Alien Wars Page 21

“Let’s go,” Cyrus said.

  They trudged in the growing heat. Perhaps an hour later, the girders and fused lumps of glass lessened.

  “Although it doesn’t look like it, we’re walking upslope,” Cyrus said.

  Soon, the twisted girders vanished, together with the increasingly smaller lumps of glass. The slope also became more apparent.

  “Wait,” Cyrus said.

  “Tired?” Klane asked.

  “Wary,” Cyrus said, pointing ahead. “Does it feel like we’re approaching a valley?”

  “A giant crater,” Klane said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I saw them . . . somewhere. Falling stars smashed into the ground, obliterating everything.”

  They resumed their trek. In another half hour, they trudged up the last of the slope and crested it.

  A vast circular area of devastation spread out before them. It looked like fused and shattered crystal, a flat plain of it. Jagged lines radiated inward in a barren nothingness.

  “The Eich,” Cyrus whispered.

  Some distance in the desolation moved a creature. He was too far for them to distinguish characteristics.

  “He heads for the center,” Klane said.

  Cyrus shaded his eyes. The sun glared off the crystal, making it difficult to see. He squinted. “Yes, the Eich heads for a tall spire. We have to go there.”

  “Not during the day.” Klane held out his hands. “The heat is already too much. We must retreat.”

  “The heat must not bother the Eich.”

  “At least not as much as it does us,” Klane said.

  “He’s getting away.”

  “We’ll catch him. It’s just a matter of time now.”

  By starlight, Cyrus and Klane worked down the sandy slope and reached the edge of fused crystal. It was eerie and lonely down here. A wind blew the fabric of their headgear.

  Cyrus noticed that, like him, Klane hesitated to set foot on the cracked crystal. Far in the distance, in the center of the circular destruction, rose a silvery spire that beckoned even as it threatened. The Eich must be there.

  Cyrus walked onto the crystal. It was warm like pavement at night. In it was a faint reflection of starlight. After several steps, Cyrus glanced behind. Klane still hung back.

  “Coming?” Cyrus asked.

  “Is this wise?” asked Klane. “I—” He touched his forehead.

  “You can stay behind,” Cyrus said. “I have to go on.”

  Klane’s jaw tightened. He set foot on the crystal and followed Cyrus.

  Soon, Cyrus felt as if he walked along the bottom of a desolate sea or across a dead moon. They crossed jagged lines. He glanced down each time. The openings went down farther than his eyesight could penetrate. They walked, and it seemed as if they walked off their world and onto another.

  “This place is haunted,” Klane whispered.

  Once, Cyrus glanced back. The hairs rose on his neck. He couldn’t spy the slopes. On impulse, he craned his head upward and discovered the stars had disappeared. Despite the lost stars, they still had enough light to see. He felt hope stir in him. The Eich kept fleeing. It must fear him, which would indicate he could defeat it.

  I hope, he thought to himself.

  In time, the spire loomed before them. It looked smooth, with a rounded top. After more steps, Cyrus realized it stood six stories high.

  “Why does it stand and nothing else?” Klane asked.

  “Be ready,” Cyrus said.

  “For what?”

  “Anything.”

  They marched closer.

  “There,” Cyrus said. “I see an opening.”

  They hurried toward the spire and shifted leftward, circling it. An opening shimmered. The nearer they came, the less it shimmered, until they stood before a fifteen-foot opening. Within lay cables and to the side was a console of colored lights.

  Klane made a sound in the back of his throat and clawed for his sword.

  Cyrus blanched. There in the spire waited a giant spider machine. Cyrus stepped back, ready to use psionics.

  “It’s dead,” Klane pronounced.

  Sweat prickled Cyrus’s forehead.

  “Look,” Klane said, pointing with his sword. “Cables are hooked into it.”

  Cyrus moved toward the opening. The cables, thick as pythons, snaked to the spider machine and to the bank of multicolored lights, several of which blinked on and off.

  “Quick” Cyrus said, “cut the cables.”

  Klane rushed in, and fortunately Cyrus followed. As Klane’s foot touched the metal floor, bright lights flooded the chamber. It made Klane’s jaw muscles bulge. He swung—

  Before the sword connected, a steel door slammed down behind them. The floor sank beneath them, which made Klane stumble and caused his sword to spark across the metal deck.

  Cyrus sprawled onto the floor. This was an elevator. Did they descend into the Eich’s lair? He hoped so. It felt as if time was running out. He had to get to the psi-parasite and finish this, regaining full control of his mind and the use of his altered psionic abilities.

  29

  Senior Darcy Foxe broke down in hysterical sobs as her body passed through a cleansing chemical bath to kill off the bacteria on her skin.

  She didn’t know the converting machine would soon peel off her epidermis and burn it in an incinerator. Perhaps it was just as well for her sanity that she didn’t know.

  The process was grim. The machine would remove her heart, lungs, and kidneys. Then it would extract her brain and spinal column, submerging them in pink programming gel. There the brain would spend a week, force-fed billions of pieces of data on tactical military situations and operant cyborg body handling.

  Later, machines would reattach her augmented brain to a new and improved spinal column. She would receive an armored brainpan, power-graphite bones, artificial muscles, millions of microprocessing nanites, an armor-plated body, and better eyes.

  Lastly, obedience chips inserted in her nervous system and a powerful governing computer would ensure her linkage in the vast cyborg mass.

  Darcy’s skin therefore meant nothing. Even so, the conversion program didn’t want to contaminate its delicate equipment, the reason for the chemical bath. Afterward, Darcy would proceed to the skin choppers and the irreversible process would begin.

  Darcy had done some hard arguing with herself. She wanted to be brave. The pain would only last for a little while. She kept telling herself that anyway. Yet she had begun to wonder. Did a model 6 cyborg retain some of its old memories? What if her identity remained in the core of her new cyborg being? Would she be trapped inside her own body, silently screaming in horror at what she had become?

  There was another factor at work. Darcy was proud of her beauty. She knew men and some women loved to stare at her. How many thousands of moisturizers and creams had she applied to her face and skin? Her one mar had been a tiny scar on her left knee. She hated it, which was why she had undergone plastic surgery to remove the scar.

  She ate sparingly of healthy foods, lifted weights, and ran many kilometers to keep her body fit and trim. Was that wrong?

  Now the cyborgs would rip her down and rebuild her into a model 6 monstrosity.

  That proved to be too much for her. As the harsh chemicals sprayed against her naked skin, Darcy howled for mercy.

  The conveyor didn’t heed her cries. It clacked remorselessly, taking her toward the skin choppers.

  “No!” Darcy screamed. “You’re making a mistake! You’ve made an error in calculations, Prime!”

  She kept heading for the slicing area. In her panic, a moment of perfect clarity came. She had to appeal to the Prime’s arrogance. That was the only way off this device.

  She laughed like a maniac. Her eyes bulged outward as she did. The wild laughter came in f
rightened gales.

  “You fool, Prime! I know your error! Hahahhahaha! I have bested you! The Prime Web-Mind of the Conquest Fleet will fail because you made a simple but quite reasonable error! I am wiser than you, Prime!”

  The conveyer halted. It had only done so one other time with a human on the belt.

  A slot in the side opened and Toll Three reached in, dragging Darcy Foxe off the conveyor.

  Tears blurred her vision. She couldn’t believe it had worked. They had listened. Now . . .

  Can I hand humanity over to the cyborgs just to win a reprieve?

  She didn’t want to say yes. These beings were monsters, the worst sin in the universe. To think they originated from human stock was terror piled upon horror.

  Darcy wasn’t sure about time or distance. She found a cloak over her shoulders. Huddled in misery, she ate cold paste. It tasted like oil.

  She wanted to ask Toll Three what he fed her. She was too afraid. Too soon, she found herself in the room on the chair staring at fading and reappearing triangles.

  “You have dared mock me,” the Prime said.

  She nodded with her hair in stringy clumps from the chemicals.

  “This changes nothing,” the Prime said.

  Hiccupping, Darcy stared at the screen. She had to harden herself and just do it.

  “Quickly,” the Prime said, “tell me how you think I’ve miscalculated. Then you will return to the converter.”

  “You must be joking,” Darcy whispered.

  “I never joke. I am the—”

  “Yes, yes, I know. You’re the ultimate male ego in the universe. You’ve made that abundantly clear.” Darcy couldn’t believe she’d said that.

  “The human must receive pain for that,” the Prime said.

  Toll Three approached. Darcy shrank from his menacing stance, the device in his hand. The tip of the circular thing shone blue with electricity. The remorseless hand lowered as he applied the device to Darcy’s neck.

  She screamed, and she writhed. Pain flowed through her body. Nothing had ever felt like this. When the device lifted, she panted with sweat rolling down her skin.

  “I am Prime. I rule here.”

  “You rule,” she whispered. “I . . .” She waved her hand in a forlorn gesture. How could she outthink this monster? It was hopeless. Yet failing to try would lead to an impossible existence. “I want to become breeding stock. I can help you, you know, make it worth your while to be nice to me.”

  “The idea you can help me is mindless prattle. No. You will become a model 6 cyborg. I have spoken. My word is law.”

  “I have important information. I wanted to bargain with you. Now I see how foolish I was. You are too grand, too powerful and all-knowing for me to resist.”

  “You are wrong in one particular,” the Prime said. “I do not know all. Otherwise, your statement is correct.”

  “Oh. You don’t know everything? Then maybe I could know something you’d like to hear?”

  “However remote, the possibility exists.”

  “Would it hurt you to hear it then?”

  Three seconds of silence ensued. Afterward, the Prime told her, “You said you hold information. If you wish to feel more pain, keep the knowledge to yourself.”

  “No,” Darcy said. She hung her head. The thought of going back to the chemical bath was simply too much. “You made an error about the others. By the way, they’re called the Chirr.”

  “Explain Chirr to me,” the Prime said.

  Darcy told the Prime about the insect aliens. She spoke about the extended war between the Chirr and Kresh. Long ago, the Chirr nuked the surface of Glegan, burrowing deep into the planet to wait. The Chirr fleet she saw in space had only recently launched from the surface of Heenhiss, the second planet.

  “A moment,” the Prime said. “You claim the Chirr and Kresh are not allied?”

  “Correct,” Darcy said. “They’re deadly enemies.”

  “Another moment,” the Prime said. “If this is true . . . I must halt our coming attack. Yes. I must reconfigure the strategic situation.”

  Darcy wasn’t sure how she could tell, but the Prime’s presence departed. She looked around. Her clothes and vacc-suit were heaped in a pile behind the chair.

  “When did those arrive?” she asked Toll Three.

  The blocky cyborg ignored her.

  She faced forward. The Prime had returned.

  “I had planned to destroy the Chirr fleet,” the Prime said. “I have annihilated most of the Kresh vessels fleeing the outer asteroids. The Kresh warships proved inept against my cunning ploy. My shift-sent missiles are a masterful tactic. This is the first time the cyborgs have employed the stratagem. I have already coded several volumes on new and improved procedures regarding such assaults.”

  Darcy nodded, having no idea what he meant.

  “Naturally, I am too wise to simply take your word for this Chirr-Kresh war. I have begun a deep analysis of the situation. We will anticipate the outcome together.”

  Time passed as Darcy waited. She felt numb. If this didn’t work . . .

  “Attention!” the Prime said. “I have finished my analysis.”

  Darcy’s heart thudded. She wanted to gain a reprieve. She didn’t want to become a cyborg. She also dreaded becoming the worst traitor in human history. Would the Prime’s Conquest Fleet win because she had given them this piece of information?

  “I congratulate you, Senior Darcy Foxe,” the Prime boasted. “Your information was correct. I almost made a category error. Fortunately, it seems my cunning runs deeper than I realized. By sending you to the chemical bath, I broke your resistance. By some calculus I do not yet understand, I must have known you held valuable data. I am to be congratulated on this. Yes. Because you helped me, Senior Darcy Foxe, I shall rescind my conversion order. This is a glorious moment in Prime history. We shall celebrate together.”

  Darcy was too exhausted to care. Just as long as she wasn’t going back to the chemical baths. Tears began to tumble out of her eyes.

  “Perhaps it is time to couple you with a breeding male,” the Prime said. “I would enjoy the spectacle.”

  Darcy sat up, using the back of her hand to wipe her eyes.

  “Jick is at hand,” the Prime said.

  “No,” she whispered.

  “What did you say?”

  “Not Jick,” she said, shuddering.

  “He is repugnant to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I agree. Jick is repugnant. Besides, he is an inferior beast. Yet I do not presently have a breeding male. You will have to wait, Senior Darcy Foxe, which may be just as well. I have discovered through my century of existence that waiting for an event often proves more pleasurable than actually witnessing the thing. That is very strange, but I have concluded it is a universal maxim.”

  “You are wise,” she said.

  “Ah,” the Prime said. “I also lack time for observing a vigorous coupling. Presently, my frame of reference is combat oriented. It is the attack phase. Since I deem the Kresh as the greater enemy, they will taste further defeats.”

  Darcy stared at the triangles. Now that she had momentarily escaped the chemical bath and a rape session, she had time to feel bad about what she’d done.

  “I have already destroyed many Kresh vessels,” the Prime said. “The remnant of their outer asteroid fleet flees, heading for the gas giant. There waits a second fleet. It is smaller than the Kresh force at the third planet. Logically, I should let the Chirr and third-planet Kresh fight against each other and weaken each fleet. I almost aided the Kresh by destroying the Chirr. That would have been a strategical mistake, lessening my chance of victory.”

  Darcy moaned. What had she done?

  “Therefore, now is the time to attack the gas giant–placed Kresh fleet. They hide nea
r the largest moon. Yes. It is credible to believe they have discovered my new shift-missile tactic. I shall have to go in and dig them out. My five dreadnoughts are more than a match for them. Still, it is possible I will sustain losses in the coming fight. Long-range torpedo and laser fire will be my primary tactic. That means I should appear . . . there.”

  Darcy watched. The screen showed space near Pulsar. Holes appeared millions of kilometers from the gas giant. The cyborg dreadnoughts moved through them.

  “That is my immediate plan, Senior Darcy Foxe. Seeing the tactical blueprint before its implementation is my gift to you. I am seldom so generous with breeding stock, but this is a unique moment.”

  Darcy sat hunched on the chair, near tears again as she thought about her traitorous behavior.

  “Sit up!” the Prime said.

  Darcy blinked in surprise.

  “Up, up, sit up!” the Prime said.

  Toll Three stepped near as he readied the pain device.

  In shock and sudden fright, Darcy sat up, throwing her shoulders back, which caused her breasts to rise.

  “Much better,” the Prime said. “Ah, you are beautiful indeed. I should point out that your sullen attitude was unbecoming of this glorious moment. The cyborgs cannot appreciate my vast intellect and martial cunning. It is odd, is it not, that a mere breeding beast such as yourself can marvel more intelligently than Toll Three?”

  “I agree,” Darcy said in a meek voice.

  “Do not think you are smarter than Toll Three. He could defeat any twenty humans. Yet he lacks that independence of will that makes tormenting you so enjoyable. I will have to write a program concerning that. It is possible we Primes have made an error. I am beginning to believe we should each keep harem females to strut before our cameras and listen to our exaltations.”

  Darcy blinked, trying to make her sluggish thoughts work. “You are very wise to think of that.”

  “Yes I am.”

  “Why don’t you implement your idea immediately?”

  “I believe I shall. One can only communicate among one’s own brain domes for so long. Many phases ago, I exhausted all new areas of conversation with myself. Hmmm. Likely, I will quickly tire of you. You are of limited intelligence after all. Yet, until that moment arrives, you shall become my first harem creature. I do you tremendous honor, Senior Darcy Foxe.”