. The world, and everything beyond it—no one was aware of the two of them here, no one saw them looking into each other’s eyes, unsure of what to do next.

  “Yeah—” Sikes looked away from her, up to the night sky. “Well . . .”

  Cathy turned toward the telescope. “The laser test is going to start.”

  The silence coalesced around them, impenetrable distance. He didn’t know if he was relieved or disappointed.

  You, he told himself, are a grade A fool. Goddamn teenagers knew what they wanted, and he didn’t. Jerk.

  It was all going to take a lot more thinking about. And right now his brain felt as operational as some long-disassembled clunker, brake drums sitting on cement blocks in an oil-spotted driveway, with little bits and pieces scattered around. He stepped over to the table and poured himself more wine, then knocked it back without even tasting it. The alcohol wasn’t the problem; he could’ve poured it out on the rooftop, for all the effect it had on him tonight.

  He looked up at a different angle of stars, his back to Cathy and the telescope. Right now he didn’t want to turn around and see her again, start the big, muddled ball of his thoughts rolling again.

  The Santa Ana wind, hot and dry from its passage over the desert, brushed across him. That proved how screwed up he was—he didn’t even know why he’d shivered before. Cathy wasn’t sweating—Newcomers didn’t even have sweat glands—but his shirt had already gotten damp enough to cling to his ribs and the small of his back.

  Something cold had touched him, and that was one more thing he didn’t know.

  It touched him again as he looked up at the stars, and it wasn’t anything cold at all. The hairs on his arms stiffened as the stars suddenly appeared insubstantial to him, pinholes in a black curtain. Something moved behind the curtain, an unguessable shape shifting the dark fabric . . .

  Crazy talk. He told himself that, but the prickling on his skin didn’t go away. He poured the rest of the wine into his glass, hoping for at least partial anesthesia.