The Biofab War (14 page)

“Each side was sobered,” said Sutherland, stirring cognac into his coffee, “by the way those transporter sites had been destroyed. Someone—something—used energy weapons far beyond our ken.” He watched the cream curdle to the surface.

“Confronted by this, we didn’t rush to embrace like kids trapped in a wild storm—not quite. Let’s just say that on this topic, and this topic alone, there’s been warm rapprochement over the years, carried on at the highest levels of government.”

“I have a question for the good Captain,” said John, appropriating some of Sutherland’s cognac. “If the Scotar can teleport—and we know they can—why did they storm Goose Hill a second time? Why not just teleport in and blow us to pieces while we were still outside? They had the location from their first attack.”

Detrelna, seated next to McShane, was puffing on one of Bob’s cigars. He took the panatela from his mouth, thoughtfully regarding its profile before answering. “Frankly, I don’t know. And I don’t like it. Their entire method of operation has been different in your solar system—incompetent, really. All we can do is hope they’ll continue blundering, for whatever reason.” He stuck the cigar back into his mouth.

“How do you explain the invisibility of all those warriors over the years?” asked Zahava. “If they’re not telepaths, how could they project illusions?”

“I think I can answer that,” said Kiroda, pushing his empty plate away. “They were probably all housed in one place—the Institute—until needed. Two or three transmutes could project an image of normalcy throughout the entire installation whenever there were visitors.”

“It looks like the surface of the moon,” said MacDonald to Montanoya as the two men looked down on Goose Hill. The morning sun had woven a grotesque tapestry of light and shadow from twisted alien bodies and molten wide-strewn rubble.

“More like something out of Dante, Mr. President,” said Montanoya.

“Land where you can,” MacDonald ordered the Air Force major piloting the Blackhawk helicopter.

“Where you can” was next to a pair of gutted Kronarin scout craft. The six escorting Apache gunships settled in a protective ring around the presidential chopper. Following a combat-outfitted phalanx of Secret Service, they made their way up from the beach to where Scotar bodies heaped the blasted entrance. “Don’t look much prettier burned than they do intact,” said Montanoya, comparing a charred corpse to one less damaged.

“There are probably many life forms in the universe, José,” said MacDonald as their escort checked the site. “Maybe they find us equally repulsive.”

“No one home, Mr. President,” reported the Agent-in-Charge a few minutes later. “Something sure blasted the hell out of the lower corridor and the room above it, though. No human bodies, but plenty of them.” He nudged a headless insectoid corpse with his combat boot’s polished black toe.

“Okay. Let’s have a look,” MacDonald said.

Agents front and rear, the President and Montanoya carefully picked their way down the rubble-strewn stairs and upper corridor, through the broken remains of the altar chamber, then down the ladder to the lower tunnel, its lighting flickering on and off. The scarred walls and blasted Scotar corpses gave testimony to the hellish energies that had raged there. MacDonald turned to the escort commander. “Where was . . .”

He never finished his question—he and Montanoya disappeared, consternation in their wake.

“And this is Central Control,” said POCSYM as the humans entered the large room.

Screens above unmanned consoles came on, filling with sights both familiar and strange: London, New York, Moscow, Paris, Tokyo, Singapore, Rio de Janeiro, Bonn, the North American continent, Terra, Terra and its moon, the outer planets, the sun.

“Are those real-time?’ asked the Russian, peering closely at Mars. The color and clarity were astounding.

“Yes.” I’ve maintained the satellite observation network first installed by Fleet. Drone repair ships are on station in the asteroids and many of the planetary satellites.” The screens blanked out.

“We’re about to receive visitors, gentlemen and lady. Please stand well away from the center of the room,” POCSYM requested. “And no matter what you think you see, do nothing.”

Sutherland was awed by the seemingly effortless way POCSYM transmitted and reassembled people. With no apparent transition, José Montanoya and President MacDonald stood in the center of the room, blinking.

“Welcome to Kronarin Planetary Command,” said POCSYM. “I’ve been looking forward to this meeting for some time.”

“You have the advantage, sir,” MacDonald said, taking in the unfamiliar faces.

“Your pardon, sir. I am POCSYM Six, this installation’s guardian.”

“I’m José Montanoya,” said the National Security Advisor. He paused. Why didn’t Sutherland do or say something? The man was just standing there, staring at him. “And this gentleman”—he indicated MacDonald . . . “is the President of the United States, where I hope we still are.”

“You are in the United States, or rather under it, Mr. Montanoya,” replied POCSYM. “But your companion is neither gentle nor a man. Stand away from him, please.”

Ignoring the hisses of indrawn breath and weapons being drawn, POCSYM continued, “Greetings, Guan-Sharick, Illusion Master of the Infinite Hosts of the Magnificent. Hail! And well met, ancient foe.”

“No!” cried Montanoya, even as he backed away from MacDonald. “I’ve known this man for forty years. He can’t be an . . . alien.”

“See and believe, Mr. Montanoya,” POCSYM said.

MacDonald’s form shimmered for an instant, replaced by a transmute. The alien stood unmoving and unarmed.

“And the President?” asked Montanoya after a moment’s stunned silence. “What about the President?”

Dead,
said a voice in all their heads. The Scotar turned its huge eyes on them.
We held him in our base on Deimos. Your new friends killed him in their rush to destroy us.

“Guan-Sharick is as old as I am, if you discount the hundreds of successive clones through which his persona has passed,” POCSYM said. “He stands high in the Council of the Magnificent. His is the task of exterminating all hostile—that is to say alien—life. If he can sow dissension among the foes of the Host, all the better. He’s the father of lies. Didn’t you wonder, Mr. Montanoya, why on earth, or under it, a President of the United States would expose himself to danger, especially without media coverage? Guan-Sharick hoped I’d be fooled into transporting him here. Talks between the Terrans and the Kronarins being of course, the next logical step. Behold the Illusion Master, stripped of his illusions.

“Captain Detrelna,” POCSYM addressed the Confederation officer, who stood with blaster leveled at the insectoid, “please tell the Terrans what must have occurred for Guan-Sharick to have imitated their President so well.”

Clearing his throat, the captain complied. “His memories had to be transferred, down to the most basic level, directly into the alien’s mind. It’s done by slowly inserting the sharp, hard antennae concealed in the mandibles into the victim’s brain, absorbing each successive layer of memory as the victim dies. The process takes several horrific hours.”

The silence was broken by Montanoya trying to seize John’s blaster.

“No, Mr. Montanoya!” cried POCSYM. “Alive he can be used to avenge your friend. Dead he’s useless. Something he realized—he’s tried to teleport continuously in the last minute. It would be certain death, as he doesn’t know his location. I’ve blocked those attempts as well as his efforts to bring unwelcome visitors. With your permission, Captain, I’ll put him on a debriefer.”

“What’s that?” asked Greg.

“Mind-wiping. It will leech his mind of all data and leave him a big green vegetable,” said Detrelna coldly.

Detrelna gestured to two of his commandos. They came up to the alien, flanking him. “Follow the blue light to Interrogation, gentlemen,” directed POCSYM. “My robots will take charge of the prisoner there.”

A ball of soft blue light, a foot in diameter, appeared on the floor before prisoner and escort, slowly moving toward the door. The trio followed.

Guan-Sharick turned at the door, transfixing them with baleful red eyes, twin pools of malevolence. His voice hissed in their minds again.
We shall write your names on water. The scattering dust is your fate.
The door closed behind him.

“Now what?” asked a shaken José Montanoya.

“I suggest we await our fleet, sir, then negotiate a mutual defense treaty,” Detrelna said. “It’s only a matter of time before the Scotar bring up their main force. Our presence here confirms the importance of Terra and this system.” He nodded at a wall hologram of the solar system.

“What is that blue light orbiting Earth?” asked Bob. “
Implacable
?”

“Yes,” POCSYM said. “Blue is friendly, red hostile. Shall we continue the tour?”

I
mplacable’s
First Officer reread the commscan:

MOST URGENT

From: Grand Admiral Erlin Laguan, aboard
Vigilant

To: Captain Jaquel Detrelna,
Implacable

II Sector Fleet and elements Home Fleet en route your position. Be advised massive repeat massive enemy withdrawals from occupied sectors. Enemy converging on your location. You are to defend the planet Terra until relieved. If, in your judgment, position becomes untenable, you will retreat only after destroying all Imperial equipment on Terra.

End

“Maximum scans all sectors. Maintain high alert,” Lawrona ordered the incoming watch as he eyed the screen.
Implacable
still showed as the only ship in the system. “Get me the captain.”

Dwarfed by the huge ship, the men stood craning their necks, trying to gauge her size.

“A mile high, at least,” marveled John, taking in the vast expanse of gray metal, bulging with weapons blisters and instrument pods.

“A mile and a quarter, actually,” corrected POCSYM. “And about eight miles long. Designed for space but transported here by me, under orders.”

“Magnificent,” Detrelna breathed. “I don’t recognize her class, but she’s certainly one of the great Imperial dreadnoughts. Why didn’t they take her with them, POCSYM?”

The computer hesitated, as though debating with itself. “They couldn’t, Captain. She was exiled here to the Empire’s Outer Marches, last of the symbiotechnic dreadnoughts.”

Detrelna stepped back with a gasp. Kiroda’s eyes widened. A murmur of disgust swept the Kronarins.

“A mindslaver!” Detrelna managed.

“If you will, Captain,” said POCSYM distastefully. “But not just any ‘mindslaver.’ She’s
T’Nil’s
Revenge
. Does that name still mean something to you?”

The Terrans saw the name did indeed mean something to their allies—it flew from lip to lip. “Only one ship’s ever borne the name,” said the captain slowly.

“Want to tell us?” asked Bob.

“T’Nil’s Revenge, great ship of woe

To distant time, to greater cause

Must she need go,”
quoted Kiroda. “There’s truth in nursery rhymes.”

“You see before you a legend, Professor,” said Detrelna, hand sweeping the vessel.
“T’Nil’s Revenge
, politely known as a symbiotechnic dreadnought, commonly called a mindslaver. Bigger, faster and deadlier than any battleship since her ancient day—and outlawed. To build a mindslaver or to research mindslaver technology carries the death penalty—a punishment otherwise reserved for high treason.”

“A mindslaver?” said Sutherland.

“A ship having, as its various cognitive cores, disembodied human minds,” POCSYM said. “Such vessels enjoyed vast superiority in weapons, maneuver and tactics. Properly maintained, the mindslaves were long-lived.”

“Tell them the rest, POCSYM,” said Kiroda. “How such minds went quietly mad, unable to die, living only for combat, the thrill of killing.”

“This is the last mindslaver?” asked John.

“Yes,” POCSYM said. “The rest were destroyed as a mercy by the selfsame T’Nil whose revenge she embodies.”

“How so?” asked Zahava.

“The
Annals
say only criminals were killing people and selling their brains for use in these warships,” said Kiroda. “T’Nil, then Admiral T’Nil, brought them to justice and was crowned Emperor by a grateful people.”

Startled, the humans looked up as the laughter resonated through the cavern.

“I’m sorry,” POCSYM apologized, recovering. “You just reminded me, Mr. Kiroda, of what a Terran general once said when asked what history would say of him. ‘History, sir, will tell lies.’ I’ll tell you the truth of
Revenge
and T’Nil and the Mindslavers Guild—my truth.

“Once upon a time, many thousands of years ago, there were space pirates, raiding Kronarin shipping and small colonies. Each year the problem grew worse, with Fleet never able to catch more than an occasional small pirate ship. The captured outlaws would usually confess to knocking over a few yachts, but even when mindwiped proved ignorant of the large, fleet-sized raids. The raids’ victims disappeared forever. Ransom was never asked.