Moving Earth

by Dean C. Moore

  Gerlari pulled back the lid of what passed to the naked eye as a very slick, black-lacquered coffin.

  Sonny sat up, the expression on his face suggesting he wasn’t bluffing earlier. “Bring that bitch to me, now!”

  His people already had a hold of Leopard Lady and were dragging her to him. They stopped when her face was close enough to slobber over.

  “Your remediation will begin immediately. Let me be the first to welcome you to the family. I assure you when we’re done with you, you’ll be the most loyal little doggie, Cat Lady.” He nodded for her handlers to take her away. “Take her to my private suite so her screams can lull me to sleep at night. To say nothing of soothing this headache. Techa, I hate being killed!”

  He turned, his eyes still ablaze with fury, toward his inner circle. “Just what can that woman do with her mind?”

  “She was the one keeping the warbird cloaked; it had no such device onboard,” Samson, Sonny’s chief of security, said.

  “And she was the one that caused the explosion,” Bella said. “I could smell as much on her and on the warbird. The Blue had already hacked the self-destruct mechanism aboard ship and shut it down.”

  The two dog-people responding to Sonny had nasal adaptations to smell subtle permutations in outer space, even through the hull of the Lucky Streak. Again, Mother had thought of the adaptations before Sonny and his people could even think to put in a request for them.

  Sonny did something curious upon being informed of the treachery. He relaxed and smiled, and lit a cigar. “I want regiments of her people, loyal to me.”

  The Blue smiled. “You’re thinking of checking the power of Leon’s Psi Force and Chi Corps, which have yet to be brought fully on line.”

  Sonny smiled back at her. “Why, yes I am. Small Special Forces units can only do so much. They’re perfect for surgical strikes, but they can’t hold off entire regiments. I want the numbers on my side to be able to shut down all of Leon’s Special Forces units if need be.”

  “You’ll need to keep them busy with assignments that suggest their true purpose lies elsewhere,” the Blue coached.

  “Well ahead of you,” Sonny said puffing on his cigar. “Let’s put the Saran to work for now softening up the galactic leaders and diplomats from the other galaxies in The Collectors’ Menagerie, the ones refusing to send their people to our parlors for fear of us getting more intel on them than they can get on us. I’m sure they’ll be very amenable to filling my gaming room floors when the Saran are done with them.”

  “I’ll build you the technology to enhance your brainwashing of the Saran,” the Blue said. “What would have taken you years, will take you weeks, providing you can get your hands on enough of the Saran.”

  “You leave that to me,” Sonny said. He twirled his cigar and puffed on it some more to help him think. “There must be entire worlds out there, hell, entire galactic civilizations highly susceptible to psychic enslavement. Combine enough of these Saran, sync up enough of their minds, hell, their targets might not even need to be that psychically susceptible.”

  “You’ll need more than regiments for that,” Gerlari said.

  “You heard the lady,” Sonny said laughing. “Have my Shadow Warriors deploy to find us the tech that can teleport all of the Saran onto a world ship that can act as a thought amplifier for them. If you can’t find a planetary population relocator and a thought-amplifying world ship amid the Dead Zone artifact worlds, or any of the other galactic civilizations the Shadow Warriors are cataloguing—for Leon, of course—”

  His inner circle laughed at the joke.

  He turned to the Blue. “How long would it take you to adapt one of those legacy world ships?”

  The Blue took a deep breath. “Providing Solo agrees to the mind link with me, not long at all.”

  “And why would he agree?” Sonny sounded leery.

  “The priority is to get us the hell out of The Collectors’ domain. After that, Leon will come to settle accounts. And not with me,” the Blue said. “He’ll know I was just fulfilling my mission statement. I suggest you have your fallback play in place then, or it’ll be your head on the chopping block.”

  Sonny smiled. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.” He puffed on his cigar once more and then barked at his people. “Now, I suggest you find me what I need and report back—yesterday!”

  The inner circle disbanded, like cockroaches under a light switch flicked to “on.”

  Sonny returned his gaze to the viewport. The debris of the destroyed warbird was colliding with the Lucky Streak’s energy shield and being vaporized in turn. It was a lovely light show. “What is it about destruction that’s just so beautiful?”

  The Blue restrained a smile.

  Sonny took another deep breath and another puff on his cigar. “Techa, I love being me.”

  ***

  ABOARD THE NAUTILUS

  Crumley turned to Ajax, having just witnessed Sonny’s treachery firsthand, well, secondhand, through the mind of the Leon still in the Samadhi tank. Crumley had seen everything go down with the Leopard Lady, her destruction of the Lucky Streak, its subsequent restoration, and Sonny’s mad plan to use the Saran to bring everyone in the Menagerie to heel.

  “You’re right,” Crumley said. “I absolutely love this TV channel.”

  “It’s filled with political intrigue, spy craft, and Sonny’s every dirty deed. Or so he’d like us to think. You can bet that bastard is filtering the feed.”

  Crumley nodded. “And the Blue is helping him do it.”

  “I’d like you to keep in mind that there is just one Solo. And how many of those Blues are there?”

  A popcorn kernel from the giant tub in Crumley’s hands stuck in his throat. He was hacking up a storm.

  Ajax stared at him. “Are you choking to death? I’m so jealous. We really need to get someone into the Collectors’ take on Valhalla.” Ajax shivered just thinking about it. “I don’t have the stomach for that, but I can’t wait to watch you on the Tele.” He picked up the remote.

  Crumley managed to clear his throat finally.

  “Coward,” Ajax chastised him.

  “Anything interesting on the other channels?”

  “Lots. What you in the mood for?” He handed Crumley the remote. “The G button is for the Genocides channel. First rate stuff. You haven’t seen a good genocide until you see one sweeping through an entire galaxy.”

  “Seriously? You can be that emotionally detached?”

  “I believe the term is dead man walking, and the question properly phrased is, ‘Can I be any more emotionally numb?’ No, but I’ve been watching for hours. Welcome to the party, buddy.” He slapped Crumley on the shoulder.

  Crumley clenched his jaw. He gazed away from Leon’s mind monitor, over at Leon in the tank. “I don’t know how he stands it.”

  Ajax peered at Leon. Leon was twitching violently. “I’m guessing ‘stand’ is a relative term,” Ajax said.

  Crumley switched his focus to the remote in his hand, holding it out in front of him. “What’s ‘A’ for?”

  “Oh, that would be the Atrocities channel. Sort of flash fiction compared to the Genocides station; those G-channel stories are interminable.”

  “What kind of atrocities are we talking?” Crumley asked.

  “The kind not even the Genocides channel can hold a candle to.”

  “Let’s try that.” Crumley pressed “A” on the remote.

  SIXTY-FIVE

  THE COLLECTORS’ MENAGERIE

  THE RISHA GALAXY

  PLANET ZALICS

  “Where is this asshole?” Cromatron’s sense of time was precise down to the picosecond. Why couldn’t people show a little respect for the time-sensitive?

  “You give impatience new meaning, buddy. What does a mole man need with a sense of time, anyway? It’s always dark underground. And on the surface, it’s perpetual twilight.” Vassy didn’t mean any disrespect. He was curious about everything; he couldn’t help
himself. That curiosity always got him into all sorts of trouble, the kind that was quite profitable for Cromatron.

  “The crystals of this world…if you live here long enough, they definitely mess with you. Who the hell knows why they’ve mutated me as they have?” Cromatron’s entire surface was comprised of tiny shimmering silver beads, to the naked eye. Each one of those beads was in fact a rapidly rotating scoop with nano-edged razor sharpness that allowed him to devour dirt as he went along. What “dirt” there was on Zalics was nearly as hard as diamond, but they were no match for his beads. As the beads rotated and scooped up debris the solids were converted to zero-point energy that energized and powered him forwards. He could swim through solids easier than most people walked through air.

  His eyes scanned the vista wide for any incoming craft, taking in all that Zalics was now, an endless landscape of broken giant crystals that were once growing out of the ground, once part of a planetwide supersentience. The crystals glowed and throbbed and buzzed with life from the juice flowing through them at one time, or so the rumors went. That is until The Collectors got their hands on this world and shut it down. Rumor was that’s why the entire galaxy had been imprisoned, just to get at this one planet, without making it look like the obvious target. But Vassy, with that inquiring mind of his, kept digging, grilling everyone he met here, those permanently ensconced on the planet, and those that came and went from here, trading in black market contraband, like Cromatron. Eventually he’d pieced together the story. That story wouldn’t stand up in court exactly, but it was good enough for Cromatron, who could gauge precision admittedly a lot better than he could gauge truth. But there was something terse, concise, and precise about Vassy’s story; the fact that it explained everything with such economy and lack of coloring of the facts pleased Cromatron. And it was Vassy’s best guess that The Collectors had shut this world down with technology garnered from one of the other trapped galaxies in their Menagerie.

  The Collectors’ magic lay not in their own more evolved status, but in their ability to play various parties off one another for their own gain. They seldom imprisoned a galaxy at any TGC’s or TGE’s request simply because they were a thorn in someone’s side unless they knew ahead of time they could contain the problem themselves. They usually could. What was true of all those parallel universes in the multiverse that The Collectors had access to was that each of those universes had a solution to someone else’s problem. Even if they couldn’t communicate with one another. But The Collectors were excellent communicators, negotiators, traders, and they could go where no one else could. And how did they manage that? Vassy didn’t know for sure, but he was still digging. Give him time. He suspected it had something to do with their genetics. A gift of nature, no more.

  Vassy was feeling the effects of staying too long on Zalics, as well. He’d always been a peculiar sort. Cromatron wasn’t sure what world in The Risha Galaxy he was from, and Vassy wouldn’t say. He could be cagy with his secrets, giving up just enough to stay in Cromatron’s good graces. When Cromatron first met him, Vassy looked like an emaciated humanoid with a soft outer body, and an endoskeleton, the kind of shape lifeforms evolved on more cushy worlds. Except he had no surface hair, and he was vaguely transparent, and amber colored. And he had a really big head proportional to his frail body and scant frame. Since living on Zalics, that head had continued to grow in size. Making him smarter and smarter.

  If Cromatron didn’t know better, he’d say the Gaia consciousness on this planet was more dormant than dead, and exacting its revenge against its attackers in slow motion through mutating all those who lived there. Mutating the locals and drafting them into some higher purpose beyond any of them, which only a supersentience could fathom. Of course, it was Vassy that had put that thought in his head; one more matter Vassy was still investigating.

  The smuggler that they’d agreed to rendezvous with was arriving at last.

  Thirty-five whole seconds and fifty nanoseconds and thirty-seven picoseconds late! The bastard! There’s just no respect left in the world anymore.

  The air taxi flitted erratically across the sky as if trying to get a lock on its target, moving about more like an alien stealth warbird than an everyday conveyance. But once it got a lock on Cromatron and Vassy, settled into a more direct trajectory.

  Now it looked more like a missile whose destructive power was aimed straight at them. It didn’t stop until the last second, hovering just yards away at eye level before settling to the ground.

  The figure inside stepped out. It was the blackest thing Cromatron had ever seen, like a shadow grown solid. The figure was sleek and athletic, warrior-like. He would have done well as an urban warfare specialist, able to perform acrobatics easily off the found objects of a city, making his way about like an alley cat. He seemed almost engineered for it. Cromatron knew a class of people like that once on Faras, another of Risha’s inhabited worlds. But that was another time, and another story.

  The figure approached boldly and without fear, moving just like the alley cat Cromatron was sure he was, swiftly, economically. What looked increasingly like a hybrid of human and black panther the closer he got, with upright-lynx-like ears that rotated independently, still on high alert, twitching at every sound, stopped some distance before them. The figure’s black-stockinged exterior was in all likelihood stealth, flexible body armoring with all kinds of remarkable abilities.

  Vassy hadn’t waited to greet their guest. He was too interested in his conveyance, poring over it like a shopper at a street market stunned to find what he’d dug up at some unlikely vendor’s table.

  The Shadow Warrior ignored him, extending his hand to Cromatron. Without needing to be told who was in charge, he just knew. “I’m…”

  “A Shadow Warrior,” Cromatron said, hoping to throw him off balance. “Word of you has reached us, spreading through the Menagerie like wildfire. You work for a man named Sonny who never leaves his home galaxy, just takes that galaxy with him. And it is said Sonny and his Shadow Warriors have more in common with The Collectors than you have with us.”

  The man didn’t even flinch. His heart beat didn’t change one tick. And if there was anyone who could measure a mark’s spikes in vital signs with any accuracy it was Cromatron. “Is that going to be a problem?” the Shadow Warrior asked.

  Cromatron shook his head slowly. “Just the opposite. Takes one to know one. And anyone who can help get us away from The Collectors is worthy of all the respect we can give them. Until, of course, you become every bit as oppressive as them.”

  “Sonny specializes in making offers no one can refuse.”

  “Like?”

  “Once this galaxy is freed from The Collectors’ grip, it will be reintroduced to the universe from whence it came. With the Shadow Warriors backing you, you’ll be able to exact your vengeance on the people who put you here. You’ll bleed the reasons why out of them. And once we’re done making them an offer they can’t refuse, the ones who don’t want to play ball will be handed over to The Collectors, who, will, by then, be in our employ.”

  Stunned silence.

  And then mad laughter. Cromatron was surprised to find it was coming from him. He hadn’t laughed in a long while.

  “I do believe we’re going to get along just fine,” Cromatron said between laughs.

  He hiked over to the trunk of the air taxi, which had popped open the second Cromatron had stated his willingness to play along. He reached inside for the weapon, had to admit it was every bit as sexy as the Shadow Warrior. But it would be a much better fit on the Shadow Warrior, he thought, even as he tried it on for size, leveling the butt of the rifle against his shoulder.

  “We’re not warriors like you, my friend,” Cromatron said. “Not sure this isn’t a waste in my hands when it should be in yours.”

  “On the contrary, you are the real Shadow Warriors—going anywhere, blending in to the point of disappearing into the milieu of choice. Welcome to the resistance.”
/>   “What are you then?”

  “Think of us as your dispute settlers, when words aren’t quite enough anymore.”

  This black panther dude must have belonged to the Special Forces branch of The Shadow Warriors, by his own cloaked admission.

  Cromatron found himself laughing again; he couldn’t help himself. He was starting to enjoy this guy more than Vassy, and Vassy was the only one he liked, and it had taken a hundred years or more on this accursed world to simply get cordial with one another.

  Cromatron returned his eyes to the item in his arms. “If this is not a weapon, then, what is it?”

  The stealth soldier took it out of his arms so smoothly, Cromatron would have sworn he’d handed it over. He aimed it at the sky, just not too far off the ground, and fired. The weapon opened a portal to another world—one that looked like it was humming with activity. A very vibrant, hi-tech world. Well, vibrant by The Collectors’ standards.

  “It’s attuned to other worlds with things worth stealing,” the stealth soldier explained. “The rifle’s magazine is actually an AI that receives the coordinates from a supersentience aboard the Nautilus, one which was just recently created by Solo for the expressed purpose of isolating the worlds The Collectors are likely to have used to perpetrate their crimes against the Menagerie.”

  Cromatron nodded. “Solo. Your Captain Nemo. We had to dig awfully hard to find out what that reference referred to, but we did. It only increased our estimation of him.”

  Cromatron considered the implications. “You want us to go fetch what’s there and bring it back to you?”

  “We have other people for that kind of thing. No, we want you to stick to what you do best. Sic Vassy there,” the Shadow Warrior craned his head toward Vassy, who was still dismantling the stealth soldier’s craft, “on extracting the secrets that no one else can. People have been coming and going from Zalics for eons not knowing what the hell it even is. But Vassy found out.”