Dragonstar Destiny (23 page)

MISHIMA TAKAMURA
watched the door open.

“The guy’s really on the level,” said Barkham, looking over to the image of Kii.

Which was fading away.

“I will join you soon,” Kii was saying. “In the meantime, you might need these.”

A table rose up from the couch. Upon the table were their weapons.

“A gesture of goodwill.” said Kii. And then the alien was gone.

“Well, hot shit,” said Barkham, wasting no time in strapping on a handgun. “I’m actually starting to believe this guy!”

Takamura directed the others to take up arms as well. Only Thesaurus did not take one. “I am most troubled, my friend Takamura,” said the alien. “I hear nothing in this about my people. There are too many of us to board this vessel. What is to happen to us?”

“Don’t worry, Thesaurus. We’ll make sure Kii provides for you,” said Takamura.

Thesaurus looked bemused at this glib statement and Takamura couldn’t blame him. Just what
would
happen to the Saurians? They’d have to stay aboard the
Dragonstar,
most of
them, as Thesaurus said. But this was no time to consider them, Takamura knew instinctively. He had to consider his own species. Here was territory well away from the land of ethics.

After buckling on their weapons, they headed out to the corridor.

“This way!” ordered Takamura, noting the angle that Kii had described. He just hoped that Kii would realize that they would have a difficult time navigating these corridors. They were certainly not the sort of ship corridors that Takamura was used to, namely the usual rectangular sort. No, these were manufactured from a different sense of functional geometry.

For one thing, they were huge, designed to accommodate larger creatures. The corridors twisted and turned in all directions; it was difficult to tell even now which was the way that Kii had indicated.

The party bumbled on for a ways. A few times Takamura felt more like a character in a slapstick comedy than the leader of a group responsible for the future safety of humankind. But finally, after a few minutes of this charade, they were confronted by a large creature lumbering toward them.

Kii.

His reptilian heritage could not be mistaken. It was in the way he looked, the way he moved. He was large and forbidding, but Takamura and the others were so used to dealing with the Saurians that this creature—clearly from the same genotype—was almost anticipated. Besides, the gleam of intelligence and benevolence in his large, liquid eyes belied any fierceness in his movements.

The creature wore a torque around his neck: a translator. In his scaly arms, it carried a curlicued stick, with a light pulsing at one end: a weapon.

It croak-snarled something, and the communication emerged from the device around his neck:

“Greetings, comrades. I see you are ready for our adventure! Come!” He gestured a claw-like set of digits toward a sweep of corridor angling off to the right. “The single Enforcer still aboard this vessel is situated in the cabin of the vessel. We must deal with him first, in the manner l prescribed, before we can hope to steal the ship.”

“What about the others?” said Mikaela. “Our fellow crew members.”

“They have been retained in their suspended-animation chambers. Only you have been awakened,” explained Kii. “But come now, there is no time to waste!”

“Nice to know that clichés abound throughout the universe!” said Barkham as Kii turned around and prowled away down the corridor.

They had to double-time it to keep up.

“I’m confused,” said Mikaela, “That, or I just wasn’t listening when Kii outlined his plan. Just what is it?”

“Simple,” said Takamura. “We provide a distraction after Kii opens the door. He comes in another way and zaps the guy.”

“I
hope
it’s simple,” said Jakes. “But we just have to trust this thing.”

“I just hope that he can take care of this so-called Enforcer so easily ... They seemed pretty tough to deal with outside.”

“Oh, Kii assures us that he won’t be wearing the bubble force-shield in the cabin,” said Takamura. “No reason to.”

“Yes, I don’t suppose the thing will be expecting a crew of crazed Earthlings charging his battlements,” said Barkham, joking to keep a tight rein on the fear that Takamura knew they were all feeling.

“Actually,” said Dr. Jakes, “I suppose we should all feel complimented! I mean, creatures as advanced as these, afraid of human beings! Enough to want to travel all that way to wipe us out!”

“Complimented?” said Mikaela. “I’d hardly use that particular word, Dr. Jakes.”

“How about ‘persecuted,’ ” said Barkham. “Maybe they found out there were black people there.”

“I suppose it is all related there,” said Takamura. “After all, Kii did speak of status quo. Although he did point out that there were many varieties of races tolerated by the Enforcers.”

“Yeah,” said Barkham. “As long as they had the right color brain.”

“It seems to be a tendency in the universe to discourage progress at a certain point in development,” said Mikaela. “Creatures get smart enough to get afraid of the future.”

“You mean like us?” said Dr. Jakes. “I must admit, I’m feeling a certain uneasiness.”

“Well, what could possibly happen?” said Barkham. “We can only die horribly. Or be stranded in strange alien territory forever. What’s to be afraid of?”

“We have to concentrate on what is important and forget our own petty fears,” said Takamura. “We must remember that we are fighting now for our home planet. Fighting for all that we love.”

“Easy for you to say,” said Barkham. “For myself, I’m gonna be honest. I’m scared shitless.”

“That’s all right,” said Dr. Jakes. “Somehow, Barkham, I think you’re the sort that functions under any emotional condition. And I must say that I find myself encumbered with the same emotional problem as you.”

Takamura said, “Yes. I think that we wouldn’t be human if we didn’t feel strong fear in this situation.”

“Our wonderful and vaunted human emotions,” said Mikaela.

“But what was it that William Shakespeare said? A coward dies a thousand deaths, but the valiant only one.”

“Well,” said Barkham as the corridor widened out into a room that looked to be an antechamber to a larger area and the air took on a decided charged feeling, “here comes death number seven hundred and twenty-two.”

The walls were filled with all manner of screens and oddly shaped patterns. Controls? wondered Takamura, surveying the painter’s palette of colors. There’d be no time to find out, that was for sure.

Kii turned. “This is the place,” he said. “This is where you must be. I shall secrete myself and make ready. I wish you to cause a disturbance to attract the Enforcer’s attention. He will come out of the control cabin and I will destroy him with my weapon.”

“Disturbance?” said Barkham. “Disturbance? You
got
a disturbance!”

“Please, not yet!” said Kii. “Wait until I hide myself!”

“Gee,” said Barkham as the big creature lumbered over to a dark corner. “Really highly advanced tactics, here.”

Dr. Jakes shrugged. “I suppose some things will always stay the same!”

Kii disappeared within the darkness.

Takamura gave him a few moments to prepare himself, and then gave the orders: “All right. Let’s have some good old-fashioned Earth-type ruckus!”

“And just be ready to stand out of the way of death rays and other assorted defensive equipment,” Barkham commented, switching the safety off his gun.

They fired into the ceiling. Barkham let rip with a wail and then cried out, “Hey, bubble-brain! Let’s have a look at your ugly face!”

“I don’t think you have to insult it,” said Mikaela.

“Why not?” said Barkham. “Might as well have some fun before it wipes us out.”

“I love your positive attitude,” said Takamura.

“Why doesn’t it just check with its security system? Or robots or something,” Barkham said. “Why is it going to be so stupid and waddle out here on its lonesome?”

“I don’t know,” said Takamura. “Perhaps it has something to do with its sense of honor.”

“You’re anthropomorphizing, surely,” Dr. Jakes said. “Most likely, they generally don’t have to deal with disturbances. It’s simply not going to suspect that Kii’s let us go. Or that there’s any security problem.”

Barkham shrugged. “Well, I’m not going to look a gift Enforcer in the mouth, that’s for sure.”

Then the control quarters door began to cycle open.

Something began to emerge ...

THE RADIATION
poured through him like soft sunlight upon a pleasant beach.

No pain, no bad feeling at all. Only a gentle tingle, the softest whisper of sensation penetrating deep into Kemp’s body, his mind ... and seemingly his soul.

Kemp stood stunned for what seemed like a very long time, but was actually only seconds. Beside him, Becky Thalberg seemed to have been immersed in pure bliss. She seemed to accept the touch of the radiation like a disciple accepts a divine ray from the eye of God himself. And in fact, it
was
pleasurable ... There was the feeling of calm, of unity with the nature of things, with the hint of a coming revelation, like a dawn just beginning to peek over the sill of night.

But it was unlike anything that Colonel Phineas Kemp had ever felt before. It seemed to challenge the very foundations of his existence, shake the very tenets of belief that he viewed existence from:

Don’t struggle,
it seemed to say in silent words.
Life is not struggle. It is growth and being. It is becoming. And you are its focal point.

Phineas Kemp fought it.

“No!” he cried. “Goddammit, no!”

For a time he seemed to flicker in and out of existence.

And then he became aware of the creature whom Timothy Linden had become, standing in front of him, murmuring, “Don’t fight it! Don’t fight it, Phineas. You’ll destroy yourself. You’ll destroy what is good within you, and you’ll destroy the hope of your people!”

The red fury filled him: the fury of his identity, his character.
I am me,
he screamed within himself.
I am Phineas Kemp!

He stepped forward and began to throttle Linden with his bare hands.

Linden broke the grasp easily. He pushed Kemp back. Kemp stumbled against the wall from which the radiation emanated. And the tingle became almost a burning.

“No!” said, Kemp, picking himself up and stepping forward, hands clamped against his head. “It’s destroying me!”

“Not the real you, Kemp,” said Linden. “The you of delusions. Your true self will blossom.”

“Goddamn you to hell!” Kemp screamed as he dropped down onto his knees. “Goddamn—”

And then he fainted, and the light filled his entire mind to a brimming that blotted out all of him.

There was a time of darkness, curiously dappled and moiled with light and nothingness.

When he awoke, he was lying on his face upon the cold floor. His mouth seemed full of cotton, and a strange scent filled his nostrils: a smell like exotic flowers.

Reality gradually coalesced. There were no more beaming lights, and no more conflict within himself.

He felt very peaceful, but he was more than aware of the crisis that confronted him. Nonetheless, he seemed in perfect control. He knew what had to be done.

He arose.

Becky Thalberg was standing by Linden, who was examining a bank of controls, emblazoned with alien hieroglyphics. Linden pressed a few tabs, ran his hand over a long red plate, and then simply stared at the screen readouts.

Then he turned to Phineas Kemp.

“I thought perhaps there might be a little melodrama with you, Phineas Kemp. But you seem, in truth, to have handled it much better than I did.”

“Of course,” said Kemp in a low voice. “You did have problems, didn’t you?”

“Yes. And only very recently resolved. But then, my particular instance of training and brainwashing was of a much more virulent nature. So how do you feel, Phineas?”

“l feel ... I feel all right.”

“Phineas Kemp is still alive, then?”

Kemp thought about this a moment. He looked at Becky Thalberg, who smiled at him knowingly.

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess the old guy is still kicking. Just a little wisened up, I suppose. Sorry about the pyrotechnics. It’s just hard to let go ..
.
of certain things.”

“It was more a matter of trust and surrender,” said Becky. “Trust and surrender in something deeper. And you’ve always found it very difficult to acknowledge that there are deeper things in you, Phineas. You’ve always had to be in control.”

Kemp thought about this. Although a part of him rebelled at the notion, the rest of him agreed that it was indeed so.

“Well, I’m far from in control now,” he said. “Although I must say, I still don’t appreciate the manner in which I was dunked into the baptismal fountain, so to speak.” He glared at Timothy Linden.

“Oh, and I suppose you would have come down here gladly if I told you what was intended?” Linden looked at Kemp mildly.

Kemp thought about this. His first response was to scream at Linden. But then he checked himself.

No, Linden was right. There was no other choice that Linden had had. Still, though, it rankled ... But, it was a very familiar sort of rankling.

A sweep of joy went through Kemp.

He still had his identity! He felt different, certainly, but he still recognized his grouchy old self!

Then suddenly he felt a moment of anxiety.

“Look what you’ve done ... Maybe you’re right, and this will help us, and okay, I understand it’s for the good of all. I don’t know exactly
how ...
I just know. But what all this means, right, is that pretty soon Becky and I ... we’re going to be incapacitated ... Incapacitated like you were. And then we’ll spin some sort of god-awful cocoons ...”

“Precisely,” said Linden. “Which is why there’s simply no time to waste. We have to get you back to the alien starship immediately.”

Kemp nodded. “Sounds good to me.”