Alien Nation #2 - Dark Horizon

by K. W. Jeter

The diversion had given Sikes a few seconds to recover. He lunged forward, tackling Ahpossno around the waist, driving him toward the building steps. Sikes’s fist pummeled Ahpossno beneath the arm, directly above the axillary nerve center. In the struggle, Ahpossno’s belt pouch tore loose, the contents spilling across the sidewalk.

  Sikes’s blows stopped when Ahpossno pulled him into a headlock, his arm cutting off the detective’s breath. Face reddening, Sikes tugged futilely at the forearm pressing hard against his throat. Ahpossno tightened his grip, preparing to snap Sikes’s neck.

  “Stop!”

  Ahpossno looked up from his opponent as Cathy reached her hand out toward him.

  “Don’t kill him . . .” Her hand was within inches of touching his arm. “I’ll go with you.”

  He hesitated a moment, then tossed Sikes aside. The human was nearly unconscious; he collapsed against the car, then sank to his knees on the sidewalk.

  “Give me your keys.” Ahpossno took them from her outstretched hand. He turned, spotting her car parked farther down the block. Grabbing her arm, he pushed her toward it.

  “Cathy . . . don’t . . .”

  She had only a moment to look over her shoulder. Sikes fell forward, sprawling across the sidewalk, one hand reaching vainly for her.

  C H A P T E R 3 3

  THE DUNES ROLLED toward the distant mountains. The car had driven out of the city, until nothing could be seen but empty desert and the single track of road bisecting it.

  Ahpossno steered the car over to the side and killed the engine. Beside him, Cathy looked out over the dry hillocks of sand. There was no sign of any life here but themselves.

  He came around to the passenger side and pulled open the door. After a moment’s hesitation, she got out. “This way . . .” He motioned for her to follow him.

  They climbed to the top of the high dune nearest the road, their feet digging deep into the loose sand. The sun’s dancing glare blinded her for a moment; shielding her eyes, she looked across the bowl-shaped valley beyond. A sudden motion caught her gaze. A few yards away, a lizard scurried into the safety of a cluster of rocks, its tail leaving a curving imprint.

  Cathy turned and looked at Ahpossno standing next to her. There had been no words between them on the long drive out to this spot; it took a moment for her to find her voice again. “There’s nothing here.” Puzzled, she looked across the desert. “Why—”

  “Wait.” The single word; then his shout broke through the stillness, his throat stretching taut as he tilted his head back. “Govar Ahpossno. Ahpossno govar. Naveet. Naveet.”

  Before the echo died away, another sound, a deep bass rumble, came up from the earth below them. Cathy looked down and saw the grains of sand shimmering, a thin trickle sifting from the rocks.

  At the base of the dune, the earth cracked open.

  She watched in horrified awe as the chasm widened, the black depths suddenly glinting with the sun reflecting from burnished silver metal. The sand poured from the surfaces of the massive object rising slowly into the air.

  Now she could hear the sound of the craft’s engines, an electronic whine just at the limit of perception; she could feel it in the pit of her gut and her skull’s base. Like a mechanical wasp, the shuttle hovered above the ground, the dark windows of the pilot’s cabin turning its blank gaze toward the one who had summoned it from the hiding place below.

  “Now,” said Ahpossno. He turned to Cathy. “Now it is time.”

  She drew back from him. “You’re going to bring back another ship. A slave ship.”

  He nodded. “But you will be free. You will be with me.”

  “Don’t do this . . .” Cathy could see the demon’s face of the shuttle, floating in the distance behind Ahpossno. “You’ve seen our life here—our hope—our chance at happiness. Don’t let them take that away.”

  Something moved behind his eyes, then disappeared as the muscles of his jaw tightened. “I am a Chekkah. A soldier of our masters. I have my mission.”

  “Stay here!” She clutched his arm with both hands. “Live with us!”

  He shook his head. “That cannot be. There is no place here for me.”

  “Then go back and tell the Overseers not to come! Tell them we all died here on this planet!”

  “Impossible—for the Chekkah, there is only the fulfillment of one’s mission . . . or death. I cannot change what I am.”

  “Neither can I.” Cathy let go of his arm. She took another step back from him. “This is as far as I go.”

  “If you stay, you’ll be rounded up with the others.”

  “Don’t you see?” She searched his gaze for the spark that had been there before. “I can’t be free if all the rest of my people are slaves.”

  In silence, in the emptiness of the desert, the space between them widened, swallowing the earth itself.

  His eyes grew hard, as though they were the visible fragment of the stone that had consumed his heart. “You are right.” He nodded slowly. “I should have remembered this truth. That not all things are possible—”

  “Ahpossno!” Another voice shattered the air.

  George saw Ahpossno’s gaze snap away from Cathy. Both of them turned and watched him climbing the dune, his footprints paralleling their tracks from the road. The sharp whine of the shuttle craft had masked the noise of his car’s arrival.

  He held something in one hand. As he mounted the crest of the dune, he stopped and lifted it higher. Diffracted sun lanced from the heart of the crystal sphere.

  He nodded toward Ahpossno. “You and I . . .” George glanced at the Serdsos, then back to the other man. “For this. For my soul.”

  The warrior appraised the detective, then slowly shook his head. “Keep your life. I have no wish to take it.”

  “You’re afraid?” George let a thin, contemptuous smile form on his lips. “Or does a Chekkah have no honor?” Those last words, he knew, would have the desired effect.

  He tossed the faceted crystal at Ahpossno’s feet. Cathy stepped between the two men, laying a hand against George’s chest.

  “Don’t, George!” She pleaded as she held him back. “He’ll kill you . . .”

  “I’m sorry, Cathy.” He reached up and grasped her head in both his hands, his fingertips pressing firmly against the nerves behind the hinges of her jaw. She grabbed his wrists, but her hold weakened as her eyes rolled upward. As she blacked out, George caught her by the arm, easing her fall to the ground.

  He turned toward Ahpossno. “Well . . . ?”

  Ahpossno hesitated for only a moment. Then he stepped back, taking a fighting stance, poised and ready. The two men’s eyes locked before George lowered his head and charged.

  The assault was easily blocked, but George managed to evade Ahpossno’s counterpunch. A quick series of blows and kicks, then the two separated again.

  George tasted a trickle of pink blood running from the corner of his mouth. His chest labored for breath, the beats of his hearts visible beneath his shirt. He could see Ahpossno drawing his own focus into himself, regathering his strength, calm as if he hadn’t even been touched.

  Before George could spring back, a roundhouse kick, with Ahpossno’s torso parallel to the ground, came flying at his head. He ducked, but the impact caught him on the shoulder, staggering him, almost sprawling him across the sand before he regained his balance. Now his breath came in quick, agonized panting.

  George lunged forward, driving his doubled fists into Ahpossno’s chest. The strike connected, pushing the warrior back. He drove his knee into George’s midsection, pushing him far enough away that a harder, faster series of kicks could be launched. George could fend off only a few of the blows; they kept coming, the impacts jolting his bruised frame as he retreated. One more swing, a wild, desperate one toward Ahpossno’s head. It landed, but Ahpossno shook it off; his hands and feet blurred as his final combination sent George reeling onto the ground.

  He could sense Ahpossno looking down at him. The sand gra
ins clung to the blood on his face. He was still conscious; he managed to look up at Ahpossno as he waited for the coup de grâce. “You’ve won . . .” he whispered. As I knew you would. He kept those words silent.

  The thin note of police sirens pierced the air. From far away, but coming closer.

  Looking over his shoulder, Ahpossno spotted them. Four-by-fours, with deep-ridged desert tires—the Sheriff’s Department vehicles jolted across the dunes, spraying sand behind them as they accelerated.

  He looked back down at George. “You owe me your life.”

  Yes . . . The Serdsos lay a few feet away; George watched Ahpossno step toward it. Go on . . .

  Ahpossno reached down and picked up the crystal. “I will take your soul.” Turning, he called to the ship. “Otkroy! Otkroy!”

  George managed to raise himself on one arm. The shuttle’s door opened with a hiss, the gangway extending toward Ahpossno. As soon as the Chekkah had hurried aboard, the craft sealed itself again. The whine of its engine grew louder.

  The Sheriff’s Department vehicles hit the dune, sending up clouds of powdery dust as they slammed to a halt. Sikes and the sheriff scrambled out of one, two uniformed deputies from the other. The sheriff and the deputies pulled their guns as Sikes ran to his partner.

  “George . . . !”

  He raised a trembling hand toward Sikes. At the same moment, the air tensed with the mounting vibration of the shuttle’s engine. The craft rose higher, its shadow spreading beneath as the sheriff and the deputies emptied their guns at it. Sparks glanced off the shining metal.

  Sikes dug into his jacket pocket. His hand came out, not with his gun, but with an object no larger than a pocket flashlight. With his vision still blurred, George recognized it when the red glow illumined Sikes’s hand. It was what Ahpossno had used to bring down the Purists’ helicopter. Sikes raised his hand, pointing the object straight at the shuttle; the device’s slighter note was almost drowned out by the shuttle engine as Sikes kept his thumb pressed upon the trigger switch.

  In the sky, the shuttle faltered, its noise dipping in volume and pitch. The craft hung suspended, blotting out the sun, then dragged lower as Sikes continued aiming the jamming device.

  “No . . . !” George lurched to his feet. He swung his hand against Sikes’s fist. The impact knocked the jamming device loose, sending it tumbling down the face of the dune.

  The shuttle’s noise shrieked to a higher pitch. The craft trembled for a moment, then bulleted into the sky. A glint of fire remained, the sheriff and his deputies shading their eyes to watch it. Then a spark, which became lost against the sun’s glare. The sky was empty.

  Sikes, his face contorted with fury, grabbed the front of George’s shirt, keeping him from slumping back to the ground. “Why?”

  George broke away from him; he stumbled toward the unconscious figure of Cathy.

  “I had him!” Sikes shouted after him. “I was gonna bring him down! You know what you’ve done?”

  He looked over his shoulder. “Yes . . .”

  Cathy’s eyes fluttered open as George lifted her in his arms. “Cathy . . . [I’m sorry,”] She had come to; he helped her to her feet, steadying her against himself. “I couldn’t let you interfere—I had to fight Ahpossno. He had to take the Serdsos.”

  “What’re you talking about?” Sikes stood in front of him.

  “It’s filled with the bacteria—that the Purists tried to use. I took the Serdsos to your lab, Cathy; I knew you still had a supply of the bacteria there, for your work. I drilled a small hole, and filled the hollow space inside with the bacteria.” He smiled, then winced as a sudden pain caught him. “You don’t have to worry about me—I followed all the necessary handling precautions. The hole is covered with a thermal-release patch; its pores will open just from Ahpossno’s handling of the Serdsos. By the time he reaches his mother ship, he’ll be completely infected—and unconscious. There’ll be no way for him to tell the others the truth about what he found here. Even if there’s no bacteria left to infect the others, they’ll believe that this planet is contaminated, and that all the slaves must be dead . . .” He paused, the effort of his words beginning to show. “They won’t come here . . .”

  Sikes caught George before he fell.

  As he leaned against his partner’s shoulder, George looked over at Cathy. She gazed up at the sky.

  “If only . . .”

  With his free hand, Sikes reached and touched her arm.

  Tears coursed down the face she turned toward them. “If only he would have believed me . . .”

  For a long moment, neither man could say anything.

  “Come on.” Bearing George’s weight against himself, Sikes helped him toward the car waiting at the road.

  C H A P T E R 3 4

  DOORS WERE FOR secret things. That was how he knew he was dying, that it wouldn’t be much longer. A temporary barrier had been constructed over the entrance to his chamber, a rough sheet of steel bound in place by a welded track—not just to guard the rest of the mother ship from any possible contagion, but to preserve the others’ morale. They had come a long way, expecting glory and the approval of their masters as a reward. And now his mission had proved a failure . . . It would be better to keep that a secret, wrap his death in mystery and silence . . .

  Ahpossno closed his eyes as he lay on the hard cot. With his hands folded against his chest, he could feel the ragged, accelerated labor of his hearts. The pulse of blood was killing him, spreading the bacteria’s infection to every cell of his body. When he had been dragged out of the shuttle, the ship’s medics had given him drugs to rouse his remaining strength, so he could be debriefed, pumped for information. The drugs’ effects were fading now, consumed by the fever that reeled inside his skull, tilting and dimming the chamber’s walls and ceiling.

  Secret things . . . He had known he’d been infected long before the shuttle reached the mother ship, its course and docking procedure already programmed. The first touch of the fever had hit him; he’d examined the Serdsos he’d taken from the police detective, and found the trap laid inside it. Into which he’d fallen; he’d let the crystal sphere drop and shatter as he’d looked at his own hands, which had betrayed him, conveyed the slow poison into his blood.

  Doors and secrets . . . More than they knew. More than what he had told them.

  A wedge of light fell across his face. With a grinding rasp, the steel panel was drawn aside. He could hear someone step into the chamber from the corridor.

  Ahpossno opened his eyes and found himself looking up into the face of his commanding officer. To come here required no great bravery on the officer’s part; the medics had already determined that there was no risk of the infection being contagious.

  Perhaps the commanding officer had come to gloat. To savor his own victory—he had argued against the mission from the start. So be it—none of that mattered to Ahpossno now.

  “I have been in communication with the elders.” The commanding officer no longer spoke the words of respect to him. Son of blood—that bond had been broken by failure. “It has been decided that your corpse will not return with us. You understand why, don’t you?” A spark of malicious triumph was visible in the officer’s gaze.

  “I understand . . .” His voice came out as a whisper, hardly more than a breath. “That is . . . right . . .”

  “It will be jettisoned here, while we are still in orbit around this system.”

  Yes . . . He didn’t know whether he managed to speak the word, or whether the effort had been too much for his ebbing strength.

  “The medics tell me that it will not be much longer. And then we will set our course away from this zone of misfortune.” The officer stepped back toward the rough door. “They could provide something to relieve your pain, speed the process of your dying—do you wish that?”

  He still had some of his pride left, his Chekkah honor. The word no struggled past his parched lips.

  “So be it.” The officer dragge
d the steel panel back into place, sealing Ahpossno into the silent chamber once more.

  A door . . .

  There were no windows on the ship, either, except for the few in the navigational section. He would have liked to have one now, to turn his face toward and gaze across the bright points of the stars. Even if the one he wanted to see would be too faint from the distance . . .

  That one, the planet he’d told his questioners about, the one filled with death, with the corpses of the escaped slaves rotting alongside the others, both species struck down by the same bacteria, the one in his own bloodstream. A planet whose very atmosphere was fatal, the spores carried on the wind. A planet of bones whitening beneath a pitiless sun.

  He had told them, and had kept the secret, the truth, behind a door inside himself.

  Ahpossno closed his eyes again. There would be plenty of time for gazing toward that place, distant and lost, where his people walked, free and happy. Perhaps, when the nights came there, she would turn her gaze up to the dark sky, toward him. To where he would fall and go on falling, forever, locked in that sleep from which no one woke . . . falling and watching that living place, from his cold bed between the stars . . .

  Plenty of time . . .

  In silence, he rested his hands above his hearts, and stepped through another door inside himself. It led to the chamber of a warrior’s final meditations.

  “Goddamn . . .” He undid the bungled knot and pulled the necktie back into place around his collar. He’d have to give it another shot, and another, until he got it right. Right now, there wasn’t any option about wearing a tie or not.

  Sikes glared at his reflection in the mirror as he struggled with the narrow strip of cloth. It struck him, not for the first time, that this was the real reason he’d never put all his efforts into climbing the department’s promotion ladder. He might wind up in a position where he had to wear a tie every day—he didn’t know whether he could afford to lose an hour or so every morning, screwing around with it. Not to mention strangling himself to death.