The Spider and the Fly

by C.E. Stalbaum

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The Spire of Freedom was one of those absurd cultural monuments whose name was a misnomer on virtually every level. For one, it wasn’t much of a spire. Like nearly all of the oldest structures in New Keledon, the building had been painstakingly sculpted into a livable space by Gantrell’s original group of settlers, which in this case took the form of a crooked tower jutting off the asteroid’s surface like a broken finger. And for two, the “spire” didn’t represent freedom more than anything else in this glorified rabbit hole. It was a monument to terror and surrender, a lasting reminder that the alien scavengers who’d slowly conquered the city were content to leach off human charity rather than unite together and stand against their Convectorate oppressors.

  But that would change. Even now the throng of confused citizens gathering a hundred meters below at the center of the Agora were slowly being herded back to their homes, and soon they would receive specific instructions on how they’d each be contributing to the war effort. For the heartier races, that would largely amount to combat training and hard labor, but for the rest it would include all manner of menial tasks from equipment assembly to repair and everything in between. It would take time to get such a massive herd coordinated, naturally, but it would happen eventually. After five decades of wasted potential, New Keledon would finally join the war against the Convectorate, even if Soren Foln had to drag these alien wretches kicking and screaming the entire way.

  The console behind him beeped, and Foln smiled. There were three of them waiting on the other side of the door, and for the first time in his life he’d been able to sense their approach. He could feel the turmoil in their minds even now. Grier, his lieutenant, sour about Markus’s escape but loyal to the bitter end; Selaris, his pawn, as bewildered and overwhelmed as ever; and Henri, his physician, worried for the health of his old friend.

  “Enter.”

  The door slid open, and the three of them slipped inside. Just days ago, Foln would have been forced to turn around and read their faces to know what they were thinking…but not anymore. Today he was the bearer of a proud and powerful legacy. Today he was finally a Foln.

  “You really stirred up the bloody hornet’s nest this time, didn’t you?” Henri grumbled as he stepped into the room and peered over the balcony. “There are a lot of pissed off aliens down there, and not all of them are going to cooperate.”

  Grier nodded. Her left arm was still sheathed in a flexifoam cast, but otherwise she’d recovered from her bout with Markus. “Our troops are deployed and in position, but they’re facing considerable resistance. Especially in the Rakashi and Neyris districts.”

  “As expected,” Foln replied, closing his eyes and stretching his mind out across the city. He could feel the fear and confusion simmering in the collective consciousness of the alien horde. “Revask and Tavore have had plenty of time to condition their people to stand against us, but they will acquiesce eventually.”

  “And what happens if they don’t?” Henri asked. “There are a lot of fanatics out there—you saw how easily Revask managed to dupe a few of them into attacking Vale. They may fight to the death.”

  Foln shrugged. “Then they will die. Hopefully the others will learn from their example.”

  “You can’t mean that,” Selaris breathed, her soft voice barely audible over the crowd below. “These people haven’t done anything!”

  “‘These people’ have been perfectly willing to leach off of human power for years, and it’s time they paid their dues,” Foln said pointedly, his eyes opening as he finally turned around to face them. “I would think you’d appreciate that, Your Highness.”

  Her hands reflexively clasped around the balcony railing, and he could see her muscles trembling. “My father would never have wanted it to come to this. He believed we needed to work together.”

  “And for once, we will,” Foln told her. “Once this initial resistance is over, New Keledon will be more unified than ever.”

  “Markus wouldn’t have wanted this either.”

  “Markus is gone. He’s made his choice, and he decided that wasting his time with a Convectorate drone was more important than helping us.” Foln glanced over to Grier. “Did you bring me the crystals?”

  She nodded and set the storage case down on the table. “Hopefully the one he stole wasn’t important.”

  Foln opened the case and studied the five short, slender strips of rock. He had always assumed they would be similar to his grandfather’s archival crystal, and after picking one up and linking with it for just a few seconds, he knew he’d guessed correctly. The rate of information transfer was truly astounding; it put even the best cybernetic implants to shame. Unfortunately, that meant that Markus might have been right—maybe he did manage to rifle through all of the crystals in a short period of time. If so, then it was possible the cure really wasn’t here after all.

  It would be the height of irony if the Mire had wasted decades searching for the Damadus only to realize they’d never needed it in the first place. The mere thought probably should have driven Foln into a murderous rage, but right now he couldn’t care less. The power of his family’s legacy was finally his, and that was all that mattered.

  “It makes no difference,” he said as much to himself as to the others. “With Henri’s serum, we have little need for miracle cures.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” Henri said, frowning at the display on his med-scanner. “You know this isn’t a permanent fix. Your blood pressure is up another five points, and your heart rate is approaching time-and-a-half normal. I can’t even begin to imagine what it’s doing to your nervous system this time.” He put the device away and sighed. “You’re going to crash sooner or later, and this time the damage might be permanent.”

  “I’ve never understood why you seem to have so little faith in your own work. If you could feel what I feel right now, you wouldn’t question what you’ve accomplished.” Foln shook his head. “I’m alive, Henri…and it is glorious.”

  “I’ll have to take your word for it,” the doctor murmured. “I’m just trying to give you the facts. This serum is not a cure—the pathogen is still hiding inside you somewhere.”

  “The crystals might be able to help with that. I still plan on sifting through them once I’ve finished with this,” Foln said, tapping the crimson pendant on his neck. “For now, though, I want you to begin synthesizing as much of the serum as possible. Consult your medical records and identify the soldiers with the best odds of a positive response based on the data you’ve gathered. We should also consider anyone from families with a known history of psychic potential.”

  “Wait, what?” Selaris stammered, turning away from the railing. “You’re just going to start injecting people? You have no idea what will happen!”

  Foln smiled thinly. He could feel the concern rolling off her, but entwined with it was an equal portion of jealousy. Despite the fact that her powers had nearly destroyed her, they had also made her special—and thanks to Henri’s treatment and his grandfather’s archival crystal, Foln’s abilities had eclipsed hers in a matter of hours.

  “She’s right, Soren,” Henri said. “We can’t start forcing this on people, not without a hell of a lot more research.”

  “I don’t intend to force anyone,” Foln replied. “We’ll start with volunteers, and I guarantee they’ll be lining up outside your door the moment I mention it to them.”

  “That still doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. I need more time to study the results, not to mention more field tests. This isn’t something we can rush.”

  Foln’s smile vanished as he shot his old friend a cold glare. Henri’s thoughts were even more transparent than hers. He was still wallowing in guilt about how the serum had come about in the first place, and it was getting increasingly tiresome.

  “Consider the volunteers your field tests,” Foln told him. “You will have plenty of opportunity to monitor them.”

  “No,” He
nri whispered, shaking his head. “I won’t do this.”

  Foln stepped towards him, glowering. “Yes, you will.”

  “Or what, you’ll shoot me?” Henri snorted. “This stuff is already making you crazy, Soren. I should never have kept the project going after the last episode. This has been a mistake all along—”

  His words choked off as Foln thrust into his mind. The crystal had shown him how to be subtle with his manipulations, and given enough time he could have probably twisted Henri’s perceptions enough to guarantee obedience. But this wasn’t just about getting what Foln wanted; it was about breaking his old friend out of his annoying and misplaced sympathy for a dead man and his daughter.

  And perhaps for once again reminding everyone who was in charge.

  “You will synthesize the serum,” Foln ordered, sliding his mental dagger cleanly through the proverbial armor plates. Henri locked in place, his hands twitching as Foln hammered away at his obstinance…

  “Stop it!” Selaris screamed, leaping forward and grabbing onto the doctor. Somehow she managed to bolster his mind with her own, erecting a kind of telepathic shield to block everything out…

  Foln grunted as he let go, and Henri flopped to the floor. “My orders are final,” he said coldly. “You will begin synthesizing the serum immediately, and we’ll distribute it as soon as possible. Is that clear?”

  Henri sucked in a few staggered breaths as he tried to pull himself to his feet, and when his eyes finally flicked back up to his old friend, the terror lurking behind them was unmistakable. It was sad, really. Henri believed he’d created a monster when instead he’d taken the first step in liberating humanity. Why couldn’t he see that?

  “I’ll return to the lab and get started,” the doctor rasped.

  “Good,” Foln said, turning away. “Keep me updated.”

  Henri stumbled out the door. The moment he was gone Selaris turned and glared at Foln. “You could have killed him!” she stammered.

  “I knew precisely what I was doing,” Foln said more or less truthfully. “He needed motivation, and I gave it to him.” He sighed and placed a hand on her shoulder. “As for you, Your Highness, you still have a speech to prepare for tonight. The people will need you to reassure them, especially if the riots continue.”

  The girl continued to glare daggers at him, and the anger boiling inside her rivaled that of the alien horde below. But Foln knew it would pass. Soon Selaris would be thanking him for liberating her from the insipid councilors. She could take her rightful place as the last Keledonian queen…and Foln, of course, could take his rightful place as the power behind it all.

  Eventually she turned away and nodded. “I’ll be in my quarters, then,” she whispered.

  Foln waited until the door had slid shut behind her before turning to face his lieutenant. “You’ve been quiet.”

  “I had nothing to add, my lord,” Grier replied softly.

  He frowned. Unlike the others, her thoughts were incredibly rigid, so much so that he had trouble gleaning anything substantive from them. But he did sense something…a stutter, of sorts, and he wasn’t sure exactly what it meant.

  “You’re certain?” he asked.

  She glanced to the door and then back to him. “I merely wondered if confronting Doctor Varm so…adamantly was necessary. I’m sure he could have been persuaded eventually.”

  “He’s allowing his belabored guilt to control him, and frankly I’m quite tired of it,” Foln said. “But that’s not what you’re really concerned about. What are you hiding from me?”

  “Nothing, my lord,” she insisted, her feet shuffling a quarter step backwards.

  Foln’s eyes narrowed. He might not have been able to trace the hiccup in her thoughts to its source, but he could read her body language just fine. He had known Tayla Grier since she’d been born in a Mire camp twenty odd years ago, and he had never once seen her back away from anything.

  “What are you hiding from me, Tayla?” he repeated, his voice lowering a few degrees. “I will dig it out if I have to.”

  Grier’s body went rigid. “There’s something you need to know, sir. I’m the one who arranged the ambush on the concourse.”

  His jaw dropped. “What?”

  “I riled up the aliens and pointed them at Vale,” she admitted. “I was hoping they’d simply kill her, but I had a feeling that Markus would do something stupid. Either way, I knew it would get us what we wanted.”

  Foln’s mouth remained open despite his best efforts to close it. That was the absolute last thing he’d expected her to say. He’d been convinced that Revask had set the whole thing up as a ploy to discredit the Mire…but Tayla? It didn’t even seem possible. She wasn’t stupid, by any means, but she was a soldier, not a manipulator. And even more importantly, she was loyal to the very core.

  “You brought the entire city down upon us,” Foln said, his voice barely above a whisper. “You jeopardized everything!”

  “But…I gave you exactly what you wanted,” Grier replied incredulously. “The city is yours now, my lord. We’ve won.”

  Foln clenched his jaw as a sudden flash of anger bubbled up inside him. “You betrayed me,” he hissed. “You betrayed all of us.”

  “No, my lord. I would never betray you—”

  Her words descended into screams as Foln reached out with his mind and telekinetically grabbed onto her wounded arm. He wrenched it inside the cast, and a sickening crunch echoed across the room as the broken bone once again popped free. For a moment he thought she might pass out from the pain, but somehow she managed to hold herself upright and keep her eyes locked directly with his.

  “I would never betray you or the Mire, my lord,” Grier managed even as tears of agony streaked down her face. “You’ve told me many times that we must always be ready to take the next step, even if it means sacrificing something important to us.” She tilted her head down to the Agora. “This is it, isn’t it? This is exactly what you wanted. Markus and Vale are out of the way, and you have the cure. New Keledon is yours. You can do with it what you wish!”

  Foln followed her gaze and forced himself to swallow the bile rising in his throat. Betrayal was as much a part of politics as handshakes and smiles, his father had always said. But this wasn’t politics; this was family.

  He growled under his breath as he loomed over her cowering form. It would have almost been easier if she’d done this as part of some mad grasp for power, but she hadn’t. She’d done it because she’d legitimately believed it would get him what he wanted. And in the final analysis, she hadn’t been wrong…and that may have been the most annoying thing of all.

  Foln released his mental grip, and she tumbled over in a heap. “Get back to the infirmary,” he ordered, spinning away. “Contact me once our troops have finished stamping out the resistance.”

  “Y-yes, my lord,” Grier stammered, cradling her limp arm as she tried to stand. “As you wish, my lord.”

  He didn’t look at her as she left. Instead he stared down at the crowds again and let his mind drift beyond his body. First Markus, then Henri, and now even Tayla. His list of reliable allies was growing thin. This must have been exactly how his grandfather had felt on the Damadus. If Markus’s descriptions were accurate, Krucius had been shot in the back, possibly before he’d been able to complete his research. Betrayal, it seemed, was as much a part of being a Foln as the blood in his veins.

  Shaking his head, Foln clutched the pendant around his neck and once more allowed the secrets of the past to wash over him.