Glory Main (27 page)
Authors: Henry V. O'Neil
“You cried when you thought we were both dead. You cried when Gorman went. And I know you cried over Cranther. Maybe you'll cry over me now.”
A different mist came down on her in a cloud, and she raised her face to greet it. Her expression was serenely beautiful, right up until the vapor began eating her flesh. She took an awkward step back, bumped into the cylinder, then looked across at him with dissolving hair and skin that was already peeling.
“You were the biggest surprise of all. Brand-Ânew lieutenant, picked at random. There were two others just like you on that transport, but we killed them and kept you. And who did you turn out to be? The son of Olech Mortasâ”
The thing convulsed then, jackknifing forward and clutching its stomach as the chemicals burned away more of the skin. It began to spasm, jerking as if trying to escape a straightjacket, and when it looked up for the last time the face was almost gone and parts of a skull were staring at him.
“Just remember that was how I got caught. Simple bad luck. They knew what transport you were on . . . rich kid, senator's kid gone missing . . . and that Trent wasn't on that ship.”
It collapsed then, curling into a ball on its side, the mist eating its current form, torturing it, trying to make it reveal its true nature. The spasms took over completely, the rag-Âdoll skeleton shaking all over, and just when it seemed it would simply melt away it burst into a million black specks, tiny fluttering wings crashing around the tube, rising in a cyclone, and then Mortas was able to hear again.
“Alien has transposed! Alien has transposed! Sterilization protocol initiated!”
And the tube filled with a fire so intense that Mortas, cringing as far away as he could in his own cylinder, felt the heat as he screamed.
“L
ieutenant?”
The voice was back, not the alien's and not the robot's, but the annoying one that had directed them when they first landed. Mortas was motionless, twisted into the fetal position on the grating at the bottom of his tube. The fire had roared in the alien's cylinder for a very long time, and now foaming chemicals were swirling around in its place.
He believed he'd never move again. Every ounce of energy had been wrung out of him in every way. His brain felt numb, as if the thing had scoured it from within. His mind refused to cope with what had happened, and his muscles refused to answer the simplest of commands.
And the last thing he was going to do was respond to the voice. He doubted they knew the thing had communicated with him, but he was sure that informing them of that experience would mean he'd be examined, psychoanalyzed, scanned within an inch of his life, and then dissected. No. He wasn't going to tell them a damned thing.
The grate under his bare skin shifted with a scraping sound, opening the vents much wider. With his cheek pressed against them he was almost touching what lay beneath, multiple nozzles that now emitted a sickening odor. His face screwed up as he tried to identify it, but then the igniters kicked in and a hundred tiny flames came alive at the ends of the nozzles.
“I'm here.”
He sat up slowly, sliding his naked back across the glass and bringing his knees to his chest.
“Good.” The voice held a touch of mockery. “You see, we have a lot to discuss before we decide whether or not to let you out.”
“Let me out? You listen to me, my father isâ”
“Olech Mortas, Chairman of the Emergency Senate. Yes. We know. We've been searching for you for some time now. And just imagine how pleased your father will be when we tell him that you brought a previously unknown alien life form, some kind of shape-Âshifting entity that was also carrying a deadly plague virus, to the Corps headquarters.”
“I had no way of knowing Trent . . . that thing . . . was an alien. What was it, anyway?”
“We'll be asking the questions.”
“And what if I don't feel like answering?”
The jets of flame jumped an inch higher, just for an instant. He flinched with the sudden heat, but then it was gone.
“Lieutenant, your chances of leaving that cylinder are slim at best. And as the lone survivor of your group, there will never be any reason to tell anyone that we found you at all. Ever. Unless, of course, you participate fully in the debriefing we are now going to conduct regarding the alien that you brought here.”
He didn't respond. His stomach growled anew, disappointed, and he clenched his teeth until they hurt. Cranther was right; there was no one you could completely trust out here.
Except I trusted him, and I wasn't wrong. He saved my life.
And I trusted Gorman, and he died for me.
And the real Trent, she fought them until they killed her . . . and I trusted that
thing
because it was imitating her.
And it asked me to cry over it when it knew the game was up.
“Uh, Lieutenant? We're going to start the debriefing now.” A pause. “That is, if you don't have any questions.”
No, no questions.
Then a memory, a question from what seemed a lifetime ago. It made him smile, thinking of what that speaker might do in his place. Calling up all the spit in his mouth, he leaned over and drooled a pathetic string onto the flames. They hissed at him, and then he sat back up.
“Yeah, I have one question.”
“Go ahead.”
“Where's your hot chow?”
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Henry V. O'Neil
is the name under which award-Âwinning mystery novelist Vincent H. O'Neil publishes his science-Âfiction work. A graduate of West Point, he served in the U.S. Army Infantry with the Tenth Mountain Division at Fort Drum, New York, and the 1st Battalion (Airborne) of the 508th Infantry in Panama. He has also worked as a risk manager, a marketing copywriter, and an apprentice librarian.
Henry Vincent O'Neil, the grand-Âuncle in whose memory he was named, was studying for the priesthood when he perished in the worldwide influenza epidemic of 1918.
Rest in peace, servant of God.
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Books written under the name Vincent H. O'Neil
Interlands: A Tale of the Supernatural
Death Troupe
The Frank Cole / Exile Mystery Series
Murder in Exile
Reduced Circumstances
Exile Trust
Contest of Wills
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www.vincenthoneil.com
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are drawn from the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
G
LORY MAIN.
Copyright © 2014 by Henry V. O'Neil. All rights reserved under International and Pan-ÂAmerican Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-Âbook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-Âengineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperÂCollins e-Âbooks.
EPub Edition July 2014 ISBN: 9780062359186
Print Edition ISBN: 9780062359193
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