Invaders_The Antaran

by Vaughn Heppner

  “He obviously transferred,” Rax said.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Consider the situation,” Rax said. “Kazz has proven to us he has transfer tech. Where could he have acquired the technology? Aboard the Polarion base seems like the most logical answer. How could the Director have left the underwater base without anyone noticing? Through the same application of ancient Polarion tech, through a transfer mechanism.”

  “You think Kazz and the Director are working together?” I asked Rax.

  “That does not hold,” Rax said. “Kazz is killing clones. By his own admission, the Neanderthal hates them. I think he and the Director are at loggerheads. It does seem that both have pilfered the Arctic Ocean structure for ancient Polarion tech, though.”

  “And that’s what the Antares dominie wants?” I asked. “He wants Polarion tech?”

  “That is my belief,” Rax said. “But that has yet to be established.”

  “So what’s our next move?” I asked.

  “We could go back to CAU Headquarters,” Rax said.

  “Looking for what exactly?” I asked.

  “The Chronowarp.”

  “It’s not there,” Jenna said.

  “Where is it?” I asked.

  She shrugged, yawning.

  That caused me to yawn as well. “You know,” I said. “I’m beat. You’re beat. It’s time to get some sleep.”

  “Where?” she asked. “You left the truck in the shopping center parking lot.”

  “We’ll head in the other direction,” I said. “There’s a hotel over there.” I pointed in the direction of the hotel. “We can get a new vehicle in the morning, one that isn’t hot.”

  “Okay,” Jenna said, yawning again.

  I stood, helped her up, gathered our empty plates and set them in the receptacle set out for them. Jenna leaned heavily against me and limped as we went outside.

  The cooler night air felt good. Across the street was the hotel. We began crossing the parking lot to get to the street.

  “Logan,” Rax said. “I detect aliens.”

  “Where?” I asked.

  Before Rax could answer, side doors on several parked vans rolled open, and 300-pound Tosks charged out.

  I shoved Jenna behind me and put Rax in her hands. “Get out of here!” I shouted.

  I drew my blaster and got off a shot, dropping one of the hairy Tosks as foul-smelling smoke billowed from his chest. A squad of them hit me then and bore me onto the blacktop, the back of my head hitting it as I went down. It made me groggy and slowed my reflexes. My blaster went rolling. Then, I was roaring with rage, flailing, biting, scratching, hitting—

  A Tosk yelped with pain. I laughed. Maybe that made the others mad.

  One of them put his hairy hands around my throat and began to choke me. I surged with my remaining strength, throwing a Tosk off my left arm. I began gasping and thrashing harder as I tried to breathe. More Tosks piled onto my limbs. My reactions slowed as I could no longer sip air. My eyesight dimmed, and that was the last thing I remembered…

  -17-

  I woke up feeling groggy. I lay on a cot in a place with a low gray ceiling. Sitting up disoriented me. I moved too fluidly, lightly, and everything felt wrong.

  Swinging my feet over the edge of the cot, standing, I shot up toward the low ceiling, banging my head against it.

  I cried out in pain, shoved off and hit the floor at velocity.

  I couldn’t understand this. What had happened? Then I recalled Jenna, the Panera parking lot, the Tosks—

  “The Tosks,” I said. “Hey! What’s going on here?”

  No one answered. I pushed off the floor and glided toward the cot. I had a terrible feeling that I knew where I was and why there was so little gravity. The Tosks must have transferred me to the moon.

  I sat on the cot and put my face in my hands. This was just great. This was just—

  “Debby,” I said. Maybe I was in the same confinement area as my woman.

  Something buzzed. The lock on my door? A werewolf-like Tosk, much heavier and taller than me, opened the cell door. He looked like the ones I’d seen in Friday’s Station. He wore a leather harness instead of clothes. With all that hair, fur, whatever, these guys hardly needed clothes. The Tosk jangled as he glided into the cell.

  “What do you want?” I said.

  He cocked his head and jabbered in his alien tongue, and I realized that I still understood their extraterrestrial language.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I said in the same tongue-twisting way.

  He dug in a pouch attached to his harness and tossed me a plastic-wrapped sandwich and a water bottle. I grabbed the bottle and put it between my legs while I tore off the sandwich’s wrapping.

  “Eat,” the Tosk said. He turned around and left as the cell door slid shut behind him. I heard the buzz again as it locked.

  I ate. I was famished. That made me wonder how long I’d been out. I drank the water, careful to cap the bottle after each sip. I didn’t want any water floating around as I’d seen in the movies.

  My throat was sore where a Tosk had strangled me. The muscles I’d twisted in the parking lot fight ached but worked well enough. Like I said earlier, gene therapy had given me a quicker-healing body.

  Did the Tosks, or their master, know that? Maybe I needed to act more hurt. They would expect a regular human to be injured. I had to hide whatever aces I had.

  Shortly, the cell door buzzed again and a Tosk in harness stood there. I couldn’t tell if it was the same Tosk. They all looked alike to me.

  “Can you walk far?” the Tosk asked.

  That confirmed that they didn’t know about my quick healing ability.

  “I guess,” I said.

  The Tosk cocked his wolfish head. “You are on the satellite.”

  “What?”

  “You call it the moon. You are on it. You will walk with lighter gravity than you are used to.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  The way the Tosk spoke made it seem that he’d memorized the little speech.

  “Come,” he said.

  I tried to make the glide walking or bouncing seem painful to me. I purposely lagged behind as we moved through a long curving corridor. Once, I floated past a window and saw the blackness of space and the stars out there. They glittered in amazing profusion. As I went up during the next stride, I could see the dark moonscape. I looked for the blue Earth but couldn’t find it. Did that mean I was on the dark side of the moon?

  As I followed the Tosk, I felt a terrible sense of loneliness. I was on the moon, on an alien base. I didn’t know if I’d ever get back to the Earth. The only intelligent life was this furry Tosk. I wanted another human to talk to, I wanted—

  I noticed the Tosk had halted before an open hatch. He pointed at it. The creature possessed a longer arm than a regular human. He was like a werewolf. Maybe one of his distant ancestors had come to Earth and begun the ancient legend. That wouldn’t surprise me at all.

  I walk-glided into the room—

  Two Tosks, one waiting on either side of the hatch, grabbed me as I moved in. I thought about fighting them. The bigger Tosk clicked a collar to my neck. They both shoved me toward a chair in the middle of the room.

  I grunted as I folded against the chair.

  “Sit,” the bigger one said.

  I looked back at them. They looked exactly like the Tosk outside. The hatch had closed, so I could no longer see him.

  “Sit,” the bigger one said again, motioning with his long-fingered hand.

  I sat.

  The hatch opened and they both departed. Before I could decide whether to charge after them or not, the hatch shut again.

  A new one whirred open. I heard rather than saw it. I spun around—

  Dominie Beran in his metallic suit float-walked into the chamber. He seemed the same as before with his long narrow head, hawkish nose, black pelt of hair. His dark eyes glittered with malic
e and with that furious intellectual energy.

  He sat down on a chair, crossed his legs like a British lord and leaned back in his seat.

  “Logan,” he said, fingering a flat device. “I have been looking forward to this for quite some time.”

  He touched the middle of the device, and a shock jolted through the collar into me.

  As I jerked involuntarily in my chair, I realized this was the beginning of an interrogation.

  -18-

  “Kraaling Logan,” Lord Beran said in an easy manner, as he scratched his left cheek with the control device.

  I didn’t know what Kraaling meant, a type of rank maybe, but I couldn’t be sure. I could feel my eyes tracking the device in his hand. It took an effort of will to tear my gaze from it and still greater effort to keep from fingering the damned collar.

  Beran smirked. I felt he understood my distress, and I hated him for it.

  “I have given you a slight discomfort,” Beran said. “I have done so in order to demonstrate how the proceedings can go. It is not my wish to travel down that avenue, however.”

  At that point, I touched the collar. I did it as much to give myself a second to think as to see if I could wrench it off. I gave it a tug, to no positive effect.

  Was Beran toying with me, or did he just mean to talk? What would I lose playing along with the charade? If he’d shocked me to show me how much I wanted to avoid more shocking, the Antares dominie had succeeded. It didn’t take a genius to devise such a plan.

  I cleared my throat as I considered the right angle to play. I sat up, nodding as one gentleman to another, and said, “If you could remove this annoyance, sir, I would much appreciate it.”

  “I’m sure that’s so, and such an occurrence may transpire in the near future. But…”

  Beran set the control device on his lap before rubbing a long forefinger against his jaw. “There are a few matters we must discuss first.”

  “Ah,” I said, nodding as if I knew what he was getting at.

  “My first instinct was to treat you as a mere creature,” Beran said. “Yours is a lowly world, after all, with technologically and mentally retarded inhabitants. Your initial evasion of capture, however, impressed me. Yes, I was impressed, if dismayed, because I thought you’d committed suicide. I’d so wanted your…hmm, knowledge. Then, to discover that your leap had indeed been a masterful stroke to take you out of my jamming range—that was well done, Kraaling Logan.”

  I shrugged.

  “I see that you practice modesty, which the inhabitants of your backwater world take as a sign of good breeding. I do not hold to such a theory. I believe in strict honesty.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  Beran smiled indulgently. “I apprehend your quick wit. You do not rail at me. Rather, you are astonished that I treat you…hmm, not as an equal, but at least as a being that I can reason with. That removes you from mere creature status. Do you understand what I am saying?”

  “I do,” I said.

  He nodded, and seemed to hesitate, finally tilting his long head. “I have spoken with your…mate. Is that the correct word?”

  “We’re not formally married,” I said.

  Beran waved that aside. “I am uninterested in formalities. I deal in actualities. You hold her in sexual esteem, is that not so?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I note the drop in your tone of voice just now. You are showing displeasure at my words but in a measured manner. I applaud that, as it shows me that I am correct in assigning you intelligent status. I am still attempting to gauge the full range of your intellect. If it is high enough, it would be a crime against rationality and good breeding to apply the shock collar to you.”

  “Quite,” I said.

  “But I have not yet reached my final conclusion regarding you. I wonder if excessive training could…hmm, simulate intelligence.”

  “I don’t follow you,” I said.

  “I think you do, but we shall let that pass…for the moment.”

  I nodded.

  He chuckled. “You do try so hard, Kraaling. I suppose it is intimidating speaking to such a rarified intelligence as myself.”

  I thought he was an arrogant prick, and said, “Not at all,” in order to piss him off. I was getting tired of his airy attitude.

  My plan worked. His dark eyes glittered with malice, and he leaned minutely toward me. “The implication of your reaction, I suppose, is that you’ve spoken to rarified intelligences before.”

  “That’s true,” I said.

  Beran snapped his fingers and smiled, showing ultra-white teeth. “Yes, yes, we are approaching the heart of the matter. Tell me about these former intelligences.”

  I realized I’d slipped up. This was about Polarions. Rax had believed that, and I was beginning to think the crystal was right.

  “I am your guest,” I said. “It is only right that I treat my host with respect.”

  “To be precise,” Beran said, “you are my prisoner. Still, your idea concerning respect is correct. Please, proceed.”

  “There was a Starcore,” I said. “I’m uncertain if you know about it.”

  “Explain,” he said.

  I told him about the Rax Prime construct, fashioned long ago by a Polarion scientist. I noted how his eyes radiated greater intensity when I mentioned Polarions. Without a doubt, he was keenly interested in them.

  “What happened to this artificial intelligence?” he asked.

  “I destroyed it.”

  Beran froze. “You?” he said in a choked voice. “You’d have me believe that this cosmic creation faced final extinction due to your charisma?”

  “I’m unsure what you mean by charisma,” I said. “The Starcore perished due to my predatory skills. I am a warrior, a soldier in the cause of Earth.”

  Beran shook his head as if trying to shake out a foolish idea. He raised the control device, letting a lean thumb hover over the button. He looked at me in a questioning manner.

  “I can sniff out falsehoods,” he stated.

  “Let me propose an alternative theory,” I said, getting into the swing of his weird way of talking. “You have fixed beliefs. When reality conforms to your beliefs, you think events move in their proper channel. When reality confounds you by being other than you believe, you lose your composure and lash out in rage. For instance, you are about to angrily shock me because I have turned out to be more creative than you can accept.”

  “No,” he said in a brittle voice. “I am about to teach you the result of lies.”

  “If you press the button,” I said, “you will act against good breeding.”

  He showed his teeth in a feral grin and pressed the button.

  I moaned in agony, as the pain continued for a span of time. At last, the pain stopped.

  I found myself twisted on the floor, sweating profusely.

  “We will talk again,” Beran said in a strained voice. “I must consult…bah! I will not explain to one of your devious nature. Clearly, the Polarions have trained you in civilized decorum and rhetoric. You seek—”

  “It isn’t what I seek,” I said, swaying as I stood, having interrupted him. “It is what you seek.”

  Beran froze again, but thawed out faster this time. “What do you think I seek?” he asked, leaning toward me.

  “It’s clear.”

  “Speak!” he said. “I order it.”

  I wanted to tell him to go to Hell. I did not, because I didn’t want to get shocked again. I hated the training collar.

  “You seek the Polarions,” I said.

  He stared at me until finally a grim smile slid into place.

  “Sit down,” he said. “I thought a bath in the sensitizer would aid in the interrogation. The bath would have made you ten times as sensitive to pain as now. It is a wonderful tool in the training of creatures. However, I may have actually erred. This reasoning on your part, it seems to indicate intelligence status. Maybe I should remove the collar.”

  I
said nothing.

  “Oh, my,” he said. “Such restraint is most difficult to teach. If you are a creature, you must be at the top of the chart of animalism.”

  Still, I said nothing.

  “I seek more than the Polarions,” Beran told me. “You must think of them as deities. Am I right?”

  “No,” I said.

  Beran’s head swayed back. “Indeed. Is this another lie?”

  “The Polarions are too arrogant to be gods.”

  “Too arrogant…” Beran seemed to collapse against the chair. He bent his head in thought. Finally, he studied me. “What causes you to say they’re too arrogant?”

  I couldn’t figure out why Beran was so astonished by my words. Something cautioned me to say as little as I could. The collar reminded me I might not have much choice.

  “Come, come, Kraaling, quit stalling. It indicates subterfuge on your part.”

  “Polarions act and speak arrogantly,” I said. “Thus, they are arrogant.”

  Beran began blinking furiously. At last, he leaned back and roared with laughter. It was high-pitched and unpleasant. I had no idea what had him so delighted.

  The dominie wiped tears of mirth from his cheeks.

  “You are a marvel, Logan. Yes. You are intelligent. That is beyond doubt. That does not necessarily mean I will remove the collar. It does mean that shocking you is a criminal act. Sometimes, though, the ends justify the means. If I can—”

  He shook his head, and then he became urgent. “Did the…chief Polarion tell you his name?”

  I almost said no. At the last second, I said, “His name was Argon.”

  Beran exhaled sharply, stood and clapped his hands.

  The original cell door behind me opened. A Tosk peered in.

  “Take him,” Beran said. “Ready him for transport to Earth.”

  “Dominie,” I said.

  Beran had already turned toward a different exit. He paused, looking back at me.

  “Is Debby coming with us?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Your woman is at the…” He cocked his head. “She’s at the Saturn Station, as you would think of it. Perhaps you shall be reunited with her. First, though, you will show me where you met the Polarion Argon. Do you agree?”