The red peak rose nearby. It was more of a hill than a mountain, but it was sharply protruding from the surface. “Suma, is it above or below ground?” I asked, and she used the device to 3D map the region.
She pointed to the top of the incline. “Up there.”
“We better get going, then. We have about five hours of light left.” Magnus took off after Karo, who was already a hundred yards ahead of us.
“Suma, how does it look?” I asked her, out of earshot of Karo.
“I don’t know. It’s glowing as brightly as Karo on the screen. I have a strange feeling about this,” she admitted.
“Maybe it’s not working properly. Could you have messed it up when you opened and reprogrammed it?” We were walking now, Slate ahead of Suma and me. The entire area was bereft of trees or foliage. It was as if this side of the planet was roughly sculpted by a giant child from a ball of red putty.
“It’s possible. I didn’t think so, but I may have miscalculated. I hope we’re not out here for no reason.” Suma tapped the edge of the small device, but the light didn’t disappear. It kept blinking where it was. The other indicator light showed us Karo’s position ahead of us, slowly moving along a path on the compact screen.
The air was thinner than I was used to, and I thought it might be a combination of the world’s oxygen levels and our altitude. I took deep breaths as we went. We chatted idly along the way, Karo taking the lead, but he slowed his speed so we could catch up. When we were almost to the top, I turned, looking at the horizon. More red clay, more hilly landscape.
“Almost there,” Slate said as he neared the precipice of the hillside.
“Is there an easier way up?” The edge was at least ten feet high, but there didn’t seem to be an opening in the cliff face or a better way to climb over it.
Slate pulled off his pack and activated a small drone. “Pretty cool, isn’t it? Clare gave it to me before we left. It’s like a new grappling hook, only kind of foolproof.” We watched as the drone rose in the air, heading for the top of the cliff. It had a thin but strong rope attached to it.
“Does that mean even you can use it?” Magnus loved busting Slate’s chops.
“We’ll have to find out.” The drone lowered, and we heard it shoot a peg into the surface, latching itself into the hard clay. Slate motioned Magnus to the rope. “How about you test it out for us?”
“Dean, I don’t know how you put up with this guy. Fine. I’ll go first.” Magnus grabbed the rope and made quick work of the short ascent.
Slate grinned at me and climbed up. “Go ahead, Suma. I’ll grab you if need be.”
“I can climb a rope,” the girl shouted, and a few seconds later, she supported up her claim, leaving an impressed Slate looking at Karo and me.
I waited to go last, but when I got to the top, I didn’t see an opening. “Where’s the portal room?”
“It looks like it’s directly below us.” Suma pointed a short distance across the flat surface of the clay mountaintop. “Over there.”
“Scour the top. There has to be an opening somewhere nearby,” I ordered, and we spread out, searching for anything out of the ordinary that could lead us to a portal room.
“Here!” Karo was across the top, kneeling on the clay. He pulled a hidden door open, revealing a hole.
“That door isn’t natural. It’s metal, painted to match.” Slate knocked on it, and the metal reverberated.
Twenty-Two
I peered inside the dark hole, seeing metal rungs leading below. “The plot thickens.”
“Someone knows about this portal room. Or at least, someone did at one time.” Magnus lowered to the ground and stuck his head in the hole while aiming a flashlight inside. “Can’t really see much. We’ll have to go in.”
Like there was really a choice in the matter. “I’ll enter first,” Slate said, moving in front of Magnus.
“Go for it.” Magnus stepped to the side. “But be careful.”
“I always am.” Slate started down the metal rungs, a flashlight beam jostling around with each step down he took. “They go on for a—” His voice cut out.
“Slate!” I shouted, with no reply back.
“I’m going after him,” Magnus said, moving quickly to the hole. I didn’t have a chance to stop him, and Karo was right behind Magnus.
“Suma, stay here,” I warned her, and she shook her head.
“No. If he’s in trouble, I want to help.” I knew there wasn’t going to be any talking her out of this.
“Fine, you go next, then. Magnus, what’s happening?” There was no answer. “Damn it. Suma, stay close to me.” I glanced down the hole as I placed my boot sole on the first rung. I spotted a flashlight shining sideways on the floor. One of them had dropped it and left it there. That didn’t bode well. There had to be someone or something inside.
Suma made it to the bottom of the rungs first, and I hopped beside her, aiming a pulse pistol forward with the Shimmali girl behind me. Magnus and Slate were frozen, trapped there in a glowing green energy. I saw their feet lift off the ground. Karo was standing near us, staring at our two trapped friends.
“Magnus! Slate! Can you hear me?” I asked, tentatively stepping into the room.
They didn’t move, their expressions unchanging. I thought I saw Slate’s eyes move, but it could have been a trick of the light. “Karo, what happened?”
“They were like that. I don’t know why…” Karo let out a mangled shout as a blast of green energy enveloped him, lifting him from the ground. His face was twisted in agony, sticking in that position.
“Stop it! We’re not here to harm you!” I called to whatever was attacking us.
“Over there.” Suma pointed across the dark room, and I picked up the flashlight, aiming it in the direction she indicated.
“We’re not here to hurt you,” I said again, this time more calmly.
A voice rang out through the room in an unfamiliar language. It was a quick, clipped phrase, and it repeated, but now in a different language. The sound echoed through the dark room, but from what I could tell, it was never the same dialect twice.
“Do you speak Shimmali, or English?” I asked.
“But of course,” the robotic voice said in clipped squawks and chirps.
Suma gripped my arm tightly.
“Also English, if that suits you better,” it said with a slight drawl.
“We’re not here to hurt you.” I stepped forward with my hands raised in the air. My three friends were hanging weightlessly, covered by the glowing green energy, each stuck in place, unable to move.
“Hurt me? You cannot hurt me.” The voice was coming at me from all around the room, almost as if ten voices were speaking with a split-second delay.
“Then you have nothing to fear from us. Let my friends go,” I said, more forcefully than I intended.
I still couldn’t see our attacker in the dark room. It was almost as though my flashlight beam dissipated faster the farther into the room the rays stretched.
“Fine. Three humans, a Theos, and a Shimmali. I already have one of each anyway.” The three of them fell to the ground with a thud. Lights began turning on, slowly, until the entire room was lit up. Suma gasped as she clutched my forearm, and I wasn’t far off.
It appeared that we were in a high-tech building, and I had to blink while my eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness. My friends were starting to move now, Slate the first to sit up, rubbing his head. The room was narrow but appeared to go on for miles.
I walked to the wall, where a being was encased behind glass. It was frozen in place, the same green energy surrounding it. I’d never seen anything like it; tusks rose from its cheeks, arcing up. Thin lips gave way to thick teeth, and knowing eyes stared straight forward, wide open.
I couldn’t help but notice that the specimen was naked. Below it sat an ID tag, but it was in an unfamiliar language. I stepped to the side to see another alien creature enclosed in another display case, this one far different-look
ing but frozen just the same. I spun around and saw the same thing on the opposite wall. The pods were a few feet apart from each other, but they were constant.
“Dean, where’s the attacker?” Slate asked, holding his gun up.
“I haven’t seen him yet.” I didn’t turn to look at Slate, but I heard Karo and Magnus moving. I was transfixed on a pink jellyfish-like creature floating frozen in a viscous liquid.
“It’s like the animal displays at the museum,” I said, walking over to another enclosed person. My hand pressed against the glass, wondering if they were able to see me.
“Are they alive?” Karo asked.
“I don’t know. I think so,” I answered. “What is this?” I shouted to the unseen voice behind it all.
“Why, this is my personal collection. Do you like it?” the voice asked; the English was spot-on now, as if it was learning from us.
“Not really,” I muttered. “Should we get out of here?”
Magnus stepped toward the exit. “I’m not sure it’s going to let us.”
Suma hadn’t said a word, and I scanned the room for her, finding her a few pods over, mesmerized by a tiny fairy-looking creature in its display. It was palm-sized and had translucent wings.
Karo walked down the center of the room, his fists clenched in sudden anguish. “You said you have one of each of us. What does that mean?”
It had taken me a moment to understand what he was asking, but it clicked quickly.
The voice spoke before I did. “Just as I said. I am a Collector, and I do not need another Theos, human, or Shimmali, because I already have one of each. Though the Shimmali girl is a better specimen than the one I have. Perhaps the young healthy human is too. You’ve given me a lot to consider.”
“I don’t like the sounds of that. Suma, come closer,” Slate said. “Boss, was he talking about me?”
I nodded. “We leave. Now.” I said the words so quietly that I didn’t think any of them heard me, but Magnus started for the exit.
“No, Dean. The locating device Suma has. It found a Theos here. That’s why we came. It wasn’t a stone; it was a full-blooded Theos.” Karo’s eyes were wide and pleading as he stared toward us. He was such a great friend and strong person, who was constantly overshadowed by his loneliness at being the sole remaining Theos alive.
“I knew something was wrong with that readout,” Suma said. “Where is the Theos?” she asked loudly.
A pod began to grow brighter, far into the room. It was at least half a kilometer away, but the illumination would lead us there. “Karo, I don’t think…” I began, but it was too late. He was already stalking forward with purpose.
Magnus shrugged and started to follow Karo, and the rest of us joined him. We came together, we’d leave together. I stared at the various captive creatures along the way, my mind hardly able to process the sheer number of different beings I’d never seen before. By the time we reached Karo, I’d only managed to see a Padlog and a Motrill that I recognized, and I had to have walked by two hundred pods.
Karo let out a sound between a sob and a laugh. Both of his hands met the glass casing, and I leaned over to see the Theos beyond. She was striking. Piercing blue eyes, long white hair floating in the tank; her gray skin was a little paler than Karo’s. She was tall, almost matching his seven feet.
“I’m not the last one,” he whispered.
“Show yourself so we can talk and learn of you,” I said, trying to sound powerful and level-headed.
“I should kill you all for trespassing.”
Slate and Magnus held their weapons up, and they spun slowly, back to back as they scanned for a target.
“But I’ll make an exception. Perhaps I’ve been here too long, or maybe I’m getting old,” the voice said. It echoed from unseen speakers. A hiss carried to us from farther down the long display case, and a figure plodded toward us in choppy movements.
“What is that?” Suma asked, but none of us had an answer.
As it neared, I tried to decipher what I was looking at. It was a beige figure, roughly formed into a humanoid shape, not unlike the clay outside. It had a round head, but there were no distinguishing marks like eyes, a nose, or a mouth. It moved like it was being tugged along by a puppeteer, lifting arms and legs one after the other and slowly arriving to stand a short way from our group.
It was an unnerving sight. And that was compared to the hundreds of staring, lifeless creatures behind their display cases.
“There. I have shown myself,” it said through the unseen speakers, not through the figure.
“You don’t have your own body. What are you?” Suma asked, and it laughed, a shrill sound.
“You aren’t privileged enough to see me. I am a god, and you a mere carbon-based animal. I collect you, and that is more for my own posterity than for any other reason. I have the largest collection in the universe,” it said, the head on the golem tilting as it spoke.
“There are others like you?” I asked it.
“There are no others like me, no. There are other Collectors, though.”
“I need her. Release this beautiful creature to me now!” Karo shouted, stepping toward the molded man.
“You cannot have one of my specimens. Do you offer yourself in her place?” it asked.
Karo hesitated a moment before looking once again at the trapped Theos woman. “I do,” he softly said.
“Karo, you can’t do this. There has to be another way,” I said, pulling on his arm.
“I will make this bargain,” the voice said.
“No!” I shouted, facing the golem. “Karo stays with us.”
“Very well. It is your choice, human.”
“You said you have a human here. How did you happen by them?” Magnus asked, his gun gripped so tightly I could see his knuckles whiten.
“I am a Collector. I’ve traveled the universe extensively, gathering one of each worthwhile race.” The roughly-shaped body waved an arm through the air.
“Why are you here, then? On this side of the nebula?” I asked it.
“Likely for the same reason as you are,” it said, surprising us all.
“You aren’t in charge of the Cloud?” Suma asked it nervously.
“The Cloud?”
“The nebula sucking ships into this… purgatory,” I explained.
“I’m powerful, but not that powerful. No, I believe that to be a sentient being. And this is its construct.” The golem walked toward us, stopping in front of Karo. Magnus appeared ready to fire, but I didn’t think shooting this molded man would accomplish anything useful. I shook my head at him.
“So you were sucked in here too, after you had most of your collection.” I wanted to keep it talking, to learn more about the situation.
“That is correct. Conveniently, this Cloud, as you call it, brought me more specimens. Hundreds over time,” it said.
So that was what it was doing perched here in hiding. “Are we in a ship right now?”
“This is a space vessel, yes.”
“And all of these specimens are alive?” Suma inquired. I could see where her mind was going, but we didn’t know enough about this Collector to hijack its ship and free the isolated beings.
“They are alive. You never know when one might be needed,” it said, though I didn’t quite grasp the meaning behind the words.
“You’ve been plucking away ‘specimens’ as they arrive in-system?” I asked.
“They’ve been so kind as to come all the way to me; why not add them to my collection?” the voice admitted.
“How many do you have on board?” I asked it.
“Twelve thousand, four hundred and thirty-seven unique specimens,” it said.
“Twelve thousand!” Magnus barked. “I guess there’s a lot we don’t know about out there, Dean.”
The number was huge, and I didn’t know what to do with it. I needed to win it to my side, somehow. “Can you show me the human?”
“Very well. I don’t often
have company.” It let out a shrill laugh, one that assumed we weren’t dealing with a rational being here. It was clearly maniacal. “Right this way.” The marionette creature moved on invisible strings, leading us through the display hall past countless unfamiliar people behind their glass cases, until we arrived at a circular platform in the floor.
“Dean, I don’t want to leave her here,” Karo said.
I was trying to think of a plan, but it hadn’t clicked quite yet. “She’s coming too,” I assured him with a low whisper. He nodded his understanding, and as we stepped onto the platform, his gaze lingered over toward the frozen Theos.
“Going down,” the voice said, and the golem lifted its arms. The platform lowered silently as the floor opened up, allowing us to drop through. We saw another level lined with display cases, then another.
“How many levels are there?” I asked.
“Eleven.” This ship was huge, stuck within the mountain. The Collector must have formed the clay over it to make the misshapen mountain we’d climbed to find this place.
We stopped a few floors later, and the lights flashed on one after another, all the way over the expansive display corridor. I was looking for any signs of another room, something other than the level after level of showcases. So far, I’d come up empty.
My plan formed, albeit it was a long shot. Either way, a backup was always a good idea. I stepped off the lift and tapped my earpiece. “W,” I said as quietly as possible.
“Captain, what can I do for you?” he asked in return.
“Bring the ship. There’s space to land it on the top of the mountain. Stay there until further notice. We may be in danger,” I said, not waiting for a reply. I tapped the earpiece off.
The golem was leading my friends deeper into the corridor, toward a well-lit case. It was speaking to them about the time it found the human, and how funny a creature they were. “No offense,” it said before laughing again.
“None taken,” Slate muttered.
We stopped in front of the human’s case, and there he was, green energy circling his body, freezing him in place. He appeared to be almost Neanderthal-like in features, and it made me wonder how many years ago this Collector had been to Earth.
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