CHOP Line

by Henry V. O'Neil

  “But we’re not.”

  “That’s good. Finally the truth. The game’s over, so no more lies. Who are you? What are you?”

  The blue eyes twinkled, and the thing laughed. “The game’s not over. Not yet. You made a mistake, capturing me alive. If you’d blown me up with these fools, you’d be in the clear. But you’re exactly where you were this morning. You’re about to watch your superiors take me out of your hands. You kill me now, you’ll be right back in a jail cell. If you’re lucky.”

  Mortas sat up, stretching a muscle in his back that had started to complain. Another memory, from the sterilization tubes on Glory Main, after the first alien had been incinerated.

  “I don’t have to tell anyone we took you alive. Did you notice anything about your coffin here? Different from the others. Heavily secured, and positioned over a special hatch. Your kidnappers weren’t too comfortable with their new cargo, it seems. They were ready to jettison you, and the control panel’s right here.” Mortas looked around, as if bored. “You’d burn up in Roanum’s atmosphere, trapped inside this thing.”

  The smile melted away. “You have no reason to do that.”

  “No reason?” he shouted, bringing his face close to the window. “Everything about you is a lie. It always was. You were after the Step the first time, and you’re after it now. You threw me into that river, knowing what lives there, and you say I have no reason?”

  The blue eyes narrowed, filled with hatred. “You’re just a lieutenant. You don’t get to make a decision like this one.”

  “You see, that’s where you’re dead wrong. Out in the field, I make all sorts of very big decisions. Life-and-death decisions. And sometimes little, low-level people like me have to save our bosses from their own bad judgment.” Mortas slid himself onto the flooring, gritting his teeth when the weight settled on his leg. “And there is no way, in hell, that I’m going to let you anywhere near the half-bright egomaniacs we’ve got running this war.”

  He limped around the coffin, to inspect an illuminated panel set into the bulkhead. Its large letters prescribed the sequence for lowering the alien’s Transit Tube through the decking, sealing the hatch over it, and then dumping it into space. After making sure he understood it, Mortas went back to the window.

  “Last chance. Tell me what you are, or I’m throwing you in the furnace.”

  The alien’s facial muscles tightened involuntarily, its hands reaching out to press on the unyielding walls of the container. Its eyes seemed to bounce around, and it shuddered all over before regaining control.

  “Told you. We’re researchers. We want to understand the Step. This can still work, for everyone.”

  “Aw bullshit. Enjoy the ride.” He stumped toward the panel.

  “Wait! Wait!”

  Mortas took his time coming back. Separated only by the window, the two creatures glared at each other.

  “There are thousands more just like me.” The voice was flat and cold, and Jander swayed on his feet when he saw that the alien’s mouth was tightly shut.

  Its words rebounded inside his brain, calling up the faces of the anonymous soldiers, miners, technicians, pilots, and support personnel he’d seen in the war zone. Unknown, unidentified, unremarked, passing by in an instant and never seen again. Hundreds of thousands of them in the war zone, working here and flying there, and thousands of shape-shifters ready to assume their identities. Only one needed to get through.

  The blue eyes burned with loathing, but the lips curled into a knowing sneer.

  “We just need to find one greedy human who can explain the Step to us, and then a Sim armada will descend on your so-called settled planets. You can’t stop that from happening, Lieutenant Jander Mortas. Your race is doomed.”

  His vision swam, the alien’s pronouncements echoing down the chambers of his mind. Reaching out, he covered the window with a flat hand. The low lighting seemed to converge on him, but he managed to shove himself away from the tube.

  The voice followed him as he tottered to the panel and began activating buttons in accordance with the instructions.

  “Isn’t that ironic, Jan? Isn’t it delicious? The same greed and selfishness that you despise in your superiors is the very thing that will remove your species from existence. Look around you. Someone paid these fools to bring one of us to them, and sooner or later one of us will get through. No more tricks, no more schemes. All we have to do is get their attention.”

  Varick was beside him, eyes wide in alarm. “Are you hearing that, Jan? It’s inside my head. It’s laughing.”

  “I know.” He pointed at the panel. “It’s ready to go. When I push that bottom button, this evil thing will get roasted. I’ll say you didn’t know I was going to do it.”

  He was reaching out when Erica stopped his hand. Lips pursed, head shaking. “The hell you will.”

  Varick pressed the final button, and the red lighting started to strobe. Taking his arm over her shoulder, she moved them both away from the hatch in the floor. The Transit Tube descended through the opening, and a mechanical voice announced that the container would be jettisoned in ten seconds.

  The decking closed over the coffin, but the laughter continued even after the ship lurched and the alien was launched into the waiting inferno.

  Chapter 19

  In the middle of an empty plain on Celestia, Hugh Leeger sat on a rock. He had no weapon, only the most essential clothing, and a small bag containing one meal and a bottle of water. A tiny transmitter sat next to him, sending out the recall code for a man who had been executed in the planet’s largest city. He’d been sitting there for hours.

  A small herd of the hogs the Misty Man had requested trotted across his field of vision, and then a figure on two legs appeared where the animals had passed. It seemed to be far away, but as it got closer Leeger saw it was a child. Wearing only a ratty pair of shorts and handmade sandals, the boy carried a rifle that was old enough to be a museum piece. The image of the martyred slave girl Emma had been etched into the weapon’s stock.

  When his visitor arrived, Leeger saw that his skin was a dark orange and that his curly hair was as well. The child stopped, waiting, and so Leeger tossed the transmitter at his feet. Not wanting to risk damage to the rifle, the boy picked up a rock and smashed the device to bits. Then he shouldered the rifle and sat down next to him.

  “I’m Hugh Leeger. What happened to Emma was my fault.”

  “Emma made a choice. She chose to die free.”

  “I’d like to die free.”

  “Then you will.” The child stood up and took his hand. “Come on.”

  In a Transit Tube on a troop transport inside the Step, Ayliss Mortas dreamt. Somehow she sensed the others asleep in the tubes around her: Blocker, Ewing, Scalpo, Tin, Bullhead, Lightfoot, Legacy, and Plodder. Despite the uncertainty of her future, their presence made her feel comforted and protected.

  The dream took shape, and she was no longer afraid to face the approaching figure. She stood atop the plateau that held the ruined Zone Quest complex on Quad Seven, and the smoke from McRaney’s wrecked ship drifted all around her.

  The silhouette was familiar, and she knew its movements by heart. Its dark clothing blended with the smoke, but when it emerged she saw the bullet holes in the fabric. She hadn’t been able to force herself to look at them when the man had been lying dead before her.

  “Lee.”

  “Hello, dear.” The handsome features bore no reproach. “I wish you could have seen me go over that last fence. Maybe ten guys in the whole galaxy could have cleared that thing. And only one of them could have done it with so many holes in him.”

  “I’m sorry, Lee. I used you. In so many ways.” She began to sob, but Selkirk made no move to comfort her. “I’ve been so selfish, so hateful. I was surrounded by people like you, good people looking out for me, caring for me, loving me, and I gave them nothing in return.”

  Selkirk stepped in close, and kissed her once on the forehead. His
hands rested on her shoulders, and they brushed her arms as he turned away. He was disappearing into the smoke when she heard his final words.

  “You may just make it after all, Ayliss Mortas.”

  Asleep inside the tube, her lips moved as she spoke to a ship without a single conscious passenger.

  “I’m Rig. They call me Rig.”

  In one of the most secure rooms in all of Unity Plaza, Reena Mortas sat looking at the walls. She’d once spent entire days there, after Olech had revealed its existence to her. She knew every one of the gold-colored panels that covered the room’s vertical spaces, having studied them thoroughly. Simplistic diagrams, some of them featuring stick figures, they detailed the complex process for building and operating the technological marvel known as the Step.

  Olech had disappeared trying to contact the anonymous entities that had sent these instructions to mankind, and now his son had destroyed mankind’s only chance at communicating with the Sims. Reena had read Jander and Erica’s report several times, and yet she still couldn’t quite believe it. Two junior officers in a war that had lasted decades had taken it upon themselves to guarantee the conflict would continue—all because they believed the alien envoy had been some kind of Trojan horse intended to gain the secret of the Step.

  She darkened the handheld that contained the report, no longer willing to acknowledge its presence or its finality. The Misty Man’s confession was gaining traction across the alliance, and a powerful Emergency Senate committee had already requested a conference with her. Leeger’s desertion to Celestia had been confirmed, but she found it strange that his likely capture and confession held no fear. The destruction of the shape-shifter was the final nail in the coffin of the Mortas family’s management of the war, and the son of Olech Mortas had wielded the hammer.

  “All this time I figured Ayliss would be the one to bring us down.” Reena stood, stretching muscles that felt strangely relaxed. The hovering doom had finally descended, and it wasn’t half as bad as she’d feared.

  There was a certain level of comfort in knowing the game was finally over, that she would be removed from office under the cover of a politically satisfactory lie such as reasons of health. The propagandists would probably suggest she needed to concentrate on the well-being of her husband’s two orphaned children, both of them off fighting the war.

  But that wasn’t accurate anymore. Jander was headed back to Earth at her command, accompanied by Varick, and Reena intended to question them both herself. The recordings of the alien communicating with the Sims had been given to a super-secret team that had been trying to translate the birdsong for years, and they’d expressed great optimism. Perhaps something could be salvaged from that, and so Jander and Varick would be needed to provide context and explanation.

  And after that, who knew? The news of the alien’s existence had obviously leaked, and soon there would be even more questions about how the son of Olech Mortas had encountered the shape-shifting alien not once, but twice. Perhaps a quiet retirement didn’t await her after all.

  The handheld lit up, signaling that Leeger’s replacement needed to speak to her. She activated the entrance locks, and Nathaniel Ulbridge strode across the shadowy floor.

  “Apologies for interrupting you, Madame Chairwoman.”

  “Good news?” Reena almost laughed.

  “Possibly, ma’am.” The sentence hung in the air, forcing her to remember that Ulbridge lacked Leeger’s sense of humor.

  “What is it?”

  “Our operatives inside Zone Quest have alerted us about a major shake-up. Several senior managers have been demoted, all of them from Victory Provisions.”

  “So it’s true. Victory Pro is part of ZQ.”

  “We’ve suspected that association for some time now.”

  “So what’s causing the problem?”

  “I’ve confirmed the report through our sources on Celestia, and through Celestian Command. Apparently someone fed a counterfeit order into Victory Provisions’s communications stream. It told them to transport twenty thousand feral hogs from Dalat, and to release them in ten different remote locations on Celestia. The justification in the order was that the hogs would provide a food source for cutoff Human Defense Force units, and possibly for long-range patrols.”

  Despite herself, Reena giggled. “Only Victory Pro would believe something that stupid.”

  “I didn’t initially understand the significance of this development, Madame Chairwoman. However, I have since learned that this breed of hog is wildly prolific and incredibly destructive.” He paused. “I’m sure you know more about them, being from Celestia yourself.”

  “Nathaniel, I want you to be more direct when we talk.”

  “Ma’am?”

  “You’re my security chief and my spymaster now. That uniquely positions you to give me advice. I need your intuition along with your information, so you’re going to have to learn to speak freely.”

  “I’ll work on that, ma’am.”

  “This pig delivery is going to change everything. In a short time, the troops there will be spending more time killing these animals than fighting the rebels. They’ll have to switch over to defense, just to keep the infrastructure intact.” Reena looked up at the panels, not seeing them. Instead, she imagined the smirk Olech wore every time he was contemplating a risky political stratagem. “You know Hugh did this, right?”

  “That was my assumption. I’ve accessed his communications logs. He conducted extensive research on these creatures shortly before . . . disappearing.”

  “You can say it. He’s joined the rebels.” Reena nodded slightly. “When I meet with the senators, I’m going to tell them that Hugh plotted the assassination of Horace Corlipso without my knowledge. He believed Horace had somehow arranged for my husband’s disappearance, and wanted revenge. The Misty Man’s confession pointed to him, and his defection proves his guilt.”

  Reena turned a bland expression toward the man who had been Leeger’s adjutant, certain that he knew the real story.

  “Yes, ma’am. I should have noticed that his behavior was changing.”

  “He blamed himself for Olech.”

  “It started much earlier than that. When Jander went missing in the war zone. Hugh killed the interrogator who tortured him on Glory Main, with his bare hands. It was quick, but still uncharacteristic. And that side trip to find the Misty Man was practically suicide.” He squared his shoulders. “Are you planning to release Timothy Kumar’s confession to the Senate? It would support the story.”

  “Not right now. He’s more valuable as a plant with our opponents. You did a fine job, turning him.”

  “You’d already broken him.”

  “Was there anything else?”

  “Mira Teel is waiting outside. She requested to speak to you alone, in a secure location. I’ll send her in.”

  “Stay. You’re my eyes and ears now. You need to know everything.” Reena unlocked the entrance, and Mira walked in at a fast clip.

  Reena was about to explain Ulbridge’s presence when the words died in her throat. Mira was dressed in a simple flight suit, and her face shone with optimism. The old woman strode right up and took her hands.

  “Reena, I am certain that Olech is alive.”

  “How? How do you know?” Fragments of questions tumbled off her tongue, but Reena quickly composed herself.

  “I’ve experienced several dreams in the past few days, all of them featuring a series of small, polished stones. The dreams all had the feel of a communication with the entities, but I didn’t understand what the stones represented.”

  “They were gifts. Mementos he brought back for Ayliss when she was a child, because he was traveling so much.”

  “Yes!” Mira almost shouted. “I only just learned that. Ayliss saw them in her dreams as well, but she didn’t tell me because she wanted to leave the ship.”

  “So how does this indicate Olech is alive?”

  “Each dream added another stone,
and the last one showed me what it represented. It arranged them in a certain order, and then they all started revolving around a glowing light. To orbit.”

  “They represent planets? A star system?” Ulbridge asked.

  “That’s exactly what it is.” Mira turned back to Reena. “I had my people search the known systems for an arrangement like the one I was seeing, and we found it. Far, far away. Unexplored, but mapped out. A perfect match.”

  Reena wrapped her arms around the Step Worshiper, and Mira returned the embrace. “And you think this was Olech?”

  “It has to be. If it was a communication from the entities, why bother with the stones at all? And look at the recipients. No one else has reported anything like this—except Ayliss.” Mira beamed. “I believe we know where he is.”

  They hugged again, but Reena was already looking at Ulbridge. The security man raised open hands, fingertips almost touching, while tilting his head slightly. Cold reality struck her, along with the darker explanation.

  “Mira, Olech didn’t undertake this voyage just to send us a rescue message.”

  “What else could it be? We have to get ships out there right now!”

  “We’ll investigate it right away, but from a distance.” Reena turned to Ulbridge. “With careful planning. And great care not to be detected.”

  Mira’s happiness slid away, and her hands dropped to her sides. “I never considered that. Do you really think that’s what it is?”

  “It’s exactly what Olech would have sent us. Exactly what he would have asked for.” Reena’s eyes sought the panels high above. “The place where the Sims are made.”

  Acknowledgments

  First I’d like to thank my editor, Nick Amphlett, for his efforts and insights on the earlier drafts of CHOP Line. His advice helped to connect this, the second-to-last book in the Sim War series, with the earlier novels while nicely setting up the final book. Additionally, I want to extend special thanks to the Harper Voyager artists who designed the book’s cover. I’ve been very pleased with the artwork for this entire series, and can only say they keep getting better and better.