Dragonstar Destiny

by David Bischoff

  “I’ve heard that it’s because of the age of this ship, that the hyperspace flight may be putting ... some stress ... on ... things.” Kate chose her words with care, so that Kinsey would not become more anxious.

  Kate worked with Joyce on the Cultural Exchange Committee, and she seemed to have a natural, intuitive gift for communicating with the Saurians. Her job as a lab technician with the IASA Paleo Survey Team was now nonexistent, and she had volunteered to work with the Saurians because it offered her a chance to be doing something at least halfway related to her real vocation. During the past few weeks Kate had become quite friendly with her.

  “They seem to be happening more frequently, don’t you think?”

  “No,” said Kate. “Not really. I think that’s just people talking—you know; exaggerating.”

  “Maybe, but it still scares me.” Joyce dragged deeply on her cigarette, exhaled a long thin plume of blue-grey smoke. “I mean, I try not to think about it most of the time, but this whole thing scares me!”

  “I know what you mean,” said Kate.

  “I mean, really—what’s going to happen to us, Kate? Where in hell are we going? And who wants us there?”

  Kate didn’t answer because there were no answers available. For a short time, the two women sat in the half-light of their little lamp and listened to the madness of their own random thoughts. Kate knew that if she continued the conversation, there would be no more sleep tonight, and she could not afford a full day without enough rest. Being around the Saurians required that she be as alert and involved as possible.

  “Well, maybe we should be getting back to sleep,” said Kate.

  Joyce nodded and stubbed out her cigarette. “One more thing ... I forgot to tell you earlier because I got in so late... .”

  “What?” asked Kate. She hoped it wasn’t going to be a long, involved story. She really did want to get some rest.

  “While I was at the wine-making class, I heard Joy Davison remark about Colonel Kemp volunteering for Takamura’s little exploratory mission.”

  “You’re kidding.” Suddenly her pulse quickened, and she felt totally awake. Kate tried to put a lid on her shocked reaction to the news.

  “No, it’s true. At least, that’s what I heard.” Joyce paused. Then: “So ... are you going to tell Takamura you’ve reconsidered?”

  “I don’t know. Do you think it would look kind of funny? This late, I mean. They’re supposed to head out the day after tomorrow.”

  “You really like him, don’t you?”

  Kate propped herself up on one elbow, grinned sheepishly. “I guess I do ... I think I do.”

  “Then go on! Do it! There’s certainly nothing exciting going on around here.”

  “You’re right,” said Kate, trying to sound nonchalant. Inside, her heart was racing as she thought of being close to him again. Sister, you’ve got it bad.

  “Of course, I’m right,” said Joyce.

  “All right,” said Kate. “Maybe I’ll go talk to Takamura.”

  Joyce chuckled. “Yeah, right ... and maybe this is all just a bad dream!”

  MIKAELA had waited for him to mention it.

  It was the night before the expedition was heading off “along the bulkhead trail,” as Phineas had phrased it, and she decided to layout enough rope to see if the Colonel could manage to hang himself.

  He had spent the afternoon in meetings with Takamura and the other volunteers, and it was after dark when he returned to the tent. She could tell he was feeling randy, and had most likely planned a romantic send-off, because he arrived carrying a bottle of Robert Mondavi 2007, appropriated from Bob Jakes’s private cache.

  She served him a late dinner. And she waited for him to say something. The rope seemed to be getting shorter ... because it was slowly wrapping itself around his neck. No, that wasn’t quite right: the rope was innocent; Phineas was the one doing the wrapping, thank you.

  Mikaela smiled to herself as they cleaned up from the meal. Phineas seemed full of small talk, as though he were avoiding mention of the mission. And that was not like him at all, because prior to going to the final briefing, the prospect of some new adventure filled his sentences.

  She wasn’t really certain how she felt about his silence. It wasn’t that she was really angry with him, or even hurt by his sudden avoidance of the subject. Maybe she should give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he was thinking of a way to bring up the subject. Perhaps the news had been so meaningless to him that he was not even thinking about her.

  God, she went round and round! What was it about relationships that made us all so crazy?

  An hour passed, and the wine had been poured, glasses clinked, and lamps turned low. Considering the romantic limitations of a baggy vendor’s tent, redolent with Saurian exudations, Phineas was giving it his best shot. After kissing her along her arm, and all the way up her neck into the fragrant blond nest of her hair, he reached for the front zipper to her jumpsuit. Mikaela lay back on the cot, arcing her back, presenting herself to him, letting the wine perform its magic. She could confront him later.

  Soon their clothes had fallen away, and without speaking they had both decided to make this one last. Each touch, each kiss, lingered and teased. At one point she lay back away from him, tracing a wet fingertip up and down the length of his body. He was short, but not compact; muscled, but trim and sinewy rather than bulky or heavy. As he edged toward his fortieth year, she could detect the first hints of softness, of creases and tucks and rolls, but he would battle them for many years to come. His face was still unlined, and his sandy-brown hair still thick. He was classically handsome and always would be.

  When he finally entered her, it was with a gentle confidence. He was always attentive, and careful not to be too rough, too quick. They moved together in the humid night, their sweat mingling, making them deliciously slippery. He cried out when he reached orgasm, and she held him at her breast like the little boy he often seemed.

  Afterward, as she lay in his arms, and the wine threatened to carry them off to sleep, she broke the silence with a single, direct question: “Why didn’t you tell me that Kate Ennis is going along?”

  At first he acted like he may have already drifted off, but his eyes popped open and he looked at her drowsily.

  “For Christ’s sake, Mikaela, are you serious?”

  “Just tell me why?”

  “Because I assumed you already knew it. And it sounds like I was right.”

  He turned over, stretching out, as though very tired—which he most likely was. She had to admit his answer made sense, and he certainly was not acting like a guilty man. Still, she thought she might press it a bit further.

  “You think you’re so smug, don’t you, Colonel ... ?”

  “Smug? No, just tired. Good night, my dear.”

  “Phineas—”

  “Look.” He was starting to sound more irritated and less sleepy. “I just found out Kate had changed her mind—women have been known to do such things—and it was not that big of a deal to me, all right?”

  “Yet it must have been enough of one for you to figure I would already know about it.”

  “Christ, you’re on the bloody Council! Of course you’d know about it!” He paused, drew a breath, then exhaled dramatically. “Listen: I am not interested in Kate Ennis and have no intention of becoming so—even if she is interested in me, and demonstrated same by signing on for the mission ... and, oh yes, you were absolutely correct in your prediction, assumption, knowledge aforethought, or whatever you want to call it, and can we finally end this silly discussion and get some bloody sleep!?”

  Mikaela almost laughed after his performance. He could be damned charming and funny when he wanted to be.

  “Very well, Phineas. Maybe I was being a bit too hard on you.”

  He harrumphed through the haze of half-sleep
. “Maybe you were just being a bit jealous, why don’t you admit it?”

  “Oh, is that what I was doing? Thank you, my love, I would have never known.”

  She waited for a reply, but he had already slipped into an unfakable deep slumber. Not exactly the demeanor of a guilty man. Maybe he was right: she was acting jealous.

  And yet, she thought as she reached out to cancel the lamp, I just don’t trust that Ennis woman ...

  TIMOTHY LINDEN lay in the cot, sweating.

  Outside, a rare breeze fluttered the flap of the large tent. No light seeped through; it was the middle of the night. Beside him on a table was a pitcher of water and some medicine. Linden made an effort to reach for them, then fell back into the cot, exhausted, feverish, shaking. He teetered on the edge of delirium, but fought to retain his consciousness.

  He’d done it. He’d fooled them. They believed him. Only he knew that the allosaurus was two-headed. Only he knew what lay at the bottom of that tunnel. And the secret would be safe for his people—this astonishing secret that would bring them the glory in the world—no, the universe—that they desired so much. Oh, how the name of Allah would be glorified.

  I was predestined for this, Linden thought. Glory be to God and the Prophet, this is the reason I was placed upon the Dragonstar!

  He lay back, and the night seemed to fold in upon him, but there were stars in that night, wonderful stars that shone with glory and with hope, and he felt again the burning and cleansing radiation that had shot through him there in that chamber.

  He stifled a scream. No, they must not hear him scream. They must not realize he was changing until it was too late to do anything about it. They might try to stop it, they might try to kill it, they might try to kill him.

  Yes, he thought. He could feel it. He could feel the changes flowing through him, like strong currents twisting in his body. Would he grow another head, another arm or leg like that allosaur had? That would be difficult to hide, surely. Yet Linden suspected something more would happen ... Something even wilder ... Something wonderful. Something ...

  A spike of pain suddenly shot through his spine. He opened his mouth to cry out, but nothing carne forth. He twisted and contorted atop the cot, his hands shaking spastically, and he could feel a deeper darkness closing in.

  Light exploded all around him.

  He was back in the desert again.

  Back in training. Back with his brothers, learning the holy ways of terrorism.

  The sun beat down upon the exercise like the blessing of Allah as he ran across a tarmac toward a bunker, firing blanks from a laser-aimed pistol, scoring points with each hit. He and his comrades took the hill, and when they occupied it, the great man himself, Marcus Jashad, strode to the bunker to congratulate the men on their expertise.

  Only when he arrived, Timothy Linden could see that there was something wrong with the feared assassin, the great Muslim leader. He wore a turban and a beard and had a rifle slung across his back, looking much like a warrior of the Mahdi in the nineteenth century.

  And the whole of his chest was riddled with bullet holes.

  Blood seeped from his mouth as he opened it to speak.

  “Allah bless you, my son,” he said, and Linden knew he was speaking to a dead man, a ghost. “Allah bless you on your mission aboard the Dragonstar, that vessel of the Deep Dark that cost me my life.”

  “Marcus!” said Timothy Linden in his vision. “Marcus Jashad! I am doing the correct thing, am I not?”

  “You are working amid our enemies, and your prize in heaven will be great.”

  “But my secret!”

  “Ah yes! The secret of the cave! Glory be to Allah, it will be his Gift to His People!”

  “Yes. Yes, then I shall keep it to myself.”

  “Oh, indeed. You shall make the universe ring with the Glory of the Faithful. Allah’s name shall echo down the corridors of the Deep Dark. And his enemies—” The eyes in the man’s head glowed like coals. “His enemies and mine enemies shall know the edge of the sword, and shall be stricken down like stands of wheat, and this chaff shall burn in hell for Eternity!”

  “Praise be to Allah,” said Linden as the specter faded away into a dust devil and swept off into the dazzle of the sun and the dunes. “His Holy Name shall be made manifest unto all the Nations of the Earth—and of the Stars!”

  A sense of divine purpose swept through him like a scouring wind. He saw it all clearly now. He could feel himself transforming toward the blessed purposes of Allah and Mohammed, his Prophet. And perhaps—just perhaps—

  Perhaps he was the next Prophet ... Yes, just as Mohammed was the Prophet of the Earth, he would be Mohammed, Prophet of the Stars!

  Then the. desert faded away—a mirage within a vision—and darkness bloomed again.

  He was back in his cot, sweating and shaking.

  He was back in his cot, quite out of his mind.

  “Jashad,” he muttered, the sweat blubbering from his lips. “Jashad, I will avenge you. The unbelievers shall perish!”

  His eyes closed, as though in sleep, and his muscles seemed to relax.

  But then the eyes shot open, and he sat stiffly upright, the cords in his neck drawn tight as steel.

  “Jashad! I shall avenge you, my departed brother, in the name of Allah.” He stood up from the cot shakily. “I shall avenge you this very night!”

  * * *

  Corporal Jacob Darlington hated night duty.

  It wasn’t so much that he was alone. He’d had plenty of periods in the service when his weapons were his only company. No, it was the night duty here at the base on the Dragonstar that he hated so much, because of the sounds that crept and crashed out of the night, like live things themselves. Night duty was constant adrenaline, night duty was anxiety, night duty was...

  Well, it just was pretty miserable, that’s all. Not that anything was super peachy keen anymore, since the Dragonstar had gone haywire and wrested its passengers away from Earth, from their home solar system. He really hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep since then, anyway, which was why it was just as well that they stuck him out here regularly to watch the camp’s periphery, He missed his wife, Josie back in Tennessee, terribly, and it was just starting to dawn on him that he’d probably never see her again. And her pregnant and everything! It was just a bitch, that’s what it was—a real bitch.

  His station was by a ginkgo tree standing separate from a cluster of them. Nearby was the hum of a force screen, which proved fairly effective when it was kept on, but couldn’t be 100 percent effective, especially against one of those big mothers out there if it really had its mind on getting at the camp. From here, Darlington could see just about half the periphery, and he’d rest here just a few more minutes before he patrolled the other side.

  That was the one nice thing about the duty, he supposed, smoking on a cigarette with a kind of local tobacco the botanists had discovered. You got to move around a lot, exercise, work off the anxiety.

  A shrill reptilian scream pierced the faint hum of the force-screen and Darlington jumped despite himself. Goddamn things! Used to be he was in awe of the creatures, and a little bit fascinated with them. Now he just plain hated the bastards.

  He shivered, blew out some smoke, shouldered his rifle, and was about to step on out and continue his patrol when he heard a noise.

  A noise that seemed to come from the inside of the periphery.

  It sounded like footsteps.

  Too early for my relief, thought Darlington as he looked around. What the hell—

  And then a figure stole out from a tree. It ran for him, and before Darlington could bring his rifle to bear, it jumped on him, pulling him to the ground.

  “Hey!” Darlington screamed, wrestling with the man—it was a man, that much was apparent. “What the hell!” Before the man could get his hands around Darlin
gton’s windpipe, the Corporal yelled, “Help! Help!” for all he was worth.

  Then he set about keeping alive.

  It wasn’t easy. His attacker fought like a madman. His grip around Darlington’s throat was like iron. They rolled about in the dirt, and the madman seemed to be growling something about “revenge, revenge.” Darlington managed to get in a few good blows, but they didn’t seem to deter the man much. Plus, he was getting weaker and everything was getting darker and his last thought was, Well, at least I’m not going out inside the jaws of one of those bastards out there—

  And then suddenly there was a thump. The attacker stiffened and then fell off to one side, quite unconscious.

  Stars swam into Darlington’s vision, but he managed to keep hold of things long enough to get slapped gently on the face.

  “Corporal. Corporal! You okay? What was going on?”

  “Dunno.”

  “Who is this guy?”

  “I dunno.”

  Groggily he managed to get up. His savior had a flashlight, and he recognized him. It was Private Gonzales, his relief. Gonzales, he knew, also had insomnia problems. Thank God!

  “Let’s get a look at him,” said Gonzales. “Didn’t know you had any enemies, Jake.”

  “Didn’t know I had any, either.”

  “Shirt’s all torn up. Let me see if he’s still alive. Don’t think I hit the bastard that hard.”

  Gonzales kneeled down with the flashlight, examining the man. “Oh yeah, still breathin’ and—” He took in a breath, then stepped up and back. “Jesus Christ!”

  “What’s wrong?” Darlington said, still woozy and bleary-eyed.

  “That’s Linden, the guy that’s been in sick bay. And—and Christ, what’s happened to him!”

  “What?” Darlington got up and stared down at the fallen attacker.

  Oh yeah, it was Timothy Linden, all right, though it was damned hard to tell for sure, what with the way his face had turned all rough and scaly. But that wasn’t the worst of it, no sirree.