Meg said, “You must be an angel in disguise. I swear, we’ll repay you someday.”
“Sorry we didn’t get to go snorkeling.”
“Maybe next time—”
Axel stepped up behind the woman and hit her on the back of the neck.
She went down without a sound.
Meg stifled a scream. She shoved Axel away. The woman was out cold. Meg rolled her over, brushed leaf mould off her face, made sure she was breathing. “You asshole,” she said furiously. “She was helping us.”
“She might’ve raised the alarm.” Axel gagged the woman with his scarf, then slung her over his shoulder like a sack. He climbed back down into the pit and left her there. When he climbed back up, he pulled up the ladder and slid it into the undergrowth.
A lumpy bag lay on the ground. The woman must have brought it with her. Axel picked it up and drew out one of those spiny fruits. “Fluids,” he said, passing it to Meg.
Meg broke off a spine and sucked down the nectar as she stumbled after Axel down the trail. Her strength returned with every mouthful. “You could have killed her.”
“She’ll be fine.”
“She was going to let us go!”
“I came here for answers.” His voice was grim. “I’m not leaving until I get them.”
Firelight glowed through the trees. They crept up to the edge of the village. Meg did not trust Axel not to hurt anyone else. She shoved him behind her and took the lead, advancing tactically between the huts, placing her heels down first to minimize the sound of her footsteps.
The huts were dark. Everyone seemed to be asleep.
The mara lay in front of the banked firepit, sprawled on the bare earth, looking like some kind of monstrous lizard.
Meg froze with one foot in the air, then backtracked, a step at a time.
The mara did not stir.
She glanced back for Axel, saw him on the steps of Zaragoza’s house. No locks here. No freaking doors. Axel vanished through the curtain that hung over the doorway.
Meg caught up with him as he was shaking Zaragoza awake. Starlight from the window gleamed on Zaragoza’s eyeballs, and on a knife in Axel’s hand.
“Not a sound,” Axel whispered. He sat back on his heels, allowing Zaragoza to sit up.
The house consisted of just two rooms. Meg tiptoed back into the kitchen. A drawer hung open. There were more knives in there. She did not touch them. She opened the generator-powered cooler and zeroed in on a carton of long-life milk. She drank half of it on her way back to the bedroom, and leaned against the wall to sip the rest.
“I can’t let you do anything that would endanger the Organization,” Zaragoza said.
“I don’t give a shit about the Organization,” Axel said. “I want to know what the Uzzizellans are up to.”
“I haven’t talked to them since we came to Juradis.”
“The Jolly Green Giant out there said it was about time you told someone what you knew.”
“I should never have trusted the mara.”
“You’ve got a bad habit of trusting aliens.”
“That’s a fair observation,” Zaragoza said, tiredly. “But how are we to survive in this galaxy if we can’t trust any other species?”
“By being smarter and stronger than they are,” Axel said.
Meg laughed. Neither man glanced at her. She sipped her milk.
“I’m a metaphysicist,” Zaragoza said. “I should have been born in a different century. A peaceful century. In our era metaphysics is a field of strategic importance. We deal with questions intimately related to certain practical issues of interest to Earth ... and unfortunately, to our enemies, as well.”
“Go on,” Axel said.
“Gilliam Tripsilion Nulth came to visit me on Majriti IV to discuss my research into Kirlian energy fields.”
To Meg’s astonishment, Axel nodded like he knew what Zaragoza was talking about. “The energy of living things can supposedly be photographed in the form of coronal discharges.”
“Photographed, and even measured, with modern equipment. These biofields are real, but they’re generally thought to be the result of stochastic electric ionization. Just a weird little phenomenon, not relevant to anything else. However, my belief—I have to say I’m more or less alone in holding it—is that biofields are actually very, very weak zero-gravity fields.”
“That’s interesting,” Axel said.
Interesting? As far as Meg knew, that was a completely nutty idea. The only way to generate a zero-gravity field was with a zero-gravity field generator. Wasn’t it?
“I believe Kirlian energy is a clue to the missing link,” Zaragoza said.
The missing link: an insight that would unify zero-gravity with the classical universe. Physics had a chronic case of split personality. In the 20th and 21st centuries, scientists had struggled to reconcile general relativity with quantum mechanics. Then the sentrienza came along, bringing zero-gravity, which folded both theories into a new grand theory of reality ... only to create a new division: zero-gravity versus everything else. If the sentrienza knew how it all fit together, they weren’t telling.
Dr. Zaragoza had just claimed that his Kirlian energy was the missing piece of the puzzle. If he was right, that would be pretty huge ... for theoretical physicists. Meg didn’t see how it would make a bit of difference to humanity’s survival.
She glanced out the window. The mara still slept before the firepit. One of those six-legged warthogs snuffled around the far side of the banked embers.
“I’m surprised the sentrienza didn’t shut down your research,” Axel said.
Zaragoza chuckled bitterly. “They funded my research! Naturally, I didn’t know at the time where the money was coming from.”
Meg watched the warthog. She was afraid it might wake the mara up.
“They went to great lengths to conceal their interest in my theory. Instead of coming to talk to me themselves, they sent Gilliam Tripsilion Nulth.”
“So he was working for the sentrienza all along.”
“Of course he was. You have to understand the position of the queazel community. Their home planet is thousands of light years away, if it still exists. They’re exiles, completely dependent on the sentrienza’s hospitality and goodwill. But I didn’t know any of this at the time. I hardly knew what a queazel was.”
Meg got the feeling that Zaragoza was protesting too much. Trying to justify his loose lips after the fact.
“So I talked him through my research. We discussed some potential applications ...”
“Best Industries was interested in the potential applications, too. But we never got to find out what they were.” Axel jabbed the knife at Zaragoza, making the old man flinch. “Tell me now. What were the applications? Specifically, what was Nulth interested in?”
“Amplification,” Zaragoza said tonelessly. “It should be possible to amplify the biofield. In fact, we already do. That’s what esthesia implants are, metaphysically speaking.”
“In English,” Axel growled.
“Biofields are as unique as fingerprints. Imagine a blurry, faint fingerprint on a window. You can hardly see it. You’d have trouble identifying who it belongs to. Now imagine the same fingerprint etched in fluorescent paint. You can see it from across the room ...”
Meg didn’t need to hear any more. “That’s how the Ghosts found us on Mezamiria.” Dark, murky emotion pulsed through her. “And the sentrienza funded your research?”
Zaragoza looked at her for the first time. “If I could take it all back, I would. I can’t. All I can do is make amends, in the hope that a remnant of humanity may yet be saved.”
Meg heard a faint sound from outside. She turned back to the window—
—just as the six-legged warthog brushed against the mara’s leg.
The mara raised itself on one fleshy elbow. It seemed to stare straight across the clearing at Meg.
She tiptoed back into the kitchen. “Meg?” Axel called after her.
>
“Ssssh!” A knife would do her no good against the mara, but maybe Zaragoza had a gun somewhere—
A loud cry of horror came from Axel, followed by a terrible grunting sound.
She pivoted back to the bedroom.
Blood soaked Emile Zaragoza’s shirt, his lap, the bedding. The kitchen knife lay in the pool of blood pumping from the old man’s jugular. The disgusting sweet smell of gore brought back battlefield memories. Meg detached. Calmly, she said, “That was dumb. Why’d you do it?”
“I didn’t. He snatched the knife.” Axel let out a wild, humorless laugh. “That’s what he meant by making amends, I guess.”
“He’s not dead yet. It takes several minutes for an adult human being to bleed out.” Meg bent over Zaragoza, trying to pinch the messy wound in his throat closed. Her hands immediately got too slippery to gain any purchase on the skin. It was no use. He was dying.
The kitchen floor creaked.
The mara ducked its head under the lintel of the bedroom door.
At the sight of Zaragoza in a pool of blood, apparently murdered, a thin enraged howl burst from its lips. It lunged at the two humans, covering half the room in a single stride.
Meg was already halfway to the window. She pushed Axel out and jumped out after him. Hit the ground badly, jarring her shoulder.
They ran.
The village awoke around them. People spilled out of doors, yelling.
They plunged into the forest. It was slow going through the undergrowth. Branches stabbed Meg’s outstretched hands. Thorns caught at her jeans. The mara’s howls seemed to come from every direction at once. She ignored the disorienting sound, knowing it was just a trick the mara had of throwing their voices to confuse their prey. She navigated by memory to the trail. Then they were able to run flat out.
Breathless, they burst onto the beach. The tide was high. The dinghy lay near the tree line. They jumped in and shoved it out through the surf. Axel pulled the starter cord.
Nothing.
Again.
The engine caught.
Behind them, lights bobbed on the beach. Gunshots cracked over the sound of the waves.
Axel fought with the tiller, pointing the dinghy out into the lagoon. Spray drenched them. The seaplane loomed out of the dark. They clambered onto the floats, then into the cockpit, leaving the dinghy to be carried away on the waves. Spume blew in with them, spattering the instruments. Meg flopped into the copilot’s seat. Axel wrestled the plane around into the wind.
The plane rocked and roared across the waves. The wings caught the wind. The bumping ceased.
A tiny cluster of lights shrank away into the blackness below. Down there lay a dead man who had indirectly killed hundreds of millions.
But not without help.
She felt entangled in guilt.
She got up, fetched water and food for both of them. It was important to stay focused on practical requirements. They’d brought a bag of dried fish snacks and the local equivalent of granola bars for the journey. The ‘granola’ was puffed barley, grown on the queazel farms at the poles. She handed Axel a bar and glanced at the fuel gauge. “We can’t get back to Haravalding on half a tank.”
“We aren’t going back to Haravalding.”
“What?”
“Zaragoza didn’t tell us who developed the implants. Whoever it is, they’re the real culprits.”
Meg bit into her granola bar. “Does it matter who developed them?”
His face reddened in the low light from the instrument panel. “Does it matter ...”
That had been her guilt talking. Of course it mattered. She propped her elbow on the armrest of her couch, her head on her hand. “We’re the real culprits. If we hadn’t rescued Zaragoza and the queazel from Drumlin Farm ...”
“It was my decision.”
“I saved the damn queazel from an army of Ghosts.” She was trying to stop Axel from blaming himself. She’d bear the guilt, if it would keep him from going into a downwards spiral. She was shocked to realize that this was an act of love.
Axel merely said, “I think the queazels may have developed the implants. Anyway, we’re going to find out.”
Meg’s head drooped lower. She clenched her granola bar in her teeth, like a long brown tongue, but didn’t have the energy to take another bite.
“Zaragoza told me where Gilliam Tripsilion Nulth lives,” Axel said. “Some little town on the coast of the north polar continent. That’s where we’re going.”
“Fine.” Meg dropped the granola bar on the floor of the cockpit.
“Meg? Meg.” He leaned over and shook her. “I don’t regret it.”
“Huh?”
“I lost twenty-two Marines rescuing Zaragoza. Then I went back to Drumlin Farm to rescue the fucking queazel. But I don’t regret it.”
“Yay.”
“Because of that, because they tried to silence us, we know they’re out there.”
“They?”
“The conspirators. We have a chance to find out who they are ... and stop them.”
Despite her tiredness, she understood that he was trying to rewrite history into something he could live with. But she also couldn’t help noticing that he’d written Colm out of it.
CHAPTER 40
GILLIAM TRIPSILION NULTH CAME into Colm’s cell, followed by a servant walking on its hind legs and carrying a tray. “How are you feeling?” he said.
“Don’t get too close to me,” Colm said, “or you’ll find out.”
The threat was empty. Rivizolla, the seneschal, coiled in the doorway, his shotgun propped on the arch of his hindquarters.
“I thought you might appreciate some company,” Gil said. He curled on the floor across from Colm. There was no furniture in the cell apart from a low bed, too short for a human—Colm’s feet stuck off the end when he lay down. There was also a bucket with a toilet seat balanced on it. The smell had shrivelled his sinuses after the first couple of days. Now, with a draught blowing through the cell, he smelled it afresh.
The servant put the tray on the floor and went out. Rivizolla closed the door, cutting off the breeze, and settled down in front of it.
The tray held a bottle of muck, an ice bucket, and two glasses. There was also a plastic dish of nuts and berries, and another, larger dish with a lid.
Gil poured. “I miss having company,” he said.
“Is that why you locked me up in this hole?”
“No. I’m trying to help you.”
Colm laughed humorlessly.
“I want to help you be your best self.”
This seemed like such a strange thing to say, and Gil seemed so serious, that Colm wondered if the queazel were mad. Could aliens go mad? An interesting question. Gil’s back tufts stuck up in dirty clumps. He wore a loose vest stained with God knows what. He lapped from his glass, raised his head, and caught Colm watching him.
“Aren’t you going to drink with me?”
“Looks like you’ve already had a few today.” Today was an elusive concept this far north. The sun never set, just dipped slightly closer to the horizon. For the days, maybe as long as a week, of his imprisonment, Colm had been sleeping as much as he could, staring out of the six-inch slit window the rest of the time. The bed frame was made of molded plastic. He couldn’t break it. He could think of only two ways out of here. Jump Rivizolla, which seemed like an efficient way of committing suicide ... or persuade Gil to let him go.
“All right, I’ll keep you company.” He took a long sip of muck and ate a few nuts. The queazel snack mix was an improvement over the barley porridge they’d been giving him.
“Do you remember when you were discharged from the Navy?” Gil said. “That is how I felt when I was forced into retirement.”
“As we humans say, karma’s a bitch.”
“They said I was careless with my assets,” Gil complained. He refilled his own glass. “That was hurtful to hear, and simply untrue. I like humans. I admire you.”
&nbs
p; “You haven’t been acting like it.”
“I had no choice. The sentrienza wield the power of life and death over my own people.” Gil put his head back and gnawed at an itchy place in his neck fur.
“Why do you admire humans?”
“You have the best vices,” Gil said with his barking laugh. He extracted a pack of cigarettes from a pocket of his vest, sat halfway up and lit one. “I’m weak,” he said. “It’s a malady.” The smoke drifted in flat veils in the sunlight from the window. A butterfly landed on the windowsill and then flew away.
Colm took a cigarette. “Are you afraid someone might find out what you did?” He was curious to know whether Gil had a conscience.
“I was afraid you would find out.”
“Aye, I’m a wee bit upset that you used me to lure the Ghosts to the Kuiper Belt. You could definitely say that.”
“Do you know why we did it?”
“Because you’re rat bastards?”
“The sentrienza have ruled this part of the Orion Arm for thousands of years. They have diplomatic contacts with the ruling races in other regions of the galaxy. Since the war began, there have been top-level summits, exchanges of classified intelligence. All agree: nothing like the Ghosts has ever been seen before. Never, in recorded history.”
“So there are other guys as powerful as the sentrienza out there?”
Gil’s ears twitched impatiently. “Yes, of course.”
“And they all get along, do they?”
“Oh, they have treaties and modus vivendi agreements. Fancy language for a fact of existence. The upper limits on FTL speed are written into the laws of physics. It already takes a hundred Earth years to travel from one side of the sentrienza empire to the other. No species could ever build or hold an empire much larger. Galactic empire would be an impossibility.”
“Not for the Ghosts, it wouldn’t,” Colm said, suddenly understanding why the sentrienza were afraid of them. “They can travel from one star to another in no time at all.” He shivered. “In the twinkling of an eye.”
The Chemical Mage: Supernatural Hard Science Fiction (The Tegression Trilogy Book 1) Page 24
