by S. K. Holder
The sheer size of the creature made him reel in shock. He fell off the peg of rock on which he had been resting. He reached across with his free arm and tried to yank the lizard free. The lizard bashed him with its tail, winding him. He went for his laser gun and blasted a hole in the reptile’s tail. The shot sent the lizard into a frenzy. It opened its jaws.
Connor wasted no time leaping to his feet. The lizard hissed and its stringy tongue shot from its mouth. It stood on two legs. Its tail dropped off and another one grew in its place. The reptile came at him again and he took aim at the lizard’s head. His shot took most of the reptile’s head off leaving a burnt mass of scales on its neck. The head grew back. Without thinking, he shot at the lizard twice more. He realised his efforts were futile: the lizard self-healed quicker than a Citizen ever could. Another two lizards climbed out of the shallow lake. He cast his throwing net over one and took a shot at it as it writhed within the metallic threads, hissing and flailing its enormous tail.
He sprinted through an opening between the rocks. It was not the same one he had come through. He heard the lizards scampering through the dirt after him. He leaped up the rock face hoping to add some distance between himself and the lizard. He looked back to find the two lizards were loping after him, and they were closing in, sprinting on all fours. He dropped into a rock passage and found his way marred by toothed rocks and yawning breaks, which exposed a fast flowing river beneath.
A lizard thumped him in the back with its head, knocking him into the dirty river water. He seized a ledge of rock and furiously kicked his feet to stay afloat. He was in danger of being swept away by the fast flowing current. Unable to see away out and overcome with fear, he burst into tears.
The lizard’s tail coiled around his leg. Its claw stabbed his thigh. He squawked and raised his laser gun trying to aim it in the water with his free hand. Something jerked on his boot and the gun slipped from his hand. It fell into the water with a splash.
He heard the humming of a Varipod. Through his blurred vision, he glimpsed two of the airborne bikes flying over the rocky passage. One of the rider’s fired a laser gun into the water around him, freeing his legs. Another Varipod skimmed over his head. Its rider dismounted. It was Riv. She clutched his arms and dragged him from the water.
He crawled on his hands and knees, coughing and gasping.
Out of the water, the pain felt more intense. He crawled further away from the ledge, keen to get away from the river.
Riv looked past him, her laser gun trained on the river. She had a sullen look on her face. ‘You went off course Citizen,’ she said. ‘What happened? Did you run?’
Connor crouched down, brushing the tears from his face. He didn’t want Riv to see he’d been crying. ‘I got split up from Erard after destroying the nests,’ he said, not trusting her with the truth. ‘There’s a man at the bottom of the lake, Issturo. He wants us to teleport him out.’
‘That shelter’s out of bounds. If he got stuck there, it will be because of his own poor judgement. This is a war zone. He should have known better. If there is time after this battle is won, we can get help for him then. Assuming he survives of course.’
‘He’s a First Status Citizen. You have to help him.’ On Pyridian, Citizens were above Peltarcks; he had learned that much.
‘I see.’ She was about to speak into her transcom, when Connor remembered she was under Brett’s command. He slammed his fist into her leg, staggered to his feet and ripped the transcom from her ear.
Riv rubbed the spot on her leg where he had hit her. ‘Have you gone mad? What did you do that for?’
‘I don’t want Brett to know I got lost okay?’
‘I wouldn’t have told him. I was going to arrange the teleportation for your friend. How do you know he’s down there? You can’t see into the shelter from the surface of the lake.’
Connor swallowed, showing his guilt. He hadn’t thought of how to explain what he had seen. He had no recollection of travelling to the World of Dreams. He didn’t even remember nodding off to sleep. But if Issturo was down there, he had to do what he could to get him out. He would tell him everything he needed to know about his Gift.
She gazed at him, waiting for an answer.
‘I saw him fall in.’
She nodded an uneasy look on her face. ‘There’s a cargo ship leaving for Hiburild in half an hour. You can take it back to Swordul and ask them to teleport the Citizen from there.’
He remembered something else. ‘And I need to speak with Commander Garis Kyson.’
She snatched the transcom back from him. ‘I don’t know if that’s permissible, but I shall try.’
THIRTY-ONE
The fusion lights blinked on and just for a moment Skelos thought he was dreaming. The overpowering stench from his rancid garments told him it was not so. He squinted up at the flashing blue beacon above his head. He could hear its faint wailing sound through the cover of his casket.
He had woken in some form of bio-tank: a hyperbaric chamber, lined with a micro-fibre cushion for his comfort. Vastra lay in an identical tank next to him with his eyes closed. A white beacon glowed above his tank. His chest rose and fell and his breath misted the translucent cover.
Skelos called to him. The tank was sound-proof. His voice rebounded off the cover and was echoed back to him.
He used his gift to free himself. The tank’s cover slid away. He clambered out, taking his bag with him.
The noise from the beacon was deafening. Evidently, an alarm had been raised to signal some malfunction in his tank; he being the malfunction.
He stood on a platform, surrounded by row upon row of tanks. They had been arranged to form a circle. Each one had a white beacon twinkling above it. With the exception of the tank holding Vastra, all were vacant. Control desks with flat screens sat outside the ring of tanks.
With a little mental persuasion, he fried the three circuit cameras on the wall and door and hopped off the platform.
They had been teleported to another location within the planet.
He should have known. There was no technology known to Citizens that could teleport an individual or an object from one world to another.
He heard the patter of footsteps. He spun around in circles searching for cover. He saw a vent midway down the wall. He popped out the frame and climbed inside, expecting it to lead somewhere.
It was a tight fit to nowhere.
He hastily dragged the vent frame back into place.
A droid strode in. Skelos knew a machine disguised in human form when he saw it. Even through the vent slots, he could see the stiffness in the walk, the glazed eyes and the gossamer features. The droid had the face of a young male. Its dark hair framed its face. It wore a white laboratory jacket and trousers. It held an electronic data pad in its hand. It pointed at the flashing blue beacon above Skelos’s empty tank. The alarm ceased and the beacon turned white like the rest.
Skelos considered shutting down the droid. Unlike part-humanoids, androids were one hundred percent machinery beneath their synthetic skin, so were not a barrier to his Technopath gift. Before he could chance it, two humans strode in. One was a woman clad in a metallic-blue suit. Her red streaked hair had been dragged back in a bun; the other was a wiry man with rounded shoulders and winged eyebrows. He wore the same clothing as the droid and held a data pad of his own.
The wiry man spoke to the droid. ‘What happened, D12?’
The droid studied the woman in the blue suit for some time before speaking. It had no memory of her registered in its databank and could not detect her thoughts.
‘The alarm went off in slot 51,’ said D12. ‘But there is nothing here, and there is a species in slot 52 of whose arrival we did not have prior notification.’
‘Human?’ The wiry man enquired.
‘A variant of human,’ said D12. It consulted its data pad. ‘A ‘super’, originally from Odisiris. Gate Nine has been opened by a Benefactor. He has been selected for transit t
o planet Earth. Shall I prepare him?’
The man gave a rigid nod.
D12 tapped at a control unit at the base of Vastra’s tank. The tank slowly rose, tilting into an upright position.
‘Do you not smell that?’ The woman in blue made her way to Skelos’s tank. She laid her hand on the slight indent in the cushion that had cradled his creaking bones a short moment earlier.
Skelos could see no visible weapons on her. He knew the hexagonal design and the reflective fibres of a nano-suit when he saw one. Any weapons she had were built into the suit. Hardly a concern for him, but dire for her, if she were to challenge him.
‘It’s still warm,’ she said. ‘And there are fingerprints on the glass. Someone was here and they got out. I want the ship searched.’ She glared at the wiry man fidgeting with his data pad. ‘These are the details you missed Dumcus.’
Dumcus’s winged eyebrows were all of a quiver. His eyes darted to the empty tank and back to the woman in the suit. ‘No one has ever arrived on our ship fully conscious. The tank cannot unlock itself and the glass was not broken. I thought the purpose of your inspection Commander Trauss was to observe the process of planetary transfer first hand, not to seek out discrepancies. We both walked up the same corridor, did we not? I didn’t pass anyone, did you?’
Trauss gave a derisive grunt. ‘They could be hiding here as we speak. And if you think I came here merely to observe, you are mistaken. A number of our planetary benefactors have complained about expatriates being sent to the wrong planet. I was asked to look into it. I had a notion that I was wasting my time. A notion that you have dispelled within five hours of my boarding.’
Dumcus gave a throaty cackle and shook his head. ‘You’re looking in the wrong place. If expatriates are showing up on the wrong planet then you should consult the benefactors. And if they’re not expatriates, I recommend you consult the universe. Do you know how many ships there are in the galaxy? Do you not think there are other means that beings can find their way to other worlds that are beyond our control? Not a aliens pass through a rift on one of our deportation ships. We can’t control every vessel and planetary artefact in the galaxy, Commander Trauss. A gate is opened. They are teleported up. We give them a change of clothes to suit the planet to which they have been exiled. They believe they have instantaneously landed in a new world. The benefactors give us specific instructions regarding any alterations, memory wipes, new identities and so forth. The tanks are checked hourly. The expatriates are monitored; their breathing regulated. The only issue we had was with the intravenous feeds, which have now been repaired to safeguard against malnutrition.’
‘This tech can be hijacked,’ Trauss retorted, ‘and data falsified. Check the visuals.’
D12 scanned the fingerprints Skelos had left on the inside of the tank.
Skelos was so intrigued by the process he made no attempt to stop the droid. You didn’t think about how you arrived on another planet, just the horrors of what lay ahead. He had assumed that a ship had taken him to Narrigh. Though he had no memory of ever being on one. Now he knew why. They had made sure he was knocked out cold, that way he couldn’t take over the ship, that way he couldn’t see where he was going. He had no clue where the lands of Narrigh were located, whether they were in his own galaxy or outside of it. Vastra probably would have known but he hadn’t thought to ask him. Knowing wouldn’t have done him much good. You couldn’t reach another planet by boat or foot; a ship of some sort was a statutory requirement.
D12 marched over to a control desk.
Before the droid could hit a key, Skelos cut the control desk’s power.
‘This is most unusual,’ said D12 through barely parted lips. ‘The processor appears to have shut itself down.’
‘And you can’t get it back online?’ Trauss smirked. ‘You’re a machine aren’t you, you should be able to gain access.’
Ah, the instability of machines. Keen to protect his identity, Skelos shut the droid down.
D12 sat at the control desk as stiff as any dummy with its right hand raised.
Dumcus and Trauss shared a look.
‘You were saying?’ said Trauss. She spoke into the comms receiver attached to her right shoulder. ‘We have a code 8 alert. Search the ship. Seal all exits.’
Dumcus hastened to the droid. He clasped its stiff wrist as if feeling for a pulse he knew had never existed.
A combat soldier stalked in with shoulder length hair and a swarthy complexion.
Trauss snapped orders at him. ‘Seal the doors. Search the premises.’
‘You’re overreacting commander,’ said Dumcus, though is expression said otherwise. He had a haunted look on his face and his lips had developed a tremor.
‘Am I? After the fool-proof lecture you just beat me over the head with?’
Dumcus sighed. ‘It’s a minor power fail.’
‘There should be no minor power fails. Don’t you check the expatriates’ identities before you deport them?’
Dumcus fell silent.
‘I’ll take that as a no then shall I?’ said Trauss.
Skelos saw no mark on Dumcus’s head or the commander’s. It was an unsettling realisation to know that his fate lay in the hands of Unmarked Ones, a race that was not as distinct as he once thought. The lab jackets and droids took their orders from the Benefactors. Those who were teleported onto the ship did so on their instructions.
He deliberated over what planet these ‘handlers’ came from. He gazed at Vastra’s face from his slit through the vents. They would strip him of his clothes and change him as if he were a coma victim. The thought of them touching his bare skin made him shudder. The memory of his time on Narrigh came screaming back to him. He had met Unmarked Ones for whom he had harboured a meek admiration. But it didn’t matter what regard he held them in: they were not Citizens.
The Parliamentary Elite and the Planetary Board of Protection had elected to have him exiled. He had assumed they had voted. At least he would like to have thought so. The decision to have him exiled had little to do with the vice-chancellor. He knew Osaphar Kulane had a say in where he went since it was he who escorted him to the horrific planet of Narrigh, knowing of his gift and knowing his power would be lost there. Until now he thought such decisions were made by a Citizen and crafted by them. He now saw first-hand that this was not the case. Citizens would never allow an Unmarked One to control a Citizen, never mind handle them as if they were hunks of meat waiting to be garnished and transported.
The deportation ships were run by a different breed altogether.
Their search would have been swift and he would have soon been discovered, if he hadn’t scrambled the thermal monitor that the soldier wielded.
Dumcus threw the soldier an exasperated glance as she watched him peer into each unoccupied tank, evidently in search of an invisible man.
‘We’ll have to take the ship in,’ said Commander Trauss.
Dumcus grimaced and lowered his gaze. ‘I assure you nothing like this has ever happened before.’
‘Nor will it happen again,’ said Trauss. ‘I can assure you of that. From what I’ve seen, you carry out a smattering of inadequate checks. Direct contact with the benefactor is mandatory not advisable. You need to know that the correct subjects are being transported. Rely less on this sub-standard tech and use your initiative.’ She tapped Dumcus’s temple with her finger, making him cringe. ‘Your brain. And cease relying on droids. They’re more unstable than we are.’
Trauss glared at the soldier to whom she had given orders. He gazed around at the empty tanks with a glassy expression. It seemed that his idea of searching did not permit the use of his legs. The man had barely moved.
‘What are you doing officer Sufos?’ said Trauss.
Can they not see me or smell me? His stench may have been swept out of the vent in which he had concealed himself, but if the soldier came within a foot of his hiding place, he would have seen the shadow of a face, the huff of a breath.
<
br /> ‘There’s no one here,’ replied the officer. ‘There’s no place to hide other than the vents, which are all empty by the way.’ He stared at the ceiling. ‘If they entered the roof’s ventilation grids, they could be anywhere.’
‘That’s a pleasant thought to wash down my throat,’ said Trauss. ‘Let’s hope it’s a he or a she and not an it. They may have come through an old teleportation capsule without the knowledge of the benefactor or his or her advisors. Can you pinpoint exactly where and when the gate was opened?’
Dumcus nodded. ‘With the help of the hub’s quantum computer.’
They left. Dumcus glanced over at the control desk and then at Vastra’s sleeping form before following them out. The door hissed shut after them.
Skelos didn’t come out of his hiding place straight away. Not because he was afraid. He needed time to plan his next move. It dawned on him that he didn’t really have one. Commander Trauss said they were taking the ship in. He had no idea where it would take them. It looked as if a deportation to Earth was no longer an option. He didn’t know the deportation ship’s base. He did know that he didn’t want to go there. He imagined the vessel would take them into the Earth’s atmosphere and then it would teleport them off. The end point would be a control centre somewhere, from which a controller would have opened gate nine. There would be someone waiting for him at the other end. And they would arrive at the other end unconscious. He did not want his memory erased. He wondered how much of it they had wiped before. It was more than an injustice. It was a violation. It wouldn’t be wise to take the ship down. He had piloted a vessel or two in his youth with the aid of his gift but not one this size. He had one option, but he didn’t feel confident about it. No F.A.C.S. required. No one could know that he and Vastra were ever on the ship. If they were to discover the map...
He removed the vent, leaving his bag behind. He crept to Vastra’s tank. He opened the tank door, opened up his bag and took out the map of the other worlds. He discovered a small vial nestled in the canvas folds. He resealed the tank. He lifted the vial lid and gave it a sniff. He placed a drop on his tongue. He knew the taste of an invisibility potion having tried it before. It was half full. He swallowed its contents and slipped the empty vial in his robe.
