The Galactic Mage (18 page)

“Oh, they’re quite the rage,” said Aderbury. “It’s one of the advantages of living in the real world rather than out in the woods like you. Access to new ideas. They’ve been a big item now for about eight months. They say they’re actually Z-class ‘porters. Probably better than you.” He laughed at this last part.

Altin frowned at the absurdity of the idea. Z-class animals. Nothing innate had that much power.

“Definitely smarter than you,” continued Aderbury, still chuckling as he spoke. “You should read your
Teleporter’s News
some time. They just ran an article on them. You still have to keep up with things you know, even out there in the sticks. Everyone’s got one now. Some people even get three or four. You should get one too.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve fallen a bit behind in my reading, what with my work and all.”

“Yeah, about that. How’s the quest for Luria going anyway? I didn’t have time to ask.”

Altin didn’t have time to answer either, as it was at that moment that Thadius Thoroughgood walked in the room.

Thadius, a tall and strikingly handsome man in his late twenties, lean and perhaps a bit too well kept, smiled a flawlessly toothy grin at Aderbury and then, allowing the smile to collapse into a sneer, gave the barest of head inclinations to Altin as well. “Aderbury, dear boy, you’re still here and working late. You must take a break, I absolutely insist. Let’s go have a glass of wine, shall we? You can even bring your friend there if he’d like to come along. We wouldn’t want to leave poor Altin all alone.” He drug out the last word, emphasizing Altin’s lack of success with persons of the opposite sex. “Perhaps if I buy enough wine, we can persuade some scamp to have a go with him just for charity’s sake.” He gave a great laugh and clapped Aderbury on the shoulder as if his joke was the best one ever made.

“Actually, I’ve already got plans, Thad, but thanks,” said Aderbury. “I’ll see you tomorrow though, maybe we’ll have a glass then, all right?”

Thadius rolled his eyes back towards Altin. “I see. An evening spent at home with him, eh? The misses and all that rot? Old time’s sake, I suppose. Delightfully boring, I’m sure. Count me out.”

“I didn’t hear him invite you,” Altin said, unable to refrain.

“Of course not, my boy. I have a standing invite. Don’t I, old chap?” He fixed Aderbury with an expectant look.

Aderbury nodded. “Of course, Thad. Anytime.” Both Aderbury and Altin knew that Thadius would never take him up, so it was but a little thing to say the words.

It was at that moment that the tiny lizard, or
a
tiny lizard, appeared on Aderbury’s shoulder and nibbled him on the ear. Feeling the gentle pinch, Aderbury reached up and gingerly plucked the creature from his tunic and placed it on his desk. Altin could see that there was still a note tied to the diminutive creature’s back.

Aderbury read it and flashed a wink to Altin. “Well, Thad, it’s time for us to go. Tomorrow then?”

“What’s for dinner tonight? I’m suddenly feeling starved for Hether’s humble cooking charm,” came Thadius’ unanticipated reply. Aderbury looked momentarily aghast.

“Duck’s liver,” said Altin, jumping in. “Duck’s liver and mongooseberry pie. My special request since I don’t get to town that much.”

Altin knew from their time in the service that there was nothing Thadius hated more than duck’s liver and mongooseberry pie. The only time Altin remembered ever seeing Thadius drop his eternally supercilious air was when their platoon had been stationed in Hast during the town’s annual Mongooseberry Festival. There had been nothing else to eat. He, and most of the rest of the squad, had delighted in watching the pompous baron’s son wrinkle up his nose as they were served the same thing, duck’s liver and mongooseberry pie, every meal, three times daily for three straight days. Altin had never seen someone come so close to willingly starving themselves to death as Thadius had done. And it was clear from the expression on his face that he had no intention of eating it tonight.

“However, starved as I may be,” said Thadius, always quick on his feet, “I think I’d prefer the company of Esmarelda Mendinghand to the two of you.” He fixed Altin with a nasty look, then turned back to Aderbury with a smile. “Tomorrow indeed, but it will have to be your treat for making me wait another day. Good night.” And with that he swept out of the room.

They both watched him go in silence before Altin shook his head and chuckled behind his teeth. “How do you put up with that day after day?”

“He’s a one-trick troll. Once you’ve seen it, it’s easy not to be impressed.”

Turning back to the note from Hether, he crossed out her lines and added one of his own. “An ale or two, and then we’re on our way,” he spoke aloud as wrote. He tied the message onto the lizard’s back and then carried the little beast over and set it on Altin’s shoulder without a word of warning first.

“What are you doing?” Altin asked.

“Getting you imprinted in its amazing little head.” Aderbury leaned in near Altin’s ear and whispered, “Altin Meade.” He stroked the lizard’s back a few times as it sat there under Altin’s ear and he repeated Altin’s name a few times while continuing to stroke the lizard’s tiny head. The lizard seemed unimpressed.

“That’s weird,” Aderbury concluded a moment later.

“What’s weird?”

“I thought you’d never seen one of these.”

“I haven’t.”

“Well, apparently you have, because it’s not acting like it does when it imprints someone new. Usually they make this chirping sound to let you know they have your scent. Or whatever it is they do.”

“No,” Altin said. “I’ve never seen one before. Honestly.”

“Well, this one seems to think you’re already in the network.”

Altin raised a querulous brow. “Network?”

“Yeah. Once one of them knows you, they all do. That’s why the system’s been expanding so fast. Some sort of group reptilian mind or something.”

“Well, I’m not in it, despite what your little friend seems to think.”

“Well, let’s try,” he said. He took the lizard back and moved across the room. Whispering to it briefly, he tossed it down at the floor and a moment before it hit the wood it was already on Altin’s shoulder nibbling at his ear.

Altin laughed and reflexively took the lizard away before it could have another bite. It didn’t bite hard, but having a lizard chewing on one’s earlobe was the kind of thing one had to be prepared for. Aderbury, however, was clearly amused.

“Damn that’s fun. I’m so glad we bought this thing. Now give him back. Or even better, say, ‘Hether,’ and toss him down.”

Altin looked askance at his friend who nodded, encouraging him to try. “Just whisper. They have very sensitive ears.”

“Hether,” Altin whispered and dropped the lizard to the floor. It was gone in a blink, and soon after, back at Aderbury’s home, Hether had her kettles on the fire. Having no way to escape his friend’s unyielding invitation, as Aderbury would not allow him to “skulk back to his work without at least one night among the living,” Altin found himself having an entirely delightful evening amongst his friends. His only stipulation had been that Dorianna be left out of the mix, for which he paid in jests throughout the night.

Chapter
18

O
rli never wanted to be a medic, and she certainly hated the position now. It was only because she was so inept mechanically, and because she was a complete washout with firearms, that she’d been forced into an assignment involving triage in the event that things went bad. And things were bad. Her aversion to blood was never a problem before because nothing had ever happened before that would require her to be around it, but now something had. Something horrible, and with a scant three-week medic’s training—completed four years ago and not practiced since—and with a degree in botany, issued aboard a spaceship no less, she found herself elbows deep in gore.

The large Hostile’s projectile had struck the ship’s upper deck and crushed an entire cargo hold. Several crew members were killed instantly, and even more were being brought to sick bay with broken bodies and mangled or missing limbs. Blunt trauma was everywhere. Orli scrambled back and forth at the beck and call of virtually every nurse on the staff, running for bandages and assorted medicines. Three times she was asked to hold pressure on wounds that squirted hot blood onto the exposed skin of her forearms where her sleeves and gloves didn’t quite touch. The whole thing made her dizzy, and when the young man with the missing left foot began to scream and weep and beg, she had to run for a bucket lest she puke right there in the hall.

There was so much screaming. Big men, strong muscular laborers, were reduced to crying and calling for their mothers, wives or both. She held one woman’s hand and watched her slowly die. Doctor Singh had whispered, “It’s too late for this one,” as he’d brushed aside Orli’s pleading hand reaching out to him as he’d moved past her in the rush. Orli took the time to weep for the woman and watched in helpless horror as the life faded gradually from the woman’s eyes.

The ship was rocked occasionally as they worked, the orbs not letting up in their attacks, but in the three long hours since the cargo bay was crushed, there had not been another blow as telling as that one had proved to be. Slowly, one by one, the medical staff caught up to the glut of wounded, and after a few more hours of arduous, heartbreaking work, those that would make it were all treated and resting as comfortably as could be. Two-thirds of the ship’s small hospital beds were taken, and Doctor Singh could be heard complaining that the bridge crew had better do their job and finish those orbs off once and for all. There simply wasn’t room for another mistake.

Orli cleaned up as best she could, and flopped doggedly down in a chair at one of the nurses’ desks. The computer was patched to the bridge screen, as most on board were, and Orli watched through heavy-lidded eyes as the ship’s beleaguered bridge crew continued with the fight.

Poor Roberto, she thought. At least I can take a break. And his work had started well before hers. She sighed and laid her chin upon her hands, folded on the desk, and watched the scene play out.

Apparently they’d managed to destroy one of the larger orb’s projectiles as the fight went on and now both orbs were operating on just one shaft apiece. The orbs had gotten smarter about retrieving them apparently, but it seemed both of them were taking something of a beating every time. Orli scanned the skies for signs of another ship, but still no one else had arrived. The delay was aggravating. Where were they? They were several hours past the two-day mark and Orli found herself hoping someone would be reprimanded for having drifted so far away. It also occurred to her that they might be dogging it, hoping to avoid a fight. That made her grit her teeth. She’d better not ever find out that was true or she’d mangle someone with her own hands.

She watched as the two orbs swept in for yet another pass. It seemed as if they might be moving a little slower than before. It gave her hope that they could tire. Red lasers striped the night and diverted both mineral beams from their intended course. More nukes streaked off after them in what was becoming a familiar dance, both sides waiting for the other to make a mistake. And it appeared as she looked on that this might be that moment.

It was with an impending sense of hope that Orli realized, watching the larger orb chase down its diverted projectile shaft, that it was moving far too slowly. It seemed to be struggling just to catch up to its weapon, much less to pass it by. The nukes showed no sign of anything like fatigue, only the hot blue fire of their burners pushing them towards the shaft.

The orb managed to struggle out in front of its projectile finally, but only barely, and the Earth missiles were only moments from blowing it to bits. Orli watched, holding her breath as the orb softened up its trailing face and allowed itself to slow. Its projectile touched it gently and began to slip inside. The nukes were only a dozen meters behind. Orli could tell the orb was trying not to let the reclamation process slow it down, but she also knew that it didn’t have much choice. If a bee required its stinger to be alive, this one might just be out of luck. The
Aspect’s
missiles closed in on it ruthlessly and exploded with devastating effect.

The orb did not have the time, or perhaps did not have the energy, to shift its skin to its defensive state. The missiles hit it while roughly a quarter of the shaft was still outside its main mass and caught it with the soft spot still totally exposed. Following the blinding flash, the orb burst like a grapefruit dashed angrily upon the ground, splitting wide open and spewing out glowing red strands of its innards, which Orli would have thought were made from lava had she not known better than to think such a silly thing. She let out a whoop of glee. Shortly after, the entire sick bay, patients and providers alike, were howling at their monitors, watching as the orb slowly bled out its glowing guts. Like the sparks from the broken communications dish, the orbs phosphorescent entrails were cooled to darkness by the grip of icy space, and in the course of just an hour, the entire orb was frozen as solid as a block of ice.

The smaller orb, apparently taken aback by its compatriot’s unexpected fate, hovered at a distance for the duration of the hour. But, perhaps on seeing the last bit of heat sucked from the shell of its sundered friend, it launched one more missile-hurling attack. Roberto easily swatted the missile aside with the lasers and launched the nuke that would chase the orb’s pounding shaft of rock down and turn it into dust.

Orli watched the monitor breathlessly as the missile’s blue light streaked off into the night. She heard herself cheering it on again, as she had done before, but this time the orb did not give chase. Orli knew that something was wrong as soon as she realized that the orb had stopped and now hovered midway down the length of the ship rather than reclaiming its weapon as it had always done before. It was just floating there, a few meters above the hull. She watched with gritted teeth and squinting eyes, hoping that maybe it had just resigned itself to its fate. But she knew she was wrong, and she watched with horror as the orb lowered itself slowly closer to the ship. She could see the flicker of the shields as the weakened defenses—powered only by batteries and generators with the ship’s engines still offline, and likely close to drained from such a prolonged and brutal fight—attempted to hold the orb at bay.

The orb began to flatten itself out against the shield, spreading like pancake batter in a pan, softening and losing everything about itself that had once resembled a giant flying rock. As it flattened, it lightened in color too, becoming golden, almost tan, and then, once it was no more than a few meters thick, it began to pulse near the center of its mass.

It seemed to still hover above the ship’s metal hull now, but Orli knew that the remaining distance was only given to them by the shields. The space between the flattened orb, now looking for all the world like a jellyfish pressed against window glass, was the only thing keeping it from contact with the ship. And there was something pushing slowly through the shield, something right from the center of the orb. Orli squinted at the monitor, pressing her face almost against the screen before she thought to magnify the view.

“Why don’t they just shoot it off?” she heard a patient somewhere behind her say.

“We can’t target ourselves,” came someone else’s dismal reply. “Who would have thought that would ever be something to regret?”

Sure enough, the ship’s lasers could not target the Hostile clinging to its hull, and ever so slowly, the orb began working a small part of itself gently through the ship’s plasma field. Its progress was painfully slow, and Orli could see the flashing lights of the ship’s alarm systems change to indicate a new form of attack. The complementary call came across the loudspeaker a moment later, warning the crew to prepare for possible boarding and small arms combat.

Not taking her eyes from the screen, Orli felt at her hip for her required sidearm. Of course she wasn’t wearing it. She hated guns. Which was just as well, she was probably the worst shot on the ship, if not in the entire fleet. Guns scared her. Who would have thought a beam of light could make such a horrible hissing noise, and the conventional rounds? Please. Those were awful. They were practically loud enough to make her ears bleed, and they kicked harder than the hydraulic rams that closed the loading dock doors. No thank you. However, right now having one didn’t seem like such a bad idea, and she suddenly wished she’d paid a little more attention in firearms class, or at least to Roberto, who was always begging her to accompany him to the range.

“Oh well,” she said aloud, rising from the chair. “If it comes down to me having to save the ship with a pistol, we’re probably better off dead. The irony alone would be too great for the fleet to survive.”

Doctor Singh came up behind her and placed a hand on her shoulder. Apparently he’d heard her talking to herself. “I’m right there with you on that one,” he agreed, moving past her and into the tiny room that served as his office. She watched him open a drawer and pull his own standard issue Colt M-7XR sidearm from where it had been since the day the fleet left Earth. “You better go get it, just the same,” he said. “You never know. Irony has its own particular appeal.”

“True,” she said, returning his smile and feeling a little better despite the knot of fear that was churning in her guts. “I’ll be right back.”

He nodded and with that she ran back down to the nursery and her lab. Her own sidearm, like Doctor Singh’s, was kept safely in a drawer, put away for fear that she might accidentally blow someone’s arm off, or perhaps just one of her own. She strapped the belt and holster awkwardly around her slender hips and buckled the thigh strap securely about her leg. The whole thing was absurdly heavy for its size, most of the weight being due to the laser’s battery pack, which had likely lost its charge long ago; which also meant that if she had to use the damned thing, she would have to shoot its thunderous conventional rounds. God, she thought as she pulled the pistol from the holster and ejected the clip to make sure it was at least still loaded, please not that; I think I’d rather wrestle the aliens down by hand than have to shoot them with this awful thing. The clip was full and she slid it back into place, pressing it until it clicked. Holstering it, she was now as battle ready as she had ever been. With a sigh towards the peaceful, intellectual sanctum of her experimental tent, she ran back up to the infirmary to see what else was going on.

Alarms were ringing all over the ship by the time she finally arrived. The view on the monitor showed that the orb had finally worked completely through the shields and now it had its proboscis-like appendage attached firmly to the hull. The tip of the orb that was physically touching the ship had thickened up at the point of contact and looked something like a plunger or perhaps a bolt standing on its head. Orli stood beside Doctor Singh as they watched it begin to twist slightly from side to side. Smoke could be seen curling away around the edges of the thickened portion, and, after about twenty minutes of that, Lieutenant Hartford’s voice came over the ship’s speakers once again. “The hull has been breached,” she said, and that was it. The ringing of the alarms was all there was to fill the silence. No one in the ship’s infirmary spoke.

She found herself clutching Doctor Singh’s forearm as she watched, and, catching herself when he gave a little grunt, she released him, apologizing for the four moon-shaped cuts pressed into his flesh. He nodded but did not take his eyes from the screen for quite some time. When he finally did, it was only to look at the communications com, anticipating a new wave of calls for help.

“I suggest you get a bit of rest,” he said. “Ten minutes is better than none, and this might be a very, very long night.”

Looking into the monitor at the scene outside, at the orb whose flattened mass now pulsed against the ship, she agreed. As she watched it out there, a smear of color against a vast sheet of speckled black, she realized that it was all just one long night—one long, miserable night. And there was something in the pulsing, the rhythmic throbbing of the monster mounted on her ship, that suggested daylight was never going to come. She said as much to Doctor Singh, who failed to answer for leaning down very close to the image on the screen.

At first she thought he was just watching their fates being forever screwed by whatever that orb was doing to their ship, but after a moment Doctor Singh let out a grunt that had the sound of hope. “Look,” he said, leaning away from the monitor and zooming in the view on a section of stars beyond the orb. “Look there, that spot of light.”

Orli leaned in and saw it too; it looked like a large star, but growing bigger by the moment.

“It’s the
Sarajevo
,” the doctor announced. “They’re here. Finally, someone’s here!”

The
Sarajevo
loomed larger and larger until, after what seemed at least a thousand years, Orli could finally make it out by its features rather than its lights. It came closer, seeming sluggish to her after having watched the orbs move so quickly through the same expanse of space, and when it was in range, two bright laser beams shot out and played upon the surface of the orb still pulsing against the
Aspect’s
hull.