Coven (39 page)

Wade was leaning against the warm wall,
wiping his mouth. “The girl in that thing—she’s from the college,
isn’t she?”

“
It’s not a
thing.
It’s an
incubreedcatalyzationcapsule, with an expansionbolus to allow for
natal growth. And, yes, she’s one of the five surrogate
procurements from this planet.”

“
What the hell did you do
to her?”

“
We removed her bones, of
course. Antirejectorybifertilization demands some rather drastic
acclimations. You don’t just impregnate one life form with the
reproductive genes of another and expect to produce an
interspeciel. The two physiologies aren’t compatible. So we
make
them compatible. One
thing we do is modify the reproductive systems of the surrogates,
but in this forced compatibility they wouldn’t survive the physical
stress of intercourse and birth.”

“
Like trying to drive a bus
through a rabbit hole.”

“
Crude, but correct. We
remove their bone structures.” Besser picked up a big syringe.
“Calciumdecimationliquefactor agents dissolve all bone material in
the body, which is then drained off in a suspended state and
disposed of.”

Besser pointed to one of the jugs. It was
full to the top. Wade remembered seeing Jervis milking white sludge
out of the girl in the harness, and how she stretched like putty
afterward.

“
We can produce primary
interspeciels in a matter of hours, and the surrogates can be used
repeatedly for future bifertilizations. It’s marvelous.”

Wade was not inclined to agree.

In the next warren, rows of glowing
compartments throbbed with feeble movement. The noise was
relentless, a raucous rise of squalls and whines.

Wade looked hard. The plump, misshapen
things he saw lying there sent him back in an impact of vision.
Tiny pudenda wriggled. Chubby arms and legs rowed the moist air.
Some seemed to grow even as he watched.

“
This is the
biomaintenancecarbonsourcehypersaturationvault,” Besser proudly
stated.

“
It’s a fucking baby
ward!”
Wade yelled.

“
Newborn interspeciels
under hyperincubation. In mere days they’ll have sufficiently
matured, hosting successfully bifertilized reproductive genes,
which will then be transfected again and again until the target
species has been produced. Then the desired gene groups will be
stored in the cryowarrens until colonization time.”

“
When’s that?”

Besser shrugged casually. “Only the
Supremate knows. A year from now, or a thousand years. The
labyrinth stores interspeciel gene groups for every annexation
target.”

“
You mean every
planet.”

“
Yes, and there are
thousands, Wade—multiple thousands. Each interspecies, regardless
of classification, is genetically created with identical sensor and
transception cells.
Born
in total allegiance to the Supremate’s objectives.
Whole worlds, Wade, which will live to serve his will. When the
time comes, the stored gene groups will be exogenically
mass produced…and dispersed.”

Wade’s brain felt like it was broiling.
“Why?” was all he could groan. “Why, why, why?”

“
Mass recolonization.”
Besser held a finger up. “One day, a new social system will reign
over
all worlds,
myriad populations under one guiding light. No war, Wade, no
crime, no aggression. Imagine a world like that, then imagine a
thousand worlds just the same. The second phase is merely
implementation, and function is the third phase. Perfectly adapted
beings will join hands in a new order and live forever.”

“
You want to turn the
universe into an anthill.”

“
No, Wade. We want to make
the universe more efficient,” Besser said. “What’s wrong with
that?”

A group of sisters came
down the warren, their clone smiles sharp in unthinking
bliss.
Efficiency,
Wade thought. They were carrying buckets of defected fetuses
to the meat shredder.

“
The sisters are just
lower order interspeciels. The Supremate activated them for
this annexation target because they were best suited for earth’s
atmospheric specifications. The actual metisunits that we’ll use
for recolonization exist in a multitude of varieties and are much
more genetically advanced.”

Wade slumped, looking away. “What’s in it
for you?”

“
Immortality and
governorship, the reward granted to any loyal
nativeemissarial.”

“
I don’t get it,” Wade
said.

“
All social orders, even
perfect ones, need a chain of command.”

“
So for betraying your
entire planet, the Supremate’s going to let you and Winnie be his
sergeants,” Wade concluded.

“
Something like that. But
not Winnie, I’m afraid. She’s out of the picture. After
recolonization, the earth will need an overseer.” Besser’s eyes
shined in glory. “Me.”

But Wade sensed a deeper picture. Didn’t
power corrupt, even at the highest levels? “What about Winnie?”

“
She outlived her
serviceability, so I disposed of her. The Supremate didn’t need her
anymore.”

“
And when you’re finished
with the first phase of your ‘master plan,’ you won’t need Jervis
anymore either.”

“
Of course not. Jervis will
be disposed of too.”

“
But you promised him
immortality,” Wade reminded.

“
We lied. Sometimes
deception is necessary for a greater cause.”

“
So it’s just you, huh,
Prof? You get to rule the world.”

“
Yes,” Besser said. “As a
disciple of the Supremate, the world will be mine.”

Wade had trouble containing the urge to
laugh. He knew a Brooklyn Bridge deal when he saw one. The
Supremate had Besser, in his mad delusions, duped. Hook, line, and
sinker.

They extromitted down. The transposition
from one place to another felt like passing through a wall of sand.
The bizarre light in these lower warrens seemed darker, yet more
intense. In an unfitting contrast, Wade actually felt aroused.

“
It’s the psilight,” Besser
explained, “and it serves many purposes. One effect is the obvious
excitation. The Supremate likes to maintain an ambience of
fecundity. We’re not rapists, Wade. The progenitors of destiny
should be
willing
.
Another effect is simple communication.”

“
How does simple
communication explain my boner?”

“
Think of the psilight as
the Supremate’s influence. It’s actually a conduction flux, like
static electricity.”

“
And I guess you have some
ridiculous thirty letter name for it.”

“
Exordipathicsignaltrancination. The Supremate feels us with
it.” He held up the sensor ring which girded his fat pinky. “It
connects us to him telepathically. It’s like the labyrinth’s blood,
consolidating all components, be they living, dead, or inanimate.
It also transfers power from the stasisfield to the labyrinth’s
processing systems. In fact, it was focused wavelengths of the
psilight which originally allowed the Supremate to communicate with
Winnie and me before the labyrinth arrived.”

So the psilight was like a power line. What
would happen to it during the labyrinth’s recharge period?

“
Psilight?” Wade said.
“Stasisfield. What does this have to do with the agro
site?”

“
On landing,” Besser
explained, “which we call termination of annexation transfer, the
labyrinth must retard its reentry by means of electromagnetic
counterpulses. Regrettably this activity generates a momentary
wavelength aberration which causes irreversible physiological
damage in any life form within a limited perimeter. The agro
animals were too close to the pulse upon termination. This
proximity resulted in instant degeneration of the complex organ
systems. They died at once, as did any wildlife within the
perimeter. It also caused our first transfection failure.
Apparently Penelope was near the site during the labyrinth’s
descent. The counterpulse damaged her reproductive faculties. Tom
buried her just past the clearing.”

“
I’ve seen the cozy little
graveyard,” Wade confirmed.

“
Then we decided on a more
scientific approach. From the campus medical records, we identified
the healthiest candidates available for transfection. Can you
imagine the catastrophe of inducting a surrogate or holotype that
wound up with some inherent biological defect or genetic
disorder?”

“
No,” Wade said. “I can’t
imagine it.” But there was one more explanation he wanted. “The
grove. What did you do to the grove?”

“
The green fog isn’t really
fog,” Besser told him. “It’s a waste by product of the
psilight generators. We simply vent the conduction and element
cores on occasion. The gasses happen to possess some amusing
metamorphic effects on any plant and wildlife that’s exposed to it
for a sustained period.”

Yeah, amusing,
Wade thought. He remembered the faced mushrooms,
the flesh covered trees, and the hideous gilled
fog snakes.

Now they stood in a short black warren
before a pair of blank door sized rectangles. A small plate
hovered between them. Besser touched a button of some sort, and the
left rectangle filled with dark kaleidoscopic light. This shifting
effect, Wade realized, was something vast beyond the rectangle,
something scrolling at incredible speed.

“
This is the
hold egress,” Besser said, “the access to the main holotype
hold. As you can see, we’ve an abundant supply.”

“
Access?” Access to what?
Wade wondered.

“
Meet your new brothers,”
Besser bid.

The rectangle pulsed
blurred images, like flitting a deck of cards. Wade saw
things—
living
things—in the port, the physical likes of which beggared sane
description. Besser slowed the scrollmode’s speed to afford Wade a
more detailed inspection. One per second, the cramped, glowing
holds switched by. Intent, otherworldly figures crouched close to
the repulsion screens. All were different yet exclusively
abominable, and most seemed to possess overly prominent
genitals.

“
Monsters,” Wade uttered,
staring.

“
Not monsters, Wade. Men.
Just like you.”

“
Pardon my prejudice, but I
don’t have three balls and a forked dick, and I have
two
eyes in my head,
not
two dozen.
Those
things
are not
just like me.”

“
They’re men,” Besser
repeated. “They’re just different because they come from different
places. I assure you, Wade, you’re as grotesque to them as they are
to you.”

Besser halted the scroll to an empty hold.
Its stockcode read, in almost epitaphic letters:
#1003WADEST.JOHN.

“
Beginning to get the
picture yet?” Besser asked.

Wade was incapable of response.

“
And now that you’ve met
the men, it’s time to meet the women.” Besser activated the
adjoining port. He flashed the female holds by much more
slowly.

Wade looked but wished he hadn’t. The
flashing grotesquorium locked his gaze. These were the female
counterparts of what he’d just seen, only most had been
decalcified. They sat slack in corners like limp sacks, eyes
peering out from settled, skull less heads. Gorged breasts
hung from collapsed shoulders, and boneless legs lay splayed (many
had more than two), joined hiplessly by flaccid pink grooves that
could only be vaginas.

Then the scroll stopped. Besser said, “Ah,
here she is. Your first date, Wade. Take a good look.”

The hold’s occupant resembled a conical
mound of gray, spotted blubber. It seemed collapsing in on itself
around a pudgy yellow tongue that emerged to lick a wanton smile.
Not one but several vaginas enclustered at its groin. It winked,
and raised a sagging loop of an arm and waved.

“
Really, Wade,” Besser
resumed, “a ladies’ man such as yourself should be delighted by
this unique opportunity.” Besser’s sarcastic chuckle sounded like
footsteps in muck. “Now, Wade, you’re the
ultimate
ladies’ man.”

“
You’re going to make me
have sex with alien piles of blubber!” Wade gasped, spitting bile.
“Bimbos from space!”

“
Exactly. Didn’t we tell
you what an honor this would be? Your sons and daughters will
repopulate
worlds.
”

Besser shoved Wade into the empty hold, then
keyed closed the repulsion screen. He tittered, grinning in. “I’ll
be back shortly, Wade, with some sisters. We’ll be taking you for
your final acclimation regimen. And after that…it’s passion for
eternity.”

“
You evil fat piece of
shit!” Wade yelled into the screen.

“
And I’d learn to be more
respectful of your superiors. Please don’t call me fat. Remember,
I’m your new lord now, forever. If you’re not nice to me, I might
decide to have you reassigned to one of the communal holds. The
holotypes there aren’t particularly given to gender when it comes
to pastime activities, if you get my meaning.”