Stranger King (8 page)

Lena looked up in shock, “Sam?”

The doctor smiled at her, “Good to see you too. Come on inside before you bleed to death.”

Chapter Twelve

After Lena
was bandaged and sewn together, she leaned on Sam as they walked into the shared living space of the shelter.

Lena looked blearily around. It was similar to the bomb shelter they had stayed in after leaving Hope, though significantly larger. She could see that there were other rooms leading off from the main area, but now was not the time to explore. She blinked under the lights as Sam helped her to the couch. Janiya sat beside her, her foot elevated onto the table before them.

“I don’t mean to sound ungrateful,” Calvin said in amazement, “but how the hell are you still alive?”

“I could ask the same of all of you,” Sam chuckled, “And where on earth these other four came from. But I suppose I can guess.”

“You were in Vancouver,” Lena stated, “How did you escape?”

“I flew,” Sam smiled.

They looked at her incredulously as she began her story, “I was in the clinic at home. Delia was getting her weekly examination. I was taking some swabs when the message came through the vid-screen. That American general was on screen, warning of possible hostile activity in the area. We thought … well, I have no idea now what we thought then. Martin and his team had already returned from North Vancouver, the client had canceled the job at the last moment. I packed everyone into the shelter in the basement. We waited for news and for another twelve hours, it didn’t come. Then it all trickled in. Farther north, there had been attacks, people had been captured, killed. There was some footage of the ships, but very little. There was one shot of an alien in an exo-suit, but I couldn’t make out any of the details.

“We waited until the second announcement came through. The Canadian government had officially surrendered to the alien forces. They’re called the Mokai, by the way. At least that’s what they told us to call them. You may have heard all the clicking, it’s a bit hard to translate.”

“Why are they here?” Lena asked.

Sam continued, “I honestly don’t know. They took some of our kind for ‘understanding’, they said. They left a few of their kind with us, as if they’re confident we can’t hurt them. They want our submission. Beside that I don’t know. And the plague … the plague is real. There are at least three strains of it. I’ve managed to create antidotes for two of them; I’m working on the third. I’m going to take skin samples from all of you and see if I can continue my research. It’ll give us all a fighting chance against the thing, at least. Nasty thing. Haven’t seen anything so bad since that smallpox outbreak a few years ago.”

“You didn’t say how you got here,” Kozol reminded her.

“Right,” Sam continued, “Sorry. Scientific curiosity always gets the better of me. When the general abdicated to them, communication ceased. There were updates from a translator, but each update seemed to say less than the one before. We were running out of food in the basement. Derek decided to stay, in case the rest of you tried to come back. Delia, Martin, and I decided to come here. I knew going on foot was too dangerous, so I decided to find us another option.

“We made our way through the city just after daybreak. The Mokai seem to realize most of us sleep through the day, so they do their patrols then. With their exo-suits, it doesn’t seem to matter anyway. They didn’t ask for papers, they don’t seem to be tracking us per say.”

At those words, Lena touched her shoulder. If these things were co-opting humans to do their work, she needed to deal with the tracker embedded in her muscle sooner rather than later.

Sam continued, “They would just watch us in the street. I think they have eyes somewhat like ours, but that was all I could make out. We were making our way down to the docks. All the ships, the transports, the air ships, all of them were destroyed. The markets, they’re gone. But there were no bodies, no bodies anywhere. I thought then that they might not be violent, might just have been aggressive so we did not strike back. But I was wrong.

“I saw a group of humans being brought to one of their ships; it was almost like seeing a chain gang. When one tried to protest, they were just simply killed. The others had to drag him through the rain, and they were so blistered, so sick from the radiation. We watched, the three of us, sick to our stomachs, and waited until the coast was clear.

“We ran. There was an old military hanger nearby; I remembered it from studying maps of the city. That’s where I found the old helicopter. It took a few hours to get her working again, but it would get us over the mountains much quicker than by foot. I nearly crashed the stupid thing just making it past the skyline. We weren’t shot at, which was a surprise. They seemed … amused, maybe. We passed one of their ships, just floating there in the sky. They don’t have portals or windows on the things so I guess they didn’t see us, luckily. I think they’re just meant for space travel.

“We went as far as we could on the fuel in the tanks. I ended up crash landing us just outside of Revelstoke. Martin, he didn’t make it through the crash. We buried him the best we could outside the town limits. Delia and I decided to stay there overnight, get supplies for going into the mountains. We spent the night at an inn; seemingly everyone in the town there with us watching the one vid-screen that worked, watching the alien ships invade cities all over the continent. The satellites stopped working around that time, I remember. Maybe they shot them out of the sky, maybe they took out the satellites the same way they took out the grid, I don’t know.

“But stopping was a mistake. If I hadn’t been so… Delia caught the plague. It took her so quickly. We barely made it to the base by the time she died. I kept the body. I was able to synthesize a cure for the first strand that way. I had the second already; it’s a bit of a longer illness. I nearly wasn’t fast enough for myself.”

“I’m sorry,” Calvin said.

“So am I,” Sam replied quietly, “But the question is what do we do now? This shelter wasn’t built for an alien invasion; it’s built for a civil war. We can adapt it, change it to our needs, but it will take time and work. Hopefully our presence isn’t detected until then.”

“As is, how long do you think we can survive down here?” Kozol asked.

Sam sighed, “With eight of us? Maybe two years. If we adapt it according to my plans, we may get ten years out of it. We can probably get more if outside resources become available.”

There was an uncomfortable silence as each of them looked at each other in turn. The ex-priest stepped forward.

“It’s the end of the world,” Elias said quietly, “do we really want to last ten years?”

“We’ve survived occupations before,” Sam replied.

“By other humans,” Elias said, “The Americans didn’t bring a deadly disease with them. Couldn’t shoot our ships out of space or disable our tech within minutes. What future is there for us? For our children?”

Sam sighed, “I know this is a lot to take in, and we need to discuss it further, but I’ve already delayed too long. I need to screen all of you. So if we could continue this later, I’ll take you one at a time until I have skin samples from each of you. Janiya, I’m told you’re a doctor as well. If you could assist me, I would very much appreciate it. I’ve got a chair for you in my office.”

Janiya nodded, standing up with a wince and letting Sam assist her.

Lena waited as the others trickled by, one by one, to give their tissue samples. She listened to the wind outside, swearing she could hear the cougar crying in pain. When it was her turn, she limped into the office, trying to shut out the sound.

Part Two

Chapter Thirteen

Approximately two
Earth year cycles
later

Thegn watched the footage over again as the committee below murmured threats and coercions to each other. He half listened, watching the Toola female on his monitor bare her teeth at one of the Mokai before slinging the older female over her shoulder.

He laced his long green fingers together, studying the face of the female as he froze the image. He had not learned many Toola facial expressions; he had only met a few in captivity just recently. They appeared to speak a different language from the ones in this footage. Clearly, their languages were more diverse. In other footage, the Toolas spoke with clicks similar to his own; it had been much easier to learn to communicate with them. It was a shame that many of them had resisted captivity; they had been rare specimens for collectors.

Thegn adjusted his earpiece, the small bud that remained pinned to the exterior of his outer lobe. It had been acting up since arriving at the station. He wondered if there was some exterior interference, but he was not technically adept enough to fix it on his own. Driaen might be able to look at it, he thought, as the Chancellor called the meeting to attention again.

The strange humming of the Elchai minister sung through his earpiece, and there was a momentary delay as the device clicked in response, translating in standard Renkair.

The minister was calling for a ceasefire. This invasion had lasted for 3.7 standard years, far too long to allow the Mokai to senselessly kill and maim obviously sentient creatures. It was against every code they had established, every treaty.

Protest ran through the Mokai representatives. Thegn did not have to wait for the translation to hear some of the choice words thrown at the minister.

Thegn tapped his sound device and said calmly over the fray, “I think what my colleagues are trying to say is that attempts have been made to move the Toolas to other, less resource rich, areas. It has never been a slaughter. It has been a culling. It is no different from moving any other species from valuable land.”

“The Mokai people are tired of being vilified for expanding their empire,” a Mokai Degan announced, standing as his people cheered him on. “We have the right to seek space for our growing numbers. Our population is finally recovering; we have the right to reclaim the glory that we have lost. We are tired of this Council denying us the right that all other members have.”

Thegn raised his palm as a sign of embarrassment, expelling the air from his lungs in a quick burst to indicate annoyance. As he did so, the tattoo on his palm was obvious to any witnessing the outburst, the three suns of the Goddess shining on his pale blue and green mottled skin.

The crowd calmed as he did so, his fellow ghelu around him raising their palms as well, their tattoos showing in solidarity with Thegn. He closed his eyes in appreciation.

The translation reached others faster than he, and he heard the uproar among the Elchai people first, then the Crisu, and J’Hai, until the translation in Renkair came through.

“There will be an investigation,” Thegn heard, as he pressed the earpiece closer to his lobe. “The Toolas are to be documented for signs of sentient activity. If they are at a comparable level, they will be offered a treaty of peace. If there is war, let them fight as equals, or if there is peace let them be treated as guests. The Council has selected ghelu Thegn as its representative. The Council fears it may be traumatic for the Toolas to see another Council species at this time, but the Mokai must be represented by the Council itself.”

Thegn heard the complaints as they flooded the earpiece, all said in the same monotone translation. He was Mokai first, ghelu second. How could they trust one of them to report on their own? Why would ghelu agree to be part of this? Their vows were service to the Goddess, no other.

Thegn took out the earpiece, laying it on the table as he rubbed his inner earlobe. It did not matter. He would have to ask permission of the Septun before he could proceed or she could make this entire discussion irrelevant.

The Council’s decision was the logical choice, but he feared deep in his ghele that he would not be as neutral as he had supposed himself to be coming into the Council room.

As he waited for the others to debate, he could not help but wonder why him? There were four other Mokai ghelu. Older ones too, ones longer with the Goddess.

Yet he was pleased. He was ashamed of his vanity, but he found himself proud. It was a great task he had just been given. He prayed he was worthy of it.

*

The Septun of Juelsa greeted him without words, waving her third arm toward the chaise. Thegn paled and stood awkwardly, moving his tail into her sight as a reminder. The Septun insisted and Thegn sat, his body aching uncomfortably in the constrained position. The Elchai, no matter how many standard years since the first encounter, had never seemed to grasp that none of their three sister species were able to sit in a straight-back chair.

The Septun glanced at him with odd curiosity. She lay across her own chair, her deep purple skin shining with the oils she had been bathed in, her two sets of black eyes watching him closely as he tried not to fidget to free his tail.

He readjusted his earpiece as he saw her mouth move. While he spoke standard Renkair as fluently as he did standard Mokai, the Septun spoke a dialect that he was not as familiar with.

“You are to be given back to your people, I am told,” she said.

Thegn explained, “It is a temporary assignment. I wish to ask for leave to go to Toola. I might be able to help. There are not many of my kind who are ghelu. The council believes we can be diplomats.”

“And what do you want, Thegn?”

The earpiece buzzed slightly as she said his name. It had never been translated well into other languages, and the device had difficulty with it still.

“I want to know the truth,” Thegn replied. “I feel I can serve the Goddess best if I can prevent unnecessary war. These souls, they can be brought to her as my people and I were. If the Elchai had not thought of our lives first, then I could not serve you today. I do not want another soul lost that could be brought to her.”

He recognized the chuckle of the Elchai before the machine translated, her front gills flaring as she expelled air from them. It was a coy sound, meant to show vulnerability. It was nothing that he would have expected from the beautiful female before him, considering her dominance over him. He had been trained to find this appealing, exotic, and arousing. But he feared her too much to be swayed by coyness.

“I could call for your service today, ghelu,” she said casually. “Today could be the day you serve the Goddess in the most final way. I do not bend to the will of the Council, I serve the highest power there is. Only we know her true missions and callings. You are not sent by them. If you are to go, you are sent by me. Do you understand?”

Thegn averted his eyes and she accepted this.

“And if you die? If you do not return before it is time for your final service?”

Thegn paused, he had not thought of this possibility. “The Mokai will pledge another to your service. There have always been five of us at least, my government will ensure this.”

The same chuckle. “I know a lie when I see one, no matter what species. If you can have it arranged, then I accept. Graciously. The Goddess is interested to see what these Toolas are. Perhaps they are still wiser than us. Your vows remain, ghelu. Breaking them on Toola is the same as anywhere else in the universe. You will be punished accordingly.”

Thegn affirmed this and she rose, signaling him to follow her. She blinked her top two eyes, looking over his body in a way that made him pale.

“It is a shame, ghelu Thegn,” she said in conclusion, “I would have enjoyed your service.”

Thegn cleared his throat. “Am I clear to go?”

“Yes. The Goddess blesses your adventure. May her suns guide you wherever you are found. Let your soul be returned to her.”

Thegn turned and left, his tail throbbing with relief as blood moved through it again.

*

The Mokai looked at him with suspicion as he came aboard the ship. He could not help but feel uncomfortable. He was not really one of them anymore. At his age, he should be serving the military, a patriot for his people. Yet he was devoted to a foreign Goddess, the symbol of invaders past. It did not matter that most of them followed the same faith now, it mattered that the tattoos on his hands showed that his loyalty was first to a higher power.

Thegn introduced himself to the captain, who lowered his forehead to touch Thegn’s as a sign of respect. Thegn had been told by the Council that the captain was a religious man; he would be protected as long as he stayed by the captain’s side.

Thegn was brought to his quarters, embarrassed he would have more space than the others on the ship. It was a show of good faith, he knew, and he was grateful for some privacy. It had been a long time since he was among his people. He felt awkward in his moments around them, felt that they watched to see if he moved like an Elchai now, spoke like one of them.

He kneeled as the captain left, allowing his knees to rest against the soft grass floor, his tail stretching out until it could crack back into place. He took the datapad out, smiling as he saw the Dialogues inscribed into it in both Renkair and the written Mokai. He put it back as he rose, looking out the viewport at the space around them. It would have to be closed once they left the station, he knew, so he gave himself this moment to watch in awe of the cosmos around them. He would not be able to see the stars once they reached Toola, he had been warned, as there were dark nights and hazy days.

So he watched for a moment, wondering if it would be the last time he saw the stars. He wished he could have seen his planet through the viewport, but he could remember it well enough. Hopefully there would still be time to see it again one day.