Chapter 13
anchored safely at his belt, Donn Marshall stepped back to the console in Vinnet's kaxan to pull up the teleport controls. He snorted. It wasn't her kaxan anymore; she wasn't back there, invisibly haunting the machine. He moved his elbow away from his belt to keep from bumping her.
The screen highlighted its default choice: the palace's teleport juncture. Bad idea. If he appeared there, the guards would swamp him with questions and suspicions. He'd never get to Anjedet in time. With the building's heavy stone interfering with the transmission though, arriving within line of sight of the juncture—using the juncture's own projectors—would be safest.
He set the destination to halfway up the stairs to the implantation chamber and hoped no one saw him.
The brilliant kaxan interior vanished into the palace stairs' flickering darkness and narrow confines. This hall was dimmer than the rest of the palace, even with its stamped silver walls—all the better to contrast with a potential host's final destination.
Trying to step softly and avoid unwelcome attention, he crested the stairs and found a guard waiting between the two opposing doors on this level. Were they already too late? He couldn't avoid attention now. “Guten Tag, Davon.”
Davon snapped to alertness and clasped his hands first in front then behind him. “Herr Kommandant, she should be getting dressed. I've been waiting a while, and I'm not sure what's taking so long. Should I see?”
Not too late. Yet. “You want to scare her with your ugly mug?”
Davon’s face fell blank. “Say, you were going to hold her and come right back. Where did you go?”
Three more steps. “I remembered something I had to do.” No way that could resolve well.
“The recharge cycle—”
Donn elbowed him in the gut then captured the kid’s head as he doubled over and slammed a knee into the kid’s cranium. Hard. He eased Davon’s limp body to the floor. Maybe no one heard that.
Maybe you'd better move fast, Kitchell answered.
He nudged open the door on the left and dragged Davon in by the arm. Stepping from the dim, echoing corridor into the silent implantation chamber's cheery light felt like stepping into the peace of heaven, and he fought the impression by reminding himself of the room's purpose: easing the Kemtewet's effort to imprison its human vassal.
He blocked the doors closed with Davon's body, which would only slow the generally unsuspecting guards.
If the Kemtewet had perfected one skill, it was the use of art to manipulate emotion; the room was built equally around utility and beauty. With high, arching ceilings embellished with precious metals, the implantation chamber could have functioned as a stately ballroom, if only it had an actual floor. Instead, narrow walkways spread out from either side of the platform on which he knelt and traced the circumference of the room's deep pool. Somewhere in the many cubic yards of symbiont gel lived the queen, an amphibious Kemtewet parasite a foot and a half long that used the human reproductive system to bear young parasites. No sane person would mourn her loss, especially given the credibility replacing her would lend Vinnet's cover while infiltrating the Central Palace.
One other object occupied the room: a reclined chair, held at the gel's surface by submerged machinery, with arm restraints and a long opening along the occupant's spine.
“Rise, Vassal, and explain why you disrupt my rest,” the queen's recorded voice demanded.
Marshall paused on the platform, waiting for Kitchell to take control. The whole death sentence thing struck Marshall as a foolhardy waste of time, but if the symbiont insisted, he could damn well do it himself.
When the symbiont had control, Marshall watched as his body knelt at the pool’s edge and anchored one end of a long wire below the viscous gel’s surface. Then Kitchell straightened Marshall’s body, addressing the queen voice while he navigated the ledge around the pool’s circumference. “For the unethical enslavement and casual murder of twelve different vassals; for the execution of over three hundred rejected vassals and over twenty-seven hundred servants, both human and Kemtewet; for the perpetuation of Kemtewet; and for the poisoning of the population of the planet Prónoia in an unprovoked strike against the Mirach Bulk Trade Alliance; for these crimes and others, the Gertewet Coordinating Council has condemned you to death by any available means.” He stopped at the back of the chamber and dropped the weighted end of a second wire into the environment.
“This does not please me,” the recording shouted.
You’d say worse if you didn’t hadn’t pre-recorded responses. Shaking his head, Kitchell touched the wires to a high-voltage capacitor, sending a deadly shock through the conductive environment and the queen’s soft, vulnerable body. The cloudy gel flashed solid white. As it slowly cleared, it revealed a long, legless amphibian drifting toward the surface, its neuron tendrils flapping limply behind it.
Assured that the capacitor had already spent its lethal charge, he twisted off the cap of the canteen-disguised symbiont environment and released Vinnet into the queen’s chamber. The six-inch, blue-and-green-striped symbiont splashed into the gel and swam about, stretching, then approached the dead body and nudged it all the way to the pool’s edge. Nodding his thanks, Kitchell scooped the dead amphibian from the pool and squished it into the canteen, forcing most of the gel from within it. The queen’s body barely fit; the threads on the cap kept it from flopping free of the container.
Replacing the canteen at his belt and leaning down to attach a kit to the implantation chair, Kitchell smiled at Vinnet’s small head, which poked above the gel’s surface, bobbing slightly as she was treading water. “It won’t be long now. I promise.”
She couldn't hear his words until she connected to the neural interface the queen used; she dove beneath the surface, and he turned back to other problems: an unconscious body and a girl slated to host.
We can still free her. Banebdjedet will find other hosts.
We can't leave Vinnet exposed that long. Kitchell hefted Davon's twig-like body. Besides, since you admitted guilt here, we have only limited time remaining. It has to be her.
He peeked into the shadowed, empty hall and then breezed into the closet-sized dressing room Davon purported to have left Sarah in.
It looked empty: just the dressed mannequin and shoes Anjedet's borrowed handmaidens left here. When the door shut, spotlights snapped on, glinting on the dress, and Kitchell turned to see Sarah scrunched in the corner, frozen, a scared little four-eyed kid curled up impossibly small.
Sighing, he slung Davon into the other corner, likewise hidden from the doorway, and shucked the dress off the mannequin.
Sarah held her breath when the door opened and Mr. Marshall barged in with her guard, the crime-faced one, thrown over his shoulder. He'd killed someone else now?
He saw her and sighed, then threw the body aside. Stepping to the mannequin, he pulled the dress off and tossed it at her. He didn't look like himself; he looked irritated. She let the dress lay where it landed, half-wrapped around her folded legs.
“Put it on. Quickly. I won't look.” He leaned his ear against the door and raised his eyebrows at her expectantly.
“I don't want this! I'm not going to do it!”
He frowned at the door then crouched down in front of her. “Sarah, there is no getting out of this. If you don't dress yourself, it will be done for you. And if you don't take this symbiont, they'll kill you like they did the women downstairs.”
He pushed the dress to the floor and put his hands over hers, staring into her eyes. They couldn’t have been the same eyes that met hers in the white room; they looked cold. “I can't promise you everything will be okay, but I can promise I've done all I could.”
She jerked her hands back and pressed harder against the wall.
“I've got to go.” He stood again, listening at the door. Even Sarah could hear faint boot steps echoing in the hall. Then Mr. Marshall nodded at the body. “Dress before Davon wakes up.”
He let himself out, and she followed.
Footsteps climbed up the stairs the guard had carried her up earlier. Mr. Marshall walked the other way, which made sense. He obviously had something to hide from them, and so did she—herself.
He noticed her halfway down the stairs at the hall's far end. Wide-eyed, he whispered, “What are you doing?”
She wiped her itching eyes. “Getting out.”
“They'll kill you!”
She squeezed past him, but he grabbed her arm. She jerked away, but his tight grip pinched harder. “Let go!”
Voices rang upstairs, and they both froze. Somebody heard her.
“Neith burning at the stake,” he muttered, and pulled her back up the stairs.
“No, you can't do this! Stop! Let go!”
Two guards came running and met them at the top. Mr. Marshall shouldered through, dragging her along. “Ich habe sie gefunden. Was haben Sie getan?”
And right there, in front of everyone, he shoved her back in the little room, barking, “Dress!”
He closed the door.
She hugged herself, watching the unconscious guard for signs he'd wake up. Mr. Marshall's voice rang in her head: “Dress before he wakes up. They'll do it for you. There is no getting out.”
Their voices carried on in the hall right outside. Give in to this and get an alien implanted? Or make them dress her and get an alien implanted?
No, just because he said she had no choice didn’t make it true. With them outside the only door, what else could she do?
She eyed the apparently only unconscious guard, still armed and armored. That was a start.
Steeling herself, she crept up to him. The way Mr. Marshall said it, he’d awaken in an instant and start trying to rip her clothes off, but she’d never seen anyone snap awake and focus that quickly.
He groaned.
Just kidding. Better be fast.
It took a minute to find the armor’s clasps, and she had to move his arm out of the way to reveal that they not only buckled in three places along his sides but also integrated with the piece under his back, tight enough to flex and settle with his breath. If she wanted to get it off, she’d have to roll him over somehow. It would take forever.
Not so with his short sword/long knife thing.
It slid easily from its scabbard, despite the weird, widening sweep at the end. With a two-handed clutch, she rested it at her shoulder like a baseball bat, ready to swing, and she quivered.
She didn’t really want to hurt anyone, but to get them to stay out of her way. Could she hit someone if she had to?
She swallowed.
Then she lined up with the door, angled a bit to aim her blade-sharp bat, and kicked it before she lost her nerve.
A guard swung the door in, so Sarah closed her eyes and swung for his broad belly. He screamed.
Cracking her eyes open and avoiding his gushing arm, she darted into the hall, raising her improvised bat again. With Mr. Marshall to the right, she ran left, back the way she’d come. Besides, she knew how to get out that way: down through the tiled room, left past the lattice door to the stone gathering room, and right through the servants’ hall to the exit. After that, she had only to run.
As she pounded down the stairs, Mr. Marshall followed. He started yelling something, cut himself off, then repeated, finishing.
Tightening her grip in case she needed her sword-bat, she shot down the last few stairs into the tiled room and came face-to-armor with one of the guards.
Sarah backpedaled, swinging.
He sidestepped, waited for her swing to pass, and swooped in. He caught her backswing on his armor and clamped onto her wrist.
If she didn’t get out now…
She popped up, folded her knees, and twisted her arm, trying to jerk her wrist from his grasp with all her weight. It almost worked.
Until something caught her under her still-sore ribs. She swung her free elbow back to smack into someone who didn’t seem to care. She snapped her head back into a chin and glimpsed Mr. Marshall’s gruff face.
As he lifted her off the ground, she kept hold of the sword the other guard tried to pry from her grasp and kicked out at him with both feet. Mr. Marshall rocked back with her, stretching the arm the other guy jerked.
He peeled her fingers back, and she grabbed the hilt with her other hand. Between the two of them, they pried it from her, leaving her struggling against Mr. Marshall’s immovable arms. She tried kicking, elbowing, even scratching his eyes like with the first guy, but these two were ready for it. Mr. Marshall ducked his head and growled out something at the other guard, who caught hold of her feet and helped cart her back up the stairs.
“No!” She screeched as loudly and shrilly as she could manage. She’d gotten so far—all the way downstairs, halfway back to Maggie and halfway back to the white room where she’d first heard of all this insanity. She screamed her frustration and watched the guard with her feet wince.
The guard she’d hit with the sword waited for them in the upstairs hallway, his shirt tied around his bloody arm. Well, good, she hadn’t wanted to kill anybody, but…
For a moment, she used the second guard’s lock on her legs to push herself up in Mr. Marshall’s grasp and smack his chin hard with her head.
“Das genügt!” He shouted something at the bloody-armed guard, even as the man shied away, and the guard captured her hands with his good arm as they passed and walked with them.
She tried bicycle-kicking as they approached the closet door. She pictured them starting to undress her and wrenched harder. They moved with her and jerked her to a stop. They reached the doors—
And turned into the opposite ones, pushing open the golden doors facing the closet. An oppressive wave of humid air washed over her. They marched her into the room’s glaring brightness, where a gigantic pool filled the expansive space. A single, reclined chair sat on a pedestal at the edge, wholly above the water, slit down the center.
Her destination? She kicked harder, screaming, the whole way over. “No!”
It took all three to strap her into the chair. The guy from downstairs lay across her legs to hold one arm. Mr. Marshall held the other while the man from upstairs anchored ratcheting metal clamps around her wrists.
She squirmed down and bit his arm as hard as her jaw could close. He jumped back. Mr. Marshall took over, and she bit him, too, for good measure. He ignored her, tightening the wrist strap to an unchallengeable pressure. He held her down while repeating with her other arm.
“You lied to me!” she shouted at him. “Liar!”
He refused to look at her face. The man from downstairs strapped down her ankles and stepped back.
Mr. Marshall drew his own funky weapon.
She shut her mouth. The room reflected on the glinting blade. He stepped behind her.
Oh crap oh crap oh crap.
She squeezed her eyes shut and screamed.
The blade started at her collar and rent the back of her shirt in ginger rips like dull scissors through wrapping paper. She kept screaming, waiting for it to slip and slice into her skin.
It didn’t.
Mr. Marshall reached the end of her shirt without cutting her. Then he reached between the arm rest and chair back and tugged at it, pulling the edges apart to leave her spine bare. Open to the air. Open to sight. Open to the murky water.
Sarah blinked her eyes open, and a shadow swept by the pool’s edge, under the surface.
“There’s something there! What is that?”
Mr. Marshall still wouldn’t look her in the face. He grumbled something to the other two, who left. Then his hand slipped down onto her shoulder, squeezing it, and whispered, “You’re going to be okay.”
“But what is that?”
“Don’t worry about it. You’re going to be fine.” He squeezed her shoulder again and walked away.
Something was there in the water. She knew what it had to be. “No, don’t go! Don’t leave me in here with that!”
He reached the door without looking back, held it open for the other guards to carry in the mannequin, dress, and shoes, and slipped out.
“Don’t leave me here alone!”
They ignored her, set up the clothes just like they had been across the hall, and left. The guy she’d hit glanced back at her on his way out, smug.
The doors closed, and the room fell into an expectant silence; only her panicked breathing echoed back in the dome.
She craned her neck to look into the pool, but she was at the wrong angle and could see only the surface out near the walls. She’d have to turn around and look over the edge of the chair to see deeper—if she could have moved.
She squeezed her eyes shut and waited. Any moment now, it would attack. She tried to get ready for it, but how? She wasn’t ready to die.
The chair jerked, and she shrieked. But it was like an amusement park ride jerking as it began to move. It drifted steadily over the pool, farther and farther from the door and the safe walkway, leaving only ripples to indicate its passage. She didn’t see anyone controlling it.
The chair stopped directly below the domed ceiling’s apex, and the waves it caused lapped against the pool’s edges then subsided into silence.
Her ragged sobs echoed in the dome. This was it: her and the alien. Good alien, bad alien. Did it matter? Her back was wide open to it. Her tears dribbled from her face to the chair.
Something moved in the corner of her eye.