Pelquin's Comet

by Ian Whates

  The loathing was entirely mutual. Evidently Xters found the bipedal, constantly tottering form of humans alarming and counter-intuitive to a degree that unsettled them profoundly. They thought the near-absence of bodily hair obscene, while human odour was even more repulsive to them than theirs was to us.

  Given all this, the avoidance of war seemed little short of a miracle, but, having benefited from a largely pragmatic upbringing, Leesa didn’t believe in miracles. There had to be more practical explanations; they were merely less obvious. Economics doubtless played a part, for example. Wars were expensive. Then, of course, there was the lack of competition.

  Theirs was a small community, the settlers on Dinares IV. Leesa wouldn’t claim that she knew everyone her own age in the town, but she’d have bet she knew most of them. The atmosphere and environment were a fraction beyond the limit of natural human tolerance – the shortage of free oxygen being merely the most immediate problem – and towards the bottom end of the Xters’. Leesa remembered an elderly offter with a big smile and very white teeth – she didn’t recall his name, just the contrast of those teeth against his tanned skin – addressing an assembly of the colonists once and going on about ‘patient diplomacy’ and ‘the triumph of civilised co-operation’, claiming that the lasting peace with the Xters was proof positive that mankind had finally outgrown the aggressive tendencies of its youth. Everyone had clapped enthusiastically. Her mum had been impressed – she suspected more because such an apparently eminent off-worlder had visited them at all than by anything the man had actually said – but Leesa wasn’t buying any of it, even then. She still reckoned that the real reason humans and Xters hadn’t ended up at each other’s throats was because they weren’t in direct competition; or not so’s you’d notice.

  Worlds compatible to human habitation would have required a great deal of adapting – gruelling, complex, time-consuming and expensive modification to the atmosphere and the whole ecosystem – before they became suitable for the Xters, and vice-versa. Tackling the issue from the opposite end – the genetic engineering and physical adaptation of populations to suit a given environment – would likewise have been a delicate, time-consuming, and prohibitively expensive procedure; a fact those on Dinaries IV knew all too well.

  Why would either race bother, unless population pressures became too great to be relieved by the usual safety valve of expansion into new, suitable worlds? It was only on the borderline planets such as this one that the two species’ interests came close to overlapping. This particular world, on the fringe of Xter space, was marginally more suitable for the aliens while others were closer to human requirements, or so Leesa had heard. If both races had been just a little more similar in physiology and metabolism, she’d be willing to bet that every world would have become a potential target and likely battleground.

  What she couldn’t understand was: if she, a mere kid, had worked this out, why couldn’t any of the adults? It wasn’t until she was much older that she realised it was because they didn’t really want to.

  Leesa came fully awake, the organic majority rapidly catching up and falling into synch with the part of her that never slept. The dreams were growing more vivid, the memories more distinct, which had to be a good thing, she supposed. She just wished they didn’t dwell so much on her early life. It was the more recent past she craved to reclaim. Only then could she hope to figure out what had happened to her – exactly who had put the blocks in place and so clinically wiped away her identity. Just as importantly, she might then hope to discover why.

  One thing the dreams were bringing home to her was what a pain she’d been as a kid; so confident of her own assertions, so convinced that she was an expert on subjects about which she knew next to nothing. She had no idea how Kegé and her other fathers had put up with her. She supposed an attitude like that hardly made her unique, but few people had the opportunity or the inclination to revisit their childhood self with the sort of clarity she was experiencing.

  Such memories were welcome, of course. They were comforting, providing her with a centre, an emotional and psychological anchor that she’d been lacking and had so desperately needed. Until something began to seep back she’d been a disorientated mess, cast adrift and rootless, even entertaining the conviction at one point that she wasn’t a real person at all but a construct of some kind; which was when the first echoes of childhood began to seep through into her dreams. Leesa had wept that night, allowing herself a moment of self-indulgence before she set about clawing her way back towards mental stability, clinging to those slender threads of returning memory. She’d killed someone, though, during that recovery. She couldn’t remember the full details: who it was or why she’d done it – this had been during the very worst period – but she knew she had. Even that had served a purpose, providing her with the impetus to move to La Gossa and begin the search for her true identity.

  No question that these returning memories had helped her reclaim her sanity, but she was now impatient to rediscover something more contemporary and, for the most part, those times continued to elude her. It was frustrating, her inability to exercise control. She had to, if she was ever going to learn who had stolen her life.

  The hum of the ship’s engines intruded on her thoughts. Their murmur suffused everything. A subtle sound, which probably went unnoticed by most, but not by her; especially when she was lying in her crewcot with the vibration whispering through every solid surface. In order to dream, Leesa needed to sleep, and she wasn’t doing a great job of that just then.

  She rolled onto her front and reached into the compartment provided for personal effects. Despite the space being insultingly small, her few possessions would have rattled around in there if shaken. She took out the slumberpoule, thumbed up the dosage and held the snub end against her throat, squeezing it to activate. If this didn’t work, she could always try hitting her head against the bulkhead.

  Tossing the ampoule back into the cubbyhole, she settled back and determined to think only dull thoughts.

  Memories arrived as disjointed fragments, variously sized shards of a life that had been snapped apart like brittle chocolate.

  She was livid and boiling over with frustration. This was soon after the Tull incident, which had subsequently overshadowed so much of her childhood, and she was railing against the unfairness of existence. “It’s my life and I’ll do whatever I fucking want to!” she had screamed.

  “Leesa! Mind your language!”

  “Sorry, Noon-father. It’s my life and I’ll do whatever I fucking wish to.”

  A petty victory, but the look of shock on Liat’s face had been a joy to behold.

  Frustratingly, the memory slipped away without leading to anything. Once upon a time all these chunks of mental flotsam had combined to form a seamless whole. She just needed to find the missing pieces and work out how.

  Next she was having a conversation with her eve-father Kegé, always her favourite from among her paternal quad. She was talking to him about the future, or rather at him, and had doubtless sounded foolish, saying far more than she should in the naïve belief that the conversation wouldn’t be repeated to her other parents. She trusted Kegé, confided in him, and he invariably offered sound advice, but of course he was going to discuss such things with the others, especially Liat, his lover. It was his duty to do so, but she hadn’t seen it that way.

  “Nobody can stop you from leaving, little one,” he had said after hearing her out. “You’re free to fly the coop whenever you choose, but don’t underestimate what we have here. The family protects and nurtures. Out there…” and he waved vaguely towards the heavens, “life can be harsh, with jagged edges that tear at your spirit and wound your heart. Down here we smooth out those rough edges so that any bumps you feel are gentle ones.”

  She had giggled at the image painted by his words, picturing the corridors of their home bulging with pink fluffiness and smelling of marshmallow and candy, but the laughter had been short lived. “I
know,” she’d said; though of course she hadn’t really, and would only come to realise the truth of his words when she eventually escaped Dinares IV. “But I can’t stay here, Kegé, not forever.” To be stifled, to be bored to death, to be driven mad by the inescapable almost-presence of the Xters, whom she imagined in her nightmares filling the world beyond the immediate confines of their small ‘town’.

  Even so, many years passed before she eventually left. There were any number of reasons, the warmth and love Kegé provided chief amongst them. She’d thought herself prepared for the universe at large, but the sheer spite and meanness of spirit that awaited her proved a shock beyond her imagining. Somehow, she survived. After a fashion.

  The sense of being stifled wasn’t the only reason she had been so desperate to leave Dinares IV. There was also Tull.

  Tull had a different mother to her but they shared the same paternal quad. This didn’t automatically make them bosom buddies or anything but they did tend to hang out together. He never had been her best friend – too big, too loud, too brash, too keen to impress – but he was part of ‘the gang’; the four or five or seven or eight of them who gravitated together. The exact number and composition varied, though the central core remained the same: her, Meg, Cally, and Zané. Others drifted in and out of their orbit at the dictate of circumstance and whim. Tull was there more often than not, but she refused to acknowledge him as part of the ‘core’. He was the one who always took things a step too far, as if to compensate for not quite being accepted to the same extent she was. If any of them were going to break something or fall off anything, you could bet it would be Tull.

  No, he was never her best friend, but the day he died it felt as if he was.

  They’d been playing in the Gully – the shallow defile that ran in a ragged line to the south of the plateau on which Liaise stood. Parents would have disapproved of their being there but generally turned a blind eye. After all, this was familiar ground only a stone’s throw from home, and even the parents realised that kids couldn’t be kept cooped up forever and needed to let off steam occasionally.

  It should have been safe enough. They’d all had the modifications by then – the implants that enabled their bodies to draw sufficient oxygen from the planet’s frugal air and filter out the toxins and pollens and microbes that human metabolism couldn’t cope with. The programme of modification didn’t stop there, either. The parents were constantly tinkering with genetics, tweaking what it meant to be ‘human’, so that in a generation or so the implants wouldn’t be needed at all – the type of slow and costly adaptation that became untenable on a macro scale being made to work for a small, dedicated group.

  Already their modifications were far less extensive than their parents’. Leesa couldn’t help wonder whether it was her familiarity with the Dinares IV implants that made her susceptible to the idea of techorg in later life. Techorg was a completely different level of modification, of course, but once you’ve taken that first step, contemplating the next and the one after that becomes a little less daunting.

  Leesa might not have been able to recall when or why she’d acquired the invasive augmentations that transformed her from organic to auganic, but she could understand and even sympathise with the underlying motivations that might have led her there.

  “You great sassinbat! You’ll get your kuccle caught on something if you’re not careful.” Leesa could hear Meg’s voice as clear as day – shrill, excited and full of laughter. Meg always had been more impressed by Tull’s antics than Leesa would have liked.

  “It would serve him right if he did,” Leesa had said; words that would come back to haunt her later, or rather the sentiment behind them would. “Not that he’s got a kuccle big enough to catch on anything in any case.”

  “Oh yeah, really? And how would you know?” More laughter.

  Tull was showing off by doing a series of split-jumps over a row of low, knobbly rock formations, which resembled the gnarled stubs of half-burned candles made irregular by the flow of congealed wax.

  The final one looked a little different – something which afterwards everyone claimed to have noticed but no one had commented on at the time. It seemed newer, fresher. By the time Tull reached it he was overbalancing a little and losing momentum. If he’d had any sense he would have pulled out and given up on that last one, but no chance: this was Tull, after all.

  The jump was an ungainly one, lacking any real height, and his crotch caught on the tip of that final mound. He was laughing and doubtless anticipated a painful blow, as did the onlookers, but instead the irregular top of the pile crumbled away. Not rock, then, at least not solidly so. Instead it was formed of dust and earth and stuck together with goodness knew what. A nest, as Leesa would subsequently learn, a hive, deliberately fashioned to mimic the prevailing rock formations as camouflage.

  Unprepared for the comparative lack of resistance, Tull did overbalance then, sprawling onto his hands and knees amidst a cloud of reddish dust, still laughing.

  The laughter choked off in an “Ow” of surprise and pain. At first Leesa assumed Tull’s knees or hands were stinging following the fall, but there was something odd about the dust he’d kicked up. Most of it had settled, but some still seemed to be moving, and not as she would have expected. It took her a moment to realise what was happening. What she had taken to be dust was boiling out of the decapitated ‘rock’ and flowing with apparent purpose directly towards Tull. Already his lower legs were covered in a red, writhing, stain. Not a stain; this wasn’t one single thing but a multitude, a living carpet of tiny creatures moving with common purpose.

  Tull started to scream. Whether from fear or pain, Leesa wasn’t sure. He leapt to his feet and jumped into the air but still the mites found him, clung to him, bit him.

  Meg started towards him as if to help, but Zané grabbed her, thank goodness. Tull was cavorting around as if in a macabre, disjointed dance; an undignified, hot-footed jerk, body convulsing, arms shaking vigorously in an attempt to dislodge the mites. And the screams – definitely pain now – took on an air of desperation. They were unrelenting and the most chilling thing Leesa had ever heard.

  “Help me!” he yelled amidst them. No one did; no one could. Even Meg had stopped trying to. Part of Leesa wanted to look away, felt that she should look away, but she couldn’t.

  The mites continued to boil from the nest, rising in a red tide to engulf Tull’s body. Someone else had joined in with the screaming. It was herself, Leesa realised.

  Tull’s struggles lessened and then stopped all together. He sank to the ground and, with only occasional glimpses of his skin or clothing visible beneath the writhing mass of ruddiness, it seemed as if his very body were melting.

  Zané still gripped Meg by the shoulders, though by then Leesa suspected more for his own comfort than to restrain her. Meg had begun to cry in fitful wails, her face contorted as tears spilled down her cheeks. Zané simply stared, ashen-faced.

  As she glanced across, Leesa saw movement beyond her two friends and instantly froze. As if things couldn’t get any worse. An Xter stood there, presumably drawn by the screams. Neither Zané nor Meg had noticed it as yet. Once they had, its presence did nothing to calm the situation. Meg’s crying turned to hysteria. Her screams replaced Leesa’s, who had lost the ability to give voice to anything. Meg scurried around the far side of Zané for protection. As if puny little Zané could protect anyone from a falling leaf let alone this adult Xter. The alien was all quick-legged movement. It didn’t dart, but somehow Leesa had the impression that it was about to, all the time. It ignored them, scuttling towards where Tull lay cloaked in a blanket of crimson mites. One of the creature’s forelimbs held a broad-nozzled object which looked to be a cross between a gun and the business end of a hose. The alien pointed it towards Tull and a jet of white liquid shot forth, directly at where the red mites were the thickest. The effect was immediate. The mites disappeared wherever the liquid touched – either dying or recoiling, Lee
sa couldn’t be sure which. Within seconds, Tull was wholly visible again, the flat crimson limb of mites that had covered him withdrawing back into the mound that spawned it.

  Tull lay twitching and spasming. Where exposed, his skin was puffed up and blotchy, his face almost unrecognisable. Without hesitation, the alien scooped up the boy’s form in its forearms, lifting Tull as if he weighed nothing, and then started towards Liaise. Leesa did her best to keep up but the Xter’s four-footed gait was far too swift for her. This was the first time she’d been so close to one of the aliens, and, despite the way it moved sending shivers up her spine, she was fascinated. The body wasn’t segmented like an insect’s but the way it carried itself almost horizontal to the ground and the arrangement of limbs suggested one. The face was dominated by multi-faceted eyes, far more sensitive than a human’s, and it was impossible to tell what it was wearing – she couldn’t distinguish between clothing and skin. Xters normally walked using all six limbs, though analysis showed that even then most of the body’s weight was carried by the thicker middle and rear limbs, but they could swap seamlessly to a four-footed gait when carrying something; such as now. Leesa knew all this from lessons, but witnessing the real thing in motion was something else entirely.

  Making light of its burden, the Xter negotiated inclines that the humans could never have attempted, and the alien was soon lost to sight despite their best efforts. By the time Leesa and her friends reached Liaise, the whole settlement was alerted and on the case.