The Ultra Thin Man

by Patrick Swenson

  Thomas went to his console. After a moment he said, “Another shuttle.”

  “Whose?” Brindos asked.

  “I don’t know. It didn’t show up on my tracker, so it must’ve come down directly from the jump slot, like we did.”

  Brindos still held on to Dorie’s arm. He shot her an urgent look, his body protesting. He wasn’t sure he could give her cogent directions at this point. He pushed with all his might, coaxing his brain to work. “Okay, you guys go now. Thomas, take a blaster.”

  Dorie said, “I have the lockout membrane, Thomas. You’d have to kill me to get it and fly out of here, and I’m not letting that happen.”

  “I understand,” he said.

  Dorie let go of Brindos’s hand, headed to the back, and took an extra blaster. She threw it at Thomas.

  Brindos said, “Okay. Go to the police station before that other shuttle lands and realizes we’re here.”

  Thirty-five

  Aryell to Ribon was the shortest of all jump slot trips between colony worlds, and we hit Ribon space after about six Earth hours.

  Forno warned our pilot about any undue alarms, and after getting clearance, the Volantis docked unceremoniously at Swan Station, which was nearly deserted. Only two vessels circled the hub of the station, one jump vessel and one shuttle, and they both looked like they’d been docked there awhile.

  Swan Station had a skeleton crew, according to the pilot, and indeed, no one came to meet us at our umbilical when we debarked. Apparently, Union officials weren’t too worried about traffic coming and going, and TWT didn’t much care either.

  “What’re we doing about the crew and passengers?” Forno asked on Volantis’s bridge. “We’ll need a ride out of here.”

  “The shuttle has slot capability,” the pilot said. “I’ve piloted it before. An old cargo shuttle for supplies from Ribon to the station, but fitted with insertion gear for smaller export runs to the other Union worlds.”

  Forno left with the pilot to find the shuttle, and I went to check on Jennifer in the ship’s medical area. She lay on her back on one of the diagnostic beds, her legs covered with a blanket, her blond hair tied back in a ponytail. I told her the situation.

  “I can pilot the shuttle through the jump slot,” she said.

  “You can? Since when does the NIO give its hounds that kind of training?”

  “Before the NIO.” She managed a weak smile, no doubt feeling the damage to her leg, despite her telling us otherwise. “I worked awhile for TWT. Might be a little rusty, but I could get us home.”

  I didn’t say anything, just checked her out, trying to confirm whether she would be up to the task or not.

  “I don’t need my leg to pilot,” she said.

  “And the Volantis?”

  “You should let them go.”

  “To Barnard’s, where they were originally going.”

  She shrugged, moved her right leg beneath the blanket. “By the time they get there, this’ll all be over one way or another, won’t it?”

  “One way or another.”

  “I’m not going down to Ribon with you, so this is something I can do when you get back.”

  “If we get back.”

  “You will.”

  Later, after Forno and the pilot had returned to confirm the shuttle’s jump slot worthiness, we found a spot in a deserted waiting area a little ways down from the ship’s berth, and Forno carried Jennifer there. We made her as comfortable as possible, and I gave her my WuWu coat. She tried to give me her code card.

  “It’s no good to either of us right now,” I said, “but you should hang on to it. In case—” I stopped, not wanting to verbalize the possibility of not returning.

  The Volantis left for Barnard’s fifteen minutes later. Forno and I situated ourselves in the cargo shuttle.

  “You can pilot this down, can’t you?” I asked Forno.

  “Not my usual, Crowell, but I can do it.”

  He found the drop coordinates for Venasaille while I made sure we had breather masks for both of us. At the last minute, I stopped at a crew lounge and lifted someone’s leather flight jacket. At least it didn’t have the TWT logo on it.

  Forno grinned. “Finally, a decent jacket.”

  “You’re jealous it won’t fit you. Let’s go.”

  Then we debarked and made our descent to Ribon.

  I’d never been to the Venasaille police station myself but knew the general area downtown, and we buzzed over the area a number of times, the shuttle’s floodlight shining down on the dark buildings, before coming across it. On one of the rooftops downtown, I recognized the Ribon Authority logo depicting Ribon and a circling Coral Moon on a blue shield with an old-fashioned sword raised along the left side.

  We found a clearing nearby to land the shuttle. As we descended, Forno said, “Shit, there’s another shuttle here.”

  I leaned closer to the front window and saw an almost identical shuttle to ours parked on the clearing, its engines off, the area around it quiet.

  “No way to tell whose it is,” I said, grabbing the pulse rifle. “We have to consider the possibility that one of the aliens, or some of their Thin Men, are watching the police station.”

  Forno finished the landing sequence, and once the shuttle hit ground he powered down, grabbed his weapon, and turned to me. “You’d think they’d have a whole army down here.”

  “No, we know where the army is. They’re sitting in the tent city on Aryell. Whoever these aliens are, they’re not many, and they probably haven’t had a lot of time to make many copies, these Thin Men. At least not enough to do much other than what they’ve already done infiltrating the NIO and sending authorities on wild goose chases after Plenko and the Movement.”

  Forno scratched his leathery head with his blaster, looking at the shuttle across the clearing from us. “Well, at this point, it would only take a few of them to make it difficult for us down here. If we fail and they get the key, they’ll be able to finish their Conduit and take their own sweet time building their army at New Venasaille.”

  “We can’t fail.”

  Forno pointed out the window with his blaster. “That could be your partner, for all we know.”

  I grabbed one of my breather masks and slipped it on. “Only one way to find out.”

  “What if it’s not him?” Forno asked. “What if it’s Plenko?”

  “Then we kill him,” I said without a thought.

  Thirty-six

  Thomas and Dorie secured their breather masks and went out through the airlock. They were well out of sight, disappearing into the darkness by the time the other shuttle settled nearby.

  Brindos couldn’t keep watch over the other shuttle. He fought his demons in a haze of pain and frantically struggled to stay awake.

  No more RuBy.

  If he fell asleep now, he was certain he would stay asleep.

  No more Brindos.

  Thin man, thin man, coming to our house.

  Save the day! Save the day!

  O save us from that louse!

  Brindos didn’t know for sure because he was lying down, but he didn’t think his legs would work if he tried to walk.

  He had heart palpitations, he was sweating, and his arms were shaking against the floor of the shuttle. The pain was a great tidal wave, gaining strength for one last devastating blow.

  Lightheaded, barely aware of his thoughts. Thomas’s RuBy wearing off. He heard a soft clanking sound outside the shuttle.

  The Movement’s here and Plenko’s near

  His revolution made

  Brindos wasn’t going to make it.

  Never fear, the thin man’s here,

  O don’t you be afraid.

  There was nothing he could do. Blackness seeped around his eyes, and the wave crested and crashed, twisting him around, battering him against the rocks.

  Union dark.

  Drowning him.

  Once again, Brindos was surprised to wake up.

  His
eyes regained focus, and a blurred shadow turned solid. Brindos stared at himself. At the Plenko copy, leaning over him.

  “Plenko’s near,” Plenko said.

  “Son of a bitch,” Brindos murmured.

  “You missed me, I see,” he growled.

  Brindos wanted to get up and strike at him, pummel him with his fists, never let up until he was on the floor here instead. His pain was subdued, somehow, and he wondered how that could be. He blinked away tears and fuzziness and took a better look at Plenko. Plenko straightened, shook his head, and raised one hand.

  He held a syringe.

  “A treatment?” Brindos whispered.

  “Do you realize,” Plenko said, “that you were rambling on with that despicable nursery rhyme?”

  “Why did you give me a treatment?” Brindos asked, ignoring his own statement. He lifted his head off the deck for the first time in a while. “Why save me?”

  Plenko leaned down again, closer, and anger sparked in his eyes. “Goodness, this will not save you. It just allows me to talk to you. Do you think you’re my Stickman, Mr. Brindos? Is that what you think? That you’re going to take me out?”

  Brindos put his head down again, despair washing over him. “I don’t think anything.”

  Plenko patted him on the top of the head. All it did was set his head on fire as pain smashed through his skull.

  “You should be thinking about your mission, shouldn’t you?” Plenko swept his hand around the shuttle. “You didn’t come down here alone, and you came looking for the key. You were hoping to find it before I did.”

  “I’m not telling you anything about it. You should have let me die.”

  “Not so easy.” Plenko extended his hand, the one not holding the syringe, and motioned for him to grab it. “Come on, off the floor.”

  “I’ll kill you.”

  Plenko laughed. “You’re back among the living, but you’re still not yourself. You’re in terrible pain. You’re weak. You’ve missed too many treatments. Get up.” He waved his arm a little. “Or I just kill Dorie and take the key from her dead fingers.”

  Dorie? He had Dorie? He did his best to move his head and glance around Plenko.

  Dorie sat in the pilot’s chair, eyes wide, mouth a thin line that quivered a little.

  His thoughts flew back, and he closed his eyes against the futility of the moment. Plenko knew where they were going and waited for them to make the move; Brindos led him right to the key. Plenko had Dorie. He had the key. Brindos didn’t think Plenko would kill her, not after all this time with her, but he didn’t want to chance it. He put out his arm, Plenko wrapped his hand around it, and pulled Brindos up, causing a landslide of pain to roll over him.

  Dorie held the not-quite spherical sculpture made of mortaline that Brindos had seen once in the Venasaille apartment. At the moment, he couldn’t see the fine details of the people writhing beneath and atop its surface, because Dorie’s two-handed grip covered it.

  “Sorry about your pilot, by the way,” Plenko said. “He tried to keep me from getting to Dorie and things got a little messy.” He grinned, showing sharp teeth.

  Brindos made eye contact with Dorie, trying to give her a calming look. She didn’t relax at all.

  “Are you hurt?” Brindos asked.

  She shook her head.

  “She’s fine,” Plenko said, “except for the fact that she’s a RuBy freak. Nice of her to share with you, though. I can’t imagine you’d have made it this far without some.”

  “What do you want from me?” Brindos asked, voice shaking.

  “Such a simple thing,” Plenko said, staring at the planet sculpture cupped in Dorie’s hands. He got to her seat in one step and wrenched the sculpture from her. He held it up to his face. “I would’ve never guessed it would be something so simple. It really is a piece of art.”

  “You really didn’t know what it was?” Dorie whispered.

  Plenko looked back at her. “Just that it was something your husband gave to your copy,” he said. “He created it for the vault on request of the NIO. Unfortunately, he found out about the Ultras and he took it.”

  “Ultras?” I asked.

  “That’s the name we’ve given them.”

  The aliens.

  “Why are you doing this for them?”

  Plenko cradled the sculpture in one hand, studying it. “A deal was made years ago with a number of special Envoys from the eight worlds of the Union. Human, Helk, Memor. The five members of the Science Consortium brought in.”

  “What deal?”

  “When the Ultras discovered mortaline here, they enlisted help to create the Transcontinental Conduit. They enlisted help to cause unrest throughout the Union—that’s where I came in, of course. To cause unrest, to destroy faith in the Union. But ultimately the Movement set out to devastate this world to have access to thousands of refugees the Ultras could use to make copies and build their secret army.

  “When the key went missing and evidence piled up about Kristen’s connection to the real Dorie, after you became involved in the death of the Dorie copy, the NIO set you up. The Ultras already had control of the NIO through copies of Timothy James and others, so it was easy enough. They didn’t expect Crowell to send you to Temonus. Didn’t expect him to run, didn’t figure the two of you would make so much trouble along the way.” He patted Brindos on the head again. “Worked out in your case, didn’t it?”

  He brushed angrily at Plenko’s arm, but he didn’t even have the strength to do that, and didn’t come close to it.

  “One of our own Tony Kochs tried to get the key from Crowell’s girlfriend, Cara. She was chosen, you see. To be One with the Ultras.”

  “You made a copy of Cara?”

  “Yes. Well … sort of.” He waved it off. “The point is, that Tony Koch disappeared. I assume your partner managed to kill him. We sent our own Cara to kill Katerina Parker, whom I thought might have the key.”

  “We.”

  He spread out his arms. “The Thin Men.”

  Brindos stared him down, waiting for him to continue.

  “The Ultras are determined. The Thin Men will finish the other Conduit for them, continue building the army to infiltrate the Union. No one in the NIO will question the purpose of the Conduit because most of the NIO belongs to the Ultras. Most of the Kenn too. Eventually, we will get all members of the organization, or get rid of them. We’ll get to all the provincial governments and Envoys, and all the intelligence organizations.”

  “And President Nguyen?”

  “Did the Ultras copy him, do you mean? Kill the original?” He bared sharp teeth when he grinned. “No. Not yet. But the inhabitants of the Union trust who they trust. They trust Nguyen, and they’ll trust the copy when the real one has been eliminated.”

  “We’ll stop you.”

  Plenko laughed. “You’re Plenko now. Plenko’s Movement will die with you. Your knowledge of the Ultras will die with you. The Union will see the horrible terrorist Terl Plenko dead and praise Nguyen and the NIO for all their efforts. It’ll be too late for those who know the truth because no one will believe them.”

  “You said it was a deal. It sounds like the Ultras get everything. What’s in it for you?”

  He laughed, enjoying the moment, but he didn’t say anything else.

  Time seemed to slow. Brindos wrestled with Plenko’s revelations, but he also fought to stay cogent through the fog of pain. He glanced at Dorie, who gave him a panicked look, her face pale.

  A shrieking whine erupted from outside the shuttle. Plenko practically growled, surprised at the sound.

  Another shuttle was landing nearby.

  Brindos wondered if it might be Crowell. Dear God, hoped it might be.

  He played it as if it were. “Give up,” he said to Plenko, standing taller, hoping to exude confidence. “That’s my partner now.”

  “I hope so,” Plenko said.

  Thirty-seven

  We didn’t debate for long how we w
ould handle the other shuttle. Time was not on our side. Forno fitted us with breather masks and we exited the shuttle, weapons ready and aimed at the other shuttle. A good hundred yards separated us. The sky looked to be getting a little lighter, night giving way to early dawn.

  A blanket of hardened ash covered the ground. I didn’t see any vegetation. Most likely the rains had also poisoned the plants, if they’d not been suffocated by the ash. Some of the nearest buildings, damaged by numerous earthquakes, looked like they could fall at any second. Others were burnt out. I smelled smoke from somewhere. A few towers were missing windows, the glass blown out.

  But I had to focus on the shuttle in front of us. Plenko could be in there. Brindos could be in there.

  We had no cover. We crouched low but stayed put near our own shuttle. If someone decided to open fire, we still had a chance to get to safety. We were making ourselves known to the occupants of the other shuttle, if they were even looking.

  No one fired on us, so after a few minutes, we edged forward, taking a more defensive tack to show we were not planning any overt assault. Of course, I didn’t know if that was entirely the case. We drew within twenty yards of the other ship, and my stomach churned with nervousness.

  Then the door of the other shuttle opened, and out stepped a ghost.

  Dorie Senall.

  Even though she wore the breather mask, I could tell she was the woman from the holo-recording. The woman I’d seen plummett to her death on Ribon.

  As Forno and I raised our weapons, she held her hands high, the rain jacket she wore rising up past her hips; she was unarmed.

  Following her was Terl Plenko, also unarmed, dressed in a loose-fitting gray overcoat; he stepped in behind Dorie. Right behind him came—

  Another Terl Plenko.

  He was armed with a Helk stunner. I gripped the pulse rifle tighter and trained it on the Plenkos.

  A black animal hide tunic covered the second Plenko neck to foot. He slipped in behind the first Plenko.

  Forno whispered, “What the hell, Crowell.”