The Trilisk Supersedure (24 page)

“Cilreth
may not be cut out for this,” Magnus said.

“Are
you kidding? She’s tough as nails,” Telisa said.

“She
mumbled something about staying in the ship next time.”

“She’s
just blowing off some steam.”

“Could
be. She was attacked by a native predator. It left two holes in her suit,”
Magnus said.

“Is she
okay? We shouldn’t have let her go by herself.”

“It was
a close thing, but she’s not injured.”

Telisa
hesitated a moment, then continued. “I have an odd admission to make,” she said.
“In the interest of full disclosure…I may have had children with someone else
while I was a Konuan.”

Magnus
just stared at her for a moment. “Uhm. Oh.”

“It
wasn’t by choice. I kept dropping these eggs from my
tendrily-ventricle-thingies, and I couldn’t carry them all for long, so I hid
them away. But that other one might have found them and fertilized them. Or
something like that. I didn’t touch the guy, I promise.”

Magnus’s
eyebrows came up as she spoke. “I knew you were obsessed with aliens, but I
didn’t expect you to go that far,” he said, smiling a bit.

Telisa
lifted her hands in a “not my fault” display.

Magnus
nodded. “Okay, thanks for letting me know. I think. I, myself, did not
fertilize any eggs while you were gone.”

She
laughed. He smiled as well, showing her he wasn’t angry.

Of
course he’s not. There would be no reason to be. That was just weird.

“And
that woman?” she asked.

“Arakaki.
She’s UED. Or she was. She’s good. If she’s still alive, we need her.”

“What?”

“We
could use her. She’s tough. A survivor. We could use her on the team.”

“You
and three women. I see where this is going.”

“Don’t
be insane. She’s good. You’d agree if you would quit thinking of her as some
kind of competition. Look, we’ll recruit two or three men. You can help choose
them.”

“I
suppose you’re right,” Telisa said. “But the more people we let in, the more we
risk fragmentation of purpose. We’ll have to be beyond careful in recruiting.”

“Yes.
Jack was good at it. He chose you. And he knew you were the right person for
the job before you even heard the pitch. Thomas was like, oh no, she’s going to
tell her father and we’re all going to get arrested, but you just signed on and
never looked back, just like Jack said you would.”

“What’s
Shiny up to now?”

“We can
go take a look,” Magnus said. “The UED scattered. Shiny says the survivors are
headed back to their camp.”

“Shiny
saves us yet again.”

“He
seems to be sticking with us. I guess you were probably right about him.”
Magnus said it with difficulty. Telisa accepted the statement and did not
gloat.

“Let’s
go find our Vovokan benefactor.” She stood and checked her suit. Luckily Momma
Veer had foreseen camping out on dirty, dusty worlds and provided the skinsuit
with a charge-and-repel system for keeping dust from sticking.

“Maybe
Veer Industries should run the Earth government.”

Magnus
shrugged. “Maybe it already does.”

Telisa
and Magnus moved toward Shiny’s position. Their link maps told them the alien
worked at the site where Telisa’s human body had been in the tube. Before they
arrived, they could hear digging machines. The sounds of dirt and rubble being
shifted carried far across the ruins.

At
least it’s not the sounds of gun and rocket fire anymore.

The
pair kept sharp. Even though Shiny’s orbs patrolled the area, they were afraid
of being ambushed by a UED survivor. Telisa also thought again about the
predator that had attacked Cilreth, or whatever might have caused the Konuan to
make all those grilles. Telisa had one Vovokan attendant orb left, but both of
Magnus’s were still with him, though she swore one of them wobbled like a bent
tire.

The
first thing Telisa saw of the destination was a deep pit surrounded by four
large digging machines. The machines were built upon multiple legs like the
Vovokan walkers. They approached the edge of the dig site. Telisa looked down.
The top of the Trilisk chamber had been opened like a living thing, cut across
and propped open like a patient’s chest in major surgery.

Two
machines with long arms and crane-cable claspers loaded another body-switch
apparatus into a huge transport vehicle as she watched.

Cilreth
appeared nearby.

“Hi. I
thought you were hiding in the
Clacker
,” Telisa said.

“I
guess my curiosity is stronger than my sense,” Cilreth said.

“That’s
true of all of us, or we wouldn’t be here,” Telisa answered. “These devices are
amazing. Though I’m not sure we want to use them. Interesting as it was to
become a Konuan, I don’t think I’ll be switching bodies again anytime soon.”

“I don’t
know if we can sell them, either,” Cilreth said.

Telisa
opened her mouth to say
of course we can
but then stopped. In the hands
of a private client, what damage could be done?

“I can’t
believe it. You might be right,” Telisa said. “Have I become like the world
government? Deciding these artifacts are too powerful to be in the hands of a
single individual?”

“Just
switching to alien bodies doesn’t sound like it would be harmful to others.
Freedom of physiology has already been granted to individuals wanting to live
in regrown or android bodies,” Cilreth said.

“This
technology highly unbalancing to Terran society,” Shiny interrupted.

“How
so?” asked Magnus.

“Supersedure
target possesses enhanced physiology. Transfer endows subject with artificial
gains.”

“How do
you know? Maybe Konuan are just fast and strong.”

“Trilisks
enhanced host bodies. Faster, stronger, greater intellectual receiving
capacity. Likely increase in longevity of host.”

“Wait.
By how much are we talking about here?”

“Potentially
infinite, limitless, immortal.”

Telisa
and Magnus just stood thinking it through. Cilreth was the first to respond
aloud.

“We can’t
sell even one,” Cilreth said. “They could be adapted to put a person into a
fake human body, stronger, faster, and immortal. Wait.
I
need the damn
thing!”

Magnus
lifted his hand. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

“Shiny,
how old are you?” Telisa asked.

“Fifty-two
Earth years. In anticipation of next question, Vovokan lifespan expected over
three hundred Earth years.”

Cilreth
shifted uncomfortably. “So you mentioned a Trilisk. What if…that Konuan has a
Trilisk in it?”

“What?”
asked Magnus.

“That
would explain so much. Like how there’s only one Konuan left. How it killed off
so many. How it had worshipers who said it was amazingly wise.”

“Agree,
assent, concur. Anomalies detected on surface quite probably align with
movements of Konuan hunter. Urge priority of capturing it.”

“How
can we find it? Can you detect it?”

“Possible
on planet surface,” Shiny said. “More difficult within Trilisk complex.”

“Don’t
we need to take these artifacts and leave?” Cilreth asked.

“Loading
machines can complete process,” Shiny said. “Trilisk specimen more valuable.
Trilisk possess keys to understanding. Be notified: Terran approaches from
southeast. No violent intent indicated.”

***

“I’m
here to see Magnus,” she told the sphere. It reacted almost immediately, moving
to one side. Another sphere appeared on her left.

I guess
I just keep moving forward.

She
walked along an ancient street between two old buildings, then into a wide
patch of native plants. When she emerged, she caught sight of a couple of the
scientists ahead. Large alien-looking machines were working on a dig. A person
came forward. Magnus.

“Please
don’t shoot. I would like to speak in peace,” she called out. She waited a
moment, then walked forward with her empty hands held before her.

“Oh. It’s
you,” Magnus said.

“Who?
Is she Arakaki?” the younger woman said. Her voice held an edge. Arakaki
guessed she was Telisa.

“Captain
Arakaki, UED. Ex-captain, I guess, considering the state of my unit and United
Earth Defiance.” She stood straight and extended her hand.

Telisa
stared at Magnus, waiting for an explanation. An older woman with silvering
hair and dark eyes appeared on her right. Arakaki was surprised she hadn’t seen
the older one. She berated herself silently, then stepped forward to accept her
handshake.

Ah. She’s
wearing a space force stealth suit.

“I’m
Cilreth,” she said.

Why
didn’t she divulge her rank? No reason to let the enemy know, I guess, even a
defeated enemy. Or she’s been out of the force for a while.

Arakaki
nodded stiffly.

“It’s
probably no use turning yourself in to us,” Magnus said. He hesitated. Telisa
looked angry, but she wasn’t saying anything on any link channel Arakaki could
hear.

Those
two are having a disagreement over my sudden appearance,
Arakaki thought.
I’d love to hear that link channel.

Arakaki
smiled. “Oh? So you were telling the truth about not being space force, then?”

Magnus
nodded.

“You’re
very powerful for an independent,” she said.
Organized crime? With an alien
on their side, no less.

“We’re
after the Konuan. It’s a Trilisk,” Magnus said.

No way.
No way.
“Come again?”

“The
Konuan we killed was actually Telisa here. She used Trilisk machines to switch
bodies. I know. Impossible. But so is half the other stuff the Trilisks can do.
Anyway, the Konuan that’s been hunting us might be a Trilisk.”

Arakaki
shifted uncomfortably.

Perhaps
I was knocked unconscious by hallucinogenic gas?

***

“So you
guys came for these artifacts? What do they do?”

She’s
not sure whether to believe us, so she changed the subject,
Telisa
thought. She wondered if Arakaki wondered if they were a legal operation.

“We don’t
know everything about them. At least one transfers your…consciousness into
another creature. In this case, it put me in a Konuan.”

“A
simulation.”

“No, it
was real. You killed me.”

Arakaki
looked at Telisa carefully.

Is that
concern or skepticism?

“Your
brain architecture couldn’t map directly to—” Arakaki started.

“I
know. I didn’t even have the same number of eyes or legs. I don’t know how they
did it, but the Trilisks mastered some kind of adaptive process that allowed me
to stay very much myself, even though I had another body. The physical control
had to have been helped along a great deal. I was clumsy, confused, but it wasn’t
like starting over as a baby in a new body. The transfer mechanism somehow did
a ‘best fit’ analysis of how my old body moved and connected it to my new one.”

“Trilisk
capable of transfer, replacement, supersedure of sentient creatures to other
forms. Natural bodies and artificial ones known to be within their
capabilities,” Shiny said. Arakaki looked around, probably searching for the
source of the voice.

That
one’s going to be a surprise,
Telisa thought.

“That’s
beyond amazing. Think about it. They came here who knows how long ago. They
made their support base to answer prayers of sentient beings, and then they
transfer into—supersede—the natives.”

“Shiny
said Trilisks had an outpost on Earth,” Magnus pointed out.

Oh my
Five Entities.

“They
may have become human. They may have…could some of them
still be
human?”

“Too
bad for them,” Cilreth said sarcastically. “The outpost eventually crapped out
on them. They would have been stuck there, without their precious prayer
machines, they’d be reduced to…well, Stone Age, or whatever we were at the
time.”

“We
were wondering if some of them stayed human. Their children, if they had any,
would be human. I think.”

“We don’t
know if they came to other planets specifically to take over the native bodies.
This may have been nothing more than a research project, or even an
entertainment to them,” Magnus pointed out. “Travel to strange worlds, see new
things, try new alien bodies. It could have been a vacation package for all we
know.”