Toxic (85 page)

The Reverend was the only one to get up to greet her. The two others were too tired or just simply furious. For Dan, whose dark glance she met, the answer didn't have the shadow of a doubt.

"You're a bitch, but you have a bit of empathy and goodness in you as well. That's rare."

Elaine put the cups on the floor in silence. The albino smiled at her when she got back up.

"The person you were talking with right now, he's your boss, right?"

She nodded. The Reverend was being direct.

"He's a pushover. He couldn't even stop you from coming here and disobeying his orders. You just made him look like an idiot in front of his men. I have to tell you that you have finally made me happy. And your presentation in the pit was remarkable!"

"Do you want me to leave with the water and let you die?"

"No, of course not. I was just trying to make you open your eyes, my dear child. That man is not a leader. But you are. You have the stuff."

"Whatever," she said, turning her back to them to return to the group.

"You didn't tell him the truth about his sister, am I right?"

Elaine stopped. "What truth?"

"That she betrayed you! On my orders."

"That won't change anything. Annie died regardless."

She went back to her place beside Alison and Dewei. Masters slid to her side.

"What were you thinking, for the love of Christ? Those guys are dangerous and crazy at that."

"We might need them."

"They can go fuck themselves!"

All of a sudden, the walls of the dome became transparent. Elaine protected her eyes from the bright light that flooded the room. She made out the massive silhouettes of the buildings around them and the bright blue, cloudless sky. Then, a deafening clamor resounded, amplified by the dome's shape. The concert of whines and grunts paralyzed the survivors.

"No, not like that," she told herself.

The L-Ds pressed against the base of the dome. Hundreds and even thousands of broken mouths were only waiting for one signal: the disappearance of the energy field.

The nurse grabbed Alison and Dew. She raised her eyes.

"Don't do that," she mumbled. "Anything but that."

Naakrit was bottling up his anger, Jave realized.

Imprisoned inside a confinement cylinder, he was paying attention to the Primark's tiniest gestures. The troopers only had one damaged ship left and with the Poisoners on the point of reaching Earth's orbit, the mission had reached its end. The rocks had finally finished rolling and the mercenary leader had lost.

He was conscious of that. The flames of vengeance danced in his eyes. A typical reptilian reaction, similar in all ways to that of numerous humans. Jave wondered if he knew how similar he was to his victims.

A two meter long projection lit up a part of the prison wall. The aerial scene of a dome surrounded by a horde of infected filled in the curved space.

"I don't know why you care about these products, but before putting you in the oxygenation chamber, you will see them die, devoured by their own."

"You have failed, Primark. You can still save what remains of your troop and reputation. With time, this episode will seem like a simple misstep on the long trajectory of your commercial career. Think about that."

The forked tongue whipped in and out.

"And I imagine that the Combinate will be ready to nab my investment as soon as my scales are turned around.

"It's nothing personal," Jave said. "That's how the Merchant Princes do business. Human products sell well, and the market is flourishing. You simply fell upon forces more powerful. You should understand that better than anyone."

"
Njet! Raijkin!
"

The wide shot of the faces disappeared and the Lynian recognized Elaine's features. She hadn't followed the Kathari's orders. That was annoying, but expectable.

"I would like to know," Naakrit continued, "where my Säzkari is. Officer Kuhn declared him as disappeared during the attack on Site A. Did the humans kill him?"

"It's possible. Did you know that they cut up reptiles to make bags?"

His remark didn't bother the reptilian.

"Speaking of cutting up, I have another surprise for you."

The view changed. Jave's rootlets retracted into their pores.

Jool was sitting in the middle of a closed room with grey walls. Nozzles dotted the ceiling and floor.

"I'll give you one last chance to talk," Naakrit said. "You're going to order the Poisoners to turn around."

"It's unlikely that they will follow such an order. They know that they have won. The prize is too tempting for them to abandon a catch so quickly."

"Wrong answer, Emissary."

The Primark put a claw on his flexible screen. At first, nothing happened. After an octain of seconds, Jool started to move. Then, he got up, belched up a few incomprehensible words and then hit the door for someone to help him. His nasal vents dilated and contracted in a spasmodic movement that disfigured him. His rootlets fell one after another, like dry twigs. He left them behind in his wake as he threw himself against the walls with all his strength.

A continuous scream tore at Jave's auditory canals.

"Pure oxygen," Naakrit announced.

The plates on the Lynian's neck stretched out at an incredible speed before becoming detached. His brown bark broke apart into pieces, revealing his underskin and sap canals. The clear liquid poured out of the wounds. Jool stumbled and made an effort to stay upright, but that didn't last long. He fell face down. He managed to turn over. His bloated nasal vents didn't even move.

Jave remained paralyzed. That was the first time he had seen such a reaction. The textbooks talked about it and all the members of his species learned about precautions of use, but seeing the effects directly was another thing. The Primark didn't just want to get revenge and make an example of him, but to scare him as well.

"I'll do what you want," Jave said.

"Good. We're making progress. You're finally becoming reasonable."

"You know the aliens. What do you think they're planning?" Masters asked.

"I have no idea. And I don't know them. They are foreign to our... way of thinking and living. In fact, I haven't been able to understand how they think."

The group had closed around the nurse and the two children found themselves behind a wall of giants as sacred as she was. A normal defensive reaction, although useless if the infected ever managed to break past the perimeter. Further along, the Reverend was standing up, arms crossed, apparently ready to face his fate. Their eyes crossed. He smiled at her.

In comparison, Jon looked in shock. He was sweating. His eyes didn't stop moving around in their sockets. He seemed on the verge of losing his marbles.
Maybe the Reverend was right
, she told herself.

But what did it matter now?

"We're going to die," she heard.

Elaine crouched down and took the girl by her shoulders.

"I don't know, my dear."

"But if the L-Ds get in, they're going to eat us."

"I'm afraid too."

"You know, you've taken care of me like mom would have."

The nurse embraced the girl. Her eyes clouded up.

"That's because I was also a mom. One day."

"Really?"

"It didn't last long. Only a few minutes."

Without explanation and to people's general surprise, the wall of the dome became opaque once again. The grey lighting replaced the color of the sky and behind them, a door opened up to a cafeteria with tables and benches. The lines of copiously garnished dishes and meals drew in the disoriented gazes. So much food made them giddy.

The survivors looked at each other in disbelief.

An odor that the most of them hadn't smelled for years made them salivate.

"What does this mean?" Bruce mumbled.

"Yeah, well I'm not hungry. I lost my appetite with the L-Ds," Jon mumbled.

He was the only one. Elaine read all of their faces. They were burning with the desire to go there.

Dan and the Reverend didn't hesitate. The group watched them sit down at the table and start to eat.

"It looks good," one man said enthusiastically, "and not dangerous."

He moved towards the cafeteria, followed by one companion, and another. In a few moments, everyone had found a place.

"I have the impression that this is our final meal," Masters declared, finally joining the movement.

Fifteen minutes later, the survivors fell asleep on their plates.

As the head mercenary was preparing to hand him a communication sphere to convince the Poisoners to abandon their operation, the hangar was plunged in darkness. Jave spotted blue sparks and then heard a whistle and then an insulting wheeze that he guessed was Naakrit. Then, a shadow slid in front of him.

"I know that the Primark ordered Sarejt to be killed. I want him to pay for that. I've been waiting for this moment for a while."

The Sybarian deactivated the cylindrical prison. Once he was free, Jave hurried towards the reptilian, who was lying on the floor.

"He's just stunned," Nijtekt specified.

He likely still had the access codes to the firing console on him.

"Evacuate the base and Earth with all the troopers. The Poisoners don't take prisoners, and you still have some time to flee."

"
Haj
! And you?"

"I have to save the humans. The Primark has an identification chip on him to enter into the secure room at the far end of the station. Where is it?"

"I don't know. But you also need his code."

"I already have it. I just need the chip, quick!"

The light turned on again all of a sudden.

"
Cirje
," Jave said.

"That wasn't me," the Sybarian responded.

The emissary got up. At the far end of the room, he saw officer Kjet. The reptilian took out an impulsion lance with a shining point.

Located in the line of fire, the think torso of the Sybarian exploded on impact. Her entrails spread around in a blue rain over the Lynian and the ground. Jave fell backwards. He spotted the identification chip around Naakrit's net. He grabbed it and ran at full speed towards a hallway. A burst sizzled just behind him. The shot smashed into the door that he had just taken. The emissary lost his balance and slid, turning to the left.

"
Raijkin
!"

He reached the zero-gravity elevator without turning around. Once he was in the tube, he floated for a brief moment and then plunged in the direction of the pole of the station facing Earth. Upon arrival, the airlock opened in front of him. The following one required the identification chip that he had grabbed from the Primark.

Naakrit had learned the combination of numbers that made up the commercial ID number of his first holding. The memory reminded the mercenary of the importance of each detail and that the loss of an investment was mostly due to lack of preparation. Back then, he was an unknown reptilian and although painful and humiliating, the defeat had reinforced his conviction. Naakrit had forgotten that lesson when he came to Earth, Jave thought.

He stated the three groups of eight numbers and the airlock slid open, revealing the bluish glow of the planet.

Once he was in front of the console, he selected the menus for the implementation of the weapon of mass destruction. His fingers flew over the listings and activated glowing symbols. The warning bubbles popped up one after another, asking him to confirm his orders.

The only way of disarming that device definitively consisted in breaking it away from the energy source of the station. He had to eject the far end of the space station and throw it into the atmosphere for it to disintegrate. As soon as the countdown started, Jave left the chair.

The airlock opened to the face of officer Kjet.

He felt the vibroblade pierce his insides. Jave let out a hiccup of surprise. The pain tore at his flesh, but he didn't manage to let out the slightest sound. The forked tongue clicked a few centimeters from him.

"I placed the Primark in a rescue capsule. He will survive, but not you. Traitor! May all Lynians be damned!"

As a reflex, Jave's hand pressed the emergency exit. The door cut off the limb of the second officer. The room was ejected. The emissary had the time to see the reptilian transform into a ball of flesh and explode in the vacuum effect.

Lines of light signaled the appearance of a volley of missiles, which hit the mercenaries' logistics base, which disappeared in a sparkling ball. The Poisoners, Jave thought, before falling backwards.

The far end of the station followed a ballistic trajectory before being intercepted by a ship send from the Poisoner's vessels, from then on the only masters of Earth. The discovery of the Lynian's state of health surprised the insectoid leaders, but as good members of the Collective, they kept to the previous agreements. Jave was taken to intensive care and given over to an auto-surgeon.

The next day, a giant Geno-Saran transporter arrived for insertion into a cis-lunar orbit. The engineer Delko met with the Poisoners, who were upset by the virus, which rendered the infected immune to their gas. In fact, they understood, these creatures with decomposing bodies didn't breathe, a fact which was very worrying to them and which the Lynian had forgotten to specify.

The GenoSaran evoked the terms of the contract: he had five million humans to freeze and take away.

During the brief, but decisive battle of the mercenaries fleeing the Poisoners, a rescue capsule escaped everyone's attention. It penetrated into Earth's atmosphere in the south central Pacific area. The line of fire didn't dry up until in the middle of the Ross Sea and the device continued its course, flying over Mount Erebus. At the impact point, it dug a one hundred meter long hole near lake Vostok, a little more than one thousand kilometers from the South Pole.

The calculator followed its program, which consisted in ejecting the airlock if the air was compatible with the biology of its occupant. The explosive charges propelled the door more than ten meters away. The blizzard flew inside. The cold slid over Naakrit's scales. The brutal fall in temperature dissipated the effect of the stunner. The Primark woke up disoriented and lost. His whistles of panic let out a volley of white puffs in the entire capsule. His muscles became hard and his limbs inflated so quickly that each movement became a torture. Then, his higher functions went to sleep, one after another, only leaving his reptilian brain in activity.