The Assassination of Billy Jeeling

by Brian Herbert

  He motioned anxiously. “Hurry, Father!”

  Billy rode his chair to the open tunnel, peered inside. He felt worried, sensed something was not right. A wave of panic passed through him.

  “What is it?” Devv asked.

  Suddenly, Billy cried out. To his horror, something silvery—it looked like a thick, viscous liquid—was pooling on the floor around his maglev chair. He couldn’t see where it was coming from, but it shone brightly and seemed to be surging out of the floor itself. It began to slide up the frame of the chair, on all sides.

  Devv and Lt. Costelli reached over to pull Billy from the chair....

  ~~~

  The silvery substance oozed up around Billy’s leg stumps, and over his entire body. It was wet and seemed to tingle his skin at first, and then became icy cold, painfully so.

  Devv and the lieutenant held on and tried desperately to pull Billy free. “You’re really cold,” Devv said. “What’s going on?”

  The substance was not interested in the robotic Jeeling at all, and used its collective consciousness and strength to surge toward Devv for an instant, knocking him down, and then Costelli as well, before completely covering Billy and his clothing. In horror, Billy looked down at his arms and hands. A strange, silvery sheen covered them, and he was getting even colder, as if he was being inundated by an ice storm. He shivered and shuddered, felt a wave of terror.

  Then Billy heard an eerie voice emerge from his own mouth as he yelled to the younger Jeeling, “There is nothing you can do! Go to your station, Devv, and command our defenses. That’s the priority, not me!”

  Devv and his companion were getting back on their feet.

  “Now!” Billy shouted. “And say nothing of what you have seen here! Not to anyone!” Curiously, Billy began to feel better inside, almost pleasantly so, despite a freezing stream of silver that continued to flow into his body. It was no longer uncomfortable, and seemed almost natural. Strange and new, but still natural.

  Devv turned away from his father and ran toward the tunnel, followed by the lieutenant. Billy watched his robot son pause, and look back at him. The Security Commander stood at a junction with the other officer, where a short tunnel led to a highlift. Billy waved them on....

  ~~~

  Devv couldn’t believe what was happening. First the security breach and military attack, and now this! His father’s entire body was covered in glowing silver, even his clothing, though as moments passed, the clothing gradually returned to normal. But all exposed surfaces of his skin, from his hands and arms to his face and hair, and even his eyes, were silver. He stared in dismay at the great man, wondered what horrendous thing was happening to him, and felt frustrated that he could do nothing to stop it.

  Billy lifted a hand, pointed at Devv. “Go!”

  The silvery sheen on Billy faded, and at first this gave Devv some hope that his father—Devv refused to stop thinking of him that way—was beating whatever it was. Then he saw Billy’s eyes were still silver and glowing much brighter, in a body that looked otherwise normal. The alien gaze focused on Devv, casting an eerie metallic glow over the meters of distance between them.

  Devv felt a chill of fear, and then a sudden compulsion, that he had no will of his own. He turned abruptly, and found himself running through the tunnel with Lt. Costelli, until they reached a highlift. They hurried inside, surged upward at high speed.

  Speaking rapidly during the ascent through the massive vessel, Costelli went through the list of onboard defenses that were out of commission... kinetic kill missiles, nuke packs, KK490 cannons, small-crew support craft... and at the mention of each, he described a problem and a pattern. All had been electronically disabled, right through every backup system.

  “Damn!” Devv said, after hearing this. “How about our assault ships?”

  “Dead in their hangars, sir, to the last one. Even your personal craft. All we have left with gamma cannons are police humbabies, but they’re no better than mosquitoes against the big force coming in. I assumed you’d want to use them anyway, so the humbabies are being set up for skirmish. You know the limitations they have, sir. We’re likely to lose every one of them outside Skyship.”

  “We’ll shoot back with popguns and water pistols if we have to!” Devv yelled. He heard the crackle of a security-force transmission over his mindwave implant. Enemy commando teams were attempting to board the great vessel at the main docks, where police security teams were defending. The attackers were making their second attempt to board, the first one having been thwarted by stiff resistance.

  On the roof level, the highlift doors opened and the pair hurried out, into the midst of human and robotic security and police officers, which now formed the heart of Skyship’s defense force.

  “Your ship is ready, sir,” one of the ‘bots said to Devv. It was a Lazarus-series model, a very human-looking female with dark skin. It pointed across the roof, where more than twenty humbabies were warming up, their engines revving and throbbing, but rotors not moving yet. He saw additional humbabies, and some of the more complex morph-babies, perched on top of other buildings, firing up their engines.

  On this rooftop, he recognized several reservists in the midst of security personnel, including Yürgen Zayeddi, who was boarding one of the humbabies, wearing a pilot’s headset. Although he was primarily involved in the PR program under the supervision of Lainey Forster, the young man had proven that he knew how to operate these specialized craft, having learned at the factory where he used to work. For this emergency, they needed all the pilots they could round up—even one whom Devv disliked personally.

  “Let’s go!” Devv shouted.

  He and Lt. Costelli hit the helipad at full tilt, leaped into their humbabies and sped toward the nearest egress tunnel that led out of the hull of Skyship, their rotors off and on auxiliary-power instead. Hundreds of humbabies and the few morph-babies from the rooftops converged on one side of the airborne city. Then, like swarms of insects, they shot out into the ozone layer of the stratosphere.

  With his headset on and a VR display flickering in front of him, Devv saw a large formation of attack craft speeding toward Skyship, leaving bright purple ion-engine trailings against the darkening bulk of AmEarth. The ominous formation swung to one side, surged forward, and before Devv could gather his thoughts the enemy ships were firing at his group... bright red lances of energy from their powerful gamma cannons.

  The defenders couldn’t shoot back yet, as they were beyond the effective range of their smaller cannons, so the pilots used control sticks to jink their aircraft away from hostile fire. On Devv’s left flank he saw Yürgen Zayeddi flying beside Lt. Costelli, each of them clearly visible through their side windows. Then a barrage of incoming fire hit Costelli’s craft, causing it to explode in a fireball, with fragments careening away. No chance of survival; he must have died instantly. Devv was sickened by this, and even more when he saw additional police humbabies explode in the distance.

  This defensive effort was suicide, but Devv and his security force couldn’t sit inside Skyship like cowards, while it was pummeled by attackers. Better to die courageously, right in the enemy’s face, taking out as many of them as possible. Who was this foe? Devv guessed it had something to do with General Rivington Moore, his tycoon ally, Jonathan Racker, and the Yhatt government.

  Assholes! he thought. He accelerated toward the attacking vessels and squeezed the joystick so hard that his fingers hurt, while watching red streaks of cannon fire come from his bow. Nearby his comrades surged forward with him, firing away. He saw Zayeddi’s craft take the lead and speed into danger, guns blazing. Several of the enemy craft exploded, but many more of Skyship’s vessels and pilots were lost, in smaller fireballs.

  Suddenly the sky in front of the police aircraft lit up in a series of blinding silver blasts and flashes. Many enemy ships in the formation exploded, and others veered off course. Moments later, the survivors of the attack squadron were hightailing it back to AmEarth. />
  Filled with the ferocity of combat, Devv fired away, even when he saw that the attackers were routed and out of range. He knew he hadn’t hit a thing, but some of the pilots had made kill-shots, including Zayeddi. Other than these few successes, Devv had seen very little return fire from Skyship, and many human pilots had been lost. In all, the firepower of the defenders had not been enough to route a fleet like that.

  But something else had been involved, something silver.

  Computerized damage reports came in over his mindwave implant. Nine casualties including Lt. Costelli. Skyship hadn’t sustained anything more than a few glancing blows, and was safe. For the time being.

  Devv’s headset vibrated with the resounding cheers of his valiant officers and reservists, but he didn’t join in the celebration. He was too immersed in thought.

  CHAPTER 30

  Some things can never be explained or even vaguely understood.

  The universe keeps its secrets.

  —Excerpt from Doctrine of the Stars, one of the greatest of all philo-scientific treatises

  It had been unlike any other day in his life.

  This evening Billy felt different as he sat in his office, removed from the time and place he once thought he occupied, detached from all he had known before, and connected to something else entirely, something so strange that he could hardly put it into words. He felt cold energy stirring around inside, traveling back and forth through his arteries and cellular structures, causing his heart to beat faster and his breath to come in short gasps. He tried to calm himself, then heard a familiar rapping pattern at the door.

  Taking a moment, Billy called out permission to enter. Starbot strode in, making hardly a sound with his mechanical body, followed by Dr. Rachel Ginsberg. She caught Billy’s gaze immediately as she entered, looked startled and came to a dead stop just inside the door. Starbot must have told her something when he gave her Billy’s order to come. But whatever he told her, it was apparently not enough, because she just stared at him with an expression of shock and fear, upon seeing his glistening silver eyes.

  For a moment, Billy didn’t know if she would continue toward him or flee. He tried to soften his steely gaze, and said in the most calm voice he could muster, “I’m sorry if I am not entirely presentable, my good friend, but as you can see, I have experienced something highly unusual. An affliction of sorts, so I thought I should consult a doctor.”

  She smiled, but couldn’t conceal her nervousness as she took a tentative step toward him, then another, and another. “How are you feeling?” she asked.

  “All things considered, you mean?”

  “Of course. All things considered. Are you in any pain?” Rachel touched his forehead. “You feel quite cold.”

  He became aware of the creatures going faster inside, flitting this way and that, making him even colder. Apparently they didn’t like anyone touching him.

  “Something alien has entered my body.” Billy placed an open hand on his chest. “It is inside here and everywhere, many tiny creatures, I think, but they form a collective entity.”

  The doctor put an instrument over his heart, listened to the wireless signal from the device, then placed it on his lungs as he breathed. “From a cardiovascular standpoint you seem agitated,” she said. “And why are you so cold?”

  “You’d be agitated, too, if you’d been invaded by aliens and your eyes had turned silver.”

  She frowned. “I suppose I would.”

  “And as for the coldness, I don’t know why. It started when they surged into my body, like something that had come from far away, bringing a piece of deep space with them.”

  She was taking his temperature now, with another instrument placed against his temple. “Seventy-one point three degrees,” she said. “Impossible. You should be dead.”

  “But I’m not, am I?”

  Rachel brought out an eye chart, propped it up on a table across the room. After a few minutes of her questions and his responses, she looked at him and said, “Your eyesight is perfectly normal, twenty-twenty. None of the slight far-sightedness you had before. No short-sightedness, either.” She performed additional tests, and finally said, “You have no astigmatism, glaucoma, or any other problem I can determine—except both of your eyes are gleaming silver, with no differentiation between pupil and cornea—and you’re as cold as a corpse.”

  Billy nodded. “It’s beyond known medicine, then.” He motioned with one hand. “You can go now. Thank you.”

  “Are you going to be all right?”

  “I don’t know. I think so, but I can’t be sure, can I?”

  “Isn’t there something more I can do for you?”

  He smiled thinly, said in a mocking tone, “Do you have a special pill for this sort of thing? Or an injection? How about a healing patch?”

  Dr. Ginsberg backed toward the door, appeared to be near tears.

  “I’m sorry,” Billy said. “You didn’t deserve that. I know you’re trying to be helpful, but I think you’ve done all you can, all anyone can.”

  Rachel nodded and left, followed by Starbot. Just before the robot shut the door, Billy heard her let out a sob in the corridor, as if he had died.

  CHAPTER 31

  When a motivated person awakens in the morning, he has things in mind for the day, and sets about accomplishing them. But such lists, whether loosely formed or more formal, always omit something—the factor that Chaos brings to the table. No plan can ever take Chaos into account.

  —E. Bert Rhinbar, from his “Wandering Philosophies”

  In full dress uniform, with gilded epaulets, glittering ribbons, and gold stars, General Rivington Moore VIII paced the reception area of the exclusive officer’s club, waiting impatiently for Jonathan Racker and Maureen Stuart to arrive. It was evening, and he’d demanded to see both of them here on the military base, saying he didn’t have the time or inclination to meet them anywhere else. The club was on the top floor of a structure that had been built in the style of a medieval tower, with turrets and fluttering banners—and one-way windows that looked like castle rock from the outside but provided broad defensive views from the inside. There wasn’t much of a view from this level tonight, though, because fog had moved in over the capital city.

  He heard the conversational murmur of officers and their guests in the main dining room, which was around half full. A Major and his lady passed by and entered the room, giving the proper acknowledgement of Moore’s superior rank as they did so. The General didn’t care who saw him out here, pacing and waiting. He did whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, wherever he wanted.

  His officer’s cap sat on an ornate antique table, beside a glass of single malt scotch. Moore had taken one sip of the drink, and it had not settled well in his stomach. He heard his innards growling—not from hunger, but from how upset he was. His gut did that at times when he was feeling great stress, and this was one of those times.

  The powerful old industrialist had been sending him relentless messages demanding a meeting, and now that Moore had agreed to one, Racker and that attorney were twenty-two minutes late. He would wait another eight minutes, and then would cancel the meeting.

  He took another sip of the rare and expensive single malt, and this time it went down better. The chunk of ice in the glass had melted a little, watering down the liquor, making it less strong. It was about right now, and he took one more sip before putting the glass down again, remembering how he and his father had celebrated his twenty-first birthday in this very club, sharing the same brand of fine, aged scotch. He’d also shared the drink with his favorite officers on many occasions. Something about single malt—especially this honored label—increased camaraderie; he didn’t know what it was, because other drinks could make a person feel relaxed, too. But this scotch was a rung or two above anything else. Maybe it had something to do with the tradition of the drink, the long history of the distillery in Scotland and the family that had run the operation for hundreds of years. />
  General Moore liked to think in terms of family tradition—in his case, one of military service and the attainment of power. He was not the first in his family to think in such terms, not the first to wear a uniform in dedicated military service. His father and four of his grandfathers had all served bravely as officers of the Empire, in glorious battles and hard-won victories, bringing the great lifestyles and traditions of the AmEarth Empire to the backward peoples of the world. The lives of all people were better under the dominion of the Imperial City and the Empire. He was one of five children, and his sister and three brothers were all in military service, as officers.

  He stared at an elaborately carved wooden door at the entrance to the club, with its intricate golden designs and coat of arms—a door that had been brought over from a Europaean castle his family still owned. Moore descended from a long line of overseas nobles, men who in past centuries had given their lives in military service to king and country. Their photographs were displayed prominently on the walls of the club, along with those of other decorated military heroes.

  Moore was the youngest in his family to attain the rank of General, and the second to be awarded the maximum of ten stars, after the precedent set by his great grandfather, Rivington Moore V, one of the foremost heroes in the history of the Imperial Empire. But the current General Moore had achieved the rank at a younger age, beating his great grandfather by two years and four months. He was only thirty-six now, having attained command of the army three years ago. He was proud of his achievements, but wanted a great deal more, for himself and for his family. He had attained his rank in a pax imperium, a time of relative peace throughout the Empire, and of only a few minor rebellions—with no opportunities for the glory his ancestors had attained. So, he’d seen the need to get what he wanted in a different way.