The Trilisk Revolution (Parker Interstellar Travels)

by McCloskey, Michael

  The androids searched for a minute longer, then dispersed. Telisa stayed put. She had thinking to do, anyway. An attendant brought an anomaly to her attention. It had found another attendant device that Telisa had not launched.

  What is a rogue attendant doing here? No way.

  Telisa got up to leave. One last thought stilled her.

  Is that a clever trick? Maybe the attendant was noted, a copy was made, and… wait. I could tell if it’s a copy.

  Telisa told her attendant to communicate with the other one. If it knew the Vovokan protocols, it was real. Otherwise, it was part of a trap.

  The other attendant responded properly. It was real, but it refused to reveal information about the owner. Telisa left the restaurant. She wanted to check this out in person.

  The owner of the other one may well show up there, too.

  Telisa moved quickly to the spot on the map. She had to go down two long corridors and take a grav-free tube. When she arrived, she found the two attendants staring each other down in front of another Telisa.

  “The Five hate me,” she said. She uncloaked herself. Telisa3 did a double take.

  “Shiny didn’t tell me anything,” Telisa3 said. “You?”

  “Shiny talked to you? Sent you? Damn him.”

  “Are you the original? I don’t know much because the Trilisks can read minds,” Telisa3 said. “I’m just supposed to find Trilisks.”

  “Actually I am too,” Telisa said. “But there aren’t any here. This place is a giant prison for the rich and powerful. I’m starting to think the Trilisks shuffled them all here so a small number of Trilisks could control them.”

  “So the Trilisks really are… enemies?”

  “At least some of them. Maybe all.”

  “Your eye?”

  “Battle injury,” Telisa said. “This new one is fine.”

  “You must be a little different than me. I’m not sure I would keep the scar,” Telisa3 said.

  I kept it to remember.

  “I’ll get rid of the scar soon,” Telisa lied. “If I live through this.”

  “Did Shiny have your permission to make me? I know I’m one of the Trilisk copies. I’m strong.”

  By the Five.

  “What’s the last thing you remember?” Telisa asked.

  “We were getting ready to go after the Trilisk. On Clacker. We had just found a space habitat.”

  “The Five curse me!” Telisa spat.

  “What?” Telisa3 asked.

  Telisa took a deep breath.

  My first instinct is to tell myself everything. Are there negative repercussions to doing that?

  “Great. Just great. I’m standing here thinking about lying to myself,” Telisa3 said.

  “Well you trust me,” Telisa said. “I’m just thinking it through a second.”

  Telisa3 nodded.

  “You’re super strong and fast,” Telisa said. “You’re also helpless around Trilisks. They put in a back door. A Trilisk column clone is super easy for them to mind control. About instantly.”

  Telisa3’s mouth dropped open.

  “I know,” Telisa said. “We know now, Trilisks are here in the Sol System. I came to kill some in Skyhold. I don’t know why Shiny would send you. Just to back me up? I guess he decided… I don’t know what he was thinking! You’re great for any mission but this… against anything but Trilisks! If there had been Trilisks here it would have been disastrous! They would take you over and you would help them hunt me down. It’s almost like he wants us to fail.”

  “He could be Trilisk himself?” Telisa3 asked.

  “Maybe. At this point I’m scared of what I don’t know. But he could have just killed the whole PIT team outright. I just can’t put it together.”

  “I don’t have a cannister like that,” Telisa3 said. She indicated Telisa’s gas tube.

  “This liquid disperses into a gas that kills Trilisk hosts quickly,” Telisa said. “I brought it in case there were a lot of them here.”

  Telisa3 shook her head. “Why wouldn’t he give some to me?”

  “The Five curse me,” Telisa said again, shaking her head.

  “Is Magnus nearby?”

  Telisa controlled herself. Barely.

  “He’s on another mission,” she managed to say. “We need to check the rest of the base, and if there aren’t any Trilisks at all, we need to leave. Somehow.”

  Telisa3 nodded. “Should be easy enough, with two of us. I have a stealth suit. I suppose you have the cloaking sphere?”

  “Yes. But they detected me at the entrance gate.”

  “Really? Me, too, but I figured it was just that this suit stealth system was inferior.”

  “They may have detected my weight on the conveyor, or maybe smelled me with chemical sniffers,” Telisa said.

  “We can target the sensors,” Telisa3 said. “Sniffers aren’t good enough to target shots, usually,” she added.

  “You keep saying everything I’m thinking.”

  “Well duh.”

  They exchanged smiles. Until Telisa thought of Magnus.

  I wish he was here so much.

  Telisa3 misunderstood her look. “Right, back to business. We should get these people out of here. If there’s a Trilisk we missed, that should get its attention.”

  I’ve changed.

  Telisa nodded. “Okay. We’ll pick an exit gate, preferably one with some passenger-ready ships outside. Then hit the sensors, take out the guards and get some people out.”

  “Attendants can find the sensors I hope,” Telisa3 said.

  “Hrm. Maybe another layer of disguise is in order,” Telisa said thoughtfully.

  Chapter 16

  As Imanol stared down the tunnel hidden inside the old root cellar, he considered simply launching a missile down the tunnel and calling it good. He knew shooting blindly was not a great strategy. He might collapse the tunnel and never find more Trilisks hiding inside. Then they could emerge a year from now and take over again.

  Imanol wiped sweat from his forehead and cursed under his breath. It had been a lot of work getting through the wall built over the entrance. The root cellar was old, filled with the remains of barrels and rotting wood shelves. He hid the rocket launcher in the cellar under a rotting wooden shelf. A scenario flitted through his mind where he never came back to get the launcher and some kid found it in the cellar years after. Imanol checked the weapons lock: only the PIT team could use it.

  He reviewed his weapons. Besides the laser pistol in his hand, he had a projectile pistol at his belt, a stunner in his pack, and two grenades in a special pocket of his Veer armor. He looked nervously at the tunnel entrance. It looked long unused, with roots hanging down that obscured his view.

  Imanol told his laser pistol’s light to activate. It complied. The light ran on the same power source as the laser, so light would not be a problem. He crouched to get a better look. The tunnel went at least twenty meters. He could not see farther than ten meters ahead.

  “Are we having fun yet?” he muttered. Imanol advanced in a crouch. He sent an attendant forward to scout.

  As Imanol scraped through the old tunnel, his attendant showed him the terminus in his PV: a circular cavern. The stone walls had been smoothed. Writing had been engraved onto the wall. Imanol could not read it, but his link provided a translation: “Pilgrims bound for the Temple of Hades, hold your key and implore the master of the underworld for entrance.”

  You’ve got to be kidding me. The Trilisks have been here a long time.

  There, in the center of the room’s floor, was a huge circular portal. It was made of some rust-free metal or ceramic. Though dirty, it was clearly made to last.

  End of the line. With those Trilisks up there dead, how could I possibly get through this?

  Imanol kept going to see for himself. He reached the end two minutes later. The room at the end had enough space for him to stand straight. He brushed himself off even though his shiny black Veer suit had an electrostat
ically clean surface. He swept his laser’s illumination over the ancient room. The air was cool and dry. He scanned the rocky floor. No footprints.

  It doesn’t seem like those ones in the house were visiting this much. But they had to know about it?

  Imanol walked around the sealed door. His link showed no services.

  Trilisks probably just opened it with a thought… Open!

  The door did not respond. Imanol pondered the obstacle.

  What can I do? Search the house. Look for anything that could be the key this writing mentions.

  Imanol sent two of his four attendants back up to the burned house. He instructed them to find anything interesting that survived the fire. While he waited, he cleared some of the sandy dirt from around the base. Imanol could not tell what it was made of. He thought about testing it with his laser, or even the rocket launcher.

  If it’s Trilisk, I’m not blasting through it.

  An attendant above ground found an item in the house’s ashes made of the same material. Imanol told it to bring the item back. Imanol guessed it would be the key. Yet there was no place for a key anywhere on the surface of the portal. His attendants returned with the device.

  Imanol held it in his hand. It was flat, cold, formed in a flat diamond shape. His link still showed no services. Imanol shook his head. It was not a Terran door, it was Trilisk.

  Open! Open!

  The remaining dirt on the portal’s surface flew away in an instant. Now the portal looked brand new. Then the door made a loud grinding noise. The circular seal turned and slid away, revealing an enormous black opening. Warm, moist air belched upwards. It had an odor Imanol could not place.

  Great. Just great.

  Imanol checked his other light sources. He had a mini lantern, no larger than his thumb, which could light a small room. His stunner and the attendants also had small light sources. He told three attendants to slip down into the room below and help light the flanks.

  At this point, if something is waiting for me, it’ll be an easy shot if it’s waiting in the dark.

  Imanol tossed the mini lantern down for good measure. It fell about four meters to a smooth black surface below.

  I need Telisa’s eye, he thought. He knew her artificial eye could probably see very well in low light. I wonder if she’s still alive.

  Imanol finally decided to follow his attendants down. He considered the key. Leaving it here would help anyone else who showed up. But if there was an enemy survivor somewhere on the island, they could seal him in with it. He decided to bring the key with him and put it in his pack.

  I hope it’s tough. If I take a tumble and break it, that could suck… I’ll leave the door open. When I leave, I’ll have to stack something to climb on or throw a smart rope up there.

  Imanol checked his pack and verified he had the rope. Then he looked down through the opening. The tunnel wall was perfectly smooth and utterly black. His attendants had not found any danger waiting for him.

  If I were an ancient Greek, I’d believe this was the underworld, too.

  Imanol decided to drop without his smart rope. It was not far to the floor below. He climbed to the edge, hung down by his hands as if doing a chin up, then released. He hit the ground and knelt to keep from falling backwards.

  There was room for Imanol to stand inside the circular tunnel. The portal above dropped down into a tunnel running roughly north and south under the island. Two attendants flew away down the tunnel in opposite directions. As the attendants flew away, Imanol started to see that the tunnels extended farther than the island.

  One of the attendants found a room. It was as large as a floor of the house above, filled with dark columns extending from floor to ceiling, though they did not seem structural. The other attendant had gone down a long descending tube. It saw a glow ahead. Imanol watched as the attendant flew closer. The tunnel above and beneath glowed a dull reddish light.

  Imanol asked the attendant to do a radiation analysis, but it reported only slight visual red and infrared emissions.

  What’s causing that? Is there magma outside that tunnel?

  Imanol recalled reading a report on his target island, which included notes of volcanic activity nearby. He shook his head.

  To the Trilisks, even the scariest forces of nature are just a light show.

  The attendants flew past several branchings, reporting more rooms and tunnels. They had not seen anything alive, or for that matter, any robots or active machines.

  This is a major Trilisk complex!

  Imanol decided he should report his ‘success’ and the Trilisk base. He was not supposed to contact any of the others directly. They had agreed to route communications through Cilreth to prevent any kind of tracking or interference by the Space Force.

  “Cilreth? I suppose you can’t tie me through to Telisa?”

  There was nothing.

  “Cilreth?”

  Imanol felt a sense of dread. He was not supposed to contact anyone for at least twenty hours if Cilreth did not respond. By that time, the others would have succeeded or failed.

  Someone said that Earth used to have a Trilisk base. Who was that? They said its AI wasn’t working, like that meant something special. I guess that means the base is somehow without power or disabled in some way?

  Imanol kept moving through the tunnel. He thought better of having two attendants exploring, so he sent for one to come back and instead stay about a hundred meters ahead of his route.

  If it sees something bad, I guess I should shoot first and ask questions never.

  Imanol headed toward what he suspected might be the center of the complex based upon the map his attendants had accumulated. He started to jog through the tunnel. It started to angle downwards. Imanol made good time. The optimum simultaneous strike time of the PIT mission had come and gone when he killed the Trilisks above. Any Trilisk left on Earth now had to know it was an endangered species.

  The others must be well along now. If there’s a Trilisk, it’s probably heard the news. And I’m probably a dead man.

  His lead attendant found something. A huge chamber. Imanol watched the video feed. There was a building inside the Trilisk base! The structure had the style of an ancient Greek temple. The attendant reported several life signs inside. Imanol recalled it back to his position to avoid notice. He arranged for the remaining scout to return to him as well. Imanol wanted all the protection he could get.

  I can’t believe how long this thing has been down here. The Trilisks made a temple down here for the natives? I thought they just observed other races from these complexes. Or used them as hosts for fun, or something secret. But looks like they played the deity card on the poor bastards.

  Imanol readied his weapons. Before he made it to the end of the last tunnel leading to the temple building, all four attendants orbited him, ready to help. He had to run through the glowing tunnel his attendant had found. Imanol ignored the glow and what it probably meant.

  If I’m going to go deep into this complex hunting Trilisks, I can’t let a little magma get to me.

  He could not tell if the tunnel was hotter or if it was just his imagination. His suit was a good insulator, too. The reddish glow faded behind him to be replaced by a yellowish one ahead. He could see in his PV he was almost to the large temple chamber.

  Finally Imanol emerged from the tunnel and got his first look with his own eyes. The room was big and black. The building looked like it had been built on the surface of an asteroid hurling through deep space. It was lit from inside. Imanol wondered how long that light had been on.

  This is utterly insane.

  Imanol stared. He traced the distinctive lines of ancient architecture. The materials were wrong. The temple was not built from stone. It was made of the same dark, almost indestructible material as the Trilisk walls which towered overhead. There were lines in its surface, as if it had been put together from separate pieces, but Imanol suspected they were fake. But the lines of the temple were G
reek.

  They built this to impress the locals. I bet it worked, too.

  Imanol caught sight of something at the base of the structure. He walked carefully forward to get a look.

  There, sitting at the bottom of the wide stair leading up to the temple, a man in leather tunic and sandals sat with a circular shield and a spear beside him. Piles of bones sat around him. They looked ancient.

  “Blood and souls,” Imanol whispered in awe.

  Chapter 17

  A Vovokan shuttle hurtled through space toward Earth.

  Inside, Cilreth2 took a deep breath and tried to center herself. Her insides roiled like a tornado of knives. She wanted to scream.

  She needed twitch. Fast.

  When she had come out of the Trilisk column she had felt better than ever before. And she had assumed the benefits of an immortal body would include an immunity from the slow damage of twitch. When she tried some, the twitch had affected her more than when she was human. To Cilreth2, twitch was like a rocket ride, a combination of cerebral nitro and opium-like euphoria. She had been taken by surprise from the beginning, and two days later she was addicted ten times harder than Cilreth. She didn’t share this terrible development with her original. Cilreth2 was supposed to be super strong, super smart, and bulletproof. She had wondered what it said about her personality that she would not share this problem with herself.

  Luckily, she had an opportunity to fix all this up in one day.

  I hope my slow self hasn’t noticed I’m gone yet. She’ll know by the time I get back.

  A little quick research had allowed her to catch up with an old friend, Nell. Or was Nell an old enemy? When it came to a drug supplier, the words could blend together quickly. Her supplier had been someone who had given her a steady stream of the drug whenever she needed it, never ratted her out, and kept her supply of twitch pure and safe. But Cilreth had learned the hard way that when it came to money, people had less friends than they thought. Cilreth2 had every memory of it.

  Nell had moved up a notch in the supply chain since the original Cilreth left Earth. She operated out of a nice mansion outside of Phoenix, where Cilreth had lived before moving to the frontier. Even then Nell had had long silvery hair, though Cilreth wasn’t sure if it was from endless twitch usage or just an affectation.