Toxic (62 page)

T
he world map stretched out across the central display and in the north, in the Arctic zone, a point accompanied by an information label shone. Kjet whistled in anger. The emissary recalled a reptilian expression:

“Don’t let yourself be overcome by your cold moods.”

“Siberia, Antarctica, the mountains and now this; the humans love these frozen regions. The räkjin of thermoregulated species!

Amused, the Lynian dealt out a logical remark.

“They hide their secrets where they know you don’t want to look for them. In their place, I would do the same.”

“
Ssh
, they are going to a lot of effort for nothing. This won’t save them.”

“In a desperate situation...”

The chief of operations dragged his purple shell towards them. Jave noted that the Kathari was absent and found out why from the Arthrosian.

“Officer Kuhn is returning to Australia on orders from the Primark. He will fly shortly after your team.”

Kjet’s hands closed.

“And that hairy giant is heading to the middle of the desert, under the sun.”

“You could complain to your superior,” Jave added.

The second officer left the room. The Arthrosian’s jaws mumbled. “Has he fallen off his rock?”

“Something like that. It’s reptilian nature. As for Kuhn, why is he heading back to the location of his previous mission?”

“I’m sorry, Emissary Jave, but the Primark expressly ordered that this information not be given out, even to you.”

“I understand.”

Before leaving, he recorded the name on the heading of the label which was floating in the south of Australia: Woomera.
What was this place hiding?
he wondered, embarking for a completely opposite destination which sounded just as exotic: Svalbarg.

While the T-J was starting its parabola descent, the second officer summarized the recon objectives. The coordinates extracted from the computer discovered in Florida pointed to an island. Even though the information had been intentionally incorrect, like in the case of the Atacama site, the only thing there was a partially-frozen ocean around the archipelago.

“Humans called this area Spitzberg. Up until a few hours ago, we were wondering what they could really be hiding here.”

The radar images captured by a pair of satellites spread across the projection. The second officer continued his tactical briefing.

“The answer is located inside a sandstone mountain. As you can see from the images, a tunnel begins at the side and runs more than an octain of meters deep before leading to the rooms.”

The three troopers of the team, two reptilians and the Squil expert in pre-tech technology, took the information in. The latter reacted upon discovering the size of the enclosure as well as details such as the redundant power supply and structural reinforcements.

“The form fits the function. This resembles a sort of safe.”

“That’s exactly what it is.”

Kjet brought up a bubble of information compiled from the tera-servers in the foreground. The Squil moved his tentacles after reading the first pictograms.

“A seed bank?”

“Humans designed this site to store the seeds of all of the crops on the planet in a safe place and therefore preserve genetic diversity.”

“Why?”

Jave listened to the explicative whistles of the second officer with interest.

“It doesn’t matter. We aren’t here to probe into the motivations of an inferior species. Our mission consists in exploring the complex. If its coordinates were in the machine, there’s a reason why. We have to find out.”

“Will there be opposition?”

“It’s hard to say.”

In the videos, they saw shadows in the middle of the main street of the neighboring village, built on the edge of a narrow gulf surrounded by mountains. They weren’t moving.

“The ice paralyzes them.”

Logical, the emissary thought. Human blood ensured the distribution of heat, diffusing warmth to the whole body and in the opposite case, coolness in the case of overheating. With a similar temperature, the muscles of the infected, devoid of their fluids, became as hard as rock. The reptilians were very familiar with this problem, as it plunged them into what they called ice delirium. Sometimes, they didn’t recover.

“You two,” Kjet announced, pointing to the two soldiers. “You will do a recon of the surroundings and ensure our cover while we go inside the installations.”

The two mercenaries gave a movement of approval.

The T-J landed on a completely frozen platform near the safe, according to the name which the Squil insisted on giving it. The aquatic being, in a heating suit, came up to the Lynian.

“All of these seeds, these exotic varieties; some of them could grab a fortune on specialized markets... I imagine that you see this as a natural treasure which could make you reconsider your perception of human nature.”

“What do you mean?”

“That they give importance to plants and you’re a plant, right?”

“Not completely.”

“Hybrids always have a dominant side, a preference. Balance is a myth.”

The emissary moved towards the entrance, a thick wall which emerged from the snow and which reminded him of the top of a sliding vessel hidden under a white blanket. The bare concrete and armored door reminded him of local military facilities, bunkers according to human terminology. The narrowness of the entrance airlock drew annoyed remarks from the reptilian, who had participated in the exploration of the Siberian site, but after a few meters, the tunnel grew into a vast hollow cavity in the mountain where they could move around without having to risk banging themselves on the walls or ceiling. A blue glow descended from luminescent tubes attached to the icy vault. Where did they draw their energy from?

Jave dusted off the frost on his light armor. Kjet kept his visor closed. Jave’s nasal vents let out puffs.

“Remarkable rustic architecture,” the Squil said, acting as their guide.

The trio of aliens stopped at the far end of the main room. Noticing the spatter and red stains on the white walls, Kjet put his hand on the handle of his vibroblade.

“That won’t be necessary,” the Squil announced, “seeing as because of the temperature in here, they might be conscious, but frozen, as stiff as stones.”

Conscious and frozen, a reptilian’s worst nightmare, the Lynian thought.

Around thirty bodies were scattered across the hallway perpendicular to the entrance tunnel, which led to three rooms. Many of them were in uniform. The emissary leaned over one of them, an infected creature whose eyes were barely moving. He though he saw a spark in his stellar pupils, which were as empty as those of a dead being. This thing was still alive. The intense cold paralyzed it and stopped it from jumping on them, which was a good thing.

Konge Folk Og Fedreland
, indicated the tag on its chest pocket. Just below a stylized bird, the word
Luftforsvaret
got him started, after a brief request to the tera-servers. The soldier belonged to the Royal Norwegian Air Force, just like the majority of his neighbors, he realized, verifying other bodies, some of them missing heads and others with heads filled with holes. Bullet marks dotted the walls of the hallway and furniture: sofas, benches, tables and chairs. Jave hoped that the rooms with the seeds had been spared from the fighting. Worried, he joined the two mercenaries in front of the door to the first room. The fact that it was closed was a sign that it would be in good condition. The weapons traces, on the other hand...

Kjet broke the suspense by turning the handle. Jave went in behind him, relieved to find that the premises appeared intact. Blue shelves with yellow signage in numbers or letters held rows of black bottles with labels. The space had been organized, thought out and studied in a rational way, with the exception of one detail: the distance between each shelf was on a human scale, and it was difficult for Jave and the troopers to turn around without causing a catastrophe.

“The bots can do this work for us,” the Squil proposed. “All we need to do is decipher the labels to find out what the recipients contain.”

The Squil put down an octain of arachnid robots, which got right to climbing the shelves and then moving along the rows, reading each label, one by one. Jave consulted his flexible screen. The first names scrolled past: rice from Central Africa, varieties of wheat, barley, corn and rape, with brief information below a row of more or less thick black lines. Probably a code, he told himself. According to the tera-servers, the bank held one million samples. The expert was right; the cavern was home to a treasure.

Jave returned to the main hallway. The spoiled products hadn’t moved. It was mechanically impossible for them to lift a finger. The emissary heard the second officer, who had just entered a third room.

“I found an intact radio.”

The Squil headed there immediately, followed by Jave. On the metallic table, the apparatus, imprisoned in a coating of ice, seemed well preserved, though they needed to determine if it still worked. The Squil assured them that it wouldn’t be a problem.

“It doesn’t have electronics. All we have to do is dry it, clean it, and put the pieces back together.”

With the presence of human soldiers added to this discovery, this complex took on an importance which they couldn’t quite put their finger on. Seeds... Jave reflected, his flexible screen continuing to display the images taken by the bots.
What was the link?

The Squil took out a case from which he took out a sort of scraper to remove the coating of ice around the base of the device.

“You know,” he announced, “this is the fourth one I’ve examined and I can tell you one thing: they were made in the same place, with the same tools. If you compare them, you’ll see similar markings and notches on the frame, caused by instruments of identical manufacture.”

Compare
, Jave told himself, his talent just having alerted him. He excused himself and moved away, his flexible screen in his hands. What the soldiers were guarding here wasn’t in the inventory, a copy of which the mercenaries had on the tera-servers. His program verified the labels scanned by the bots with the references saved in the database. The robots were going through the second room when the message bubble came up in the foreground. The reptilian was examining the work of the Squil, who was detaching the radio. Jave took advantage of it.

Entering the narrow passage demanded a double feat of him: not knocking anything over and moving as fast as possible to examine the bottle. He slid between the two aisles, hoping to not attract the attention of the troopers with his clumsiness. Without wasting time, he made it half-way through and located the recipient whose information was missing from the inventory. There were likely several explanations, but the emissary didn’t think that the humans would be negligent in a place with so much order and which was so well-organized to find any seed quickly. He grabbed the polymer bottle and opened it. His rootlets shook on his skin. It only contained three silver-colored and thermo-sealed envelopes instead of the expected four. The first one was labeled GM-PONY-FIELD-CB471 and below it, written in tiny letters, was a series number.

“Emissary Jave,” he heard through bone conduction.

The packages disappeared into the pocket of his suit and he started to move back towards the end of the aisle.

“I’m here, Kjet.”

“The bots are finishing the scan of the last warehouse and our expert is preparing the radio for transport. If you haven’t found anything, I suggest you return to headquarters.”

“The complex contains interesting seeds. Do you think that Naakrit would accept to ensure the transfer of the complete lot to the Collective?”

“You are a member of the Combinate. As long as the client pays, the Primark will fulfill the contract.”

Fair
, the Lynian thought.

“You found something,” the reptilian insisted.

Jave went back to the main hallway. The Squil was pushing a floating pallet, on top of which was a case lay.

“A treasure,” Jave responded.

During the trip to Dubai, he thought about the three envelopes. He was anxious to open them. The T-J found its place on top of the mercenaries’ HQ. The tower emerged from the blanket of stormy dust which still covered a the city as well as a large part of the gulf. At their feet, the storm had not died down.

Jave descended directly to the Säzkari’s floor. The latter was examining a body when he arrived and presented his findings on a platter.

“Your next assignment,” he announced.

The practitioner raised his scaly features from the body lying on the table. He held a surgical instrument with a scarlet blade.

“What is it?”

“Seeds.”

“I heard about the mountain complex. It apparently contains millions of samples, according to the information from the bots. Why these three?”

“Because they weren’t in the inventory done by the humans. Either they were deliberately omitted or they were placed there after the invasion.”

He put down his tool and approached the platter.

“I have the impression that you hid this information to your advantage. Seeds... an invaluable treasure for a vegetable being, albeit partially.”

The Lynian contented himself with pointing at the silver envelopes.

“A small amount of the contents of that was sent to the Gulf of Mexico.”

The Säzkari made an opening with the help of a scalpel and then tilted the sachet above a transparent recipient in the form of a flute.

A dozen bright blue seeds fell into it.

Jave recoiled, and the reptilian expressed himself with a brief whistle of surprise.

“I guess you know what these are?”

“Yes,” the emissary confirmed, “and I’m sure that these don’t grow on Earth.”