Starbleached (4 page)

The rush of heat in his cheeks betrayed him. So did the
bashful look in his eyes. “That would be all you hear. I broke my brother and
my stepfather. I don’t want to break you, too.”

“It’s my choice if I want to risk it.” She began writing on
the back of his hand, loopy, meaningless circles that wound up to his wrist.
“And how do you know it’s a knife? You’re trying to protect all of us. If there
is a blade in you, it’s a scalpel, not a sword.” She kissed his knuckles. “Dr.
Landry.”

He smiled and pulled her down into the grass.

*****

Now:

Waking after a stun wasn’t like being asleep. It was like
coming alive after dying. Alien hands on her ankles severed the bonds on her
feet. A double-thumbed hand dragged her upright, supported her until her knees
could hold her weight.

She focused on her surroundings. The back of an Overseer
fighter. Cold, dark, dank, humid. Inhaling was like breathing through a sponge.
The Overseer crossed the deck and hit the yellow lights on some shipboard
organelle. A door rolled open, liquid dripping from its sides. A wall of steam
rolled in behind it.

Swamp, gray with twilight, waited beyond. Not an
improvement.

Bad, bad, bad luck. We don’t have missions to swamp
zones, we don’t have outposts near enough a swamp to make a difference to me.
Overseer planets are cinders in the process of being reterraformed. This is an
independent planet with some kind of deal with the monsters. Which means rescue
might not come at all.

The alien regarded her for a moment, as if measuring what
she could take. Then it pushed her out into the murk. Spongy black dirt
squished under her feet, and mud splashed up her torso when she fell to her
knees. The Overseer clomped down the gangway with a heavy box of Enzyme under
one arm. It pulled her upright without pausing and dragged her into the murky
trees.

The ground gave way to water and the muck below it wrapped
around her ankles. Knobby tree roots jutted from the surface like an old man’s
elbows. Hidden branches tangled in her boots and dragged her face first into
the water, over and over again. Twice, the alien waited while she righted
herself, the second time coughing up murky water. The third time, it lifted her
to its shoulder and braced her there as if she were a sack of grain. Then it
went on, tracing a purposeful path though the drab green-gray around them.

Swamp. What a perfect place for an Overseer to hide. Yellow
flowers curled around bugs like mouths. Vines wound into trees and choked them
to death. Small, froggy things blinked up at her with golden eyes. It was
almost a relief when the natural horror gave way to glossy Overseer tech. Black
carapace twisted around vine-choked trees, blinking yellow and blue lights
indicating some sort of filtration system. It brightened as the alien came
near, leading them both to the outpost. It was a mound of blackness teaming
with strange lights, some organic tech, some phosphorescent bugs. The lights
brightened, the outpost welcoming its master back home.

Doors unfolded like pill-bug shells, fluids dripping from
well lubricated joints. She braced herself for some unholy alien stink. After
twenty paces or so, she had to admit it didn’t smell that bad. Wet, like
concrete on a rainy day. It was warm, and mist rose from the floor, cross lit
by the dim hallway lights. Barely enough light to see by. After a few days of
this, she might well go insane. Monitor screens blinked some kind of
information to the monster in its native tongue. A power-pack heart beat as
they passed by.

I’m in the guts of a living thing,
she thought, and
would have gagged if there were anything in her stomach to bring up.

It reached one large room and gently set her in the center.
Wires, tubes, bladders and veins wound through the walls and tables, went deep
into the floor. Computers of incomprehensible design beeped softly to themselves.
It must be some kind of lab.

Something clicked behind her head. When she turned the
Overseer had the enzyme case open, vial in one hand, applicator in the other.
The needle on the applicator gleamed.

Adry’s nerve broke. Hands still bound, she raced for the
door. Only it was so dim, so dark, she didn’t see the low bench until she
tripped over it and went flying. Her teeth rattled as her chin bounced off
black exoskeleton flooring. A two-thumbed hand gripped the back of her neck.
Nematocysts prickled tooth-like against skin, and she screamed. The first sound
she’d made in hours tore through the darkness, and the applicator needle
punctured her skin like a pin through a balloon. Chemical burn, the Enzyme was
now in her blood stream. She gritted her teeth and waited for the pain of
entry, for her life to be drained away.

The monster let her fall sobbing against the bench. It was
cool, the surface relatively dry against her forehead. She was quiet a long
while, just breathing.

“I have no intention of harming you. I did not believe you
would be comfortable in my presence without any protection.”

Blood ran from the injection site, cramps crawled through
the muscles in her back. It knelt, bringing its head nearer to hers, black mask
to bare face. Without visible eyes, it was expressionless, like a breathing
corpse. Its lips parted, the faint glow of its tongue ghastly in the darkness.
If she shot it, would it bleed? Or would it be as hollow as it looked,
collapsing into a puff of air and dust before the gunshot faded? She ached to
test this hypothesis. The look on its cold face was hungry, as if it desired
the same for her.

She would not be the first to speak next.

She couldn’t afford to be.

*****

Then:

“It’s called Stockholm syndrome.” Holton’s main psychiatrist
turned away from her holo screen. Paige Jordan didn’t get to talk to people
often. She was too busy analyzing psych profiles. Her office was a gentle
haven, one wall open to the winds blowing through the green concourse. Adry’s
own reflection looked back from one chrome wall. Fabrics here were cream and
beige, a mental safe zone. Square in the middle of all this engineered
refinement was a velvet painting of Monde Castor, the larger-than-life
performer from New Vegas, mirrored with a similar painting of Elvis. It was all
wonderfully tacky. Paige crossed her legs and continued with her lecture. “It
was identified in the nineteen hundreds during a bank robbery. Something they
thought the credit system would end, you know?”

Adry smirked. Yesterday four people had hacked the biggest
bank system in New York and triggered a massive cred transfer. All transfers
for the day had to be canceled, millions were lost, and the scummy little
bastards still got away with it. “You were explaining about the slave process,
and what happened to Major Abrams?” she reminded.

“Yes. The first step in breaking an individual is a major
shock to the psyche. A kidnapping, a hostage taking, something you can’t escape
from quickly. The second step is time. The longer you’re with your captors, the
more likely you are to identify with them. You come to view any kindness on
their part as a personal gift of life.

“When someone is drained to the second stage, they’ve lost
everything. Identity, memory, sense of self. And the first thing they find when
they open their eyes is usually the Overseer that drained them, tending their
wounds and caring for them.”

Adry blinked. “You’re kidding.”

“The feeding process is very intense. They can’t just drop a
victim and expect them to survive. Newly created slaves require days of TLC
just to function physically. And all the evidence we can gather says they give
it to the slaves in spades.”

“What about people in…in Abram’s situation?”

Paige took a deep breath, like someone about to jump off a
cliff. “You’ll need to get Bryan or Mich to give you the full story.” She
tapped a pen on the desk, uncomfortably. “He was Michel’s best friend. They
went through basic together. Bryan…he blames himself for what happened. Hell,
we
all
blamed Bryan for what happened.”

“I don’t even know what did happen.” Adry said.

“Bryan won’t talk about it?”

“Not to me.”

Paige nodded. “I don’t know how it started. It was well
under way when I…” she stopped and shuddered. “The Overseers attached
this…thing to Abram’s head. It began a very slow, very painful transformation
from a human being into…” Paige swallowed, very pale.

“Into the thing in the cryo tube, back in Bryan’s office,”
Adry said, numbly.

“When I came on base, he was about half changed. Soft
tissues, lungs, heart, skin. The skeletal changes began, he screamed for four
days, passed out, and when he woke up the man we’d known was…gone.” Paige
sighed. “He attacked three guards and killed two of them. Snapped one neck and
he…fed on the other one. That’s why they keep giving us suicide pills every
time we leave the station. Winding up like that…I’d rather go out the air lock
without a suit. Bryan killed Abrams.” Paige shrugged. “He wouldn’t let anyone
else do it. Mich wanted to save him, wouldn’t admit that the fight was over. I
thought it would put him over the deep end. I even filed a mental health
complaint, which I haven’t withdrawn.” She shrugged. “Mich has…issues. Be
careful around him.”

Adry nodded, shivering even though it wasn’t cold in Paige’s
office. “You know, it was all straight forward before I found out about
subsumation. You hate them, you kill them. But now that we know they can make
us into them…who’s on the other end of the bullet? Can we save them?”

“Those questions are how soldiers get killed.” Paige sighed.
“We’re sitting on this information because we think, when it becomes common
knowledge, it’ll break us. It’s why Bryan’s working so hard. So that when the
population do find out about subsumation, we’ll have an answer. He’s leveling
the playing field for us.”

Silence in the room. Artificial breezes fluttered the long,
sand colored curtains Paige had hung in the windows. Adry rubbed her hands
together, feeling strangely haunted. Funny. Millions of light years from Earth,
humanity still believed in ghosts. “What should I do if I get taken?” she
whispered.

“Suicide pill.” Paige said. “Unless Bryan comes up with a
miracle.”

*****

Now:

The lights were switched to human bright, and the alien left
her alone. A folding chair of human design sat at what could, possibly, be a
desk. If, that is, one ignored the glowing lights and cords of hardened
exoskeletal fiber. A canteen, an MRE and a knife sat on the seat. A clear
invitation. Cut your bonds, eat, drink, and do work for me.

Not a prayer.

Leaning back, she ignored the hollow throb in her gut. Not
that it was easy to avoid. There was no sunlight here, no ticking clocks.
Nothing to prove time passed at all, save for the burn in her stomach and
throat. She closed her eyes. Distraction, before she went insane. Anatomy
books. Torso, ribcage, lungs, heart, shoulder blades, shoulders. Biceps,
triceps, elbows…hands…red scars twining up wrists, opening to reveal sharp,
white teeth.
No!
She opened her eyes. There, in the pool of pale light,
was the knife, the bottle, and envelope of food.

Fine.
She twisted her wrists against the zip-ties.
You’ll win eventually. But not yet, monster. Not yet.

Movement behind the heavy door. Its plates rolled back,
lubricant dripping across black flooring. The monster entered, a dark monolith
in twilight silence. If she could see its eyes, if she could only
see
it
looking back, maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. The dead curve of its mask made
her sick. It stopped at the chair, hissed softly, then slowly turned in her
direction.

Eyes to the floor. Her heartbeat tripled.
Stay silent.
Don’t move. Don’t even breathe.

“You are not following the script.” The monster knelt near
her, faceplate almost level with her eyes. “I deserve at least a name, rank and
serial number.”

It deserved nothing, except a hot shot to the cranium. Not
that she’d say that out loud.

It waited a few minutes more, then returned to the console
in the center of the room. With a flick of its fingers, the lights dropped back
to twilight shadow. Then it removed its faceplate. A vid screen blinked inside,
going dark as she watched. She turned her eyes back to the monster’s
silhouette.
Don’t turn around,
she willed it.
Don’t turn.

It raised a precious golden vial to the dim lighting. It
tested the lid, perma-sealed to the glass, then broke the neck with one
powerful thumb. Pouring the golden liquid into a pulsating bladder, it pushed a
few buttons on a read out pad. It hissed again, this time sharp and tight, as
if frustrated. Then it reached for another vial.

“Don’t waste it!” She said, then closed her eyes, slammed
her wrists into the bench in frustration. Goddamn it, she couldn’t manage ten
minutes of silence.

The terrible hands stilled. “I had samples of an enzyme from
your central base. It did not work. This does. I wish to quantify this
difference and then synthesize the enzyme. It will be easier, and less
wasteful, if you will assist me.”

She darted eyes back to the floor. The creature walked in
her direction, boots echoing loudly. And all she could think of were its hands,
nematocyst teeth puncturing flesh, coiling around bone as life was drained
away.

“It’s what you want. A greater distribution of your life’s
work.”

Bryan’s work. Not mine. And if you think I’m going to
give it to his killer, you’re insane.

The boots walked back to the work station. When she was sure
it was occupied, she looked back up to the monster’s head. Untidy chin length
hair, white like starlight, stuck out in a lion’s mane. Stiffer than human
hair. Despite her disgust with the monster, she wondered how hair like that
felt. What were Overseer standards of grooming? This one could use a bath.