The Omcri Matrix

by Deborah Chester

  And yet he was a Ranger, a member of that band of heroes she had worshiped all her life. The Rangers were one of the few elite branches of the Fleet to maintain a tradition of complete integrity. No one fought harder, upheld law and honor more, or stood more firmly in a place of respect. He should be an authority she could look to for help, like Commander Janal. Only Janal had tarnished, too. If his search sleds found her now, she doubted she would ever reach Beros alive.

  She paused in the rustling darkness to find her bearings. A sawtooth sliced her cheek, and she flinched, lifting a hand at once to wipe the blood away. She must move quickly back to camp and get herself inside the beams of the sonic protector before predators caught the scent of fresh blood and made quarry of her.

  The dim flicker of a glowlight shone out for a moment, then winked off. Costa drew in a grateful breath and moved toward it. The major must be hungry, she thought as she pulled on her tunic and belted it with a yank. Thus far, they had traveled together in an unspoken truce. But she was not sure how much longer it would last.

  “If you go back to Beros you’re a fool,” he had said on the first day of their journey. He took the medikit from her and rummaged through its small supply of drugs and bandages. “No, I think I am better informed on what injections I should have than you.”

  “Very well. Cure yourself. I am unskilled in medic lore. I have done nothing but keep you alive for the past five days.”

  He looked up at her, his eyes intensely blue and far from grateful. “You should have slit my throat and headed out of here at first light.”

  “Murder a Ranger?” She stared at him in shock.

  “I see the inhabitants of Playworld are reared with a strict sense of morality.” His lips quirked slightly. “Left me in the other tree, then, for the searchers to find. You could be far away from here.”

  It angered her to be thought so ruthless, yet at the same time she wished she had been. “Do not judge others by your standards, Ranger. You have answers I want. Why should I go until I have them?”

  “You can’t squat here in a tree forever. Where’s the next city away from Beros?”

  She shook her head, smiling a little at his ignorance. “Beros is the city. Everything else is little towns or village clusters or agricultural stations. Playworld has less than three million inhabitants. The rest are tourists.”

  He mouthed a curse. “There are no other spaceports? No other communication centers?”

  “Playworld was not organized with a back door according to military specifications. People come here to enjoy themselves.” She watched exasperation chase across his hawkish face. “No, Major, I will aim for the coast. I have friends there—”

  “Like your commander?”

  “No.” Bitterness welled up in her eyes. “Better. I hope.”

  “And then?”

  “And then I get my squad together and I go after the Kublai. It’s the only way to clear myself.” She paused to swallow the roughness from her voice and glared at him. “And you? You aren’t my prisoner. Now that you can walk, you’re free to go in any direction.”

  He shrugged, his eyes gleaming like the blue agate beach pebbles found on Maulau Island. “I’m not a fool, Lieutenant. You know the jungle, and I don’t.”

  Costa blinked against the darkness, letting the memory of that conversation fade from her mind. In the morning the sea spray would strike them in the face. None of her expectations of time overcoming his curt hostility had been fulfilled. Her hand brushed against the empty net hanging from her belt, and she grimaced, not looking forward to sitting in hungry silence in the darkness until it came time to sleep with her cutter in her hand. The ration packets were long since expended, and hunger was dulling her sense of alertness.

  She moved cautiously, freezing as the light flicked on again. As soon as it vanished, she lowered herself quietly down a vine. She had his scent in her nostrils now and she made a stealthy way through the undergrowth, her wrist held hard by her strifer. When she judged herself close enough, she braced her feet and waited with two eyelids snapped firmly down.

  The light came on a third time, shining right in her face as she stood less than a meter from him. He jumped to his feet with an oath, reaching for his belt. Costa dived into the undergrowth and rolled. But he held his fire.

  “Lieutenant?” His voice held a mixture of exasperation and relief.

  She stood up slowly, brushing crushed leaves from her clothes. “Fool. I told you to wait in the trees. Always get in the trees when darkness comes.” She jerked her hand in a gesture. “Up!”

  He made no movement, remaining a black shadow behind the light which would have blinded her had she not kept two eyelids down. “Your face is bleeding.”

  She frowned, surprised by this small sign of concern. “A scratch. But when the kicats come to lick it we had both better be high out of reach. Climb, Major!”

  “I tried to earlier and fell. I think I have damaged myself.”

  “Mercy of Moii! How badly?” she asked, pushing her way out of the bush to stride up to him.

  He shifted his weight behind the light, hopping a little as though he favored an ankle. She bent, then screamed with rage as he sprang and she realized, too late, that the hop was a prelude to a kaisin kick. Had his heel connected with her jaw, the force of contact would have snapped her neck. She threw herself up ahead of the blow, grunting as his foot glanced off her chest and took half her wind with it. Her mind raced as she dodged once more. Were he any other opponent, she would go straight in like a fierce slum fighter, aiming for his barely healed side. But she dared not risk getting within his reach. She scrambled back to gain herself a second of time, and flicked out the blades of her cutter.

  He tackled her, driving her to the ground before she could throw. She twisted desperately so as not to land completely beneath his weight and then squirmed like a wild thing, chopping at his face in an effort to break free. The glowlight lay on the ground in the midst of their struggle, jostled light bouncing crazily off the fleshy, well-glossed leaves. He threw himself across her, grunting as her knee drove into his ribs, and pinned her arms to the ground.

  The pressure of his grip on her poisoned arm shot a white lance of agony through her. She screamed, her body arching with the pain, and saw again the Omcri enfolding itself about her, smothering her with cold, the seared, frosted breath flowing into her lungs, the alien mind probing her thoughts.

  “Omcri!” she screamed, her eyes blazing sightlessly in their sockets. “Iy ket! Iy ket!”

  Only dimly did she perceive the Ranger rolling off of her. He shouted something she could not hear and yanked her up by the arms, shaking her. The pain lanced through her again, worse this time. A thousand times worse. She blacked out.

  Awakening was slow and painful. Costa opened her eyes to the gray light of dawn and found herself sitting upright in the fork of a spindly tree, lashed to the main trunk with her own line. Without thought she jerked against her bonds, and nearly toppled out as they loosened.

  “Easy!”

  Twigs snapped overhead and the whole tree shook as he climbed awkwardly down and balanced himself on a limb at her eye level. Pressing a hand to his side, and holding gingerly onto a sawtooth vine with the other, he frowned at her.

  “Lieutenant?” His voice boomed at her, making her wince. “Costa?”

  She turned her head away, shutting her eyes as the world spun. “Kill,” she mumbled. A rope burn smarted across her shoulder. She opened one eye and saw fuzzily that she wore only her singlet, breeches, and boots. Her belt, weapons, and tunic were gone. She stiffened, snapping to half-alertness. “You! Take my out…Comer worse. Kill me no why?” She shook her head, dimly aware she was making no sense. Her tongue seemed like glue in her mouth.

  “It’s just reaction to droxyhyazine,” he said, balancing precariously. He grasped her chin and tilted her head back to force something into her mouth. “Chew, Costa. Chew!”

  He rattled her jaw until she slowly
got the idea. The substance was rubbery, wet, and foul tasting. Abruptly she jerked her head free and spat it out.

  “Raw carpal! Moii!” For a moment she thought she would vomit, then her stomach settled down and she sent the Ranger a bleary look.

  “That’s better. The next injection won’t be so bad. As soon as you think you’re over being dizzy, I’ll untie you.”

  Costa frowned, more bewildered than ever. “You tried to kill me.”

  “Yes.” He stood up on his branch and fished down her pack from an upper limb.

  “But you did not finish.”

  “No.” He took the waterskin she had fashioned from a mextle hide out of the pack and splashed some of the stale contents into the cup. “This will help.”

  She meant to refuse, but thirst won out. She gulped eagerly when he held the battered cup to her lips and did not care about the brackish taste of the water.

  “Why?”

  He poured himself the last of the water and threw the emptied skin back in the pack. “Why I tried to kill you, or why I did not finish doing so?”

  “Both.”

  “When you went off to hunt, I noticed some carpals flying in with prey obviously taken from the water. The jungle doesn’t produce webbed appendages, does it? No. Since we have reached the coast, I no longer need you to stay alive.”

  “I have done nothing to make you my enemy,” she said, unable to keep bitterness from her voice. “I could have let you die!”

  “Sentiment has a poor place in the field. You represented a breach of security. I do not want my presence known on this planet.”

  “Then you might have asked me not to relay it,” she said stonily. “In my culture, a warrior is repaid for saving a life.”

  “Rangers are not permitted the luxury of customs.”

  “I did not know this. I thought a Ranger was always someone to admire. Well, go on. Cut off my braid and kill me while I am helpless.”

  “You have become valuable.”

  “What?” She stared at him, startled by his eagerness.

  “You should have told me immediately about your arm.”

  Involuntarily she tried to draw it closer to her and could not for being tied. “It will heal soon,” she said, trying to convince herself as well as him. “My injuries always do. Besides, you gave me no reason to think you would be sympathetic.”

  “Little fool! Don’t you realize you are a link to them now? You can lead me right to…” He broke off, a muscle leaping in his jaw as anger warmed her eyes to bright amber. “Droxyhyazine slows down the progress of the poison,” he said more slowly, “although by now the stuff will have spread all through your nervous system. They have no current use for you, or else you’d have been summoned. But the drug will protect you to some extent.”

  She began to shake. “You mean…I am one of them now, a slave to those faceless things?”

  “Easy.” He touched her shoulder. “Look at your arm.”

  “No!”

  “Costa, look.”

  Reluctantly she obeyed, and blinked. The puffiness had gone down, and the black ring had faded to a faint mark. For the first time she knew hope. “The drug did this? Will it cure me?”

  “No.” He sighed. “I’m not sure there is a cure, but you’ll have the benefit of the Settle labs when we’re through.”

  “Through with what? Explain,” she said sharply, although something told her she did not want to hear.

  His cynical blue eyes met hers with unexpected kindness.

  “We know the Omcris are not of our galaxy, perhaps not of our universe. Look, slinny, Omcris are much more plentiful than they used to be. Mischief around the galaxy has always found them somehow involved. But now major disturbances have been happening in too many hot corners without warning, when political monitors should have been able to post signs of potential trouble. And if you dig long enough and hard enough, there is always an Omcri worm at the root of it. They are no longer mere couriers and assassins for hire; they’re part of something much more serious. A few men, mostly in my division, believe these creatures are the vanguard to an invasion; unfortunately we’re in the minority. I, for one, don’t intend to wait for the axe to fall before I act. So if they are coming in through some avenue the Kanta cults have opened up, I mean to do all I can to plug it.”

  She frowned, trying to fit it all together. “The Kublai meant to offer you to Kanta.”

  The lines bracketing the major’s lean mouth deepened as he smiled. “Obviously I probed a nerve in my investigation.”

  “Obviously you were also caught.”

  He ignored her. “Drugh is always a problem. They thrive on intrigue and delight in causing political turmoil throughout the Commonwealth. The fact that they are placed in a key area only makes them worse. His Supreme Glory is a fool. If he had any inkling of what he is toying with—”

  “Do you?”

  “No.” He dropped his gaze from hers in sudden discomfiture, and she knew he was lying. She realized also that behind the curtness he was afraid.

  An orph bellowed nearby, and she jumped.

  “Tell me what you know about the cult here,” he said.

  “Kanta is…” She searched for the word. “Primitive. Only people like the Ishuts believe in blood sacrifice and possession—” She broke off in embarrassment, her eyes dropping to the mark on her arm.

  “Primitive means are sometimes the most successful,” he said grimly.

  She swallowed hard. “Recently a team of socio-religiologists applied for a permit to establish an archive of primitive religions on this continent. The Directors granted the permit because they have been accused of running too frivolous a world—as though a recreational planet could be anything else. Consequently the Archives were set up in the name of expanding culture. Visitors are to be permitted to go there and do research by next year.”

  “By next year there may not be a Playworld. There may not be anything.”

  “But what will the Omcris do? What do they want? What does the thing they serve want?”

  He shook his head bleakly.

  She shivered, and the stoniness faded from his eyes. He crouched beside her.

  “Costa,” he said. “We know how the Omcris recruit people to their side. They either infect them with a chemical substance we call poison, for want of a more specific term, or they possess their souls. The latter are beyond all help or independence. You are the first we’ve found infected but not directly under active control. Do you understand? Through you we can trace their—”

  “No!” she said sharply. “No, I will not trust you. You have done nothing but lie, and evade, and scheme to kill me since I rescued you. How do I know you are telling me the truth? How do I know you are not really the one under their control? How do I know that you are even a Ranger? The Mah Bessam al-zk wore a uniform like yours, but he was not—”

  “My name is Haufren,” he said, looking at her intently. “Does that mean anything to you?”

  She caught her breath. “Haufren. But—” Of course it meant something to her! How could she, who had spent so many years longing to be a Ranger, not know about its founding officer, the legendary Haufren who had led so many successful raids and pulled off more daring exploits than anyone could count? Why, there were visuals in holograph booths in the amusement parks which did nothing but play the “Adventures of Major Haufren” series for children. But if this man were indeed the Haufren…

  She blinked in sudden anger. “Liar! Now you wish me to believe you are centuries old! You—”

  “No.” His gaze never wavered from hers. “Actually I am Haufren IV, but the traditions of previous generations continue unchanged.”

  “Oh, how can I trust you?” she demanded fretfully. “How can I know?”

  He said nothing as he met her searching gaze squarely. The threat of death no longer radiated from his eyes, and perhaps that was all the truth she could find. She was conscious of an involuntary surge of relief, and hated herself for
it.

  “Very well,” she said softly and shut her eyes. “I take it I have been commandeered, just like a deton-bomb you might need for your arsenal?”

  “Exactly so.” He untied her. “You may not like the idea, Lieutenant, but you just became an auxiliary member of the corps. Please consider yourself under my command.”

  Her heart leapt at those words, and for a moment it was possible to forget that he had tried to kill her. “Sir!” she said faintly.

  “You mentioned a squad. How many, and is their loyalty to you or Janal?”

  She accepted the coiled line he handed her and shakily pulled herself upright. The drug made her sluggish; she felt as though she had no reflexes at all. The strengthening light pained her eyes and she snapped down an eyelid to compensate, but it helped little.

  “Two I can trust. The rest are unknown factors now. We’ll find Duval. His sieghr is on Lilliput, not far from here.”

  “We’ll move out as soon as you’re able.”

  She sent him a bleak look. “If you had told me this at the start, we need not have become enemies.”

  Whatever slight warmth had been in his face dropped away. “We are not friends now, Lieutenant. Let’s go.”

  Chapter Six

  “We’ll have to steal a skimmer,” said Costa, wiping the spray from her face as they crouched behind a salt-encrusted pillar near the water’s edge.

  The sea boomed and crashed along the breakers, making stealth of little importance. About fifty meters away, uniformed guides were marshaling adults and children into lines stretching out from a central ticket bunker. Costa squinted against another lash of spray, trying to see past the throng of squealing children armed with short diglet rakes and rented baskets to the installation beyond where skimmers and other small water craft were moored. It did not look guarded by even the usual Dhurrie sentry. But then the crowd was heavier than usual for this early in the morning, and the guides looked understaffed and harried. She frowned, not certain she wanted to try to take a skimmer in plain sight of a full quota of tourists. And if the guides moved to stop her, could she fire on them? Unhappily she crouched back behind the pillar.