Metamorph: The Outbounder Chronicles

by Chris Reher

  Azah took a breath, as if to reply something, but then caught her lip between her teeth and turned to open the cabin door. “You could do worse than risk your neck aboard the Nefer. At least we steer our own ship.”

  Ryle smiled when they arrived in the gear room and his eyes shifted along Laryn’s body to inspect her new outfit. It didn’t feel objectionable. “That fits you well,” he said, without any particular inflection.

  Azah said nothing as they prepared to leave the ship again. She handed a tool belt to Laryn that, upon inspection, revealed ammunition for the projectile weapons they would carry along with a small survival kit, water and com gear to back up the system in their suits. She wasn’t terribly gentle when she adjusted Laryn’s air supply back pack.

  “Do we need all this?” Laryn said, making a bit of a show of checking her rifle correctly.

  “Do you want to wait and find out?” Ryle said, shrugging into his gear. “I think we’ve learned not to underestimate this place. I try not to make the same mistake twice.”

  Instead of the clear hoods they previously attached to their suits, they pulled a flexible mask over their mouth and nose, and set a pair of goggles on their head, ready for deployment when needed. While not protecting their skin as much, it made for better vision and hearing in the sensor-blocking atmosphere.

  “Good?” Azah said finally.

  “Good,” Ryle confirmed and opened the hatch.

  They descended and headed north to where Jex had lost the Kalons’ biosignals. The ground dropped sharply in this direction and they walked among towering plant life capable of hiding an assailant among broad lobes and fleshy stems. Laryn saw what might well be claw marks high up along the boles as she scanned overhead while Ryle and Azah surveyed what lay behind and before them. An eerie silence lay like fog around them, something she had not noticed before. Humidity pasted her and Ryle’s hair to their faces and necks and she was glad for the heat exchange fabric of her suit as well as suddenly envious of Azah’s close-cropped curls.

  Ryle stopped when the com panel near his collar signaled that something moved nearby. “Is that significant, Jex?” he said, adjusting the control tab. “Jex?”

  “I’m losing you in the interference,” Jex said. “But that signal appears correct. It is very similar to Kalon speech.”

  “That way,” Ryle pointed with his rifle. “If it’s not Kalon or Human, shoot it.” He glanced at Laryn, daring her to object. It had not occurred to her to object. So far, nothing they had encountered here seemed sentient or mild-mannered. Just very hungry or very territorial.

  A piercing wail cut through the air, sounding like metal scraping against metal. Other sounds, too, reached them now. A warbling call, then a dull drone. Laryn looked up, expecting one of those giant centipedes to wrap itself around one of the trees.

  Ryle ducked behind a few growth-covered rocks and looked into a clearing. “Shit,” he said. “One of the Kalons.”

  “And not alone,” Azah added, nudging Laryn to shift left.

  The Kalons sprawled on the ground, waving long limbs to ward off one of the crab-like creatures they had met earlier. His movements were feeble and they watched the creature tear his cloak and then, finding it inedible, drop the piece. Several others of the same species scuttled around the perimeter of the clearing, perhaps waiting their turn.

  Azah put her hand on Laryn’s barrel. “Wait,” she said with a nod to Ryle.

  Ryle had rested his elbows on the rock and gazed along the barrel of his gun, neither squinting nor seeming to aim. His weapon had no tracer and the distance between them and the Kalon made for a difficult shot. Laryn reminded herself that Ryle’s eyes, besides sending visual signals to Jex, had other useful features. He squeezed the trigger to fire several shots in rapid succession until the beast fell back, away from its prey.

  “Go!” he said and rose from their hiding place.

  They ran into the clearing, firing at the other creatures to keep them from attacking the Kalon. Laryn recognized the slant of his forehead, steeper than Iko’s, as well as the greenish-bronze tone of his skin. “That’s Toji!” she called. “Watch out!”

  Toji covered his head when one of the creatures pounced. It chattered in pain and fury when several bullets from the Humans pierced its hide. The Kalon rolled away as it pitched sideways and threatened to crash down upon him.

  The others moved forward, firing at the remaining attackers who soon realized that this new foe was not easily beaten. A few more fell to their aim before the rest escaped into the thickets.

  Ryle and Azah stood guard while Laryn crouched beside the Kalon, looking for injury.

  “Toji? Are you hurt?” She saw abrasions on his face but nothing seeped from them. The nubs of his teeth were exposed in what she assumed to be a grimace of pain. His long cloak was torn into tatters but whatever had done that had not shredded his flesh as well.

  “Not badly,” he said, holding on to the translator dangling from his neck. “One of them bit my leg.”

  Azah whistled when they saw Toji’s legs, folded close to his body. The leggings he wore did not disguise the outlines of broad, bulging muscle. Although encased in leather and without claws, his strangely split feet looked capable of gripping or tearing, like those of a raptor. “Bet you can’t outrun that,” she said to Laryn, tipping her chin toward the powerful thighs.

  “Doesn’t look like he outran those things, does it?” Laryn turned back to the Kalon. “You’re not… um, bleeding anywhere.”

  He dropped his head, exhausted. “We don’t leak like you do. It’s just a pinch. Nothing broken.”

  “Where’s your pal?” Azah said, her gun still aiming into the spaces between the trees.

  “Gone! He left me!”

  “Give him a moment,” Laryn said. “Nothing gained by shouting.”

  Ryle shook his scanner as if that would make it work better. “Nothing Kalon-shaped to be found. Let’s get back to the ship. Who knows what else’ll take a run at us out here.” He bent to grip Toji’s arm, not especially gently. “Can you walk?”

  Laryn supported the Kalon from the other side. Alert to movement and noises around them, they made their careful way back to the Nefer.

  Since their other patient was taking up most of the space in the lab, Toji was stowed in his bed, the lower of two bunks in the cabin he had shared with Iko. Azah flipped the top bunk out of the way against the wall and then stood by the door. The expression on her chiseled face made it clear that she was guarding a prisoner.

  “What can we do?” Laryn sat on the edge of the bunk. “Are you in pain?”

  Toji looked up at Ryle who stood silently beside Laryn and then back at her. “You came for me. I am so very grateful. Those people tried to kill me.”

  “What people?” Ryle said.

  “The ones you shot. I think they tried to eat me.”

  “Those are animals,” Azah said. “We chased them off.”

  “Oh. They spoke to each other. I… am not familiar with the distinction.”

  “He’s starting to sound like Jex,” Azah scoffed. She turned when they heard Nolan’s voice from across the narrow corridor.

  “Is that Toji?” he called. They heard him groan as if he tried to get up and then remembered his headache. “What happened?”

  Ryle flipped the com tab on his collar to allow Nolan to follow their conversation here more clearly. “Toji got attacked out there.”

  “I told him not to go, didn’t I? What about the other one? Iko?”

  “Toji?” Laryn said gently. “Can you tell us what happened? Why did you leave the ship?”

  He looked from one questioning face to the next. “May I sit up, please? I am feeling better. I just had a fright. I’ve never seen any creature but Humans and my people.”

  She held his arm while he folded his long legs that seemed to fit perfectly together to allow him to kneel comfortably on them. It was a smooth shift of his body that looked at once natural and also peculiar. “
You’ve never seen an animal?” she said.

  “Not a real one. I’ve seen images of them. I’ve always just been on a ship, or on the station.”

  Azah exhaled sharply. “We’ll get you a kitten. Tell us what happened. Why did you attack Nolan?”

  “I did not!” Toji said, and Laryn thought she saw a hint of anger on the stiff features. “But I think you know that.”

  She shrugged.

  Toji glanced around the room again and then his eyes settled on Laryn. “I am a Br’ll,” he said.

  No one said anything for a long moment, perhaps waiting for him to say something that would make sense of the statement. Laryn felt her brows draw together as she looked to Ryle, who gave a confused shrug.

  “Did he say what I think he said?” Nolan finally said over the speaker in the hall.

  “I think he did,” Ryle said. He raised a finger toward Toji as if to beckon him closer. “Care to elaborate on that? You don’t look like a Br’ll.”

  “No, I do not. We were changed. Like Br’ll have always been able to change themselves, except this is a most drastic metamorphosis.”

  “We? You mean all the Kalons on the station are really Br’ll?” Laryn said.

  “Yes. And on Ophet, too. We changed ourselves into something that resembles you.”

  “Good job,” Azah said.

  He ignored the barb. “Yes, it is. We are now bipedal, our limbs are close to how yours are shaped. We’ve centralized our nervous system, and we can communicate with you perfectly, even if you can’t understand our speech. It was never our aim to look like you. You are…” he paused to find words, “not strong. You are vulnerable to so many things. Radiation, pain, dehydration, so much more. We chose not to emulate that.”

  Laryn’s eyes moved over his face and the leathery folds of his neck, looking for clues. If the idea was not so utterly absurd at this moment, she would ask him to undress for a closer inspection. “This is incredible. Actually, no, it’s perfectly credible. The Br’ll use horizontal gene transfer to modify their offspring to suit their intended role. And, as we suspect, to adjust for environmental changes, like being able to survive down here on this planet. Why wouldn’t they also create far more extreme adaptations for social reasons?”

  “So can I ask why?” Azah said. “Or is this a hobby?”

  Ryle shot her an annoyed glance, but then also looked expectantly at Toji. “What Laryn said. You did this to live on the station with us?”

  Toji nodded. “This is far more acceptable to your kind than our true shape. We know you find us… distasteful. And we needed to adjust for your environment. The Br’ll don’t breathe the same air as you, or eat the same food. Our planet’s gravity and even pressure is far outside what you prefer on Pendra. We do not have space suits. We did not even conceive of that until we met you. It is easier for us to adjust our own bodies than to develop such technologies.”

  “Using Human DNA,” Ryle said. His voice carried a nasty chill that seemed to startle even Azah.

  Toji nodded but did not meet his eyes. “Yes.”

  “So why did you do this?” Azah said. “And why come here, to this planet? It’s pretty clear now you’re not hunting for lost ships.”

  “I’m here only to find out why Iko is here.” When the others stared him in puzzlement, he gestured to the door. “May we make use of your display system?”

  “I want to see this!” Nolan said at once.

  It took a while before Azah helped Nolan, still unsteady on his feet, into the ship’s bridge, the largest space aboard the Nefer other than the cargo holds. Activity on some of the side monitors displayed Jex’s ongoing attempts to penetrate the sensor scattering fields and, Laryn assumed, the convolutions of the Kalon language. Br’ll, she corrected herself. As the others took to their chairs, she felt weirdly like a member of an audience.

  Toji remained standing. Without the long cloak, his legs, even encased in the leggings, did not look like the mummified bundle of sinews at which his face hinted. Supple and long-muscled, his was the body of a sprinter, rather than the powerful fighter’s frame carried around by Ryle. Why, thought Laryn, would they need this aboard Pendra? His upper body was covered by a standard-issue shirt made for humans, albeit large ones.

  “Toji,” she said. “Would you mind if we took a med scan of you? Make sure nothing’s broken. And we’re also very curious about you.”

  He nodded. “Of course. I am tired of secrets. Do as you wish.”

  At Ryle’s prompt, Jex displayed an illustration of Toji’s body on a screen. Laryn recalled Doctor Calek’s comment that the Kalons resembled Humans more on the outside than internally. She saw a vague similarity of bone and muscle, but there were two pumps for what little liquid flowed through their stringy bodies, working independently, and she saw just one large lung, near his waist.

  “Wow,” Azah said. “No brain.”

  Ryle smirked. “Where’s your brain, Toji?”

  Toji squinted up at the report. “Is that what I look like on the inside?”

  “You didn’t know?”

  “No. I’ve not had reason to look in there.”

  Jex highlighted a tangled network running from Toji’s head through his long neck to spread out over his back, protected by skin far thicker than that of Humans. “Like the Br’ll, the Kalon cerebral functions are not centralized in a single organ, although certain sensory systems, like his eyes, have been organized to resemble yours.”

  “I guess that’s why they can’t access our computer networks,” Laryn said, still thinking about her conversation with Tom Calek in the Cog lab.

  “Not the more secure systems,” Jex said. “Those detect a signal transmitted by a KRNL with the appropriate clearance, like the one embedded in your cortex, Laryn. That signal is basically P3 brain waves which the Br’ll don’t project. Other systems, like the one I share with Ryle, use transmitters worn below the skin.”

  “Wait a minute,” Nolan said, pondering the image of the Kalon’s internal workings. “You’re a metamorph, right? So does this mean you’re not a dude?”

  Laryn closed her eyes and pinched her lips together, fighting a sudden urge to giggle at this. She had hung on every word Toji had uttered and felt her mind spiral into greater and ever more fantastic possibilities for these gentle people. Human DNA was easily scraped off any tea cup on Pendra Station. The Br’ll’s appropriation of it just seemed clever to her, although obviously not to the others. And so she bit her lip.

  “No,” Toji said. “I am not. We do not have distinct genders.” He looked down at his multi-fingered hands and rubbed them in a complex rhythm, perhaps soothing to him. “In fact, I have none, although you people seem to view us as male. Our evolution to match your physiology…” his words seemed meant for Azah, “…as imperfect as it is, is far from complete. We have attained this shape, but much is lacking. To avoid the complexities of reproduction, the Kalons are little more than drones.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Laryn said.

  “Don’t be,” Toji replied at once. “Procreation is not our purpose.”

  “So you’re not breeding on Pendra,” Azah said. She had not taken a seat and remained standing by the door. Neither had she removed her sidearm. “I guess that’s why we’ve never seen any short ones around there, come to think of it. All very interesting, for a science lesson. Now tell us why you’re here.”

  Toji nodded. “I don’t actually know a great deal,” he said. “But you need to know what I know. Iko’s actions today make that necessary.”

  “It wasn’t necessary before?” Azah said.

  “No,” he said, ignoring her snarl. “You’re a hired crew. Paid to bring us here. But things are different now.”

  “Jex, extend Toji’s guest profile to access the display system,” Ryle said.

  “Done,” Jex said.

  Toji stood silent for a moment as if unsure of where to begin. “There are some of us…” he said finally, “some of my generation of Kalons living
aboard Pendra, who fear that our presence there is not what it seems.”

  “How so?” Ryle said.

  “We don’t really know,” Toji said. “We are aware of… activities going on among our people. Excursions made, but not to our homeworld, which you call Kalon. There are secrets on that station.” He glanced at Azah. “Weapons we are not allowed to carry, intrusions into your computer systems.”

  “Which isn’t possible,” Ryle said “Other than the most superficial manual interfaces.”

  Toji nodded. “I know. And that is all we need there. We were sent to learn from you, work with you if that’s what you want. It’s what we were bred for and it seemed right to us. My own memories begin when I awoke from the last stage of my metamorphosis, aboard a transport crossing the Hub. I was given, like all of our young, the archetypal memories of my elders, and the imperative of my generation, which was to bring our species together in friendship.” He nodded again when he read the cynicism on Azah’s face. “Some of these were lies, I know now. I could not have been birthed on the Br’ll homeworld.” He paused to stare at nothing for a moment before returning to his narrative. “I was given language, and information about your customs and tools, just as Jex explained it to you when we found those cocoons.”

  “Like we infuse knowledge to some of our own people,” Laryn said. “Except you do it organically. This is so amazing.”

  “I’m a bit less thrilled than the professor,” Ryle said. “So what happened?”

  “Your people, mostly the science teams, welcomed us and we were allowed to learn all we could, and share our knowledge with you. But then more Kalons arrived at the station these past few years. Larger, and… and coarser. A new generation, really. They volunteered to explore Ophet, where we can survive without encumbrances. But those Kalons view your people like…” He made an uncertain gesture. “…like Azah is viewing me right now.”

  The others glanced at her but her hard gaze remained on Toji.

  “They don’t care much about Humans. Then we noticed that the Kalons that traveled to Ophet were not the same that returned from there.”