She initiated a search of her personal library, ‘Where’s that recording! I need to sleep and relax before tomorrow. Here we go! I’ll use the setting I did last night. Not too deep of a sleep, just enough to really relax. What did he say I was? Oh yeah, “Useless as …”’
Jane is soon carried on the soothing tones of the ambiance control to the longed-for comforting arms of sleep. Peace and serenity enter as she lay unaware of the dark shadows slowly drawing near. The warm soft security of the music in her darkened consciousness carries away her frustrations and lends a smile to her pouting lips. A rhythmic play of tones combined with subliminal directives play across her soul to guide her alpha rhythms down soft paths of peaceful, restful composure.
The rhapsody of memories gently sweeps her along through sunny days and warm sandy shores. Soft waves caressed her body cleansing away the tensions and recently sharp experience of conflict. Her mind yielded to her soul and cold logic fled, gladly yielding to the caress of softly perfected memories.
Waves of joy and warmth sweep across and gently caress her body. Rhythms of pleasure lift her, carrying her ever deeper along currents of contentment like a swimmer gently riding the flow of a mid-ocean current. Slowly at first, the current grows and begins to excite her emotions. It deepens her dreams and lifts her along and then up into strangely rising torrents of hot passion.
The beat of her heart charges along swiftly flowing streams of emotion and soon is pounding hot blood, ablaze with burning desires through her body. A spark of reason creeps up from the depths of her slumber to incense the warm sacristy of her sleep. Slumber dulled senses fight back with a desire to recede and yield to the warm torrents of her universe. Her senses feel the rhythmic push, pull and pressure of the currents surrounding her… and a small portion recognizes the far off, sharp spark of pain hidden deep within.
The sharp point of the spark flashes, suddenly revealing itself as something malevolent. She focused on it and it ominously emerged from the joy-hidden depths to grow in intensity and rancor. The spark grows to blossom as bright flames scraping across the sensitive nerves of her body. Her heart leaps and pounds within her chest driven by the adrenalin rush charging through her body independent of her conscious mind.
A shaft of fire streaks across her senses and the pain follows it screaming through her dream-filled mind. Eyes fly open in fear to scan the darkened room around her. Her body jerks up in instinctual flight only to be slammed down by the dark passage and throbbing of a thousand tiny cuts. Jane’s head spins and her eyes cannot focus. Her lungs gasp and a burning reek fills her nose, cutting across the very sensors of her eyes and enveloping her head in a smothering grip as it robs the air from her lungs.
Vague faces of nightmare float across her vision opening red maws filled with long white fangs. Jaws open and release flickering shafts of pain that shoot out to wrap themselves across her skin and then flick back with searing agony. A nightmarish spray of liquid fills the air and some far off part of her consciousness recognizes it as blood, her blood.
Jane’s raw throat opens in a silent scream and her body convulses as it futilely attempts to move her leaden arms and arch her pain wracked back. Burning vapors run down her throat and fill her with the sickening, searing smell of the damned. Her senses intensify with each stroke as the skin rips from her body exposing air-raw nerves and rupturing million of tiny blood vessels, their life giving fluids flow outward.
The nightmare seems to pound on forever as wave after throbbing wave of pain washes over her raw nerve endings followed by the brief, few dull aching moments of suffocation. Then the cycle of nightmares return with the sharp pain that comes with each cutting thrust to open new levels of searing, ripping agony with every blow.
The rabid pounding of her heart is an anchor of sanity for her panic crazed mind. It is a beacon of existence in a universe slowly gone mad. Then her last safe harbor transforms beyond its life-giving pulsation to one of sharp ripping agony. The pain thrusts from her chest and through her being with every life giving contraction. Beat by beat it’s intensity rises, climbing to challenge the searing levels of agony already coursing inward from across her body. A deathly cold suffuses through her soul, pushing away the last vestiges of her sanity and awareness.
A tiny spark within recognizes the passage. Regret, fear and thankfulness emerge briefly only to be snuffed out of existence. Her soul passes onward, gladly leaving the painful realm of its existence.
The two dark shadows sense the passage of their prey. Their heads yet spin with the opiate of their deed. Their bodies shake and tremble in the sustained ecstasy of the fire-laced liquid and the futile panic of the now deathly still hot-blood.
First one and then the other turns to leave the albumin spattered room. The sharp cleanliness of the outer room provides a place to pause and remember the treasured meal. Slowly they clean themselves, removing all traces of the concealment-defeating blood from their soaked, feathered bodies. Even now, the remnants of their gorging feast envelop them in a warm glow of satisfaction. The glow subsides and consciousness carries them back to the day’s reality and an awareness of their goals and hunger.
Light-soaking, black shapes transform and fade away as they turn toward the door. Softly the door closes and once again, peace and serenity enter to fill a darkened bedroom but the stench of blood, terror and death linger.
* * * * *
There is a difference between cold maneuvering for corporate takeover and blind hostility. Depending upon the players, the difference can be very slim. Suzan Esque felt it foolish to allow emotions to enter the picture. When emotions enter the process then the results can very quickly transform to a loss of profit or even the destruction of the business opportunity.
Suzan vowed many years ago to walk away from any deal where emotions began to rule the negotiations. There are always other deals and opportunities, other ventures safer and easier to pursue.
‘So then why am I letting this get under my skin?’ Suzan said aloud as she walked down the ship’s passageway to her stateroom. She had decided to request a room on board the Argos rather than stay in one of the larger and more comfortable suites built outside. For one thing it let her stay nearer Matthew Zoeller’s labs.
Matt is a scientist first and a businessman third or fourth but he does know what is happening around the station. Suzan quickly learned, when she first joined the board, that Matthew liked to talk about his work and, because she is on the board of directors, he always discussed even the most sensitive topics openly with her. Mark Nolen would never open up quite as widely to her penetrating questions.
She stopped at an intersection and looked up at the corner. A map of the local corridors opened in her Hive Tab showing her the turns to take if she wanted to go to her rooms.
‘Whew, what’s going on? Maybe I’d better stop by Doctor Graeme’s later. That wall seemed to blur for a second.’ Suzan turned and started walking again. ‘Funny, I didn’t feel dizzy. Everything seems Ok now but I still feel uneasy. This is the weirdest! I wonder if the trip didn’t leave some strange response in my system sort of like time-zone shifts do.’
‘Now this is really strange, I’m beginning to hear things. It’s more than the normal hum and air circulation systems of the ship. Rather like a chirping or ….’ Suzan stopped and quickly swung around. There is nothing there. ‘Rather like something softly treading behind me in the corridor. I don’t hear the chirping anymore. I need to get back to my rooms.’
She hurried down the corridors using a rapid pace that is something less than a run. There, her room is just ahead. As she approached the door softly opened and she rushed in. An almost subconscious impulse directed her Hive Tab to command it to shut immediately.
‘Ok, what I need to do is contact Robert, Deborah and Justin and see if I can convince them to meet with me. The very fact that Nolen is avoiding us may be enough to convene a short staff meeting of the board. I’ll see if …’
Suzan turned in su
rprise when she heard the almost silent door open. ‘Now I am getting jumpy. There’s no one there. I’m starting to imagine things … or did I.’
Suzan commanded her Hive Tab to query the portal response circuitry for her rooms. ‘Yes there is my entry and … what the heck is that? It says I entered a second time but the mass readings are all wrong.’
‘I don’t see anything here. I’m going to call …’ A strange smell enters her nostrils. Almost sweet, in a fruity or perhaps ammonia-like manner. ‘That’s odd, I never thought of ammonia as being sweet before. Oh my God, it’s now almost making me sick to my stomach. I must be coming down with some new alien disease. They never mentioned …’
Her head begins to spin. She leans over onto her work desk to hold it in her hands but the movement is too confining. She can’t get enough clean air, ‘God, the smell! My head! It burns and I can’t see … I gotta get outside and ..’
Her feet suddenly slip out from her as she goes to stand. She falls hard to the floor, cutting her forehead. Then entire room is spinning now as she reaches up to place her hand on her forehead. Someone gently pushes her hand back down, ‘Oh thank God. Help me out of …’
A warm pad softly, almost lovingly caresses the cut. The caress becomes a blow that feels like a pad of sandpaper gouging across her forehead. Suzan twists and tries to scream but she can’t even hear herself as her head is flipped back and the soft pad returns to her forehead.
Suzan’s eyes open in surprise to see two black dinosaurs leaning over her. She manages to lift her arm in defense. One’s mouth opens and a long tongue flicks out and wraps around her forearm. It pulls back and fire and ice flow down her arm. Clarity suddenly enters her eyes and the horror inside her rises. She can see blood flowing down her arm and a wide ring of her skin lacerated and ripped from her forearm. Gently the tongue flicks out again following the blood trail flowing across her elbow. Suzan’s arm erupts in pain as it flicks back violently and more blood flies across her blouse.
A wave of nausea flows across her mind. Her eyes vaguely register a fearsome black head as it bends over her. A paw scrapes across her chest, cutting into the thin skin and ripping her clothing with a violence that jerks and lifts her momentarily. Then the mouth opens to reveal rows of yellow-white teeth and the long red tongue flicks out and across her neck and shoulder.
A soft chirping and singing fills the room lifting as a melodic counterpoint to the low moans and smothered cries of pain and despair. Blood and fluids flow freely across the floor and walls forming small pools that grow in volume and migrate slowly toward the closed door.
* * * * *
Paul Wenford’s feet crunched noisily as he tried moved across the open field. This was not his strength, he’s a physicist and not a soldier but even a trained soldier would have had a hard time moving silently across the sand and stone gravel of the field. Their path is obvious. Even in the low light his Hive-Tab enhanced vision can pick up the blood trail.
He found the body in a small depression less than a hundred yards from Molly’s apartments. The scene is a study in horror. Bits of flesh hung from the nearby brush. Pieces of her are scattered across the coarse grass, many pieces are missing. Blood and entrails are flung from one small palmetto to the next, slowly dripping in the freshness of their deposition and the haste of their passage.
Flies, gnats and other strange bugs are already gathering. There is obviously very little that he can do for Jenn.
Running now out of the high brush, Paul calls across the security channel.
‘Colonel Drake here. I’m on my way, where’s the best place for us to meet? What the …? Your heading directly for me. I’ll meet you outside of the Argos!’
‘Dan, no be careful. They aren’t passing buy, the trail is leading directly toward the ship.’
‘I’ll be ready when I come out! Don’t worry.’
‘No, they went inside. I can see the heat trail of the remaining blood spoor on the ground and it passes right toward the ship’s ramp.’
Paul runs up to the ramp and the system queries his Hive Tab. The door opens immediately and he passes inside. Dan is down the corridor with three others heading right for Paul.’
‘Dan, they are inside!’ Paul says as they pull up to him.
‘Can’t be. We haven’t had any alarms or calls. Every door inside and out is coded for entry.’
‘I can’t follow a trail like David Pope but the trail they left to this doorstep could be followed by a drunken cocker spaniel. They are inside here someplace.’
‘Come on, let’s head up to the command and control center. We’ll do a pull down on all the recent passage readings. They must have left a heat trail or other indication.’
‘Ok, but watch out. They just injured Molly Pasteur and killed Jenn Young.’
‘Oh shit, not Jenny. Do Wei and Barbara … What?’
‘Look here.’ Paul whispers and points to a small trickle of brownish fluid emerging from beneath the nearest door.
‘Oh man this keeps getting better and better.’ Dan whispers as he bends down, ‘That looks like blood. We’re really in it deep now. This is Suzan Esque’s room.’ Dan lifts his hand up to the manual override switch.
* * * * *
These tunnels are different here. The light changes so quickly and the air seems to almost buzz in its intensity. This area is exciting! Can’t help but feel the energy. Ah, another hidden tunnel! It glows with force.
The queries don’t work! It doesn’t open easy like the others. There is no response to the call!
Their curiosity grows into a rampant desire to enter the mysterious tunnel. They look and smell the entire area. Nothing responds.
One black ghost lifts a hand to begin touching the lettering and edges of the doorway. There are strange rough spots, odd little bumps.
They jump back as the door flies open. A room filled with the new lights lies before them. It is lit with the dark light of the stars. Savage lights blink and twinkle inside and waves of energy fly across the room. They stop and watch in their amazement.
A few spots on the doorframe begin to blink and instinctively they jump into the room. The door shuts suddenly behind them.
The room is so vast, so different and yet there are few open spaces. Hot and cold things scatter across the space like the leaves of the forest floor. There is no clear passage and all is in movement.
One of the Black Ghosts passes forward, moving his nose close to the light in query. A sudden burst of energy leaps out and he is flung through the air and across the floor. His shoulder aches and his nose bleeds as he gets up. He feels the need to move carefully. Strange round roots cross the space but there is no soil anywhere.
The other Ghost turns to pass watchfully around the source of the deadly light and into the center of the space. He drawn by the alien beauty around him like a moth drawn to the burning heart of a flame.
There is another here! His blood suddenly runs cold. Suddenly another stands nose-to-nose before him. His neck feathers rise to stand out in fury as he sees the other also raise the challenge. Muscles of steel bend down, ready to thrust his body into the attack and the other responds just as quickly. He screams and leaps for its throat, ready to repel the body jarring blow that he knows will come.
His body flies through the air and passes into nothing. Painfully he lands on an object that screams and sputters. Droplets of red fire streak across his shoulder flinging black feathers into the air. He lands hard, dazed, confused and hurting on the mass of hard black roots crossing beneath his aching body.
There is a noise in the back. The sweet scent is there! One of the prey, a hot-blood is coming. Pain and confusion flee from their conscious thoughts. They barely contain their excitement as his glow emerges from another small chamber across from them. The prey sees them and does not flee, it is raising its arm…
A blinding flash fills their universe. Lights charge across their bodies leaving a strange, savagely painful tingling. The feelings quickly
turn into searing pain as they flicker and run across the sensitive bodies of the Black Ghosts. Their minds cloud in confusion and fear. Sanity flees from the burning within their skin and is driven by the streaks of light that flash too rapidly to understand or even clearly see.
One dark figure staggers back, his body shivering into convulsions as it tries to absorb the painful lights. He trips and falls into the wall. The portal opens, beckoning them to a world familiar. They flee outside to the coolness of the outer tunnel with a warble laced with screams that echo through the closed spaces of the tunnels. The furnace fury of the room screams behind them as they try to calm their minds and blindly flee to the cool safety of the darkened tunnels.
* * * * *
‘Research log entry, CS082318, 15:30 hours. Twelve hours, thirty minutes after removal from the host, the BG feathers remain active and responsive. A very interesting reaction follows on the BG feathers that appears to deteriorate their ability to adapt even more rapidly than random frequency hopping across the spectrum of the illumination.’
‘The neural adaptive model described in entry CS082315 was expanded to compensate for the tensor response collapse when processing illumination below 280 nanometers wavelength. A simple Hamiltonian expansion was temporarily injected to the i-line region of the model because an exact physical characterization of the response has not yet been developed. The previously problematic predicted bunching response of the barbules to the excitation illumination now follows to better than four sigma.’
‘The improved model allowed us to introduce greater complexity of the excitation phase and polarization stimulus. Models were applied using a Fourier transform to a frequency space sampling plan described in CS082317.’
‘Physical test results have confirmed the model’s prediction. A rather simple but rapidly rotating circular polarization of the excitation illumination degrades the ability of the barbules to respond and adapt. This will greatly simplify adaptation of the technology. We’ve also been able to go beyond our original goals for detection and tracking. Frequency stepping of the excitation was able to carry the response to the point that significant physical damage to the barbules resulted. Damage ensues when scanning three distinct regions of excitation. See the response chart CS4218tab which follows.’
Hunter's Moon (Cretaceous Station Book 2) Page 34
