Chronicles of the Invaders 1: Conquest (36 page)

CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

T
he changes to Gradus’s system were being revealed on the MRI display. The filaments were extending faster and faster through his body, so fast that Gradus screamed in agony, his back arching high in pain, stretching the restraints, and Syl could hear the metal of the buckles scraping against the gurney. Sections of the consul’s brain began to light up on the scans, exploding into angry oranges and reds. The real-time images lost their focus with Gradus’s thrashing, but Syl caught a glimpse of the tip of the needle moving down, drawing closer and closer to the organism in Gradus’s head.

The restraints burst. Gradus pushed himself from the gurney with so much force that Lorac was thrown back against the wall and Fremd fell to the floor, the needle still clutched in his right hand. The MRI screens shattered. Syl instinctively grabbed the first weapon that came to hand: a scalpel. Lorac drew a revolver from his belt and trained it on Gradus.

But he could not shoot, not yet.

For Gradus was changing.

•••

At the castle walls, the defenders responded to the new threat. A volley of gunfire struck the suits, but they were heavily armored, and the bullets succeeded only in striking sparks from them. The firing ceased as Just Joe called for grenades, and in the silence that followed they all heard the hissed release of compressed gases as the suit helmets were unlocked, and the visors rose.

For a moment, all was still.

Columns of black smoke began to flow from the suits, each taking the form of a dark mockery of man, before the smoke became a swarm, and the Entities commenced their feeding. A boy who looked about Paul’s age was the first to be surrounded, the Entities encircling him, consuming him from the head down, his clothing—even his green-and-white scarf—vanishing as they took him. Two more members of the Resistance, a young woman and an older man, were the next to go. Paul and the others could not fire for fear of hitting their own people, and the black forms moved so
fast
. . . .

“Get inside!” cried Just Joe. “All of you.”

The survivors retreated to the keep, but now the Entities separated, each seeking its own prey. Three more people died, but more slowly now as the Entities’ first surge of hunger was quelled by their feeding. It gave the rest time to make it to the keep, but it was Paul who realized that they would still be at risk inside its walls. The doors were old, and imperfectly sealed. Even when they were closed, drafts came in underneath them and around the sides, and these things moved like dark vapor, or a swarm of black bees. This is it, he thought: we can’t fight them, and if we can’t fight them, we die.

Suddenly he was pushed aside. An Illyri female stood beside him. From her right hand dangled a belt of grenades.

“Who are—” he began, but it was Just Joe who answered.

“Meia!” he said.

“Joe,” she replied. “You need to get out of my way if you want to live.”

“What are those things?” said Joe.

“Sedulus’s pets.”

“How do we kill them?”

“You can’t. But I can.”

Meia walked down the steps of the keep as the Entities finished off their latest victims and looked for new blood. They swarmed together, forming one great cloud, as if in response to the approaching female. They descended on her, swirling and biting. Paul could see fragments of tissue disappearing from Meia’s head—a piece of her cheek, the tip of her right ear—but then the creatures pulled back. He could see that she was bleeding, but drops of a yellow milky fluid also leaked from her wounds and pooled on the seals of her armor. He thought that he could see hydraulics moving in her face. The Entities seemed to realize the threat that she posed, but they could not consume her. Whatever she was, whatever she was made from, they could not eat it.

“What is she doing?” said Steven.

“I think she’s going after their metal suits,” said Paul.

Meia began to run, arming the grenades as she did so. The first two went through the open visors and into the bodies of the suits, but she threw the entire belt into the third. She hit the ground, and the men at the keep threw themselves flat as the grenades exploded. When Paul looked up, two of the suits were still standing in place, but they were riddled with fissures and leaks. The third suit had split above the waist, and lay in two pieces on the dirt.

The black swarms combined to form a face, with long eye sockets and a gaping mouth. It screamed silently, and then vanished into the mist.

•••

The Grand Consul, or some version of him, stood in the center of the room. His arms were extended from his sides, and his whole body trembled. Specks of blood appeared on his exposed skin, flowing from his face and scalp until he wore a mask of red, and his hands looked like those of a murderer. The shaking increased in intensity. His mouth opened, and he cried out in agony as his head and hands began to blur, the outline of his features becoming less clear as though seen through fog. Syl’s screams joined with his, even as she realized that it was not fog but filaments that were emerging through the pores of his skin, waving in the dim light, testing the unfamiliar air. Syl could see them moving beneath his clothing, pushing at the material, their tips hardening to points as they finally tore through.

All trace of Gradus’s features was now lost. The Grand Consul was a swirling mass of yellow filaments moving to a tide felt only by them, like a marooned ocean creature remembering the sea. His body swelled, and his mouth opened wider still, so that Syl heard the bones in his skull cracking as his jaw dislocated. From his lips poured a stream of particles, like pollen being expelled from a plant, and the room filled with the sickly sweet smell of corrupted flesh. The particles struck the unfortunate Lorac straight in the face. He had lost his mask in the chaos, and now collapsed choking on the ground. Almost immediately filaments exploded from his nose and his ears. They covered his mouth, and his eyes, and his face, slowly suffocating him, even as his belly started to bloat rapidly, and Syl could almost picture the filaments spreading through his system, infecting him, preparing to send forth another deadly cloud when his stomach burst.

Gradus turned toward Fremd, the Grand Consul’s body now nothing more than a weapon to be used by the organism inside him. Another spray of particles poured from his mouth, but Fremd grabbed one of the broken MRI screens and used it to shield his face as he scuttled to where Syl stood, frozen in horror by the wall.

“Run!” he told her. “Run now!”

He grabbed her by the hand and pulled her toward the door, but Syl’s hand slipped from his. She could not move any farther. She looked to her feet and saw the filaments wrapped around her ankles, tightening on her. Suddenly she was yanked backward so hard that she fell facedown on the floor. She stretched out her hand to Fremd, but another burst of particles sprayed toward him, and it was all he could do to protect himself with the screen and try not to breathe, for even a mask was little protection against this.

“Help me!” cried Syl. She was being dragged back now, toward the thing that was once Gradus, her own mask slipping from her face, leaving her entirely unprotected. Fremd’s fingers reached for hers and their fingertips touched. There was movement to Syl’s left, and she saw that Lorac’s entire body was now swollen almost to its limit. Already puffs of particles were being blown through the pores of his skin like the water spouts of a whale. The whole room, perhaps the whole castle, would be infected by him when the last wall of skin finally broke.

A pair of shadows fell across Fremd, and Meia’s voice shouted, “Stay down, Syl! Stay down!”

She felt a weight on top of her. A torrent of searing heat from Meia’s blast rifle roared above her as Paul whispered, “I’m here, I’m here,” and Gradus and Lorac began to burn.

•••

Sedulus stood before the last of the skimmers. If everything went wrong, it would at least allow him to escape. Around him stood four Securitats and half a dozen Galateans, all that was left of the three platoons that he had led into the Highlands. The mist was slowly clearing, and the distant shape of the castle was now visible. They were waiting for the Sarith Entities to finish their work when they heard the vague sound of three explosions in quick succession, the final one louder than the rest.

“What was that?” asked Beldyn.

“What does it matter?” replied Sedulus.

The mist billowed before them. Something was emerging from it, something big and fast. Beldyn stepped forward, his gun at the ready. The rest of the troops did likewise.

Beldyn saw them first. He turned to shout a warning, but the Entity entered through his open mouth, pouring itself down his throat and consuming him from within. The others descended on the Galateans and the Securitats, pursuing them as they ran, their hunger made sharper by the fact that they were dying. Only Sedulus remained in place, and watched his troops fall.

Two of the Entities began to weaken, the intensity of their feeding dwindling, their essence coalescing into a single roiling mass that beat like a human heart until it turned from black to gray, and then to nothing.

But one remained. It took human form before Sedulus, and Sedulus thought that he had always known this day might come. He had never truly understood the nature of these beings. He had used them, but they had used him too. He feared them, but they hated him. They were like birds of prey; they were his only for as long as he could keep them fed, and they had no loyalty to their master, especially not one who had abused his power of life and death over them.

“Finish it,” he whispered.

The Entity fell upon him, and they died together.

CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

A
ll that was left of Gradus and Lorac was burnt remains. Some of their limbs had fused with the melted equipment in the heat of the fire, but the old stone walls of the keep contained the blaze.

The clothing had been burned from Paul’s back, and his skin was raw and blistered. Part of his hair had been singed down to his skull. Syl was unharmed. She sat on the old flagstones of the corridor, her face against Paul’s chest. She did not hold him—although she wanted to—for Maeve was working on him, salving his wounds prior to applying the dressings. Ani and Steven watched all that was taking place. They stood together, their shoulders touching companionably.

Heather and Alice waited outside, along with Just Joe and Norris, and what was left of the force in the castle. Heather was wounded, but Fremd had done his best for her. She could walk, and she would survive. Now he turned his attention to Meia.

“We have to tell everyone,” said Syl, as Fremd tended to the damage inflicted by the Entities. “They have to know.”

“Who do we tell?” asked Meia. “And what proof do we have? It’s gone, all of it.”

She told them of what she had seen at the Eden Project while Fremd patched her with ProGen skin. It was routinely used to heal battle wounds, even burns, and it was possible that some of it might be grafted on to Paul’s back if his injuries proved severe enough. Meia showed signs of pain as the work was done. Had she known of Vena’s discovery of her true nature, she might have agreed with at least one of the Securitat’s conclusions: flesh gave feeling, and once one could experience pain, emotions were no longer illusions. With pain came rage, regret, loss.

Love?

The biggest surprise about the truth of Meia’s identity was how little Syl and Ani were surprised. In a way, it made perfect sense to them, given their growing awareness of their own gifts.

I should have known, thought Ani, for Meia only ever revealed what she wanted me to see.

I should have known, thought Syl. Meia was the only one I could never bend to my will.

“My father will believe us,” said Syl.

“We don’t know who has been infected,” said Meia.

“The Corps!” said Syl. “It’s just the Corps officials and the Securitats. It has to be. My father isn’t like them.”

Fremd and Meia exchanged a look. Syl caught it.

“What?” she said. “It’s true.”

“We don’t know that,” said Fremd. “And even if it is true, by sharing what you know you put everyone you tell at risk, yourself most of all. Think of the panic we’ll create if this gets out. No Illyri will be safe: you’ll have every lunatic from here to the South Pole beheading Illyri to find out what’s living inside their heads.

“No, we need proof, and on a vast scale. We need to try to understand the nature of the Others. Until then, we have to remain silent while we find out what’s happening. This isn’t just about a handful of Corps officials carrying some kind of life-form. We know from what Meia has seen that they’ve been experimenting on humans. They’ve been implanting, and they’ve also been seeding the dead with these things. We have to find out why.”

“And then there is the Sisterhood,” said Meia. “The Corps does the Sisterhood’s bidding. If the Corps is involved, then so too is the Sisterhood. We must be silent, all of us. We must be careful.”

“She’s right, Syl,” said Paul, and for an instant Syl wanted to hate him.

“You don’t know my father,” she said.

She tried to pull away, but he held her gently.

“I know you,” he said. “If you trust him, so do I. But everyone who knows about this is at risk. If you tell him, you put him at risk, too. Whatever these things are, it’s my people—humans—who are being experimented on. I’ll do whatever I can to stop it, but it has to be planned, and it has to be successful once we start. For that to happen, we have to know what we’re dealing with—all of us, human and Illyri.”

“And it would mean returning to Edinburgh,” said Meia. “You and Ani are still fugitives. That hasn’t changed.”

“So, what should we do?” asked Ani. “Keep running?”

“I can hide you,” said Meia. “In time, we can get you out of Scotland, maybe even offworld. I can keep you one step ahead of them always.”

“But then that will be our lives forever, won’t it?” said Syl. “It will be like our time in the Highlands, except stretching on and on. We’ll always be hunted, and that’s no life at all.”

There was silence, for Meia could not disagree. It was left to Ani to speak, and what she said broke Syl’s heart, for it was Syl who had got them into this mess to begin with.

“Syl is right,” said Ani. “We should go back. I’m tired of running.”

Paul and Steven shouted the same word simultaneously: “No!”

The arguments began, but they were interrupted by Peris, who gestured for Meia to join him. She followed the soldier out of the keep and into the courtyard, where they stood beside the ruined gates. In the distance Meia heard the sound of incoming craft: skimmers and shuttles. She also picked up the dying drone of a cruiser’s engines powering down; it had already landed nearby, and would soon begin disgorging troops. The engine suggested a Military craft, she noted, not the Corps or the Securitats. That, at least, was good.

“I’m sorry,” said Peris. “I tried to keep them away for as long as I could. And you must know: my orders are to bring Syl and Ani back to their fathers.”

“It’s all right,” said Meia. “They want to return.”

Peris looked at her solemnly.

“I have to take the boys back as well,” he said.

“They’re under sentence of death.”

“Not anymore. With Sedulus and Gradus both dead, Governor Andrus is once again in control, at least for the present, and the Corps and the Securitats will be out of favor after this whole mess. The governor has already abolished the death penalty; he says that he’ll deal with the Council of Government himself if they object. And the medic who took DNA samples from the boys testified that he believes the same samples were used to contaminate the evidence from the explosions.”

“On whose orders?”

“He says on the orders of Sedulus, and Sedulus alone.”

“Always blame the dead,” said Meia. “The cover-up has already begun.”

“It’s easiest that way. But the boys remain guilty of membership in the Resistance.”

“After all this slaughter, and the death of Gradus, the Corps will press for them to be sent to the Punishment Battalions.”

“Yes.”

“Perhaps they’ll survive,” said Meia, but she sounded doubtful.

“I am aware that there is an escape tunnel in that room we’ve just left, you know.”

“For a simple soldier, you are unusually complicated,” said Meia. “But I suspect that those young men will want to return too. Paul will not abandon Syl, and Steven will follow his brother’s lead.”

She watched the reinforcements draw nearer, marching in double time toward the castle. They were only minutes away.

“I should have guessed that you were a Mech,” said Peris.

“Why is that?”

“You never fell for my charms.”

“I was aware of your reputation.”

“And I of yours,” said Peris. “I should tell you that a second order came through. Highest priority from Vena herself, who is now the ranking Securitat following the death of Sedulus. You are accused of treason and murder. You are to be arrested on sight and handed over to the Securitats. If you resist, you are to be shot.”

Meia turned to face him. His finger was already inside the trigger guard of his blast rifle, although the weapon was not yet pointing in her direction.

“Are you guilty of the offenses?” asked Peris.

“The treason I deny, but yes, I have killed.”

“Why?”

“Because there are forces at work here that you don’t understand. None of us do—not yet. But humanity is at risk, and I think the Illyri race is in danger too.”

“I’ve told you before, I’m just a simple soldier,” said Peris. “I merely follow orders.”

“So what will you do?” she asked.

“Follow my orders,” he said. The slightest of smiles softened his features. “But if I can’t see you, I can’t arrest you, and I certainly can’t shoot you.”

“I can’t leave them,” said Meia. “I have to help them. I have to help them all.”

“You can’t help them if you’re dead. Or decommissioned, if you prefer.”

Meia’s right hand reached out and touched Peris gently on the arm.

“These boys are important,” she said. “The older one in particular has grown close to Syl, and she to him. There are those who may try to hurt her by hurting him, but he has also seen things in this castle, things that, for now, I can’t share with you, but that will affect the future of our race. Believe me: the Kerr brothers must be protected. They must be kept alive. Do what you can for them, until I return. Please.”

“I will.”

He turned his back on her. When he looked again, she was gone.

•••

When Peris returned to the room in the keep, Fremd and the Resistance survivors were no longer there. Peris sighed. He was not sure how he was supposed to explain the fact that the entire Resistance force in the castle had disappeared from under his nose. There were those who would undoubtedly describe him as not just a simple soldier, but a simpleton.

Yet four faces still looked up at him. Syl and Ani had been crying. Peris thought the boys might have shed some tears too. They had all linked hands, like children presenting a united front.

Peris felt a rush of conflicting emotions, but not least of them was admiration.

“Time to go,” he said.