“The pilot of this sacred vessel was essential in contributing, that We could push back and ultimately defeat the machine-creatures.” The holosphere blended into a picture of Kyle-William Brennan, who, along with a tall Argon, was detained in a gloomy room that was in the overblown style of the Paranids. Bala Gi immediately recognized the Argon: Ban Danna of Argon Prime’s military intelligence service.
“The last remaining machine-creatures are retreating,” snorted Somancklitansvt. The picture in the holosphere changed again. It once again showed the stars, but this time without a planet in the center. The Boron minister narrowed her eyes to mere slits. What was this? A jet-black object slowly pushed diagonally from the bottom to the middle of the sphere, obscuring an ever-greater portion of the starry, projected sky. Or was she deceived? But no! Nola Hi had seen it too, because she tasted the latent question in his fresh pheromone cloud.
The Paranid stretched his long, thin arms upwards and spread them out in a wide semicircle, as if to embrace the holosphere. He lifted his head and looked up, transfigured. “The priests of science of the holy Godrealm of Paranid have found that after which all other peoples have sought in vain!” he proclaimed, as the camera slowly pushed in on the black object. “The mindship of the unholy machines, the CPU, Their brain, Their control center! Annihilate it and every single Xenon will freeze motionless after the execution of its last command! And”—with a jerky motion the Paranid lowered his outstretched, bony arms which now appeared to embrace the plenary hall—“one after another We will track Them down and destroy Them without any resistance!” The three protruding eyes glittered fanatically while Somancklitansvt let his gaze slowly wander from right to left over those present.
A massive, dark cylinder slid lazily through the center of the holosphere; it rolled slowly about its own axis, flanked by an entire swarm of small, black, assault fighters. “We will wipe Them out forever! Their retreat from the known sectors will be a retreat into oblivion, a journey of no return!” The last words of the Paranid blended together before dying out in a dramatic, long-drawn-out echo.
A cloud of crimson horror spread around the minister in the wet and mingled with the acrid pheromones of Nola His, whose tasters fluttered wildly. Rapturous howls rang out, however, from the throats of the seven Split around Thi t’Ggt, accompanied by the approving clamor of the three times three times three Paranids.
Genocide. What Somancklitansvt proposed was simply the extinction of an entire people! Even if the Xenon were “just” machines, dangerous machines, at that, they were still thinking beings, and totally unique! Defending oneself against their assaults and pushing them back was one thing. To completely and permanently wipe them out was another. The Paranid’s proposal was unethical to the highest degree, and furthermore didn’t comply with the will of the Ancients! Bala Gi looked at her attendant with wide eyes. The scientific ethicist likewise trembled in the aftermath of the shock. “That must not happen and take place,” he gurgled through his gills.
“It must not,” the minister agreed. “Never! We must taste with Somancklitansvt!”
“And with Ele Na, the starwarrior,” added Nola Hi with numb whimpers.
Bala Gi felt the strong presence of intention in the pheromone cloud of her adviser. Nola Hi was nearly as intelligent as a Lar and was almost always right. She was glad to know him. “Yes—and yes,” she clicked her approval. Then she courageously pressed the switch that signaled a request to speak.
Somancklitansvt immediately directed his three eyes ostentatiously away from the Boron environmental area, to ritually demonstrate his lack of regard for the unholy beings. With half-extended, bony arms, he awaited the Boron delegation’s remarks.
“Reverend Somancklitansvt,” bellowed Bala Gi, trying not to inadvertently pronounce the honorary title forbidden for unholy creatures. “Never are we able, do we want, and will we allow that you annihilate the thinking, aware, living machine-creatures and eradicate them, thereby erasing and extinguishing their lineage from the history of our universe.”
The Paranid instantaneously puffed up like an bony, oversized bird of paradise. A glaring ray of light almost made him fade into the background as his voice rose in a rumbling tone. “Blasphemy! The machines deface the visage of holy Three-Dimensionality! Their geometrical competence is incomplete, They are a thorn in the eyes of Bashra and Xaar! They are unholy to the third power! Have They not done Us enough harm? We will annihilate them, utterly, to the last floating point unit! Whoever is not with Us is against Us, be They Queendom, Profit Guild, or Argon Federation!”
Bala Gi emitted a long stream of buzzing clicks, their echos reverberating off the dense, crimson pheromone cloud that slowly diffused throughout the environmental area. The scientific ethicist Nola Hi chimed in, uncharacteristically brief and precise owing to the inner turmoil he felt.
“Reverend Somancklitansvt! We will give the Machines an asylum, a refuge, in our own territory, and you will not dare—”
“You do not know what you say, Nola Hi!” thundered Somancklitansvt. “You do not know, nor can you know, because you will never be allowed to contemplate the holy Three-Dimensionality.”
“The Pontifex will not dare, he will not dare,” repeated Nola Hi with the trembling voice of a little girl. “Do not violate our territory under any circumstance! Not—never!”
Without another word, Somancklitansvt gathered the jewel-encrusted vestment like a curtain and crossed his long arms over his chest. He lowered his head, and a moment later the speaker platform was empty.
Chapter 6
A ghok is nothing but a big space fly with a glowing heart that’d like to devour him. He likes ghoks!
Thi t’Ggt,
First Warrior of the Honh Family
The beast was huge; it fluoresced bright green and bathed the surroundings in the falsely colored light of a fever dream. The pungent stench of decay mingled with a poisonous, cloying, acridly tinged breath that came from overflowing stomach acid or even worse. It was terrifyingly alien: its many-eyed, mouthless face looked down mindlessly and absently at the frightened Teladi, whose body was about to lapse into protective catalepsy. The most repulsive thing about the beast, however, was probably its broad, flexible tail far below its head, which snaked its way through the tattered tent fabric and into the interior. The far end of the extremity, which the animal bent back into a U-shape, featured a lipless mouth equipped with sharp fangs. Nopileos stared in horror at the gnashing jaws. Tatters of skin and strands of meat from former prey hung between its teeth and out of the feeding orifice, as well as the remnants of a dark, pulpy mass over which ran a thin strand of green-glowing liquid that landed on the tent floor in small drops. The resistant material of the tent curled up where the drops fell; it bubbled slowly as though on fire.
The frightened Teladi suddenly became aware of the multi-function tool’s blade that he held in his left claw. The animal was big and dangerous; it had huge, semi-transparent wings that beat up and down in front of the shredded tent. It also secreted a highly corrosive bodily fluid. Nopileos looked at the approaching feeding tail and back at the blade. Compared to the jungle dragon out there, it was small, downright puny! No Teladi would ever be injured by it—in this regard the Teladi safety engineers had done a great job. Nopileos gulped and switched the blade to his other claw. Could he do better with his right? The feeding jaws came closer to him with snuffling noises.
“Iaaaashhhh!” Nopileos cried with a tongue that grew heavy. The protective paralysis was gradually setting in. That would be the end of him! The creature’s sharp claws had shredded the tent wall like aluminum foil They would tear him to pieces while the catalepsy made him defenseless. Then the feeding mouth would close in on top of him! He was afraid—deathly afraid.
But—claws, thin foil, blade… An image flashed in his mind’s eye as though illuminated by a single strobe light. Without thinking, he dropped instinctively back on the ground. An intense pain shot through his spine as he landed
on a sharp object, but he paid it no mind. He hastily turned around and slid over to the back wall. Without consciously noticing it, he heard fearful sounds escaping from him, inarticulate, whimpering, and shockingly un-Teladian. The jaws followed him, smacking. When he reached the back, he straightened up and thrust the knife forward. The fabric of the tent groaned and distorted, but the blade didn’t penetrate. Indeed, the material was overstretched, but it offered considerable resistance, as though it was made of safety rubber. The Teladi hissed sharply as the beastly, stinking jaws touched him; a drop of digestive acid came out of the monster’s lipless mouth and fell on his right foot’s claws. Snuffling with pleasure, the giant insect inhaled the sharp odor of burning keratin as the drop of acid ate away the top millimeter in Nopileos’s scales. But the Teladi paid no attention. Driven only by his fear, he stabbed feverishly at the tent, again and again, snarling, shrieking, beyond all thought besides just get out of here!
After a seemingly endless period of time—in reality, only sezuras—the knife sank into the battered tent wall with a jerk. It was pushed down by Nopileos’s weight, and under the noise of ripping material a gaping hole formed in the outer wall from chest height to the ground. The Teladi brushed the two fluttering scraps of cloth to the side and pushed himself out into the night. The small clearing was lit up as bright as day by the fluorescent light of the jungle dragon, whose winged body took up half the space. The animal’s flat head watched with strange indifference at its own feeding tail, which wandered around inside the tent as though they didn’t belong to each other. Scattered all about the clearing were small pools of glowing gastric fluid that reacted with the dry leaves; plumes of thick smoke swirled up from under the leaves and covered the clearing. Nopileos involuntarily held his breath as he straightened up and immediately stormed off headlong into the dark jungle. The beast frantically tried to free its tail from the dissolving tent, but its projecting wings caught in the tough plastic material. Angry and disappointed, the animal sounded a tremendous fanfare that made the fleeing saurian cry out and stumble. The creature intensified its efforts to get away from the remains of the tent, and finally succeeded. With powerful beats of its large wings, it rose almost vertically in the air, while under it a smoldering fire began to consume the dry layers of foliage. The jungle dragon trumpeted once more, loud and frustrated, but the sounds of fleeing prey became inexorably softer. It couldn’t follow its living meal into the dense jungle. Its wings stretched far too wide and the trees crowded together far too closely.
The headless hunt through the completely black forest was torment for the fear-stricken Teladi, a torture frozen into moments of terror. With each of his short steps, he was caught in bushes that stood in his way, or stumbled over rocks that caused him to misstep and painfully stretch the ligaments of his unprotected toes. He bumped the scales on his already overworked knees and pulled at the throbbing bruises on his clawed hands as invisible creepers extended around his ankles, and the combined obstacles threatened to bring about his downfall. Branches suddenly slammed into his sensitive face and made him hiss; the trumpeting of the jungle beast at his back drove ice-cold fear through his chest like the blade of a steel sword; the terrible sound kept him moving despite the pain. Growing fatigue and climbing blood temperature began to produce a strange, colored haze across his retinas. His sensitive, normally night-visioned Teladi eyes failed him, casting shadows, contours, and alien beast where none were. Only his wildly beating hearts prevented him from breaking down and falling into protective catalepsy. But even three hearts couldn’t delay the inevitable forever. Nopileos, who had just calmed down enough to think halfway clearly, slowed down, hobbled on increasingly numb claws, and finally stumbled to the ground. He tried to raise his arms to protect him from the impact, but the paralysis was already filling his entire saurian body. With a last, rattling hissing sound, he fell forward and dully struck the ground face first. He fell unconscious immediately.
After a few mizuras, a soft rustling rose up high in the jungle canopy. A handful of faintly fluorescent dots of light slowly rained down thin, frizzy threads of silk on top of the motionless body. There, where the wormlike larvae didn’t make direct contact with their victim, they twisted and turned to reach it as quickly as possible; where they landed on Nopileos’s scaly armor, they immediately tried to dig in and hold on with tiny drops of acid.
Brightness. Angry buzzing. Blurry, yellow veins. Dark. Bright. Dull pain. Itchy scales. Nopileos’s eyelids flickered, opened heavily, and then closed again before he could come to.
The next time he regained consciousness, he managed to fully open his eyes, but at first he saw only glistening reflections of light. He made a bubbling hiss, the equivalent of moaning, then growled the first curse that came to mind: “Egghh ssshhaaallad.”
Satisfied that the Teladian expletive had passed sufficiently clearly through his lips, he listened to himself. His body ached in too many places to count, and his limbs felt like lead weights. He tentatively spread his swim webs. Oh! It worked on the first try. Encouraged by this success, the Teladi made an effort to focus on a washed-out speck near him while at the same time he bent his arms to lift himself. An angry buzzing from the left acknowledged his movements. He paused and grabbed a first, clear look at his surroundings. On his left arm perched the see-through dragonfly he had last seen as a bright spot of light from outside the tent. He murmured something incomprehensible, intended to make the insect flee. He’d had enough of any beast, especially the ones that shined at night and had wings! To emphasize his demand, he pushed his arm forward in a feeble gesture, which didn’t manage to bother the dragonfly very much. Instead, it just briefly twirled its palm-sized wings and sucked up a yellow liquid through its suction stinger. The animal had skewered something, but it was not a berry at all! Nopileos shook his head in disgust when he saw that it was a hairy worm that still writhed though it was pierced and half-sucked. From the back of the worm hung a thin thread, like that of a spider. The disgust gave Nopileos new strength. He rose with difficulty and pain. The dragonfly finally let go of him to flit off with its prey. It didn’t travel very far, however, but clung to a tree trunk with slowly fanning wings, where it stared at the panting Teladi with uninterested, beady eyes.
“And I thought that you only liked berries,” he hissed weakly. He looked around. The jungle was bright and clear, and he could sometimes see the sun blinking through the canopy far above him. The forest, it seemed, was manageable and harmless, just as on the tazura before; nothing reminded him of the terror of the previous night. Or did it? Horror shot through him as he looked down at himself: many of the hexagonal segments of his scaled, leathery skin featured deep scratch marks or were chalk-white, suggesting minor wounds in the underlying tissue. Much worse, however, was the handful of fissured pits, which spread over his chest armor and the entire left half of his body like meteorite impacts on an airless moon. Something hideous clung inside some of these pits—something that looked like the desiccated remains of pale maggots like the one the dragonfly was still sucking.
Nopileos hastily brushed off the worms’ empty shells with disgusted movements. Trembling and panting, he felt with searching claws over any part of his body he could reach, feeling inside the pits, pushing and probing, until he was sure that none of the larvae had penetrated his scaly armor. It would take several mazuras to fully rebuild the craters in his scales—but he was very glad to be a Teladi who had barely survived the maggots, and not a soft, unarmored human!
“I owe you my thanks, worthy dragonfly!” Nopileos said and nodded solemnly to the animal, which still clung to the tree trunk. It had plucked the pale insect larvae from his body while he was under the influence of his protective paralysis and sucked them dry before they could cause major damage. The dragonfly twirled its wings.
What now? Only now did the Teladi youth realize he had completely lost his orientation through the headless flight of the previous night. Where had the smoke cloud been in the sky? He loo
ked up involuntarily Apart from scraps of dark blue sky and glistening sunbeams, he spotted nothing. Yesterday he still strongly expected that he could reach the Nyana’s Fortune in a couple extra stazuras, now his hope dwindled visibly. He was injured and could no longer travel as fast. He had lost his bearings. Tent, emergency pack, food, and condenser, too, even the possibility to catch the Split’s attention by radio, as much as he loathed the thought! The prospect of spending more nights in the forest made his forehead ridges pale several shades. Desperately, he turned on his axis and stared intently between the bushes and smooth tree trunks. If he could just discover the route he’d traveled in the night and use it to reach the primordial forest beast’s clearing, he would be able to find his original direction again! But wherever he looked, the jungle looked the same everywhere. If he had trampled down bushes in his breakneck flight, they had already straightened again. Once he thought he saw something like a trail in the foliage, but the print, which looked like one of his own clawed feet, stood alone behind a tall, green frond and didn’t belong to a coherent trail. The lack of any alternatives or possibilities almost caused him physical pain that made his stomach cramp in fear.
“All right,” he hissed despondently. As quickly as he could—which wasn’t very quick with all of his limbs aching and the catalepsy lingering in his body—he set off in the direction his instincts told him was most the most probable. He didn’t even want to think about how reliable his intuition was, but simply worked his way forward, step by step. After a while, he heard a buzzing from behind: “his” dragonfly caught up with him, overtook him, and vanished in the jungle beyond.
Nopileos: A novel from the X-Universe: (X4: Foundations Edition 2018) (X Series) Page 5
