Alien Shores (A Fenris Novel, Book 2) Read online

  “Watch the flames,” she said. “See how they dance and writhe with life. We are alive and we are like fire, existent for a moment in time. You must soar and flicker with everything in you. Yes, I bid you to fly as high as you can. Soak up memories tonight and learn the true secrets of the universe.”

  Despite the gravity of the evening and the seeker’s words, Cyrus found himself focusing on Jana. She sat cross-legged, and she kept brushing her hair nervously. How long would he have to wait to make her his wife? He wanted to do it tonight. Her legs, her breasts, her long hair—

  “The time approaches,” he heard the seeker say in a crooning voice.

  With a start, Cyrus realized he’d been lost in a daze. The seeker’s words had lulled him. Jana had merely been the easiest subject for him to fixate upon. For the others, for the way they sat transfixed, it must have been the flames.

  “You must open yourselves,” the seeker crooned. “You must release your old ideas and accept these. You must—”

  The seeker reached into a pouch slung at her side, grabbing fistfuls of the substances she’d mixed earlier. She threw each into the fire. It didn’t burn, but settled heavily upon the wood like a fire retardant. Gray, vile-looking smoke billowed.

  “Breathe deeply,” the seeker said. She walked around the circle and examined the eight warriors in turn. She struck one on the back of his head. “Get up,” she said.

  It took two tries, but finally the man stood.

  “Face me,” she said.

  The warrior found that even harder to do. He swayed, still facing the weakened flames.

  “Are you afraid?” the seeker whispered.

  “Yes,” he slurred.

  “Do you wish to scurry away to safety?”

  It seemed as if the man wanted to say yes. Cyrus expected the seeker to touch him and tell him to go, to leave, that he was unworthy of this.

  “Everyone fears,” the seeker told him. “It is the way of those who want to live. Are you a warrior?”

  “You know I am,” he said.

  “That isn’t a direct answer. So I say again. Are you a warrior?”

  It took him two attempts, but he said, “Yes.”

  “Then sit down and stop being afraid.”

  Finally, the warrior looked at her. He nodded, and sat with a seeming greater ease of spirit.

  She spoke to several others in a similar manner. But she did not speak to Yang, Jana, or Grinder.

  “It is time,” the seeker said. She threw back her head, lifted her arms, and screamed into the darkness. None of those seated around the fire flinched or seemed to hear.

  Skar’s shoulders twitched, while Cyrus blinked himself out of a stupor.

  What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I stay awake? Why is she screaming?

  With a start, Cyrus realized he should have already begun to anchor her. He composed himself, and suddenly her shrieks quit. He could feel her mind open, and he wanted to shout at her to wait, to stop. A small, deep part within him realized she had lulled him. Didn’t she think him strong enough?

  “Wait,” he whispered.

  The seeker didn’t wait. She opened her mind, and she began to pierce each of the eight minds around the fire. Memories began to tumble from her and into them.

  Cyrus reached out with his psi-power. Something baffled him. It was like walking into a hurricane. He fought the onrushing memories. He had to reach her. He had to close her mind for her. She would simply let every memory leave her and enter the warriors, and then she would perish.

  Cyrus realized that more than just memories left her. He wondered about that, and then it came to him. To seal the thoughts and patterns, the visions of other times and places, she had to expend part of her being. It was half psi-power and half a surrendering of life force.

  “Let me help you,” he whispered. He tried, but the battle against the memory/life force torrent weakened him. He struggled on, concentrating, refusing to let her expire. This one time he would prove to others that he was stronger than anyone believed.

  He wasn’t sure if he tapped a life force of his own, burning it up in an effort to reach her mind. Suddenly, his legs gave out and he struck his chin against the ground. Losing concentration, he had to begin anew, battling now from the dirt. He couldn’t let her die. He refused.

  “These are true things!” the seeker shouted, sounding winded. “I give you the gift of many minds from many different times. Now you know who and what the demons really are. They are aliens from another star system. They have used us in their genetic experiments. Now, you must rise up and help Cyrus Gant the Earth man save the greatest Fenris human of them all: the Anointed One known as Klane.”

  With that, the seeker collapsed.

  The torrent of memories and life force ceased. Cyrus’s eyelids quivered and his breath came in short gasps.

  “Help . . .” he slurred. “We must . . . help her.” He tried to rise. He could not. He’d already used up everything. “Please,” he whispered. He tried to turn his head and implore Skar to do something.

  Unconscious on the ground, the soldier did nothing.

  Cyrus was the last to pass out. He wanted to save the seeker. He fought with the last dregs of his psi-power, but then he, too, closed his eyes.

  23

  Klane’s consciousness on Fenris II struggled for identity and existence. For an unknown time, he had fought off Chirr psionics as he held the citadel of Malik’s mind. During that time the Chirr had tormented Timor Malik in order to make him reveal what he knew.

  The torments had weakened the mulishly stubborn soldier and brought him closer and closer to death. Finally, because his battered will could no longer suppress Klane, the youthful consciousness burst out of the ego citadel and once more took full control of the soldier’s body.

  It happened at a grim time. A Chirr warrior prodded a sweat-drenched, naked, and stumbling Klane, or a Klane in charge of the Vomag soldier. Awful bruises covered the body. It had lost weight, while horror and pain stamped its features. The sour-smelling Chirr shoved the tip of its pincers between Klane’s shoulder blades, making the soldier stagger faster. The two of them traversed a narrow underground passage, the floor, ceiling, and walls made of Fenris II dirt and Chirr-spittle mix.

  The warrior was immensely strong and stood head and shoulders taller than the soldier. The creature had a coppery-red carapace and scuttled on four of its six legs. It wore a harness around its bulk. On the harness rattled a hazy bulb where several glow-moths fluttered. They provided the dim lighting. On the harness also rattled manacles and several sharp implements.

  On two different occasions when Malik had been in charge of the body, he had spoken through an interpreter to vizier-Chirr. Because of the memory, Klane now learned that the vizier-Chirr were the decision makers, along with the Nest Intelligence.

  Klane didn’t know how they all interacted with each other and hardly cared. The earlier bargaining sessions had gone poorly. Malik had little to tell, and that little he’d refused to speak. The interpreter had informed him that the Chirr knew that torture induced humans to reconsider their actions. He would thus continue to undergo torture sessions to help clarify his thinking concerning a revelation about the Kresh.

  During Malik’s stay down here, he and Klane had learned a few things about the Chirr. Their self-awareness wasn’t like that of the Kresh with their stiff rationality. The Chirr, it seemed, viewed psionic power as supernatural, just as Klane once had. Yet the insects also had high technology.

  Klane wondered if he understood their worldview properly. The Kresh were alien. The Chirr seemed otherworldly.

  In any case, Klane, in Malik’s body, now shuffled from the latest torture cell. He hobbled as a bent wreck. Sweat drenched him. Every step was agony to his sore hip sockets, to his aching knees, and to his twisted ankles.

  The last torture
had been primitive in the extreme. They’d strapped Malik’s body to a rack and had brought their alien science into play. A scuttling Chirr like a giant crab had injected its proboscis into his hip. That’s when the pain had become an exquisite thing. The Chirr had added a pain heightener so even the manacles around his ankles and wrists had hurt, and that had been before they’d begun to stretch Malik on an insect-fashioned rack.

  Some of the drug still lingered in the soldier’s body. The ground felt like fiery sandpaper against his feet. Klane shivered with fever. He would have hugged himself, but his half-dislocated arms dangled from his shoulders. Despite the fever and the agony of moving, he was desperately grateful to be off the rack, to be out of the torture cell. The Chirr were as much demons as the Kresh had been.

  “No,” Klane whispered.

  He had to forget about that and marshal his thoughts. It didn’t matter if his thoughts were blurred. He could not return to a torture cell. The body couldn’t take any more pain. The proboscis in his hip had finally done it. Malik had sobbed yes, yes, yes. He would give them knowledge of the Kresh and ways to practice new magic—if he had possessed such knowledge.

  Klane smacked his lips. He was so thirsty. It was just like Jassac in that way. No. On Jassac, he had been able to move from place to place. Here, he was trapped inside a hive full of truly alien beings. The Chirr had all the power here. The only way to escape this hell would be to die.

  What have they done to Turk?

  Klane hoped the Chirr hadn’t used the tough soldier as fodder for imps and bantlings. Still, that would have been better than torturing him.

  Klane began to gingerly shuffle toward a side tunnel where light pulsated as if illuminated by a fire.

  The warrior shoved him between his shoulder blades. The Chirr made him stagger past the side tunnel.

  Klane breathed hard as sweat dripped from him. Horror twisted his thinned face. Any deviation here in the nest always led to greater pain and agony. He didn’t want to mewl, to crawl or beg.

  A sick knot tightened in his gut. The present tunnel led deeper underground. Was the Chirr taking him to a worse torture chamber? He wished an interpreter were here so he could ask.

  Maybe because of the fear, Klane’s shuffle slowed even more. The Chirr pushed again. Klane reeled, almost collapsed, but managed to keep his balance and to keep from groaning. The air stank worse than ever. His gut roiled in rebellion. It was too much. His gut heaved, and he spewed a thin stream of bile. He coughed, which wracked the poor, misused body.

  Where is it taking me?

  The insects would surely kill him after he gave them whatever it was they wanted. Maybe that didn’t matter anymore. It would end the pain. It would stop the horror.

  It was too bad Malik and the Vomags hadn’t slain every Chirr in the nest. The Chirr weren’t just different. They were hideously evil, vile, inhuman, and cruel, like insects.

  Klane shivered, and the idea that he would give such alien creatures any help troubled him. He didn’t want to add anything to their power. Yet he had to keep out of the torture cells.

  Klane blinked gritty eyeballs. Something odd impinged on his senses. It was . . . a thrum. He might have cocked his head, but his neck muscles were too tight, too misused for that. He shuffled, sweated feverishly, and listened.

  Thrum-thrum-thrum; it was like a drumbeat, but not to his ears. Behind him, the warrior made clicking noises with each step. It had horn-covered talons, not flesh like a man’s foot. Things rattled on the Chirr’s harness. From side tunnels came hissing, shushing sounds and the clunk of things being stacked.

  Thrum-thrum-thrum. The drumbeat grew. It pulsated through Klane. The pulse should have shaken his bones. It should have vibrated his bruised flesh and created more pain. The thrumming did neither. It warmed him somehow, and he didn’t understand that. Everything in the nest had hurt so far.

  Once more, the warrior shoved him, this time toward a new side tunnel.

  Klane staggered through it and gobbled down the whimper in his throat.

  The tunnel led into a low, long chamber with glowing pits to the sides. The pits warmed the chamber and revealed ranks of vizier-Chirr. Each was like a giant spider with a huge, vein-ravaged bulk on its back. The veins surged and shrank, likely the blood pumping through them.

  The dark bulk on the spidery back shifted occasionally and hideously, reminding Klane of a Tash-Toi he’d seen once, half-dead from a gat’s attack. The gat had bitten away part of the man’s skull to reveal the pink-white matter underneath. Klane imagined that’s exactly what the bulk was here: a vizier-Chirr’s brain.

  There were more viziers here than he’d seen previously. There were dozens, too many for him to count. They scuttled like bugs and continuously chittered to each other. Among them prowled small, dog-sized Chirr. Frog-like tongues flicked from them and licked the vizier-Chirr. The tongues left a sticky substance, and then they smeared it all about. Whenever the small Chirr licked them, the viziers stood very still as if they enjoyed the process.

  The idea sickened Klane. Were they pleasure-Chirr, perhaps?

  An interpreter scuttled up.

  The chittering from the others quieted but didn’t altogether stop. The pleasure-Chirr lay down and nibbled on their tentacles.

  Klane had forgotten about the warrior. It gave him a shove. The strength of the shove surprised him, made Klane stagger, trip, and sprawl before the red-skinned interpreter. Its talons tightened so the tips dug into the hive floor.

  “You are here to talk of magic,” the interpreter said.

  Despite his pain and weakness, Klane climbed to his feet. He gazed at the ranks of minutely scuttling, quietly chittering vizier-Chirr. If he were alone with one, he’d stomp it to death.

  “Human,” the interpreter said.

  Klane swallowed, and his gut churned. Fever dulled his wits. He shivered and knew he needed to bargain for some advantage.

  Maybe the hidden thrum-thrum-thrum aided him. What was that noise anyway?

  The interpreter half turned toward the vizier-Chirr. Soon it faced Klane again.

  “You will return to the torture cell,” it said.

  “Wait!” Klane shouted.

  From behind, the warrior grasped his arm. It began to drag him.

  “Wait!” Klane said in a loud voice. “Why don’t you wait so I can give you what you want?”

  The warrior released him.

  “You are ready to tell us your magic?” the interpreter asked. “You will show us how to leap across space and gain entry into another person?”

  “Yes, I want to tell you everything,” Klane said. I need help. I need a companion. Men weren’t fashioned to stand alone down here deep under the surface. “But I’ll need Turk,” Klane added.

  “What is Turk?”

  “The soldier—” Klane began. “He’s the other man you took with me from the pool.”

  The interpreter stared through him.

  Klane lacked the will to stare back into those emotionless eyes. He dropped his gaze.

  “Is this certain?” the interpreter asked.

  “I need him, yes,” Klane mumbled.

  “Clarify ‘need.’”

  Before he could answer, vizier-Chirr began to chirp and chitter in greater volume. The interpreter chittered back. The interplay continued for a time. Finally, the interpreter regarded Klane.

  “Clarify ‘need,’” it repeated.

  “I cannot perform magic without the other,” Klane said, hoping they would believe that. He was too sick to think up slick lies.

  “You will do nothing,” the interpreter said. “You will explain your magic in detail and how you came from the Kresh stronghold moon all the way here.”

  “That’s what I meant,” Klane said. “Only the other can give me permission, though. And it must be in person,” he added.


  “You are falsifying,” the interpreter said.

  Klane shook his head. “I fear the Chirr too much to lie.”

  “The other is a soldier. He lacks knowledge of magic, what you call . . . psionic ability. You falsify and thus waste time. You will return to the torture cells.”

  The threat made Klane tremble—he’d have to ignore that for now. He needed to concentrate on weaving lies and half-truths into—he didn’t know. Yes! Into a Chirr miscalculation.

  “You’re correct,” Klane said. “He’s a soldier. But the ordeal changed him.”

  “Soldiers have never used magic,” the interpreter said. “The Kresh-trained magicians have always remained hidden in the rearward zones. We know. Otherwise, the hive would have devoured them.”

  “The nest sacrificed soldiers in the pool,” Klane pointed out. “The exchange granted magical power to you, yes?”

  “Man, you equivocate. Detail your magic or return to the torture cells now.”

  “Yes, I want to tell. That’s what I’m saying. But I’m also trying to explain to you that I need the former soldier. He has learned magic. We learned together, practiced it together, and can only show you together.”

  “You said he grants or withholds permission.”

  “Talking with Chirr confuses me,” Klane said. “I used the wrong word to express my meaning.”

  The interpreter chittered and chirped with the vizier-Chirr. Their conversation lasted longer than before. That agitated the pleasure-Chirr. They hurried to various viziers and began licking them.

  Klane found the spectacle revolting, a dark sea of surging, scuttling, clacking Chirr. That, along with the talk, wearied him so his head began to pound. In this hive of horrors, he desperately needed another human.

  “Man,” the interpreter said.

  Klane jerked in surprise.

  “The other is sick, near death,” the interpreter said.

  “Then I must see him at once,” Klane said.

  “You will give us the magic then?”