Escape (74 page)

“We're not like you.”

“No?” Gallian cocked his head. “What makes you think so?”

Kierian and Jilly merely stared at him with looks of hostility and horror. Kieran's gaze skipped over to the gray-skinned monster standing quietly beside Gallian. “Last time I looked in the mirror I didn't see
that
staring back at me.”

Gallian nodded. “With the appropriate stimuli, you will. Tell me, when was the last time you were around humans?”

Kieran answered with a disgusted frown. “What?”

“Surely, you've noticed the insatiable need
burning
within you. No matter what you do, it never leaves. It burns and burns until it's all you can think about.” Kieran's frown deepened, and Gallian nodded. “From the look on your face, I can see that you know exactly what I mean. Wait. Once we reach Acasia there will be enough humans for us all, and then you will see your true form.”

Jilly let out a gasp. “Oh, Deus
 
.
 
.
 
.
Kieran, that's why they
 
.
 
.
 
.
”

Gallian began nodding. “Yes. That's why we came with you.”

Jilly shook her head. “But you can't! It might be the last uninfected population in the galaxy! Can't you just leave them alone? What harm can they possibly do to you?”

Gallian just stared at her. “I'm afraid you've misunderstood me. We don't want to change them, we want to feed on them.”

Jilly's jaw dropped, and she cast Kieran a horrified glance.

Kieran's fists balled. “Well, I'm afraid you'll have to be dissapointed then. Two against two, I think those odds are reasonable.”

Gallian merely grinned. “Were those actually the odds, and were you both not already injured, I might have agreed. As it is, however
 
.
 
.
 
.
” Gallian's gaze slid sideways to the open door, and he spent a long moment gazing that way.

Kieran followed his gaze in bemusement. He couldn't see or imagine what Gallian was staring at. Then a cold, gray mist clouded the corridor, obscuring the far wall from view. Seconds later the mist resolved into a dozen or more wrinkled gray faces with burning red eyes, creatures exactly like the one that had nearly choked the life out of him.

Jilly gasped again, and Kieran's gaze shot away from the corridor to meet Gallian's smiling eyes.

“How did they get on board?” Kieran asked.

“You'll recall how the aft shields were disabled. I'm sure you can figure out the rest for yourself.”

Kieran's eyes widened in sudden comprehension. “You had to disable the shields in order to open the hatch and let them in. But why not just disable them from the control console?”

“Javax wouldn't let me. He perceived the beings outside to be a threat, based on their prior attempts to break into the ship. He asked for a security clearance code, and it was well outside our abilities to slice through, so I sabotaged the aft shields, but only after I disabled the vidcorder so Javax wouldn't see what I was doing. Now, if that satisfies all of your questions, we're about to make the final reversion from trilinear space. I came to see if you might like to witness the event.” Gallian cocked an eyebrow at them and smiled, waiting for their reply.

“Do we have a choice?” Jilly spoke through gritted teeth.

Gallian turned his smile her way. “Of course you do. You may wait here, confined to quarters, or you may join us on the bridge of your own volition. But I do hope you'll choose to cooperate. I think you'll find that we're all ultimately on the same side.”

Jilly frowned and jerked a thumb to the monster who had assaulted them. “Then why did he attack us?”

The monster answered before Gallian could. “I overheard you saying that you wished to turn the ship around, and I decided to make sure you couldn't.”

Gallian scowled at the creature beside him. “Yes, well, clearly that was a mistake. You could have tried reasoning with them. I'm sure once they knew that the hunger they feel can only be satisfied by going to Acasia they would have cooperated freely.”

“Will you?” the creature asked.

Jilly's brow furrowed deeply. “What do you mean the hunger we feel can only be satisfied by going to Acasia?”

Gallian cocked his head curiously. “We've been over this. Surely you've already noticed it.”

“That's not what I'm asking. Why can our hunger only be satisfied by going to
Acasia?
Are there no humans left elsewhere?”

“Oh there are, but the uninfected ones have been confined to feed lots. You may prefer to call them isolation centers.”

“Oh, Deus, you don't mean
 
.
 
.
 
.
”

Gallian nodded. “They are quite safe from infection, but I'm afraid we were overzealous in our quest to conquer your galaxy. We now face a dwindling food supply. There are too many mouths to feed, and not enough humans left. Acasia may be our last hope to correct the imbalance.”

Jilly's mouth had dropped open. Rendered speechless, it was Kieran who asked the obvious question: “If you came to the galaxy for a food source, why change anyone?”

Gallian's head cocked. “How could we possibly hope to subjugate a more numerous, better equipped foe? We had to reduce your numbers or add to ours. Conveniently, we were able to do both at the same time. Now if that concludes our discussion, please accompany me to the bridge. The final reversion is upon us.”

As if he'd been listening the whole time, Javax chimed in over the intercom: “One minute until the reversion to normal space.”

Gallian nodded to the monster beside him, and the gray-skinned creature stepped toward Kieran and Jilly, gesturing for them to walk ahead of him to the door. Without waiting to see if Kieran and Jilly would follow, Gallian started for the door.

* * *

The hordes of other creatures they'd seen appear in the hall accompanied them to the bridge, walking in close formation around Jilly and Kieran. Just as they reached the bridge, the swirling vortex of colors beyond the viewports flashed brightly and then faded to streaking starlines. At last, space was still and glittering before them. The ship began to turn, and the Whirlpool panned into view. Bright blue, red, and dusty gray gasses flowed together in a solid wall of color, blotting out the stars. Kieran watched Gallian (a.k.a. Brathus) take a seat in the command chair, while the others fanned out without being asked to take their places at the various control stations on the crew deck below.

Kieran and Jilly were shoved roughly forward until they stood to one side of Gallian, watching the wall of nebular gasses grow steadily closer. After only a few minutes of accelerating toward the Whirlpool, a long tendril appeared to reach out and engulf them in a thick, icy gray mist.

A moment later, Javax's voice filled the bridge: “I am detecting a large number of ships clustered in the Acasian straight.
The Arm of Taskrid
, a vessel claiming to be the flotilla's flagship, is hailing us.”

Gallian answered: “Attention on deck, please assume human form while we respond.”

The air began to hum, and suddenly it was glittering with dust. A moment later the sound ceased and the air was clear again. Kieran noticed that the creatures on the crew deck below were all now remarkably human, and all of them were wearing appropriate patroller uniforms.

Gallian spoke once more: “Please respond to their hails, Javax. Full vidcorder trasmission. We have nothing to hide.”

Jilly glanced quickly at Kieran, her eyes wide, but sharp, as though she were thinking intently. He could no longer read her thoughts, but in that instant that her gaze met his, he felt he knew what she intended.

The central viewport opaqued to black and then faded to an image of a portly man with a rim of short white hair around his head, and a blazing red uniform. “Attention Patroller Cruiser, Acasia is under self-imposed quarantine. You are hereby ordered to turn around or be fired upon. This will be your only warning. We are authorized to use lethal force.”

Kiearn watched from the corner of his eye as Gallian's expression turned horrified. “Wait! Please! We are seeking asylum. You must help us! The rest of the galaxy has been overcome by a plague. We have managed to remain uninfected, but you may send a medical team aboard to verify that.”

The portly man's face formed a pudgy frown. “How is it that you have managed to avoid the plague?”

“We have been on extended patrol of the outer territories for the past month. When we started back for groundside leave, we found our homeworld under quarantine, and were turned away. We have been flying from world to world ever since, looking for a place to dock, and we are now too low on fuel to reach another settlement. We had hoped Acasia might be spared the ravages of the plague, as it is the furthest from Union Space.”

The pudgy man's brow furrowed until lines appeared between his bushy silver eyebrows. He was silent for a painfully long moment, then something in his expression changed, and he said, “I must confer with the High Guardian. Hold your present course until directed otherwise.” And with that, the portly man's image faded from the viewscreen and it turned transparent once more.

“Why didn't he tell us to stop?” Jilly asked.

“Because we're inside an asteroid field,” Gallian replied. “Ordering us to stay in one place too long would be as good as atomizing us with their cannons.” Gallian turned in the command chair to look up at Jilly. “Why didn't you try to tell him that we are infected?”

Jilly met his gaze with glittering red eyes. “As you said, we're on the same side now.”

Gallian smiled. “I'm glad you are beginning to see things more clearly. We are not the enemy.”

Jilly smiled back. “It is the only logical response.”

Kieran blinked.
What?
Perhaps he'd been wrong about what Jilly had intended. Could she really have changed her mind so fast? Then again, what choice did they have? They were no longer human, so could they really afford to side with humanity? Kieran turned to the fore and frowned into the eddying trails of gray mist swirling by their ship. He wasn't sure he liked the answers to those questions.

Chapter 53

W
hile they waited for the commander of Acasia's defending fleet to hail them again, Kieran had time to consider their situation. And each time he did, he kept coming back to a puzzling fact: Gallian had asked Jilly why she hadn't betrayed them, but they hadn't thought to ask him why he'd even given them the opportunity. Had either he or Jilly told the Acasian commander that the whole ship was infected, their efforts to reach Acasia would have come to an abrupt end.

Was Gallian secretly hiding the fact that he could actually read their thoughts? Kieran decided there was nothing to lose by asking him directly, but once he'd asked the question, he wished he hadn't. Gallian's answer was more terrifying than the unknown.

“Had you told the captain what we really are, I would have altered his memory of the revelation, and through him the memories of any others who might have overheard. It was a small risk to gauge where your loyalties truly lie.”

“How is that possible?” Kieran asked, aware that his mouth had dropped open.

Gallian smiled. “Many things are now possible that were not before. Telepathy need not be passive, nor merely informative. The human brain is very pliable, and will recieve input from any source, so long as it is presented in the right format.”

Kieran blinked and looked away, but Gallian mistook horror for awe and his smile only broadened. “Now you see the wonder of what we've become, of the capabilities that you are only now awakening to.”

“We are being hailed once more,” Javax interrupted.

“Accept transmission,” Gallian replied.

The foreward viewport opaqued to black, and then the portly man from before reappeared. He did not look happy.

“You will proceed to the coordinates we supply and wait there to be boarded by a team of automaton inspectors. They will verify your claim that you have not been infected. If what you say is true, you will be allowed through the quarantine. If you are lying, we won't hesistate to repay your treachery in kind.”

Gallian nodded sagely. “Of course. I eagerly anticipate the arrival of your inspectors.”

The commander's lip twitched. “We'll see.” And with that, the foreward viewport grew transparent once more.

“How will we avoid being detected by the inspectors?” Jilly asked.

Gallian turned to look up at her with a smug grin. “They will not know what to look for.”

“How can you be sure? Surely by now, people know the nature of the virus.”

Gallian shook his head. “If they did, they could fight it. We have been very cautious to prevent humanity from knowing exactly what it is that they face. Every time one human discovers the truth, he or she mysteriously wakes up with no recollection of the discovery. As I said, the brain is pliable.”