Alien Caller

by Greg Curtis

  Lar shrugged, another of those gestures that they and the humans shared. Two people from different worlds, so very similar.

  “How do we try him? He’s not one of us.”

  “But David is. He is your mate and that makes him Leinian. And Dimock attacked him.” Tears suddenly began running down Cyrea’s cheeks as she heard Lar tell her what she should already have known for the truth. David was her mate, and he was Leinian by law. She should have realised that long ago. But as good as it was to hear it spoken aloud, it came with its own problems.

  “Then David has to obey our laws too?” Of course he did, even if no one had thought to make that completely obvious a long time ago. And no Leinian was allowed to live in an armed fortress, to keep a small arsenal, or to go to war. He was a man walking between two worlds, and what he could do as a human, was far different to what he could do as a Leinian.

  “Yes.” Lar stared directly at her, his eyes searching her face for answers to questions he probably didn’t want to ask. But he had to ask them.

  “Did you know about Dimock?” He was right to ask.

  “A bit maybe. David mentioned him a couple of times. But all he said was that he was a monster, that he would come to kill him sooner or later, and that he had prepared for him. But this?” She gestured to the medical unit still working furiously. “This is insane.” There were many other words she could have used, most of them far less retrained.

  “And the weapons?”

  “No. He has a couple of hunting rifles and a few small arms in the house. Things he’s permitted to have under Earth law. I knew about them, and the fortifications that had been made safe, but the rest, no. When he opened up that trap door and started pulling out all those weapons it was a complete shock.” And another acknowledgement that she didn’t know her mate a tenth as well as she should.

  “He had enough to start a small war.”

  “No. He had what he hoped was enough to defend himself against a one man army. A monster. He always knew this was coming.” They turned to see that Alice had joined them, wandering into the observation room and hopefully bringing with her some wisdom. She often did seem to have a clearer perspective than them.

  “This was what he feared. All the time he's been living among us he knew this was coming. I wish we’d known. Those guns in the trees, the knock out gas. You were right to make them safe when you found them. They could have hurt someone. But we needed to replace them with something else.” Alice turned to Cyrea and put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

  “We crippled him. Took away his defences. We thought he was simply paranoid. Dangerous. But we never thought to wonder why he needed them. Or that he was trying to protect us as well as himself.”

  “Family, friends, community, you may both have broken some rules in doing what you did Cyrea, but it was still the best thing you could do and you saved them. It was the honourable thing too. Otherwise we would also have been responsible for David's murder. In the end you probably saved many lives. Whatever this monster is, he seems to like killing, and there’s not much most of us could do to stop him.”

  “Thank you.”

  “No. It's just the truth. We had no idea. None of us. And my fear is that we still don't. Is this Dimock the only one? Or are there more of them out there?” Alice was right to ask of course, and thinking clearly where Cyrea wasn't. She hadn't even thought about the possibility. She hadn't thought about anything except David since he'd been brought in.

  “Honey, -” Cyrea knew that when Alice used that term it was really just a way of saying that she wanted something, “- when he's awake you need to ask him about that. Particularly if there are any more of these things coming for him.”

  “And Lar honey, -” Cyrea guessed she wasn't the only one about to be given a job to do, “- your people need to start breaking in to more top secret organizations. Secret labs, research projects. Anything this dangerous needs to be exposed. Those hands off rules you've been working to have to stop. This is a threat to us all.”

  “If the scientists have gone and built this monster, then the good Lord alone knows what else they've done in their labs. They need to be stopped, and they need to be held to account.”

  There was something in Alice's face that said she wasn't joking. Even though she surely knew that what she was asking went against the purpose of the mission. Sort of. Actually when Cyrea thought on it, she realised it didn't. Finding out how well mankind would adapt to interstellar life covered things like this. It just went far further than they'd been willing to go so far. It was dangerous. It risked bringing agents to their doorstep and being exposed. It risked ending the mission early.

  And yet was it a choice? As she heard Ayn Lar's surprising silence on the idea she realised his thoughts were running in the same direction. And when she turned back to watch the doctors at work on David, she knew Alice was right.

  It was time to take risks.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Whiteness. Noise. From nowhere they came to him. Destroying his sleep. Interrupting his dreams. Assaulting him. Somehow making him aware of them even when he didn’t want to be.

  He opened his eyes. Or rather they opened by themselves. He hadn’t realized they were closed, or that he wanted them open. Regardless, they opened and he found himself staring at whiteness and metal.

  At first everything was almost liquid, as though his eyes were filled with water. But slowly enough they cleared so that he could see the metal walls, the metal tables. Around him were people, shapes in white gowns moving hurriedly, but still well organized. They had a plan, a purpose. They knew what they were doing.

  The noise suddenly returned to him, and he slowly realized it was conversation. They were talking to each other, maybe even to him. But he couldn’t understand the words. It was as if they were speaking under water. It wasn’t important though, so he quickly forgot them, letting his vision wander.

  It slowly dawned on him that he was in a hospital. That he was surrounded by doctors and nurses, all doing their thing. He didn’t know why, but for some reason it didn’t trouble him. The doctors and nurses they surely knew their stuff. Let them be he figured. He guessed it meant he must be sick or hurt, though he couldn’t remember how he’d been hurt. But it was unimportant, as was everything else. He let the understanding flow away from him with the rest of his kaleidoscopic thoughts. Besides, he didn’t feel ill. He didn’t feel well either. He felt as though his body was made of cotton wool and he was just floating.

  More voices suddenly came from somewhere near him, briefly startling him from his reverie, and he tried to look at the speakers. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t move his eyes let alone his head. Again though it didn’t matter as he once more headed back into his comfortable daze. He knew they were talking about him. That they knew he was awake. That they were calling the others. But still it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except returning to his peace and quiet.

  He watched indifferently as the white coated figures around the other tables suddenly left what they were doing, and migrated towards him. Soon he was surrounded, and they were shining lights in his eyes, and poking at him. But he couldn’t feel them touching him. He could only see their movements, and he quickly forgot about them.

  But one thing finally did stick out in his thoughts. The form, on the other table. When the doctors moved he could see its reflection in the steel ceiling out of the corner of his eye. He knew it, him. It was a man. A man with knotted muscles and skin made of bark. A man he didn’t like. He couldn’t remember anything about him, but something deep down inside spoke to him of evil and danger. Of fear and loathing. He wanted to get away from him, to run, but he couldn’t move. Couldn’t even recoil.

  It troubled him, even though the other was dead. Clearly dead. He was in pieces. Disassembled like a child’s toy. But if he was dead, why were they working on him? Which they were, by the score. There were doctors and nurses piled around his table like hairs on a dog, and that was after half a d
ozen of them had suddenly rushed over from the evil man’s table to him.

  But no-one was going to explain it to him. No-one was telling him anything. Instead he felt a sudden pressure on his neck, and his eyes closed without warning.

  After that there was only blackness.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The next time David woke, it was in Cyrea’s small cabin on the ship, and she was with him, holding him close, waiting for him to open his eyes.

  He smiled when he saw her, as he had every morning before when he’d woken up with her. He couldn’t have helped himself. She was simply so beautiful and it was a miracle he woke at all. For some reason he’d thought he was dead, and yet to be here with her was the greatest gift he could know. It was some form of miracle. Maybe it was heaven.

  “Hi.” He went to kiss her and was suddenly slapped for his impertinence. Memories came flooding back, and it didn’t take a genius to know why she’d hit him. Cyrea was still angry about having been sent away, and from the fragments of his memory, he knew she’d saved his life, somehow. Again. But then she apologized for slapping him with the kiss he’d wanted. Then she started crying.

  “I’m sorry.” He whispered it at her. “I tried to do the best I could, but I knew from the start I was probably going to lose. And I knew he’d kill everybody else around me. Horribly. I didn’t want you to die with me. That would be worse than death.” He held her tight, surprised to find tears in his eyes, and hers.

  “But I don’t want you to die at all. And you very nearly got yourself killed saving me from something I could deal with. My people have highly advanced technology and I know at least as much about security as you do.” Which wasn’t the true core of her pain. She had wanted to help. She felt as he would have in her place that it was her duty, and he had sent her away, not believing in her. That hurt. Then she had turned around and saved him, proving her point. But it was the fact that he had gone out expecting to die, that really hurt her. That was the truth.

  “I know. You’re right, and I was wrong. I doubted you and I shouldn’t have, and I owe you my life, again. But please understand, you’ve never seen Dimock at work. You’ve never seen corpses piled like sacks of potatoes. Men, women and children. You’ve never seen the way he tortures people, for fun, or what he does to them. He is evil. And he kills everybody. And unfortunately he’s a hundred times as fast and strong as anyone else. Maybe a thousand times. Too many have thought they could protect themselves. But against him, there is no protection. No mercy.”

  “We can protect ourselves.”

  “I know that. Now. But not then. I knew you had superior technology. But so does everybody Dimock faces. He doesn’t care. He is technology, in some ways he’s beyond it, and in others he’s its master as he takes whatever technology you use against him and makes it his. And I had no idea whether you could match him. No way of knowing. And I couldn’t risk you.”

  “If you had just asked.” Which was perfectly true, and the heart of his problem.

  “You know I can’t. I will always be true to my oath, and Dimock is a national secret. An international disgrace, and a freaking nightmare, but a secret never the less. I’d also guess if your people hadn’t had enough time to study him as he attacked me, he might well have overcome you too. And the costs would have been horrendous as he destroyed your people and stole your technology and then turned it against us all.” Which he was pretty sure was true. So did Cyrea. It was in her eyes, though she didn’t want to admit it. She shook her head, furiously, but she wasn’t being honest. They both knew it. But it wasn’t the time to challenge her on it. It was time to plead.

  “Cyrea, I’m sorry. I couldn’t take the chance. I just couldn’t. If you knew him. If you’d seen his evil, his sadism, you’d understand.” He was practically begging her to understand, even though he didn’t really want her to know that such evil could exist. He felt as though it would blight her, just the knowledge of what Dimock was. Still he had to tell her. Make her understand.

  “He’s a monster. Mass murderer and rapist. A cannibal. And something as close to unkillable as anything ever seen in a movie. He’s a lunatic given unimaginable speed and strength and the will to use them.”

  “I’ve seen him rip apart a tank with his bare hands and then rip the people inside apart. I’ve seen him destroy a fortress, breaking down walls with his fists and then turning the occupants into bloody rag dolls. I’ve seen the results after he’d murdered an entire convent, just to kill one patient, who just might possibly have seen something she shouldn’t have. He never stopped laughing as he first raped them and then ripped them apart. He played with them all. Men, women and children. He even taped himself as he did it. He loves to tape himself.”

  “You can’t even begin to imagine what he would do to you. To your people. And you couldn’t stand the cost. I couldn’t.”

  “If you gave him a single chance, the slightest benefit of the doubt, there’d be hundreds dead. Maybe your entire mission. And the way they, - you would die, it’s worse than hell. He is monstrous, ruthless, inhuman. Meanwhile your people are so decent it’s frightening.” He meant it in the most complimentary way, but something in Cyrea bristled, and he knew he’d offended her. Again.

  “Decent yes, but not stupid. And we are not the pacifists you seem to think we are. We can fight very well when we need to. We simply don’t choose to play at war.” Her eyes flashed at him. She was becoming even more angry, as she doubtless heard him calling her people weak. Which he realised he was doing, however wrong it obviously was.

  “I know, and you did a brilliant job too. Which reminds me, how did you stop him?” Partly he was curious, but mostly he was just desperate to change the conversation as quickly as he could. He was beginning to feel worse and worse about putting her people down. Finally something seemed to work.

  “Easy. We just sent out a couple of dozen level ten synthetics armed with galvanic inhibitors, and a few more mounted on the floating cameras. Every time he attacked one of them, the others simply blasted him a few more times, slowing him down, sucking the energy right out of his system until he could barely breathe. Then when he couldn’t move, we captured him. He couldn’t even get half of the synthetics.”

  “Captured? He’s not dead?” Cold suddenly sucked at David’s spine as he was caught off guard. His dream of Dimock on the operating table came back to him with a vengeance and he wondered why he should even be surprised. The Leinians would never kill anyone if they didn’t have to. Terrible thoughts assailed him, as he began seeing images of Dimock suddenly springing back to life in the middle of an alien spacecraft, and then wrecking havoc. But Cyrea seemed relaxed, and he’d already under-estimated her and her people once. More than once. He tried to give her the benefit of the doubt though it wasn’t easy.

  “No, of course not. But he is completely crippled. He can’t move, at all, and he won’t be free for a long time to come. As you say, he is insane, and we’re not stupid. Besides, he’s due to ship out today, never to cause anyone any pain again.”

  “Ship out?” David was caught off guard once more. He didn’t know what he’d expected of them, maybe a high tech prison or some form of suspended animation. Instead he had the horrible thought of the Earth’s worst maniac being loosed among the stars. God alone knew what terrible evil he would cause there. Especially when he got hold of their technology.

  “The leaders decided on his fate nearly five days ago. Once he is fully normal, physically, he is to be exiled to somewhere where there’s no-one he can hurt. A primitive world, with no people. There are a few of them around, though they’re all very primal. Usually life’s not much more advanced than slugs and snails. There he’ll spend the rest of his life, subsisting, growing older and more alone, and hopefully learning the error of his ways.”

  “Exile. No! Dear God no!” It seemed too stupid for words to David, who was still reeling from the shock of his still being alive. Any just universe, would not allow something like Dimock
to live. He shouldn’t have even been born. But he couldn’t contradict Cyrea or her people. Not after they’d stopped him where he couldn’t, and saved him in the bargain. And yet he had to. He couldn’t let them continue with this insanity.

  “No, no, no. You have to kill him. He has to be killed.” He sounded like a frightened school girl as he spoke, all but yelled hysterically at her, and he hated himself for it, but it was the truth. “No exile. No prison. Nothing but death. All of him, every single cell. He has to be destroyed.”