Metamorph: The Outbounder Chronicles

by Chris Reher

  “What?” Ryle interrupted. “How did they manage that?”

  “You think we all look alike. The crews of Kalons are rotated out every few months. Between shifts, they keep to themselves, in the quarters assigned to them down in the lower levels of the station. Most haven’t even yet learned your language, which comes easily to us. They aren’t the ones who interact with your researchers or ambassadors. But we noticed, although we don’t mingle with them, either. Now I know we were kept apart on purpose. So we tried to find out why.”

  “And you said nothing,” Azah said.

  Ryle half-turned in his chair. “Let’s not assume they think like us, either,” he said. “And put the damn gun away. He’s not going to bite you.”

  Azah glared at him, but then moved away from the door to drop into her seat. She did not remove her holster.

  “We’ve become certain that the Br’ll wish to harm your people,” Toji continued. “Some of us, the first generation sent to Pendra, do not wish that. I joined Iko because I believed he would take me into his confidence. I had not expected to end up here, with you, but that is how it turned out.”

  “So why didn’t you say something?” Laryn said. “Pendra has a security division. They’d take care of that at once.”

  “We cannot be sure that our suspicions are valid. To accuse our own people of treachery would damage our relationship with the Humans. We, as instigators of such rumor, would be punished. Killed, likely, since we serve no other purpose but to work aboard the station. There are only a dozen or so of us. We’ve sent some to Ophet, to find out more, and I offered to join Iko on his journey here. Confronting him about the Br’ll presence aboard the Harla was a terrible mistake. I should have remained quiet.”

  “So what makes you so different from him?” Azah said.

  Toji tilted his head, perhaps thinking about that question before answering. “We have not discussed that amongst ourselves, but I think it’s because we are more Human, genetically, than the other Kalons. Or maybe we did not turn out as intended. We don’t want to harm you. It seems… wrong.”

  “But the others do?” Ryle said.

  “Yes, that’s what I’m telling you. I don’t know why.”

  Azah barked a short laugh. “Let them try.”

  “Perhaps you are correct to laugh,” Toji said. “The Br’ll are not a warrior species like you. Until they met you, they had no weapons or reasons to use them.”

  “And yet you believe they’re up to something. The Br’ll.”

  “Yes, or their offspring, the Kalons. I think some of that has to do with this planet. Jex, please show the recordings we made so far.”

  The images on one of the screens, somewhat stabilized by Jex to account for their movements, scrolled by as the expedition made their way through the Harla to find the med lab. “I began to suspect when we came upon this,” Toji said. “I have memory of these chrysalises. But I wanted to speak with Iko before revealing my fears. Clearly, the Br’ll created a generation for the purpose of coming down to this planet. But why? This place is less hospitable than Terrica or even Ophet, and the Kalons are welcome on both worlds.”

  “Something to do with the Harla people, I’m guessing,” Laryn said.

  Toji ran his hand over another screen to move through the images they had recorded just a few hours ago. The shoreline camp, indistinct in the distance, but clearly populated by Humans, came into view. “I now think these people were brought here. Deliberately. They only had to bring the ship off course to land here. Or force it to escape into the filament leading here.”

  “That’s been done,” Nolan said when Laryn raised her hand to interject her question. “The Harla has minimal defenses, designed only to avert collisions with debris. A pirate could capture it in a field bubble and drag it to these coordinates.”

  “What do the Kalons want with a bunch of farmers and commonplace technology?” Azah said.

  “So the Kalons they made on the moon can learn from these people. Observe them. Learn the way of your people and pass that knowledge on to their offspring. It is not something you can snip from a piece of DNA. Or perhaps the Br’ll are using them to make more improvements upon the Kalons.”

  Laryn looked from him to the screen and back again. “That camp,” she said, not at all sure if she had understood what he suggested, “is a lab?”

  “Yes. Iko confirmed that when I confronted him.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” she said. “The Kalons have been around for nine years now. The Harla was lost years after that.”

  Ryle gestured at the screen. “Maybe this isn’t the only place this is happening. Maybe they’re keeping other groups of Humans elsewhere. On Ophet, even.”

  Toji nodded. “I think this began much earlier. Before we came to the Hub. Even for us, it would have taken many generations to create someone like me. When… when we started to suspect that some of the other Kalons were not like us, we asked questions. We learned some things. Some of your ships may have been lost in our space, long ago. Near our homeworld. Captured, taken apart, studied. The people, too. And so we learned how to build these Kalon bodies, using your DNA.”

  Nolan whistled as he exhaled a deep breath.

  “That ship,” Laryn said. “The unregistered one that attacked us on the way here. Could it have been Kalons aboard? Or Br’ll, even? Trying to keep us from coming here?”

  “I don’t know,” Toji said. “If so, perhaps they did not know we, Iko and I, were here on your ship.”

  “So what did Iko say when you talked to him about this?” Ryle said.

  Again, Toji exhibited that odd hand-wringing gesture that seemed to calm him, or allowed him to focus his thoughts. “I… I asked him about the Br’ll on the Harla, when we returned to the ship on the moon. He said he was here on a mission for the Br’ll and we owe you no explanation. He said it did not concern you, that this is Kalon business. The ship is just salvage.”

  “Apparently not,” Laryn said, pointing to the castaway’s village on the screen.

  “No,” Toji said, sounding downcast. “He told me not to speak of it and then he made me sleep. A sort of dormancy that we cannot avoid. He did this so you would not ask questions of us. When I awoke, the Nefer had landed and you were gone.” He paced a little before the wall of screens, looking up at them as he did so. “He said we were to go outside, to look for the Kalons that had come down here from the moon. I did not wish to go. Nolan had told us about the attack. But I also wanted to see what Iko was looking for here. And then Iko hurt Nolan. I have never seen one of our people harm one of yours. I was… disturbed. Distraught. I’m so very sorry, Nolan.”

  The engineer waved that away. “So then what happened?”

  “We walked out into that wilderness. He told me he would not return with you. Coming here was his only purpose. He would leave me behind, out there in the wild. He hoped I would be torn apart by those animals and so make it seem like both of us were gone. Then you would leave here, to make your reports, I suppose.” Toji raised his hands to run them over his hairless head. “He had a… one of those stun weapons you use, hidden in his mantle, and shot me with it. It left me unable to move, to defend myself, and I still feel its effects. When I came to, he was gone. He left me out there!”

  Laryn winced. “I’m glad we found you when we did.”

  “I tried to find my way back here when the creatures came upon me. I held them off for a while, throwing rocks. They also don’t like the sound of our speech.” He paused to offer his thin-lipped smile. “I should say they don’t like my shrieking. And then you came.”

  Ryle stared into the middle distance, pulling on his lower lip as he thought about these revelations. “Whatever’s going on is coming to an end here,” he said finally. “Iko would have known we’d find the camp and start a rescue operation. He doesn’t care. So they no longer need the Humans here. They’re done with this place.”

  “So what is he doing here?” Laryn said.

&nbs
p; Ryle looked up at Toji, and then around the bridge at the others. “We’re going to find out. Jex, shift your focus to finding the source of the interference or a way to counter it. I want to find Iko and whatever he’s carrying in that box.”

  “What?” Laryn said. “I’m not sure that’s quite protocol. We should return to the station at once. The Ministry needs to know about Toji’s suspicions about the other Kalons. And send a rescue ship for the Harla survivors.”

  “Yes, don’t worry so, Agent,” he said. “We’ll go down and pay them a visit. Let them know they’ve been found. Maybe they know something about our metamorphs. Besides, each trip down the filaments is costing Azah’s old man a big pile of coin. The least we can do is grab some data.” He grinned at Azah. “It’s what we do.”

  Chapter Ten

  Laryn was still not convinced of the wisdom of remaining on this planet by the time the Nefer circled over the sea to approach the camp. The appropriate thing to do was to return to Pendra without delay to advise the Ministry of both Toji’s suspicions and the Harla’s survivors. They would send a rescue ship and the means to keep the wildlife at bay while these people were safely evacuated and returned for the care they undoubtedly needed by now.

  And yet she was as eager as the others to find out more about the camp and to see what else this world had to offer. Her curiosity to explore so far from the stifling confines of the station silenced that inside voice that told her to follow protocol. She was fairly convinced by now that her assignment as a Pendra agent had not been a good choice on their part. Fleetingly, she realized that she didn’t care.

  “Let’s start the approach,” Ryle said, tucked into his station, hands on the controls and eyes locked on the screens before them. “Any response yet, Laryn?”

  “Nothing, but they should be receiving us. Maybe they think they’re dreaming.”

  Ryle dropped the Nefer below the dense haze hovering over the open ocean and slowed as they neared the coast. The tide was still out and people walked the shallows some distance from shore, perhaps combing the exposed sea bottom for edibles. Although the ship approached diagonally and low to appear less threatening, some of the foragers raced back to the beach as if panicked.

  “Harla,” Laryn tried another transmission. “This is SE Nefer out of Pendra. We intend to land south of your encampment. Please respond.”

  “Did you say Pendra?” came a scratchy and fractured reply. Laryn looked up at the screens but no video had accompanied the transmission. “Didn’t even see you coming down. You are most welcome! Land on the ridge on the north side. The beach isn’t stable enough for that ship.”

  Ryle nodded.

  “Will do, Harla,” Laryn said. “Stand by.”

  The Nefer swooped around the camp to find the piece of high ground above the camp. They saw people come up from the beach, or emerge from their shelters, all with their faces turned up to the unexpected arrival. Some of them waved, others ran after them as they passed overhead. None of them went past the barricade of rocks and trunks that sheltered the inland side of the encampment.

  Ryle eased the ship to the ground and handed the shutdown routines over to Jex. Then he turned to Laryn. “All yours, Agent Ash.”

  She looked around the bridge, suddenly feeling a little unsure and a little out of her depth here. She had spent her life on Earth immersed in her studies while unrest raged around her, and then within the safe confines of Pendra Station. And now she was about to make contact with a mob of castaways who probably didn’t even know what year this was.

  “Ryle will exit with me,” she said. “Azah, you and Nolan start offloading those supplies. Don’t do too much heavy lifting just yet, Nolan. No guns till we figure out the dynamics of this group. Jex, full scan on all frequencies. See if you can get an idea of their state of health. Toji, please stay out of sight for now.” She let her eyes roam across the screens. “Let’s not insult these people by wearing EV suits. If they can survive down here without them, so can we.”

  Ryle was waiting for her in the exit chamber when she emerged from her cabin not long later. Azah and Nolan had stacked a few bins and bales in the already tight hallway and she sidled past them to reach the exit chamber. She had decided to forego the long, colorful tunic that served as her uniform on Pendra Station and just wore a pale one-piece to which she had clipped the badge of her office. A veil in shades of orange covered her hair and slung around her shoulders.

  She stopped to inspect the thin plaster on Nolan’s head, making sure it was tightly sealed against any airborne contaminants. Truly, she thought, by now everyone here was at the mercy of whatever was floating around out there. She’d harangue them all into a few days’ stay at the station’s clinic upon their return.

  Jex opened the floor hatch. “You look lovely, Agent Ash,” he said.

  She looked up, surprised. “That’s a polite program you run, Captain,” she said to Ryle with a wink.

  He looked amused. “Jex digs up the odd routine God knows where. To amuse itself, I guess. Can seem a little schizophrenic sometimes.”

  “Well, I like it,” she said. “Thank you, Jex.”

  Ryle stepped onto the lift. He did not reach out to help her into it. She hoped it was because she had proven her abilities in these past few hours and not because he no longer felt the need to be polite to the agent. A draft of humid air swirled around the ship, tasting of ocean and unfamiliar things.

  “Where is everyone?” she said, looking down as the lift descended and seeing no one waiting for them below. “You’d think they’d be excited that we’re here.”

  “Yes, odd. We’re a distance from the camp, though. They’re probably on their way up here. The terrain is steeper than it looks from the air.”

  Laryn stepped aside and then felt herself pushed up against Ryle when Azah’s foot nudged her shoulder. The woman had slid along the lift’s telescoping supports and landed on the platform behind her. “No way am I missing this.” She grinned broadly, daring Laryn to object.

  Laryn didn’t, too aware of Ryle’s hands gripping her arms. He didn’t seem to mind finding her pressed against him. It took her a moment to feel the outline of a gun under his jacket.

  “And here we are,” Azah said and vaulted over the lift rail to the ground, as seemed to be her custom. Laryn wondered if she, too, was armed. “Where are our castaways?”

  Ryle walked toward the rim of the ridge upon which the Nefer had landed. Laryn joined him there, but a thicket of something with barbaric-looking thorns blocked the view of the camp. The growth stretched along a path winding its way up here and she wondered if they had been planted here on purpose. Nothing would get through there without leaving bits of itself behind. The castaways had built a fire pit up here, but nothing hinted at pleasant gatherings or cook-outs. Likely, she thought, it was for burning garbage, or maybe even a signal fire for occasions like today.

  Her suspicion proved to be correct when Azah stooped to inspect a mechanical device wedged among some rocks. She nudged it with her foot. “Signal beacon,” she said. “They must have used this spot to land the shuttles. Inactive now.”

  Ryle looked up at the wind sails installed higher up along the slope. “Lucky thing the Harla was equipped for supplying a new settlement. Would have made their stay here a lot more pleasant, I’m guessing.”

  “Life forms approaching,” Jex cautioned. “To your left, Ryle.”

  “Oh hell,” Laryn said.

  “Damn,” Ryle added, just for emphasis.

  Two of the creatures they had met far too frequently today approached, moving with greater stealth than they had before. Instead of thrashing through the thicket with snapping mandibles, these moved at a measured pace along the path. A rasping noise seemed to come from their extremities as if their joints were in need of exercise. The eyes on short stalks were motionless and dull, as were the feelers protruding from the sides.

  Azah exhaled something that might have been a curse and rushed to Ryle’s side,
gun in hand. “Get back on the lift, Laryn,” she said.

  “Don’t shoot,” Laryn said when a bright object caught her attention. “Look, on their undersides. It’s glowing. Or something.”

  Ryle stopped squinting around his gun to find what she had pointed out. “Where?”

  “That’s just mega!” Nolan exclaimed from his station aboard the ship. “The damn things are mechanical.”

  “Jex?” Ryle said, but they all now saw the small, glowing panel on the belly of one of the monsters.

  “I have found cybernetic components,” Jex said. “But these individuals are organic. I am reading life signs.”

  “What the…” Ryle said when one of the creatures stopped and what looked like the wing cover of a beetle opened along its side. They all watched in astonishment as a thin male Human rolled out of the creature and dropped to the ground, landing nimbly on his feet.

  “Welcome to Planet Torren,” he bellowed, grinning around several missing teeth. He used that gap to send a shrill whistle through the air. The other cyborg-creature opened to reveal another Human, dressed, like the first, in layers of clothes that had been worn too long and too often. Several people, armed and on foot, now entered the clearing to stare wordlessly at the Nefer crouching on top of their hill. “We’d given up on the lot of you by now.”

  “I’m coming down,” Nolan said. “I have to see these things up close!”

  Laryn stepped forward, somewhat cautiously. “I am Agent Laryn Ash, here with the Shelody outbounder company. This is Captain Ryle Tanner and First Mate Azah Shelody.” She searched her memory. “You are Sola Crow, the field engineer for the migrants.”

  “That’s me.” The man strode forward and reached for the hand she had not offered in greeting. He shook it with enthusiasm. “You are most welcome here, Madam. We’re ready to leave this hellhole this very minute.”

  “Hellhole?” Azah holstered her pistol. “You don’t like it here?”