by T. R. Harris
“Bingo, big dog.”
Adam passed by the tarp-covered lump that was his former girlfriend. Taking a calculated guess, he slapped one of the protruding bulges.
“Ow! You’re lucky that wasn’t my head.”
“I know. I often get the two of them confused.”
“Screw you!”
“Are we leaving or not?” the Juirean Overlord asked. He, too, had crawled under a tarp, this one on the back of Lila’s cart. He was still in a foul mood after losing his hair to the plasma bolt back on Kor. It had been a week and still no trace of growth could be seen. The magnificent manes of either white, green, or blue worn by the seven-foot-tall Juireans were their trademark, an intimidating element that added a full foot to their height while creating an almost savage, primal look to their already imposing bulk. But for Benefis, not anymore. Now the true size of a Juirean head was revealed, appearing even smaller when resting atop the towering body and broad shoulders.
“Our friend is right,” Adam said as he boarded his own cart, this one with the lumpy figure of Arieel Bol hidden under the tarp. “Let’s get going. We have one immortal alien genius to capture, and another to set free.”
“All in a day’s work,” Riyad said.
Adam looked at the armored figure in the cart next to him. “You still have a little alien blood under your right earhole.”
“The stuff tends to get in every little nook and cranny.”
“I hear ya.”
********
Adam was getting nervous. He saw on the small control panel of his cart what looked to be a charge indicator, and if he was reading it right, his cart was getting dangerously low on juice—yet still no break in the ten-meter-high wall lining the spaceport.
Besides that, they were getting closer to more Sol-Kor workers at this end of the base.
“Are we there yet?” Arieel inquired quietly from under the tarp. “It is extremely warm under here.”
“Sorry, sweetheart, but I don’t see an opening yet. Hang in there; there has to be one along here somewhere.”
“Hang in…oh, yes. I will hang in there.”
“Yo-yo! Did you just see that?” Riyad called out from the lead cart.
“Yeah, the wall slid open but then closed again.”
“We may have passed a dozen such doorways during our journey,” Lila commented.
“Pull over up ahead, Riyad. Let’s see if we can get it to open for us.”
“Heads up. There’s a contingent of Sol-Kor about half a klick away.”
The three carts came to stop where Riyad had seen the huge wall slide away. Upon closer examination, there were protruding boxes all along the wall. Now they had some idea what they were for.
Adam climbed from his cart and approached the nearest box. The cover lifted away easily. Inside was a single knob about four inches in diameter. He reached in and turned it.
Immediately, an obnoxious, high-pitched squeal was heard coming from the wall. A large section, about five meters wide, was displaced toward the row of pyramids, before it began to roll away to the side, accompanied by even more squeaks and groans.
Adam turned nervously toward the cluster of Sol-Kor soldiers who, over the flat open expanse of the spaceport, couldn’t help but hear the grating sounds. The soldiers were dressed in shiny silver armor just as they were, and several helmets turned toward the irritating noise.
“Dammit,” Adam grunted under his breath. “This thing just opened. You would think it wouldn’t be so rusty…or slow!”
Out of a sense of duty—or boredom—two of the soldiers activated a cart of their own and took off toward the wall. The moment the carts could squeeze through, Adam led his three carts to the other side. He jumped off his shuttle and surveyed the wall for a matching control box, and panicked when he didn’t find one.
Nodding at Riyad, the two Humans placed their carts at either side of the opening; Lila parked hers next to Adam and got out from behind the controls, ready for action.
Adam wasn’t so worried about these two Sol-Kor, but the others could sound the alarm. And that would be very, very bad.
The alien cart pulled up to the now fully-opened wall panel and one of the soldiers climbed off. He stepped up to the opening, taking a moment to check the locations of the three shuttles and their drivers. He then turned to the box on his side of the wall.
“I will close it for you,” he announced. “The trip mechanism for this panel is not working.”
Adam didn’t want to say anything, knowing that not all Sol-Kor had embedded translation devices. If this was one of them, then his Human voice would be a dead giveaway.
“Your assistance is appreciated. We have just arrived. Could you direct us to the Queen’s location? We have important news for her.”
Adam’s head jerked around to the figure standing next to him, and the strange, deep voice he’d just heard. It was Lila, speaking perfect Sol-Kor, and with the timbre of a male.
The Sol-Kor soldier stepped to the other side of the opening. He pointed down the wide thoroughfare that bordered the wall. “Proceed along this road until you come to the Trimeth Towers. That path will lead through the surrounding structures and end at M-2. Guards there can direct you to the Queen’s location.”
He returned to the other side the wall…but then stopped and turned toward Lila.
“Any news on the battle? We have conflicting reports that the enemy has fled, that we have been victorious. Is this true?”
“We have been under communication silence since embarking on our mission. We are not aware of any such developments, although the possibility for such an outcome remains.”
The silver helmet nodded. “It is confirmed that a large number of mainships are in transit back to Silana. We shall learn more from them.”
Without another word, the parties separated.
All the members of Adam’s team had translation bugs programmed with the Sol-Kor language, so they had heard the conversation with the soldier. “Could that be true?” Arieel asked from still under the tarp. “Could the Hal’ic have been defeated, and in such a short time?”
“I don’t know,” Adam replied. “I can’t see that happening, especially not with the Admiral in command. There must be more to the story.”
“Look,” Lila said, pointing into the brilliant sky of Silana. “Ship trails.”
She was right. The sky above them was now full of white streaks descending from space. There were hundreds of them.
“They wouldn’t be landing if a Hal’ic fleet was on their asses,” Adam said. “Something has gone terribly wrong.”
“That’s all we need here now, about a million more Sol-Kor on shore leave,” Sherri said from under her tarp.
“Relax, everyone. It will take them a full hour or more to land and disembark, so we have the jump on them.”
“Good,” Riyad said from his cart. “I was beginning to think we could be in trouble.”
Chapter 10
Adam had been right about his cart. About a kilometer from where they’d passed through the spaceport wall, his shuttle gave out and he had to hitch a ride with Riyad, placing both Sherri and Arieel under the same tarp. For a moment, he was tempted to take the long way to what the Sol-Kor soldier had called the M-2 pyramid, as a form of torture for the ladies. But Riyad was driving, and after one long psychic glance at each other, the men decided it best just to get to their destination as soon as possible. They had enough on their plate as it was.
Along the way, Adam still questioned why the Sol-Kor had selected Silana as the site for their second capital. It was obviously too hot even for them, as evidenced by the near total lack of pedestrians on the streets. What Sol-Kor they saw—not in battle armor—exited transports and entered the nearest building without delay. The result was that Adam and his small caravan had the roads essentially to themselves.
Occasionally, Adam would look back and see the women peeking out from under their tarp, both to get some air circulating an
d to gawk at the massive pyramids towering along the way. The scene was like the pyramids of Giza on steroids, dozens of huge structures all in perfect rows, separated at their wide bases by fifty-meter wide roadways. Like the pyramids of Kor, these were also constructed of huge uniform modules, yet these were stacked in a neat order, each pyramid identical to its neighbor. This settlement had been built after the Sol-Kor developed their traditions on Kor, which had evolved over time to become what they were—or had been until the Hal’ic arrived. When they came to Silana, the aliens had learned how to construct their pyramids with more style and symmetry, giving this complex the look of having been built all at once.
The dominant structure known as M-2 was twice the height of the other buildings covering a footprint eight times larger than any other. Either from design or nature, the exterior of the building—like all the others on Silana—was a ruddy rust color as opposed to the black of the Kor-based pyramids, and shared the same stair-step form, layer upon layer of terraces and windows climbing high to the central point. Adam got the impression the complex had been built not as a supplement to Kor, but rather as a replacement. There was more organization here, and as they passed the surrounding structures it was obvious that these were huge processing and manufacturing centers. Everything that had been scattered haphazardly across the surface of Kor was consolidated into this massive complex and supported by the three nearby spaceports. Although he hadn’t had a chance to survey the rest of the planet from orbit, he would have been surprised to find any other settlements. None were needed.
Keeping with the policy of staying sheltered from the blazing light and heat of the planet, the M-2 structure was perforated along its base by hundred-meter-wide openings that allowed traffic and pedestrians to enter the building from just about any point. Riyad and Lila steered their carts into the welcoming shade, and were further rewarded by a blast of cool air originating from within. This soothing air was free to escape into the outside desert environment without regard for conservation or containment, a consequence of an unlimited supply of energy, another sidebar invention of the enigmatic mutant Panur.
Unlike the world outside, there was a frenzy of activity taking place within the incredible volume of the main receiving area beneath the pyramids. As it was on Kor, there was no need for security. Everyone here was of the Colony, brothers and offspring of the Eternal Queen. The only restrictions came within the quarters of the Queen herself, and not from fear of attack, but rather to keep the adoring masses from bothering her, driven by a desire to be in the presence of their creator.
After only three months as the leader of the Colony—and the mother of none of these workers—Adam was sure J’nae’s status was different. She would surround herself with security in order to keep the likes of Adam and his companions from reaching her. She would also know a bounty had been placed on her head by the Hal’ic. They knew the makeup of Sol-Kor society, and eliminating the Queen—by whatever means possible—was the ultimate goal. Without a queen, the Colony would die.
At least that’s the way it had always been until J’nae’s arrival. Now it was imperative that Adam and his team nip things in the bud before Panur’s creation could set the wheels in motion that would ensure the survival of the Colony even without a queen.
Somewhere in this building was both creator and creation…and hopefully the Mark IV starship.
Light streamed into the vast chamber from outside, revealing a solid square structure placed at the center of the pyramid, with hundreds of elevator doors set in its walls. Riyad steered his cart to a place between two of the large outside openings and Lila pulled up next to him. There was a problem—several in fact.
“No one is wearing armor,” Adam pointed out.
“And I can’t see a way to get Sherri, Arieel, and Benefis into an elevator without being spotted. There’s only Sol-Kor here, not even a few of the Salifens around,” said Riyad, adding to the menu of challenges they faced.
“Are those elevators large enough for a cart to fit in?”
“Most are not, yet there is a bank of larger doors spaced after ten of the smaller ones,” Lila reported. From this distance, and with the glaring light from outside interfering with his vision, Adam was grateful for Lila’s superior eyesight. Now he saw that transports even larger than their electric carts occasionally entered through the larger elevator openings, to be carried to their destinations within the pyramid. The building was certainly large enough to support its own internal highway system—another design element to save the Sol-Kor from spending too much time outside.
“So where to?” Riyad asked.
“We learned on Kor that the Queen’s chambers were on the ground floor.”
“That seemed to be the result of evolution rather than design,” Riyad pointed out.
“Exactly. M-1 was built around the Queen. But here, the planning was after the fact. If I had to guess, I would go high. The pyramid is twice as tall as anything around it. There has to be a reason.”
“Your reasoning makes sense,” Lila confirmed. “We should begin our search for the Queen at the top.”
“Everyone okay under the tarp?”
“For now,” Sherri answered. “Thank God it’s cooler in here. But hurry, Arieel’s boobs keep poking me in the face.”
The helmeted heads of Adam and Riyad turned towards each other.
“Minds out of gutters, boys,” Sherri said from underneath the tarp.
“Just give us moment,” Adam said.
A moment later, the two carts set off for the nearest freight elevator.
********
“What is it with these alien bastards?” Adam exclaimed. “Don’t they believe in floor numbers?”
“Each panel appears to correspond to a section of the pyramid,” Lila tried to explain. “Let me do it.”
Adam stood aside, and as his daughter punched six blank panels on the wall of the elevator in a specific order, he couldn’t follow her logic, but soon the car was moving.
“That should place us at the upper level for this particular elevator. Transports would not be accommodated beyond a certain level, based on the narrowing of the building near the top.”
The two females and Benefis kicked off their tarps, faces beet red and covered in perspiration, even after some relief from the air conditioning inside the building. The thin blouses of both women were soaked with sweat, and for a moment it looked as though they had just competed in a wet t-shirt competition. It was no contest—Arieel won.
“So we have no idea how close to the top we can get?” Benefis asked. “That will still leave us exposed when we can no longer hide under the cloth.”
Sherri stepped up to where the Juirean was sitting on the back of the cart. “You have an uncanny ability to state the obvious.”
“Thank you.”
“It was an insult, you pinhead.”
“Are you referring to my lack of majesty?”
“Majesty? Is that what you guys call your manes?”
“Manes? The translation refers to an animal’s crest of hair or fur. We do not have manes.”
“That’s what we call them.”
“Then you are mistaken!”
The car began to slow.
“Back under the tarps,” Adam ordered.
A moment later, the elevator door opened and two Sol-Kor officers stepped in. They wore the white stripes of High Nosleads. Both crinkled their noses as the door slid shut.
“Your shielding is not required within the structure,” one of them said to the trio of armored occupants. He then scanned them up and down. “Are you juveniles? Your suits have been adjusted to their minimum.”
“Yes, we are trainees,” Lila answered in Sol-Kor.
“Trainees in what… smelling foul?” said the other officer.
“We have been outside.”
“That is why you should have left your shields at Level One. Now you are contaminating the air around you. What are you bringing into the structure?
It, too, has an awful odor.”
“Subdued food samples taken from those who struck Kor.”
Before he could be stopped, the first Noslead pulled back a tarp, revealing Sherri and Arieel in fetal positions, their eyes closed yet breathing. Both Sol-Kor stepped back; each were armed, the protocol during time of war. They drew their weapons.
“Do not shoot!” Lila said. “They are to remain alive to provide the freshest meat for the Queen and her entourage.”
“What are they?”
“We do not know.”
“Through the stench of perspiration, I now sense a very…inviting aroma. This is indeed prime stock. You say this is the race that attacked Kor?”
“It is one of them.”
“There is more than one race aligned against us?” asked the second officer with emotion.
“Yes,” Lila replied. “At least ten, and in vast numbers.”
Both Sol-Kor looked at each other. “We were not informed of such, and we are senior in the Colony.”
“That is because we are on Silana,” countered the second one. “It is obvious now that information has been withheld. That is how it has always been between Kor and Silana.”
“But now the Queen is among you,” Lila pointed out.
Again the two Sol-Kor shared a look. “Yes…the Queen.”
“The new Queen.”
Listening to the exchange, Adam noticed the helmeted head of Lila nod slightly in his direction. Then she turned back to the aliens.
“We have never been this high in M-2 before. Once we reach our maximum level, what is the process for delivering our food stock to the Queen?”
The first High Noslead shook his head. “Were you not briefed? These carriers only reach two-thirds up. There will be smaller motorized carts with which you can transfer your catch.” He looked at his companion. “The Queen is in Combat Sec Four, is she not?”
“When last reported. Either there or on ninety-eight, with the other mutant.”
The car came to a stop and the doors opened. The two Sol-Kor stepped out, as did Adam and Riyad.
