The Kursas

by George Willson

  “We told you the truth,” Perry said. “We only just arrived.”

  “Then why did the narans attempt to rescue you, and how did you get free?” Pyrhinia demanded.

  “That was not a rescue,” Perry said. “That was a coincidence.”

  “I have no time for your word games,” Pyrhinia said. “We have already conducted an assault on one of the holding places where you had stored our property, but that which we desired was not there. It is only a matter of time before we have it again, so there is no reason to continue this charade.”

  “If you will have it soon enough, then why not release us?” Perry asked.

  “Because you still hold value due to the arrival of your ship,” Pyrhinia said.

  “Then release her,” Perry said.

  “She is a naran,” Pyrhinia said. “She holds no value at all.”

  “She holds value for me,” Perry said. “You need to keep her alive, or I won’t cooperate.” Perry knew this gambit was a long shot, but he knew he had to try to save her life. She was dead if he did nothing, so if it did not work, he would at least have the solace of having tried.

  “Indeed?” Pyrhinia said. “You are not of this world, and yet you hold this naran as someone of value?”

  “I have traveled to many planets, and I have learned that all life has value.”

  “I have also traveled to many planets, and I know that life is so plentiful that it can be replaced as easily as it can be erased.”

  Pyrhinia glanced at Halera, and a spike shot through one of her shoulders. She screamed in agony as blood ran from her wound, soaking her clothes.

  “Life, yes, but not the person,” Perry begged. “I didn’t use to place value on life, not even my own, but I learned that every individual has their own unique personality that can never be replaced. Life goes on, and even faces and bodies can replicate, but the experience and personality of the person are irreplaceable. All of us are unique, Highmark. You, me, your soldiers, and this girl, Halera. None of us can be so easily replaced.”

  “I am not interested in replacing any of you,” Pyrhinia said, and she fired a spike through Halera’s other shoulder. “What I am interested in is information. I don’t care about how unique you think any of us are. The information in your mind, however, cannot be accessed in any way except through your cooperation. Therefore, if you find this female to be of value somehow, then you will tell me what you know.”

  “She’ll die if you keep poking holes in her.”

  “We won’t let her die.”

  “Won’t let her?”

  “I assure you that we can heal her very easily, but speak quickly. If you do not, then we will take her to the point of death, fully heal her and then torture her again until you do. The question will become how much pain she can take before she hates you for not telling me something she doesn’t even care about.”

  “How?”

  “Not your business,” Pyrhinia said as the metal formed spiked fingers around Halera’s arms and legs stopping just short of breaking the skin. “What you need to worry about is our ability to prolong her pain beyond your ability to tell us nothing.”

  “Ok,” Perry said, and he thought quickly, recalling Blake’s story and pooling his best sci-fi knowledge. “As my commander told you, we are from another world.”

  “Tell me something I can use,” Pyrhinia said as one of the spiked fingers dug into Halera’s arm, and she whimpered again. “I know you are not from this world.”

  “Please stop hurting her.”

  “No.”

  “All right,” Perry continued with desperation in his voice. “Our ship entered orbit and used a matter transporter that allowed us to arrive next to that relic of a ship. We detected it from orbit and wanted to explore the planet anyway, so we thought it would be an interesting place to start. Our base rule, however, in any exploration is that fact that if we are killed while here, our ship does not return. We all have implants that transmit our life signs to the ship continuously, and if they are interrupted, the planet is considered hostile, and our bodies are left here.”

  “You have superior technology, though,” Pyrhinia said. “Why not return and destroy these people?”

  “We are not conquerors, and we have a noninterference directive,” Perry said. “We let people develop at their own pace and stay out of it unless they are technologically even with us.”

  “But surely you knew we were here,” Pyrhinia said. “You do not consider us technological equals?”

  “We were able to distinguish your ship as out of place, and we knew your species was different through our sensors as well,” Perry explained. “Part of our directive was to determine your place here, and how you fit into this culture. Turns out you don’t belong here at all.”

  Pyrhinia’s expression, or what Perry could decipher about her face, had changed while Perry was talking. In his travels, he had learned that it took time to get used to other species and that they did look alike to him at the beginning, but having spoken to this Kursas for awhile, he was getting used to her expressions. While he did not know what she was thinking or what this new expression meant, he was able to pick up on its change.

  She turned to one of her attendants and said something in the Kursas language which the Maze was still not translating for him. He turned to look at Halera, and she was unconscious with blood streaming from her wounds. He worried that she might be dead from the blood loss and that Pyrhinia had lied over their ability to continuously heal her. As he watched her, however, he saw her take a labored breath, so there was some measure of hope as long as they helped her quickly.

  The Kursas that Pyrhinia had spoken to left briefly before returning with a small device that Pyrhinia tapped on. She looked from Perry to Halera and then back at her device. He believed he saw her smile.

  “It seems you have been at least moderately helpful,” Pyrhinia said.

  “Dare I ask how?” Perry asked.

  “When you mentioned our physiology being different from the primitives here, I dismissed it as another obvious statement before it reminded me that you are distinct from these people as well,” she explained.

  “What of it?” Perry asked.

  “Our ship is as capable of scanning a planet as yours with your matter transporter,” she continued. “We can set our equipment to find your species on Zago meaning I can locate the other two members of your party very easily.”

  “Why does that even matter?” Perry asked. “We’ve basically told you that as long as you don’t hurt us, our ship will return. You’ve already said you’ll ambush it when it does.”

  “And you have already established this matter transporter which can allow you to leave without any planetary interaction,” Pyrhinia countered. “How am I to know the range of this device? We can put a patrol up there, but without knowing when you disappear, we won’t find out when it is close.”

  “But you already have me,” Perry said. “Isn’t that enough? You know we can’t tell you how our technology works.”

  “I think your commander knows more than he said,” Pyrhinia said. “You managed to defeat the bars of your cell before you escaped. I want to know how. I also want to know how you opened the door to the bridge of that old ship which had been sealed. The command deck of a crashed Kursas ship is inaccessible to anyone without the proper codes, and yet, before we could acquire them from our high command, you three gained access. Those are significant unanswered questions for me, and I have gathered that you are not the one to answer them. Your commander carries with him some kind of technology that allows unlimited access to locked doors and can disrupt the signal for our malleable metal. It seems we should have had him empty his pockets for us, but we had no idea this sort of technology existed. As such, I would like to find him.”

  She turned to the two Kursas with her and said something to them. The wall unexpectedly released both him and Halera causing them to slump to the floor. Perry crawled to Halera’s still, bloody form,
but one of the Kursas yanked him to his feet before he could get a look at her.

  “Wait!” he pleaded. “Is she going to be all right?”

  “Not your business,” Pyrhinia said.

  Another Kursas lifted Halera from the floor, but Perry was unable to see where she was taken. They dragged him through the ship back to the holding area where he was left and bars quickly formed from the floors and ceiling around him leaving him back where he started.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Blake, Michelle, and Darvin walked behind Retinda through the sewer system guided only by her single light. It had been silent the entire time with no sound of pursuit behind them, which they took to mean that they had escaped successfully.

  “Do you think it’s odd that the Kursas just happened to attack that base just as we arrived?” Michelle asked. “I mean, sure, they have the scanner and all, but it’s awfully coincidental.”

  “Yes, I considered that,” Blake said. “I suppose it’s worth noting that we’re also a unique commodity on this world.”

  “Explain,” Darvin said, as Blake expected he would.

  “We might be pretty actively pursued as we track this thing down if the Kursas are able to scan this world for us,” Blake said. “After all, we aren’t from here, and Pyrhinia scanned us on the ship to verify that. If they kept those readings, then they might be able to simply scan for our species and follow.”

  “Can I hope for the crates?” Michelle asked.

  “I was actually hoping they just followed the vehicles and reported back,” Blake said.

  “I like that as well,” Michelle agreed.

  They spotted hints of light ahead of them and had to duck to walk through a rounded tunnel that was only about five feet in height to reach their exit. The rounded pipe emptied at ground level from the sewer system.

  “I would have expected a manhole or something,” Michelle said.

  “Those are the other direction behind locked grates,” Retinda explained. “This emergency exit is straight through to the outside. What keeps people from finding it is simply the distance and darkness. No one knows it’s there, so no one looks for it.”

  “Simplicity is sometimes the best solution,” Blake noted.

  “So now what?” Michelle asked.

  “We’ve established the crate metal as unique,” Blake said, “but we’ve also found that the Kursas are able to search for it as well. Wherever the missing one is, they’ve undoubtedly found it.”

  “You’re right,” Retinda said as she returned a communicator to her belt. “Citizens reported the Kursas had explored a suburb of the city out east. Reconnaissance after their departure revealed our missing crate, but it was empty.”

  “Whoever took the item has removed it from its carrier,” Blake said.

  “Apparently,” Retinda agreed.

  “Where did they find it?” Blake asked.

  “Public trash receptacle,” Retinda replied. “Whoever it was just tossed it out.”

  “Do you have a list of workers who live in that area?” Michelle asked.

  “We actually had already been working that angle,” Retinda said. She pulled a tablet from one of her pockets, which had a small keyboard just beneath a screen along with a directional control. “We had been narrowing down a list of people who would have had access to take the crate and if we further condense it to those in that area of town…” She used the control and typed on her list. “… we come down to two possibilities.”

  She showed it to Blake, Michelle, and Darvin.

  “Lilso Arad and Turun Wilster,” Blake read. “Who is the most likely then?”

  “Arad is an apprentice excavator,” Darvin explained. “This was his first job, and everything excited him. If he saw something he liked or couldn’t resist, he might have taken it. Turun Wilster is a professor of history and archaeology. It seems less likely that he would steal anything, but we know that under the right circumstances, anyone is capable.”

  “Why these two?” Blake asked.

  “Opportunity more than anything else,” Retinda said. “Arad has been unreliable at best, but that could just be youth. As for Professor Wilster, he started becoming unreliable to the point that we haven’t seen him in quite some time.”

  “He could have looked at this thing and been intrigued enough to have stolen it?” Michelle asked.

  “But why would he?” Blake wondered. “In his position, he is bound to have seen many valuable items in his time. Why risk it all for anything? When was the last time you saw Arad?”

  “Last week,” Darvin said. “It was right after the Kursas arrived and we had to let them have what they wanted. After that, we really had no need for any of the team.”

  “And Wilster?” Michelle asked.

  “So far it seems as if our presence is mostly incidental here,” Blake said. “You’ve already done all the work. Shall we try to visit this Professor Wilster?”

  “That seems to be our next move,” Retinda said. “There should be a public transport near here. We can just take that to Wilster’s home.”

  Her knowledge of the city being perfect, Retinda led them a couple of blocks to what appeared to be a kind of train that they boarded and rode across the city. From the train’s windows, Blake could see the city was not ruined in any way, despite the bombardment that had occurred moments before. It was precisely centered in that area and did not cause much in the way of collateral damage.

  “What are we going to do about Perry?” Michelle asked.

  “Let’s see if he’s still on the ship,” Blake said, pulling out his scanner. The logos on their shirts functioned as biometric readers as well as feeding its position to Blake’s scanner, but as Blake looked at the screen, his gaze darkened.

  “What’s wrong?” Michelle asked.

  “He’s not showing up on the scanner,” Blake said.

  “What does that mean?” Michelle asked in concern.

  “It’s possible that the Kursas ship is made of a material that can block the signal to the devices we wear, which has happened before,” Blake explained, “or if his shirt was taken from him, it might have been destroyed which is also possible. Either way, I have no way of knowing where he is or how he is doing.”

  “So what do we do in this case?” Michelle asked.

  “Keep looking for an opportunity to get back to him,” Blake said with a shrug. “The trouble is that we cannot be sure as to his location. He might be on the ship, or he might have found a way off. Just because he didn’t get out with us doesn’t mean he couldn’t find some way out.”

  “Then how are we supposed to find him without some kind of communication?” Michelle asked.

  “Hope for the best at this point,” Blake said. “That’s all we can do sometimes. Typically, when something happens to our communication devices, we try to meet back where we started, and perhaps this is what it’ll come down to.”

  “Is that one of your standard operating procedures?” Michelle asked.

  “Accidentally, I suppose,” Blake said. “We never really discussed it, but one time, it did actually come down to that. We were all completely separated, and something happened to our clothing to where we all ended up dressing like the indigenous population without the one thing that tied us all together so our only common point was where the Maze had dropped us in originally. As luck would have it, we all were thinking the same thing, and the door to the elevator opened almost as soon as we all got there.”

  “Sounds like a nightmare,” Michelle commented.

  “It was,” Blake agreed.

  The train came to a stop, and Retinda stood with Darvin.

  “We’re here,” she said and led them off the transport. She looked at her tablet as she walked through town toward a road that led past the buildings into a flat plain. She pointed to a public building as they walked. Local authorities had surrounded the place.

  “That is where the crate was found,” Retinda said. “Our professor lives about a block down
the road in this neighborhood.”

  The area that Retinda referenced did not appear to be anything at all. There was a road that was well maintained, but it passed through empty lots. A bullet-shaped vehicle passed them, driving down the road. About a hundred yards past them, it stopped and made a perfect 360-degree turn in the middle of the road and waited.

  Something about the size of a large elevator emerged from the ground in the yard in front of where the vehicle had stopped, and a family of four walked out. They boarded the vehicle as the lift in the yard descended. It drove past them out of the neighborhood.

  This incident caused Blake to look more closely at the yards and found they all had what appeared to be metal plates in the yards.

  “Are all the houses underground?” Blake asked.

  “Of course,” Darvin replied. “Is that not normal where you’re from?”

  “No, everything is usually above ground on our planet,” Michelle said.

  “Seems like a waste of space to me,” Retinda said. “Our businesses have facades above ground, but most of their facilities are underground in order to maximize space.”

  “How deep do they go?” Blake asked.

  “Sometimes hundreds of feet,” Retinda replied. “It depends on what they sell and need to keep stocked. Never gave it much thought actually.”

  “I’d wager for homes, it really helps with temperature control,” Blake said.

  “I can’t imagine anyone wanting to subject their home to the weather,” Darvin said. “Some people have facades for their homes, but they require so much upkeep that most people don’t bother. Easier to keep it all underground. The entrance is bad enough.”

  “Here we are,” Retinda said, turning off the road and approaching the metal plate in one of the yards. She tapped a panel at the edge of the plate with her foot, and the entrance rose out of the ground.

  “That seems a little insecure,” Michelle said.

  “I think she just knocked,” Blake said.

  “If that means to announce ourselves, you’re correct,” Retinda said. “We did not just enter the man’s home. We only summoned his entry to request permission.”