Dark Foundations (40 page)

Lightning flashed, almost immediately followed by a great reverberating boom of thunder.

Merral let the echoes die away, then called out, “I am Merral D'Avanos, Commander of the Farholme Defense Force! We come in peace to seek Betafor Allenix!” His voice seemed to be swallowed up in the rain forest.

“Welcome, Commander,” another voice said in a rasping tone.

Six beams of light swung round to the source—a figure standing at the foot of a crag a dozen paces away.

Merral stared at the creature, recognizing all the features he had seen during the diary conversation: the uneven mottled green skin that in places seemed to have worn away to show an underlying paler creamy green layer, the angular head and ears, the hunched posture and the jacket. Yet new features struck him. For one thing, it was smaller than he had expected, no larger than the average ten-year-old child. For another, the surfaces that made up the face and limbs glinted in the light as the rain ran over them as if they were part of some strange abstract sculpture cut out of ice, glass, or plastic. Still another was the way the head, neck, and body seemed to be separate structures placed abruptly against each other.

I would never have mistaken it for an animal
.

“Commander,” the thing said, “I suggest that no one does anything sudden. I think only one light is needed.”

Merral snapped an order. “Very well. Vero, keep your beam on. Everyone else, point them on the ground.”

With only a single light focused on the creature, Merral noted that its limbs, which emerged through the stiff fabric of the jacket, were angular and hard surfaced. The front limbs seemed longer than the rear ones. Taken as a whole, he saw something that was unique and that defied characterization; a rigid, almost delicate creature that seemed utterly alien.

“Commander, Sergeant Enomoto is armed.” As the creature spoke Merral saw how the lower jaw moved as a single rigid unit. “It is understandable, but I pose no threat. I would prefer it if the weapon was . . . disarmed.”

Merral hesitated, then said, “I would prefer if he kept the weapon ready to fire. Trust must be earned.”

“As you will,” the creature said and moved toward Merral.

“I am unaware of protocol at meetings such as these,” Merral said looking around, suddenly aware in a moment of utter irrelevance that rainwater dripped down his neck.

“Let us be basic then.” The creature's head bowed as if in greeting. “I am Betafor Allenix, the sole surviving Allenix unit of the Freeborn vessel
Slave of Rahllman's Star.
”

Arabella stepped forward next to Merral. “I am the doctor. I gather you have a patient. Where is he?”

“He is in the shelter. It is some distance away. Please follow me. There is a poor path. I will try not to go too fast.”

“How do we know that this is not a trap?” Merral said. As soon as the words were out, he wished he hadn't spoken.

The green head twisted toward him. “Really, Commander, if this were a trap, I could have killed you earlier. Learn this: Allenix units can be trusted.”

Betafor turned, bent her back, and extended her forelimbs so that they touched the ground. Merral felt that although the creature's movements had a certain grace, they were somehow mechanical; it was easy to sense that underneath the skin lay synthetics and metal rather than blood and bone.

Merral glimpsed Anya's face beside him and saw on it a look of utter fascination. “Only partially bipedal,” she said, as if to herself. “And she must have better night vision than us.”

“The path is steep and . . . winding,” Betafor said. “This will help you to follow me.” Suddenly the sides of her jacket began to glow a ghostly white. She set off, moving lightly but confidently on all fours up the hillside.

“Close bush knives!” Merral ordered. “I don't want anyone slipping onto an open blade. But keep them to hand.”

Merral set off after the glowing creature. “Your Communal is excellent,” he said, as he came up alongside, trying to avoid stepping on the swaying tail.

“Thank you. The ability for language was a priority in our making and it has improved over the millennia of our existence. The ancient form of Communal has always been used by all the Freeborn for some purposes. Your modern version is not very hard. My language ability will improve as I listen to what you say and my circuits . . . calibrate. My knowledge is, of course, mainly derived from listening to your broadcasts and from reading material from your Library. The other Allenix unit and I used to practice between ourselves on the ship.”

As the path steepened, Merral struggled for breath and saw from the extended and wavering line of handlight beams that the others were evidently feeling the strain too.

“C-can we pause?” he gasped, wiping the rain and sweat off his face. Although the doctors considered his ribs and internal injuries to be now healed, the exertion made Merral aware of them.

“Indeed,” Betafor said, stopping smoothly and suddenly. “I have always found it a . . . curiosity that one of the most obvious effects of a strained metabolism in humans is that they become . . . deprived of their power of speech. What do you think?”

“I t-think . . .” Merral waved a hand in frustration. “I—I agree.”

After a minute's pause, Betafor pressed on and now more rocks began to appear between the trees, glistening in the light of the handlights. Increasingly soaked by sweat and rain, Merral trailed as close behind as he could, aware of the light beams bouncing around as the holders of the handlights tried to maintain their balance and avoid the razor-edged rocks.

As he followed the pale lights that marked Betafor's flanks up an apparently endless path, the darkness, the exertion, and the soaking he received caused Merral to feel a growing detachment from reality.
Can I be sure that this is not some sort of weird dream?

Twenty minutes later, Betafor stopped. As Merral caught up with her, his handlight beam revealed a small clearing in which new vegetation grew.
The ferry craft landing site.

A glistening rock face lay ahead. “Here,” Betafor said. With considerable agility she clambered over some rocks and then swept aside a curtain of a dense textile to reveal the mouth of a jagged fissure.

She entered and Merral, after waiting for Lloyd to catch up, followed her.

With a faint series of plopping noises, lights came on to reveal a rough-walled chamber in which there were a number of tentlike compartments. Fluttering shadows moved above them.

Lloyd swung his gun up.

“Bats,” said Betafor quickly.

The gun was lowered.

Merral looked around, hearing the constant drip of water, and smelling a new odor—something far fouler than the rain forest's permanent aroma of vegetable death and decay.

As Betafor led them along a creaking walkway past muddy boxes and crates, the lighting faded on the flanks of her jacket.

On the boxes and crates, Merral saw the red spidery script he had seen on the intruder ship and shuddered. Yet he sensed none of the malignancy that he had felt there. Decay, strangeness, and dirt perhaps, but not the occult presence that he had sensed on the ship. Neither could he hear that persistent hostile chattering on the very edge of audibility. Here, at least, he was not on his own. Nevertheless, he kept a firm grip on the handle of his bush knife.

Betafor stopped in front of the final compartment and in a surprisingly human gesture reared up to a hanging towel and wiped her muddy forelimbs on it. She then unsealed the entrance.

Lloyd, his weapon in hand, walked in with Merral. As they exchanged glances, Merral read wariness on his aide's mud-stained face.

I don't like it,
Lloyd mouthed.

“Stay alert,” Merral whispered back, and his aide nodded.

As Betafor turned the wedge of her head toward them, Merral was struck by the strangely emotionless eyes with their dark round and intense pupils.

“Only the commander, the doctor, and the biologist, please. The rest of you, please stay here. You may sit down. But do not open anything.”

Do we trust her?
Merral asked himself for the hundredth time.
We have no choice. And besides, if this was a trap it would have been sprung by now.

He looked back, seeing the others taking off packs, sliding off rain capes, and trying to shake themselves dry.

Anya, her red hair plastered against her skull, came over to Merral with a handkerchief in her hand. “You look a mess, Commander. Allow me.” She tenderly wiped his face.

“Thanks,” he said, all sorts of emotions stirred by her action. “I take it you are finding this interesting?”

Anya turned to look at the creature standing in the entranceway to the compartment. “I'll say. I'm in a state of information overload. But you'd better not keep Betafor waiting.” She grinned slightly. “You have enough women problems already.”

“You think it's female?” he whispered.

Anya shrugged. “It's what she wants.”

Merral shrugged as he headed into the compartment, followed by Anya and Arabella, who clutched a large medical pack. Although he was unhappy with treating Betafor as a female person, the idea of treating her as a genderless thing was no solution.

The compartment was a large, poorly lit room with a table in the middle and a few cabinets. Papers and food packets littered the muddy floor. The foul smell was particularly strong here.

Arabella grunted in disapproval, while Anya wrinkled her nose.

“There you are,” Betafor said with a tilt of the head toward a corner.

In a lightweight bed, half hidden under a dirty sheet, lay a man with pale, wasted arms exposed. Between the tangle of black hair and the unkempt beard Merral glimpsed a pale, waxy face. The low and hasty movements of his chest showed he was still alive.

Betafor moved to a corner and, with a neat folding of the forelimbs, squatted and remained immobile, and staring at them like a weird statue. This close and in this light she was obviously a manufactured being: indeed it struck Merral that if she had been covered in metal he would have simply termed her a robot. The reality was that her skin, with its little bumps and depressions, seemed to be some sort of flexible heavy polymer.

Arabella bent over the figure in the bed a moment, then turned to Merral with a frown. “I need to put this man on the table. You and Anya put a sterile sheet from the yellow pack on it first. And then give me a hand.” She turned to Betafor. “Can we have some more light?”

“As you wish,” replied the green figure and suddenly the lights brightened.

After Merral and Anya stretched the sterile sheet over the table, Arabella helped them lift the man off the bed. Evidently once tall and well built, he was now emaciated and weighed little. As they placed him on the table, Merral noted a strange and bloated undressed wound, with a lurid red color, at the top of his chest.

“So what happened?” Arabella asked as she donned gloves and began to examine the patient.

“The sarudar had an accident,” Betafor replied.

“When?”

“Nine weeks ago.” Her lips flexed when she spoke.

“That would be . . . what . . . when the ship was destroyed?”

“Just afterward. We were here when it was destroyed.”

Arabella gently opened the shirt further and peered at the injury while Anya leaned forward on the other side. “Hmm, just above the manubrium. . . . Infected. . . . What sort of accident?”

“I do not know. I was not there. I think he fell on a rock. Human flesh is too weak. The wound began healing, but it must have become infected. It is hard to keep things . . . sterile here.”

“Hmm. Odd wound,” Arabella commented without looking up. “Very odd. When he became ill, what were his symptoms?”

“He started with fever and began . . . sweating more than usual. There was also swelling around the injury. I used our antibacterials on him. They slowed the effect.”

Arabella grunted and put a diagnostic medical unit on the man's forehead. “He has an elevated temperature and hypotension . . . assuming, of course, he has a similar metabolism to us.” She turned to Betafor. “Never had to ask this of a patient before, but is he human?”

“Yes. I think you will find . . . differences, but his core body temperature should be 37.0 Celsius.”

“Thank you. One tries not to take anything for granted.” Arabella's smile as she glanced at Anya seemed ironic. “You realize you are assisting in quite the most unusual diagnosis made in over three thousand years of Farholme medicine?”

“There is quite a lot that is unusual here,” Anya said with a glance at Betafor.

Arabella turned to Azeras. “Hmm. Similar physiology, but I'd anticipate a differing immune system.” She frowned and peered again at the upper chest. “I don't like the smell of this. I've never seen anything like it. Not in a human being anyway. It's a bacterial infection. Let me check something.”

She stepped back, pulled off her gloves, tapped on her diary repeatedly, then seemed to find what she looked for. After a moment she shook her head, slipped on her gloves again, and returned to the table. “Should have remembered it from medical history. This man has an infection from an anaerobic bacteria. Probably
clostridium
. We only ever get minor versions, but this is full-scale gangrene. Gangrene,” she repeated, the word ringing with surprise and then nodded at Anya. “Another novelty.”

“Can you give me the . . . prognosis?” Betafor asked.

“If he stays here, very poor. I'll give him some of our antibacterials now.” Arabella waved a gloved hand at her bag. “Anya, one of the red vials. Yes, that one. AB 258? Thanks.” She unscrewed the top, pressed the vial against the man's emaciated arm, and squeezed until it was empty.

She then turned to Betafor, her expression stern. “Now let's talk. Even if they work, these antibacterials are not going to be enough. This man needs to be taken to a hospital—to a sterile environment.” As she looked around in a tight-lipped way, Merral wondered if she was going to comment on the mess. “A
sterile
environment,” she repeated. “The dead, damaged, and infected tissue needs removing. We may want to put him in a high-oxygen setting. And there may be other damage. I'd want to check kidney functions.”