Alien Honor (A Fenris Novel) (34 page)

Something shined in the humanoid’s eyes. It was hard to tell what through the glass, the water, and the goggles. It seemed to be disappointment and maybe even a hint of contempt.

It caused Jasper to bristle. Who was this slave of the reptilian alien to have contempt for him?

You must tell me everything you can about the blasphemer Cyrus.

I—

Chengal Ras hissed, and he lashed his tail. With a sharp movement, he tore a metallic streamer from a talon and let it flutter to the floor.

The Rarified turned pale, and his shook head.

What’s wrong?
Jasper asked.
Did I do something wrong?

You have failed to love, Jasper of Sol. Chengal Ras was curious to know if a wild of your power could learn the civilized arts. The techs have been monitoring you and I have detected falsity in your words.

Fear swept over Jasper. He blinked rapidly and found that his mouth was dry.
What… what are you going to do with me?

Your query of me points to the truth of your barbarous manners. I told you that property never questions its master. Yet, you have disobeyed once again.

Give me a second chance,
Jasper said. He swam closer to the glass and aimed his words at Chengal Ras.
Give me a second chance to show love.

The Rarified shook his head.
Now you attempt to give orders. Chengal Ras was merciful before. With your barbarism you have spit in his face.

What’s wrong with you people?
Jasper shouted.
I’m not like you. I haven’t grown up kissing the tail of an alien. It takes time to learn that.

You are barbarous,
the Rarified said.
It has now become clear to your master that you cannot possibly learn obedience quickly enough to be of use. Therefore, we will continue with the original goal.

What does that mean?
Jasper asked.

You are in the first stage of the mind extractor. Since you are such a powerful telepath, Chengal Ras has deemed it unwise to use the rarefied to scour your thoughts. It would also take too much time. Instead, your master will sweep your thoughts and put them onto a memory spool.

Is that painful?
Jasper asked.

The pain will cease to matter once your thoughts are on the spools. Then you will be a simple, mindless thing and quickly put out of its misery.

What?

If you believe in spiritual entities or some afterlife, prepare to meet him, them, or it.

In desperation and rage, Jasper shook a fist at the Rarified. Then he concentrated his telepathic powers and hurled a mind bolt at the mocking humanoid.

The tall rarefied clutched his head and screamed. He must not have been ready for such desperation. The humanoid staggered backward as his robes billowed once more. In a moment, his eyes rolled up into his head and he slumped onto the floor.

Jasper glanced around at his confinement one more time. There was no help coming for him. He was in a cage that he could never escape. Even gods
could die, it seemed. But he would do this his way and he wouldn’t give the aliens anything. It was a gesture. It had been his failure that had ruined the voyage for everyone involved, but especially for him.

It is time to die
.

Jasper began ripping the breathing mask from his face. Chengal Ras roared, and the techs slapped buttons on their machines.

It was Jasper’s turn to scream as pain slammed against him. Then a terrible thrumming began in his mind. He knew it was the beginning of the mind extraction. He pulled his mask harder and the pain shocked him into immobility.

I tried
, Jasper thought. Then he endured pain as the first level of mind extraction began.

7

The Crab Palace neither served crabs nor was it a palace. It began in a larger chamber crammed with the most pitiful cases Cyrus had seen so far.

The crippled, diseased, and twisted lived in this chamber. They wore rags instead of robes and stank of pus, defecation, and urine. There was endless coughing, wheezing, and the last brays of the dying. The overhead lighting was spotty: shadowy in places and bright in others. The property limits seemed to be the extent of a person’s rug or mat. Altogether, it was a depressing and disheartening place.

Skar led and picked his way through the packed throng. Some watched him. Others averted their gaze. The worst were the children who stared with the bulbous eyes of the starving.

Cyrus scowled. Skar had called these people outcasts. Didn’t the Kresh care what happened here? Or was the Maze like a rat-hole? That would make these people rats, living in the crevices or in the insulation of the space station’s outer walls. How many of the people were sick with radiation poisoning?

Skar headed toward a portal in the wall, surrounded by several metal kiosks. A gunman in synthi-leather stepped out of the first kiosk.

“Well?” the gunman asked. “Who are you from?”

“I have hunted in the stars,” Skar said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I am Vomag.”

The gunman looked more closely, and he turned pale, re-gripping his weapon. “Look. I don’t know what you’re—”

“We seek the Reacher,” Skar said.

The gunman froze.

“Is there a problem, Cast?” a bigger gunman asked, coming out from another kiosk. The man had a yellow scarf tied to his throat, with crusts of dried blood in it.

“No!” Cast said. “These two, take them back. They want crab.”

The second gunman pulled out his weapon, aiming it at Skar.

Cast turned toward him. “I said no, you fool. He’s Vomag.”

“We’re dead,” the second gunman said listlessly. “We never should have listened to the old one. This was a bad—”

“Can’t you think?” Cast asked. “If the masters wanted us dead, we’d already be dead. Take these two back and serve them crab.”

The second gunman straightened his slumped shoulders. “Follow me,” he said.

The man took them to the portal and tapped against the wall. He didn’t use controls, but the portal opened. A fat woman in a draped robe sat on a stool within. Glowing controls on the wall illuminated her disease-spotted features. She must have opened the portal. Without a word or a nod, the gunman passed the woman and beckoned them to follow.

They walked past others sprawled on the deck plates, each on his or her rug. Soon, though, they walked through a narrow corridor of stainless steel. It branched and they turned left, right, and left. A slight thrum began, intensifying by degrees until Cyrus felt vibrations against his feet. They must be near engines of some kind. Finally, they walked through a dark corridor until the gunman tapped on a wall again.

A new hatch opened to a different place and the gunman said, “I hope this ain’t a trick.”

“Me too,” Cyrus said.

Skar went through first and Cyrus followed. The gunman stayed behind and the hatch closed. A long maze of pipes and tubing ran for kilometers here and the machine noises were louder. They were in a vast, cavernous area, and it seemed to curve into the distance, almost to the horizon.

A short, bald woman with strange red eyes regarded them.

“I seek the Reacher,” Skar said.

She turned without a word and they followed, marching for three hundred meters. “Is he the one?” the woman asked, pointing at Cyrus.

“I am a soldier,” Skar said.

She halted and pointed at a closed portal. “The one you seek waits within.” She stared at Cyrus. Her red eyes were unsettling and she seemed to measure him.

“You are strange,” she said. “But you do not seem special.”

Cyrus couldn’t help but grin. “I am, though, Special Fourth Class, in fact.”

“What does that mean?” she asked.

“We have no time,” Skar said. “The Kresh hunt for him.”

“Has he slain a master?” she asked in a hushed voice, her face alive with an eager hope.

“The Maze still survives,” Skar said.

“Too bad,” she said. “I wish you’d slain a master,” she told Cyrus. “Once I loved them like everyone else. Now I hate the Kresh.”

“Those are blasphemous words,” Skar said.

“You should try them someday,” the red-eyed woman said. “They are sweeter than honey.”

Cyrus frowned as Skar led him toward the hatch, leaving the red-eyed woman behind. The gunman earlier had said something interesting: that he hoped this wasn’t a trick. Had Skar used him? Was this an elaborate trick by the third order Rarified to find the Reacher?

Cyrus drew his heat gun and pointed it at Skar’s back. He was tired, but he attempted to reason this through. If the Kresh knew the Reacher lived in the Maze, would they need an escaped Earthling as an excuse to find him? Maybe the trick went deeper. Maybe this was a setup to get him—Cyrus—to talk, to spill his guts to the Reacher, a Kresh puppet. Yet why would the aliens do that if they had a memory extractor?

Skar reached for the hatch. It slid open before he touched any controls. A psi-master regarded them. He wore a
baan
and a long white robe, although without a collar. Cyrus looked more closely. This one was old, with lines in his elongated face. The eyes—there was power in the man, and great weariness, too.

“Reacher?” Skar asked.

Cyrus readied the heat gun.

“You won’t need that,” the psi-master told Cyrus.

Skar turned around and spied the weapon. He looked up in surprise.

“I’m not sure if this is a trick or not,” Cyrus explained.

Skar stared at him, and finally, he nodded. “That was a wise precaution. I should have expected it from one who could best a Rarified.”

“Put away the gun,” the psi-master said. “The soldier is genuine and so are the Resisters. You are from the alien vessel?”

“I am,” Cyrus said. He hesitated but finally tucked the gun in his waistband.

“Enter,” the psi-master told Cyrus. “Will you wait here, Vomag?”

“My life is at an end,” Skar said. “I have no more purpose.”

“That’s not necessarily true,” the psi-master said. “Remain here. You may soon have another task as honorable as the one you’ve just performed.”

Skar paused before saying, “I will wait.” He turned, crouched, and sat before the portal like a guard dog.

“Enter please,” the psi-master told Cyrus. He turned and retreated into the room.

Cyrus followed, with the hatch closing behind him. The chamber was about the size of Venice’s quarters aboard
Discovery
and was crammed with items. Some were old and worn—a stool, a table, and an old computer screen. Others looked new—a heat gun, a device with two prongs curving up and shiny discs on the end. There was another portal; Cyrus figured it must lead to a bedroom, as there was no place to sleep in here.

“You’re the Reacher?” Cyrus asked.

The psi-master sat stiffly on a stool. The old man kept his spine erect. He indicated a softer, backed chair. Cyrus sank into it. The old man pointed at the table, indicting food and drink. Cyrus helped himself, guzzling bitter tasting water and devouring something like stale crackers.

“It is poor fare, I know,” the psi-master said. “But it sustains me in the dark hours of existence.”

“Why do you want to see me?” Cyrus asked.

“Questions, questions, so many questions,” the psi-master said. “Yes, I am the Reacher. I suspect you have no idea what that means.”

“I don’t,” Cyrus said, polishing off several more crackers. They reminded him of the gritty clots aboard the alien shuttle.

“I am the heart of the Resisters on High Station 3. My guile keeps me hidden from the Kresh.” The psi-master laughed bitterly. “It is a vain belief, but it has sustained me for many lonely years. The Kresh care nothing about the Resisters or me. Hmm, that is incorrect. Ormdez Ree cares nothing about me. Some of the Hundred worry about us. The other Kresh believe those who worry have become addled.”

“Uh, you’re not making much sense,” Cyrus said.

The old man studied him. “You are weary and have expended your mental powers. Still, you have escaped from the Kresh during the Docking Ceremony. It was an inelegant maneuver, but you took a chance and beat the masters for a moment in time. That is a feat for a human. Finder has told me about you. He was very excited.”

“Finder?” Cyrus asked.

“The Rarified who interviewed you for the Kresh,” the psi-master said.

“Oh. So what happens now?”

The old man continued to stare. Finally, he blinked and turned away. “For many, many years I have hoped for this day. Now it is here and I cannot believe it. Worse, I look at you and know it is impossible for us to defeat the Kresh even with Earth’s help. Our Resistance is futile, but it has been better than bowing to the enslavers of humanity.”

“How do you know about Earth?” Cyrus asked.

“That is a penetrating question, even though I do not think you understand our plight.”

“If you won’t answer that, tell me this: Where do you come from?”

“You wish to know my spawning place?”

“No, not you specifically,” Cyrus said. “Where did all you humans come from? Why and how have the Kresh enslaved you?”

“We originally come from Earth, of course,” the psi-master said. “How otherwise do I know about Earth and expect help from you?”

Cyrus laughed. It sounded shrill to his ears. “That’s impossible. We’re from Earth.
You
can’t be from Earth, too.”

The psi-master smiled sadly. “Why should it be impossible?”

“Do you have a Teleship?”

“What is that?”

Cyrus sat back in his chair and it creaked. How could this strange human be from Earth? Look at the man’s head and body. No one on Earth had a similar shape.

“If you don’t have Teleships and claim you’re from Earth… when did you get here?”

“ ‘Here’ meaning the Fenris System I presume,” the psi-master said.

“Yeah,” Cyrus said.

The psi-master closed his eyes and folded his arms. He seemed to be thinking deeply, almost as if he were retrieving stored knowledge. “Ah, yes,” he said, opening his eyes. “We arrived according to the old calendar in 2225 A.D. That would be one hundred and seventy years ago. The Kresh enslaved us upon our arrival.”