The Alpha Choice (83 page)

‘We took the two of you because we have a use for you.’

‘My colleague?’

‘She is well, and you will see her at a time of our choosing, but not for some little while.’

‘I demand to see her now!’
   

‘And if we do not comply with your demand, what then?’ his host enquired, without the slightest hint of smugness.

Agrion impotently clenched his jaw and fists, finding nothing to say. He watched as the man stood, then walked slowly towards him. A seat appeared and the man sat down. The Te’an looked at the semi circle, ‘where’ve they gone?’
 

The man’s smile was not unpleasant. ‘We thought this might be less intimidating.’
 

‘I’m your prisoner, that’s intimidating enough!’ As if to satisfy himself they were alone, the captive agent looked around the room. He could see, but not identify unmoving darker shadows within the background. If the lighting was meant to unbalance him, it failed.
 

So far, he had elicited no information to help him escape, he needed to push for answers. ‘What are you going to use us for, and was it worth destroying three ships?’
 
He weighed up the chances of overpowering his captor,
he’s tall but doesn’t look too strong,
he thought,
but where are the others? There must be some guards back there? But even if I get the upper hand, where would I go, and where is Liron? I
 
can’t go without her.
Reason asserted itself, and he decided he was better off lulling his captor(s) into a false sense of security, play along and strike only when he had enough intelligence.

‘We did not destroy your ships, but before you build up hopes of rescue, know that your ships have returned to your home world. They think you are dead.’

So,
he thought,
I’m on my own, with nowhere to escape to. I don’t know what they want but I can at least…’

‘I am sorry to interrupt your train of thought, but it is most important you realise we have gone to a lot of trouble to get you here, and it would be such a waste for you to use the dangerous implant in your brain to cut short your visit. Until you become more informed, you are too volatile to be left to your own devices. Agrion’s hand went to the back of his head, and he breathed a sigh of relief,
no scar tissue, it’s still there.
 

The man must have seen the panic in the agent’s face, as he quickly added. ‘We have removed the implant by non-invasive means.’ The hope that had flared briefly in Agrion, died, but he had no time for self-pity as the next piece of information was, in it’s way, even more unnerving. ‘I fully understand your need to escape, please feel free to try, but know this: it is both impossible and unnecessary. In a couple of months, you and you colleague will be free to leave this place and return home, free to relay to your people everything you have seen and experienced, should you wish it,’ the man paused before adding, ‘even down the nature of our defences. But for now, I need to let you know something of your past.’

Without giving him a chance to object, the man recounted a tale Agrion found both fascinating and terrifying. As the tale progressed, the fascination became totally subsumed in the terror. After a while the storyteller stopped. ‘I have told you enough, for now. Consider what I have said then, when the time is right, we will resume; I will finish the story, and then ask you a question.’

Whatever Agrion expected, it was not this. He was confused. To accept what he had just been told, required him to turn everything he knew about his own people on its head. It was asking too much, his captor had to be lying…but what if he was telling the truth? He put his hands behind his neck and kneaded the muscles there, before asking: ‘What question?’

‘A difficult one,’ and with that said, the man, who had remained nameless throughout the interview, stood. Two men appeared at either side of Agrion,
I was right about the guards,
he thought. The new arrivals were dressed less informally than the storyteller but still not in what he would consider military attire. ‘Kindly escort our guest to his quarters.’

As he stood, no attempt was made to restrain him. Silently, the newcomers turned and made their way towards the edge of the auditorium. Following, he looked back once and was not at all surprised to find both captor and seats, gone.

The Agency operative expected, as he left the room, to pass through a series of corridors and was ready to commit every step and turn to memory, as per his training. Instead, he found himself in the open air. He was standing on a hill, overlooking a valley of verdant green with large areas of deciduous woodland. The open areas were interspersed with bright green domes all, so far as he could tell, the same size; the colouring made some of the more distant structures harder to make out against the landscape.
 

Turning to look at the building he had just exited, he found it too was a dome and no larger than those he had just cast his eye over,
this is impossible!
he thought. He began to walk around the building, the Tellans doing nothing to restrain him. In a little over thirty-seconds he was back where he started. Examining the structure more carefully, he could see it was fluted vertically all around the circumference, extending about twice the height of a man. Set at intervals above the fluting were three lateral rows of hexagonal dimples, while above the dimples, the dome was smooth all the way to its apex. There were no windows or doorways of any kind, not even where he had exited just minutes before. He stepped towards the structure and a doorway appeared, half as tall as himself and at least twice his width.
 

As his Tellan companions joined him - still silent - the width expanded to accommodate them all.
 
One step into the dome, and he was confronted by the same large expanse, as before - he guessed it would take him at least five minutes to walk around the interior circumference. Stepping backwards, he continued to keep the dome in front of him. When he was about five or six paces away, the doorway disappeared. Retracing his steps around the building, he stopped, turned to face to the structure and once again stepped forward. Unsurprisingly, another doorway opened. Repeating this procedure several times, he discovered, no matter where he stopped, a doorway would open and the interior was always the same size, several times larger than the outside!

About to ask his escorts for an explanation, he saw them walking away from the dome across closely mown grass, not appearing to care whether he followed. With nowhere else for him to go, he hastened after them. Within a few minutes he was led to another dome, identical to the auditorium,
must be some kind of dormitory,
he thought. However, the surprises were not over for the day. Once inside this
dome, he found an interior no bigger than his city apartment on Te’ath, albeit bare of any furnishings. No sooner had he realised this, than the area began to be populated with items identical to those he had just imagined from his apartment, but that was not all; other objects appeared, things he had seen elsewhere on his travels and liked, some of them forgotten, until now. Their appearance brought back vivid memories. The process repeated itself as he climbed the stairs to the upper floor. He looked at the two Tellans. ‘Very impressive, no that doesn’t do it justice, but I was wondering, if it can appear this quickly…’

‘I understand your fears,’ one of his escorts replied, ‘but once objects have appeared, they will only go if you specifically want them to and,’ the man allowed himself an ironic smile, ‘if it is safe. It would not do for a chair to disappear while you are sitting on it!’

‘We have a similar, technology, we call it
Fluid,
but we aren’t able to exercise mind control over it,’ replied Agrion. The two escorts looked at each other before the talkative one said: ‘Please imagine a cup of water?’
 

‘Don't you mean a cup of
Balg
?’ came the straight faced reply.

Immediately, a cup appeared in his hand, filled with clear liquid. ‘You don't expect me to drink it?’
 

‘Why not? It is only
water.
’

Knowing that
Fluid
created water only had the appearance of water, and an exceedingly bitter taste - once consumed it broke down into its component parts and was expelled as vapour from the mouth, or as excretion through the pores - Agrion did not relish this part. Every Te’an child had tried it, but very few tried it more than once. The two Tellans waited, patiently. He lifted the cup to his mouth, steeling himself against the acrid flush that never came. Instead, cool pure water coursed down his throat. He finished the drink and imagined the cup was no more. Once again with empty hands, he exclaimed, as much to himself as to his uninvited companions: ‘Your technology doesn't just create simulacrums!’

‘No,’ was the simple reply.
 

His own people were able to synthesise a great deal more complex structures than water but they were just that, synthetic. Food and water could be replicated, but only within the confines of a unit. He had no idea how this could be done,
unless,
he thought,
the entire dome is an enormous replicating unit
. The theory was laid before the Tellans. ‘I’m right aren’t I?’
 

They both shook their heads, before telling him he could do the same thing, anywhere on the planet.

‘Then how is it achieved?’

‘We can explain it to you, but you would not understand.’

Agrion searched their faces for any hint of sarcasm or irony, there was none. He suspected there would be a similar response if he asked them about the spacial inconsistencies, within the dome and a few minutes later, he was proven right. However, he did find them more than happy to explain the day to day use of the habitat, a practical but less interesting concession. While his people could mentally interact with their computers and teleports, the functioning of the dome convinced him the Tellans had advanced far beyond what he now knew to be rudimentary mind control. He quickly suspected they considered the marvels he was about to enjoy, restrictions, as their explanations seemed stilted and learned, not flowing naturally as though from practised use.

He only had to imagine a thing, and it appeared before him, whether food, clothes or other personal items he was familiar with. Of course, there were limits. When on his own, he imagined a flyer, but it did not materialise. Whatever conjured these items obviously placed limits on the absurd. Needless to say, he unsuccessfully pictured Liron!
 

Over the next few days he had no shortage of visitors, especially when he strayed outside his dome. Each visit presented a different pair: sometimes two men, sometimes two women, and other times, one of each; never a single Tellan. They always withheld their names and avoided answering questions straying beyond the mundane. They introduced him to all Tellus had to offer, seeming to withhold nothing. He refrained from seeking details of what his host had told him, in no small part because he had no desire to learn more.
 

His journeys by flyer - not dissimilar to Te’an anti-grav ships, save for the absence of any visible drive, and their incredible speed - were memorable for three reasons. First, he saw no other craft yet, on several occasions, he would come across a Tellan, thousands of kilometres from where he had seen him or her only minutes before. Teleportation was the obvious answer, except there appeared to be a total absence of anything resembling a teleport station, anywhere. When he sought an explanation, he received the polite, but vague, answer: there were several methods of transport on Tellus. After several attempts to elicit further details were met with an infuriating change of subject, he gave up.
 

Second, there were no centres of population. While the domes themselves were symmetrical, there was nothing ordered about how they were placed or distributed, which seemed completely random. As for the domes themselves, there were no monitors, or machines of any kind, unlike Te’an homes. He had no idea how his thoughts became tangible, and until he became reacquainted with his original host, he remained in ignorance.

Finally, despite his wide ranging travels across Tellus, he found no sign of children. His first thought was,
they’re being kept from me, perhaps
they’re frightened I’ll contaminate them,
but, as time passed he became convinced the reason he saw no children, was because there were none to be seen. He then began to look more closely at his hosts. They all, including the reception committee of the first day, appeared to be aged in their early thirties. But that was not what concerned him. On Te’ath, the ability to halt visible signs of ageing, beyond a chosen age, had been around for hundreds of years. People still died when their bodies eventually gave out, but every age, up to the chosen age, bedecked all Te’an planets. On Tellus, it seemed it was not only the children who were missing. An impossible idea began to form in his mind, impossible and uncomfortable.

By now, all thoughts of escape had departed. He had not forgotten his duty, or the fact he was in enemy territory, but his experiences attached credence to everything his host had said, which made escape and the reasons for escape, meaningless.
 

He lost track of time. His stay could have lasted weeks or months, before he was invited back to
the
dome, only this time he returned unaccompanied. Approaching the eighteen, he noticed three seats arrayed in a triangle before the semi circle, two of them occupied. Sitting in one of the three seats, and facing him, was his original host. The occupant of the other seat was dressed no differently to the rest of the Tellans but the posture and build were unmistakable. As he took the seat, obviously meant for him, he looked across to the newcomer, who only said, ‘Agrion.’ His reply, despite all he wanted to say, was simply, ‘Liron.’ This was not the time to catch up, there was a reason he had been brought here and he knew what it was, he knew but wished he did not.