Rogue Messiah: Fleetfoot Interstellar Series, Book 2

by P. Joseph Cherubino

  “And why can’t we take a lift or something?” Drexler asked catching his breath. The last staircase led them past more than a dozen doorways of various sizes that might accommodate any number of species. “This is not Earth gravity.”

  “Yes,” Vasiliev replied, maddeningly unwinded. “This section is dedicated to the Forest Children, so it is set at their standard gravity.”

  Drexler trudged on to the final staircase. When he stepped past the top tread, he felt instantly lighter.

  “The Human section,” Vasiliev said, as Drexler followed him down the hallway to the guest chamber.

  “What is this place?” Drexler asked.

  “It is called the Meditation Center. To answer your earlier question, the use of technology here is limited.”

  “But multiple, intersecting gravity fields is not limited use of technology,” Drexler replied. “The computing load to achieve that alone is staggering, not to mention the particle generators and emitters necessary to make that happen. You must be concealing the emitters because I saw none.”

  “The emitters are built into the walls,” Vasiliev replied as he stepped into the chamber and closed the door made from rough planks of gray wood. “This level of technology makes it possible to provide authentic environments for any species who come to New Detroit. Behind the doors we passed, you would find any number of unique, native environments.”

  “To what purpose?” Drexler asked. “Why go to all this trouble? Surely anyone who could get to New Detroit would be accustomed to Union Standard space environments.”

  “The meditation center is not intended for simply any space traveler. This is where Governmental Hive Mind members come to develop higher thought integration. This place is the key to our unique form of Democracy. We can join the minds of any sentient being.”

  “I’ll take your word for it,” Drexler replied.

  As he focused on catching his breath, Drexler did not notice the door at the other end of the small chamber until Vasiliev opened it and motioned him through. The Captain moved forward with leaden feet into a dimly-lit room. A raised platform sat in the chamber’s center covered with a billowy white cloth. At first, Drexler thought the platform was a bed. It was only when Vasiliev moved toward it that a human form described itself in the half light. Vasiliev drew the sheet away, and Drexler dropped back on his heels and yelped in spite of himself.

  The body of Harvard Yalu lay naked, pale and motionless on a stone slab. Drexler found himself counting ribs that formed a cave before the valley of a sunken abdomen. Drexler had seen his share of dead human bodies before. Death was a common result of accidents in his chosen profession. He never got used to it, but this appearance of death was far more disturbing.

  “What happened!” Drexler exclaimed. “We only left him an hour ago!”

  “Wait,” the Daemon replied, oddly calm.

  When the body opened its eyes wide and its abdomen suddenly inflated, Drexler realized what he saw. “A proxy clone,” he said. “Highly illegal in the Trade Union and the Federated Americas alike, I believe.”

  The body spasmed and gasped. Its face grimaced in pain. Its breath came ragged and fast, like gusts of wind before a thunderstorm. Drexler turned away when the body produced an erection.

  “Call me when you get it together, Harvard!” Drexler shouted as he left the room.

  A few minutes later, Harvard emerged with the thick cloth wrapped around him like a cloak. His eyes ran with milky tears, and his teeth chattered. “Sorry for the shock,” he said.

  “Why all the cloak and dagger stuff?” Drexler asked in Ancient English.

  Harvard cocked his head and leaned forward. “Sorry, this clone is rather new. There is some cognitive lag,” he said, beginning in Tradespeak and ending in English.

  “I guess that will happen when you destroy a human mind to take control of a body,” Drexler replied.

  Harvard laughed and said, “Oh, come now, Captain. Since when are you so squeamish? It should satisfy the ethics I did not realize you possessed to know that these clones are created without sentience. They are merely biological machines―vehicles for transmitted consciousness. They are far different from the early clones created for this purpose. As is often the case, Human law often lags far behind human ability.”

  “Which brings me to the next question: why do you need this vehicle? What are you playing at?”

  “Two questions, you ask,” Harvard replied with rattling teeth. “Vasiliev, please help us begin.”

  “It should go without saying that this meeting will remain secret,” the Daemon said, with a new hard cast to his eyes, “at our mutual peril.”

  “As long as the compensation matches the peril, I’m fine with that,” Drexler replied.

  The laughter produced by Harvard’s host clone took on a rattling, phlegmy quality. “You are not exactly in a seller’s market here, Drexler,” Harvard said.

  The previous, accommodating look on the Deamon’s face was gone, replaced with the unmistakable countenance of a hard bargainer. “We both know that your plans for the Resistance Armada are the only hope you have for avoiding a lifetime in prison.”

  “Let’s not overstate things,” Drexler replied. “We both know that the Lizards used the Kelgar 7 incident as a thin excuse to exercise plans they had long ago.”

  “I know that,” Harvard replied, “and you know that, but how much do you think that matters while the Lizards are winning? Several worlds are already willing to accept certain versions of reality simply to avoid being invaded. Whether the Union wins or not, you are a very convenient pawn to sacrifice.”

  Drexler shook his head and said with a clenched jaw, “I am aware how well-screwed I am. Just tell me what you want.”

  Harvard looked to his Daemon, who took up the baton. “We want you to solve two problems for us. We have population issues. We want to take on the civilian refugees, but as you know, New Detroit operates within strict population limits. Eight billion beings in seventy-five cubic kilometers worth of city ship involve very delicate equations to remain sustainable.”

  “Let me guess,” Drexler replied. “You want me to recruit my Armada crews from a certain element of your population.”

  Harvard replied with a crooked smile. The Daemon just fixed Drexler with piercing eyes.

  “Is this why you were noncommittal during our official meeting?” Drexler asked.

  “Yes. The High-Mind has no intention of providing you with meaningful legal support. They didn’t lie, but only by the slimmest margin.”

  “What’s in this for you, then? And What’s in it for me?”

  “We have a history,” Harvard replied.

  “Yes. That’s why I’m surprised you got elected High-Mind president. It must have taken very specific skill to keep the information about your shady past from the rest of the High-Mind.” With that statement, Drexler turned to the Deamon, whose poker face faltered.

  “Yes, Vasiliev and I have a very special relationship. I rely on his talents with information science, and he relies on my political acumen.”

  “So, I take it that Daemon Vasiliev here will get me to the core levels undetected.”

  “That is essentially correct,” Harvard replied.

  “I’m not going to the dens alone. You get me Boljak, and you have a deal.”

  Vasiliev balked and stammered, “You are not in the bargaining position here.”

  “I see,” Drexler replied. “Your talents aren’t up to the task of concealing the movements of a human and an insectoid. Maybe I’ll just take my chances recruiting from the refugee cloud.”

  Betting on Vasiliev’s pride turned out to be the right move. An hour later, Boljack showed up in the little chamber with the same childlike excitement he showed earlier in the day.

  “Hello, Captain,” Boljack exclaimed. “Thank you for inviting me on a tour of New Detroit.”

  Drexler grimaced and switched from English to Tradespeak. “I’m afraid this may not be a pleas
ant task, Boljack.

  “Why should I want more pleasure? I more than a hundred light years from home on spaceship bigger than anything I believed possible. If I tell my friends what I see in the past hour, they call liar, and you know how we Insectoids feel about lying. I follow you, I see more things like this. I go with you anywhere. Lead. I follow.”

  Drexler just shook his head. He had a hard time deciding which of the six shoulders on which he should clap his spider friend. He decided on the top right and said, “I don’t know what I did to deserve friends like you.”

  “Maybe you find out later,” Boljak replied.

  Drexler didn’t know whether Boljak was making a joke or not. He was about to ask a probing question, when Daemon Vasiliev came back into the room with Harvard. The High-Mind president wore a Trade Union standard journeyman uniform. Drexler almost did not recognize him with a full head of thick, messy black hair. His skin was a few shades darker than its previous absolute white.

  “What’s with the disguise. Your clone looks ridiculous.”

  “I’m coming with you,” Harvard said.

  “The High-Mind President's clone? No thanks. Boljak and I will do fine on our own. Even with that silly getup, you’ll stand out like a Sha’tok on the Kulnar Homeworld.”

  “You’ll be surprised,” Harvard replied. “Nobody will recognize me.”

  As the high-mind president spoke, the flesh of his face rippled. The room filled with a crackling noise as the clone’s cheekbones lifted higher and expanded, accentuating the Asian heritage already present. Nostrils flared slightly wider, and the cartilage shrank, but not before snapping with an audible pop. The Daemon brought his President a cloth for the blood that streamed from the nose that broke and reshaped itself. Harvard caught the blood before it stained his pristine uniform.

  Boljak took several steps back as Harvard’s transformation went on. “This is not natural,” he declared.

  “No, it is not,” Drexler replied. “This body is artificial. It is controlled by the High-Mind President we met earlier.”

  “Another very strange thing,” Boljak replied, reversing his path and moving closer to the human clone for a better look. Harvard was more than happy to explain.

  “Think of this body as a biological machine. We created it from my very own living cells; only we programmed those cells to grow in very specific ways. There are enough undifferentiated cells in this body so that we can program them into new forms at will.”

  Boljak made a slow circle the proxy clone. “Insectoids have technology for this, but we never think to use it this way.” Boljak stopped short of declaring it, but Drexler had the distinct impression the Arachnid did not approve of the application.

  “Will our duplicitous friend be coming with us?” Drexler asked, casting a side-eye at Vasiliev. Drexler liked Vasiliev at their first meeting but changed his mind after discovering how deceptive the man could be. The Captain tended not to like people who were better at creating false impressions than himself. The Daemon answered the question by leaving the room and disappearing into the Escher Tower interior.

  “I guess that means ‘no,'” Drexler quipped.

  “He will manage to subvert New Detroit’s demographic trackers for us. This is a very complex job, as you can imagine,” Harvard replied.

  “I’m guessing the Core is still a governmental blind spot,” Drexler said.

  “It would not be the core if it were not,” Harvard said, leading them back into the chamber where he rose from the dead. The stone block that held his clone lifted a few centimeters and slid silently to the right to reveal an iris that opened with equal silence to reveal a pitch black expanse.

  Boljak surprised both Harvard and Drexler by stepping around them and mounting the stairs that Drexler could not see.

  “Am I the only one who cannot see in the dark?” Drexler asked.

  “Yes,” said Boljak at the same time Harvard replied “Yes.”

  Drexler mumbled a light curse and activated the wrist light on his flight suit. He followed the Arachnid and the Human clone body down a long, spiral flight of stairs with no railing that led to an airlock. Harvard paused by the controls and waited. Drexler guessed he was in thought communication with Vasiliev. He was right.

  “The Information Daemon may be in contact with you both from time-to-time with specific instructions. He will only do so when absolutely necessary to the mission.”

  “Mission?” Boljak asked as the airlock door opened to a small jump-ship.

  Drexler recognized the jumpship as a Three Pillars design from one of its early-generation freighters. It had seen better days. Drexler noticed the amber indicators on the status consoles indicating several atmosphere leaks and more than a few bad particle emitters. He wondered how even an undercover ship used for covert operations could get by with so many safety violations. The forward viewing bulkhead warped visibly as Harvard poked at the controls with his long fingers and the ship hurtled into a thick stream of traffic.

  “Be careful!” Drexler yelped as the ship’s collision alarm sounded. “Boljak and I only have one body!”

  “Sorry,” Harvard chuckled, “I need to keep up appearances.”

  “By getting us arrested for reckless operation of a jumpship?”

  “We will look more suspicious if we obey all the traffic regs,” Harvard said, as he pushed the ship into a suicidal dive through multiple horizontal traffic streams. Drexler checked his wrist display screen to make sure his flight suit was ready to deploy should Harvard smash the ship.

  The flight was short, but Drexler felt tired when the ship rattled to a halt at the base of an industrial process tower. This section of the city ship was reserved mostly for infrastructure, industry and waste disposal. It was the kind of place most people only went to out of necessity. This was where the criminal demographic of New Detroit chose to do its business. Drexler was very familiar with the place. Most of the contacts for his illegal tobacco smuggling operation resided here.

  The two humans donned EV suits, while the arachnid activated body implants that protected him from hard vacuum. Most Insectoid bodies tolerated exposure to space with very little protection beyond implanted heater coils and an external oxygen supply. Drexler could not figure out from where Boljak produced the breathing mask he placed over his mouth pincers. Insectoids did not generally wear clothing.

  Harvard’s body clone led the way. His pristine boots made a fog around his feet from the powdery asteroid dust. The ship touched down about twenty meters from the base of a particularly foreboding, low-lying gray dome. The experience was completely new to Drexler. He’d never set foot on the actual surface of the great city ship. Few beings had. Most of the life of New Detroit took place in the towers or deep beneath the asteroid’s skin.

  Gravity was patchy at the surface, making their progress feel sometimes oppressive and at other times as if the next footstep might send them flying into space. Drexler was slightly nauseous by the time they reached the dome rim.

  A seam in the shape of a door appeared on the dome surface directly before Harvard as he held out his hand, palm out. The doorway glowed red, then the section of dome sunk inward and slid to the right. The three filed through the opening, first Harvard, then Boljak, then Drexler.

  The sense of space provided by the surface was obliterated by the wild jumble of machinery that the dome covered like an upturned bowl. Massive hoops of pipe and squat cooling towers and condensation vessels, connected with power conduits and data cables covered nearly every square centimeter of space beneath the dome. Drexler was surprised when Harvard moved off in the direction of a passage through the mess, leading them to a lift housing.

  The lift car was just large enough to accommodate all three if they all held their respective appendages close to their bodies. The space barely afforded Harvard the range of motion to poke a finger at the control panel which sealed them in and sent the car hurtling straight down to the core. The car had a minimal inertia-governing
capability, as evidenced by the lurching and swaying as it plummeted, then made a series of violent turns through at least three horizontal transitions.

  Drexler could not leave the car fast enough. “I do not want to ride that thing again,” he said, looking back at the cramped space. The view when he turned back was the opposite of the lift car.

  The lift deposited them deep inside New Detroit’s core, into a massive cavern. Disused industrial equipment was converted into all manner of living and working space. Drexler recognized converted liquid hydrogen tanks cut in half and welded back together to form low-lying buildings. The tank houses seemed to be used for trading places or drinking spots.

  Larger constructions that Drexler could not identify loomed at various angles both right and perilously oblique from the cavern floor. These buildings struck him as a parody of the orderly and finely engineered towers of the surface.

  Harvard grabbed Boljak by one of his arms and led him forward. The Arachnid leaned back on his lower limbs and moved in slow circles to let his eight eyes take everything in.

  “Let’s go,” Harvard hissed under his breath. “Standing around looking like tourists is not a good idea!”

  “What is this place?” Boljak asked.

  Several of the underground denizens within hearing range snapped their heads in the direction of the out-of-place question. Drexler noticed more than a few Reptilians were among the crowd, in addition to some Three Pillars humans and several other species he could not readily identify.

  “Boljak,” Drexler said, flanking the Arachnid and sandwiching him between himself and Harvard. “Try to keep the conversation to a minimum?”

  “Why?” Boljak asked. His voice, although at a conversational level, seemed blaring to Drexler as they hurried through the crowd. “Are we in danger?”

  “If you have to ask that, you probably are,” replied a random human stranger in passing. His friends, a group of Lizards and simians, laughed and stared after the group.

  “This is not a friendly place,” Harvard explained.

  “Then why are we here?” Boljak asked.