Alien Caller (68 page)

Aside from the
pain, Cyrea was looking forward to it, if only so she could get
back her normal svelte figure, and maybe even wear her old clothes.
Meanwhile David was still nervous. Not as much as he had been since
Trellin’s revelation. But he probably had the same jitters that
every father to be did. No more.

He would have
preferred it much more if they could have already found the rogue
scientist, and had sent him off for trial so they could have the
baby on Earth, but that wasn’t proving easy. The Mentan’s ship had
some advanced stealth technology that rendered the Leinian ship’s
instruments next to useless. And he seemed to be in no hurry to
give himself up.

Still, in a few
days the Mentan’s own battleships were due to arrive, and they, so
David was informed, would be able to detect his ship in minutes and
disarm it without a shot having to be fired. No Mentan ship,
research vessel, freighter or cruiser was ever built without having
a master override installed, just in case. It was a sensible
precaution. Of course the Mentans had thought it would only be
needed in the case of theft by an outsider; never did they consider
it might have to be used against one of their own. Still, it would
work just the same.

And then it
would be over. At last. And he could go home.

“David!” Lar
brought him out of his reverie as his voice came from just behind
his left ear. His frightened voice. He jumped and turned to see the
officer standing right behind him, the most ghastly expression on
his face.

“Hmm?” Yet even
as David acknowledged him, there was a sudden sinking feeling in
his guts. He knew that look.

“Ohh God!”
David didn’t even need to ask, he could see it in Lar’s sickly
expression, hear it in his shaky voice. The way he had gone ashen
under his fur. The horrified expression on his face. The fear that
was almost oozing from him. The way that guilt was just beginning
to peek out of his eyes. He knew that soon it would do more than
just peek. It would run screaming. The terrible thing was that he
recognized that haunted look. It was a look he had seen before. Too
many times. A look he had worn himself. And there was always only
one reason for it.

“We’ve received
a call for you.”

“Dimock.” He
didn’t even need to ask. There was nothing else it could be.
Nothing else that could so completely terrify and shame anyone, and
it all made perfect sense. Lar just nodded, apparently not even
surprised that he should guess. Or maybe just relieved that he
didn’t have to say it.

“Somehow he’s
got himself a ship -” A huge part of David just wanted to grab the
officer by the collar and shake him until he understood that he’d
told him so. That this was exactly what he’d told him would happen.
There was simply so much anger building within him. It was the flip
side of fear. But he knew it wouldn’t have been fair and that he
didn’t have time. Dimock had a ship, and logically there was only
one ship it could be. There was only one interstellar fool stupid
enough and desperate enough to rescue him. And he of course had
only one goal in mind. The pieces of Dimock’s insane plan just fell
into place.

“There’s no
somehow about it. Our friend the Mentan rescued him. Exactly as I
told you someone would. They always do. And Dimock took control of
the ship from him. That’s why Trellin won’t give himself up. He
can’t. He’s either dead or a hostage aboard his own ship soon to be
dead. It's always the same. People always save him, and he always
betrays them for it.”

“But -.”

“I told you. If
you don’t kill him when you have the chance he just comes back
stronger and nastier than ever, and even more rivers of blood flow.
Always!” It was so hard to keep from shouting it at him. Or crying.
The pieces were so obvious. Everything about the entire mess was
entirely predictable, - in hindsight. It was always in
hindsight.

“But he-” But
David didn’t need to hear it. He knew it went against everything
the Leinians' believed. It didn’t matter.

“Trellin was
desperate. He wanted to do some terrible damage to the Earth.
Enough to wipe out all traces of his ancestor’s wrong doing. But he
couldn’t do it himself without getting caught and shaming his
people, so he picked himself up an assassin instead. Someone insane
enough to do his bidding. A human. And believe me Dimock is crazy
enough to do just that. He will destroy the entire world if it will
kill me, and now he knows from Trellin that I’m alive since that’s
why he called. Hell he’ll probably do it anyway, just for fun. And
now he has the weaponry to do it.”

“No!” But even
as Lar tried to deny it he knew it was true. The guilt was written
all over his face.

“Yes. A
thousand times yes. He always comes back stronger and meaner than
before, and he always kills as many as he can. Now you’ve let him
do just that. In fact you’ve made it worse. Much worse than ever
before.” In fact the true horror of his situation was only just
beginning to make itself known to him as he spoke.

“You realize
that he was dying from his implants. Four or five years and he
would have been gone, never to bother the world again. But now
you’ve gone and given him a whole new lease on life. Trellin’s
given him the weapons he could only ever have dreamed of. And
between the two of you Dimock’s all set to be a god of destruction
for at least another fifty or a hundred years. Can you even imagine
how many more will die because of that? All because you let him
live. Again.” If David sounded bitter, it was because he was and he
couldn’t hide it.

“There won’t be
many survivors once he’s started. Instead of thousands it’ll be
millions or even billions who will pay for the cost of your
scruples.”

“Our ships
-”

“Are not near
enough, and in any case, not as powerful as those of the Mentans.
And even they are still two days away. And yet when they finally do
try to capture him he will no doubt capture them instead as they
will have the same scruples as you, and then he will have access to
even more powerful warships. He will use them. That is his
nature.”

“But if we warn
them-” Lar was desperate, never having considered the thought of
Dimock obtaining a Mentan warship. With such a weapon at his
control, Dimock would be unstoppable. Meanwhile David just wanted
to cry, as Lar suggested doing what already hadn’t worked before.
Again! They never learnt.

“Warn them all
you want. Exactly as I tried to warn you. They won’t accept it, any
more than you would. They won’t kill him, and the consequences will
be terrible. Then when he has the ship he will fake negotiations
with them, while he murders and mutilates the crew and masters the
controls. Then he will use it to destroy the others, while they
will be unable to fight back as he has hostages. Then, once they’re
dead, he’ll kill the remaining hostages.” There was of course no
answer. He was still being illogical and yet the Leinians were
finally learning how far logic could get them against Dimock. How
badly it had already failed them. And the risk if he was right was
enormous. There were a few seconds of silence as Lar digested his
words. But only a few.

“He’s demanding
to speak with you. Says he’ll destroy a city every hour until you
do.” David nodded. It was exactly what he’d expected. Unfortunately
he knew that even if he did speak with Dimock, he’d likely do the
same. The thrill of killing millions was a drug to him.

“Can he do it?”
Dimock had stolen a research vessel as far as he knew, not a
battleship, though even as a research vessel it had still been able
to intercept and then capture and board two transports. It was
armed. Perhaps the Mentans had a different concept of what an
unarmed research vessel should be.

For an answer
Lar just shrugged. A typically human gesture, which was the last
thing David wanted to see right then. He wanted a ‘no’. But how
could they know what he could do in an alien science vessel?

“I assume he’s
also broadcast that threat to the world.” Lar nodded, no doubt
wondering how he would have known. But it was obvious. If Dimock
couldn’t physically inflect terror on his victims he had to do it
another way. He wanted them to suffer before they died. That was
his joy, his singular joy. He was always a god of destruction.

David though
could only imagine the terror that millions of his countrymen and
those of so many other countries as well must be feeling. The
terror of being struck from space by some weapon out of a science
fiction film. The panicked fleeing as people packed up everything
they had, grabbed their loved ones and fled the cities. And they
didn’t even know which city would be first on the firing line. Yet
there was nothing he could do except talk to the madman and somehow
try to convince him to give up his insanity.

He followed Lar
up to the command bridge, wishing that he had some idea, any idea
of what to do, and bitterly knowing that he could do nothing.
Wishing that they would have listened to him, or at least that he
would have hunted down and killed Dimock even if it was against
their wishes on the ship. It was a long walk.

On the bridge
he was met with a scene from hell itself. At least a dozen officers
sat there at their instrument panels, gabbling furiously in their
own tongue, everyone as obviously shell shocked and frightened as
Lar. These people with all their wondrous technology were facing a
situation they’d never imagined possible, and they had no idea what
to do. Meanwhile their instruments were all flashing red warning
signals. And he had absolutely no idea what any of them meant. No
way of even helping them in their fight. He didn’t even know what
might be useful to them. But when he stepped on to the bridge they
all turned to stare at him as though he had some idea of what to
do, and that in the end he realised, was all they had. Hope. An
appearance of a solution. And a belief that he knew what to do.
That was their weapon.

“Be quiet!” He
raised his voice a little.

“Man your
stations and try to look calm. No one speaks, and no one looks even
vaguely troubled while I talk to the nutter. It's vital that he
think I have the upper hand.” A dozen officers looked at him and
then at Lar who was surely having exactly the same fears. Lar
nodded at them and the crew immediately focused on their stations.
Calm or not they suddenly had something to do and that always
helped.

“Put him on.”
One of the officers immediately pushed something and a hologram of
Dimock’s hate filled face appeared in the centre of the room. He
assumed one of his own face appeared in Dimock’s bridge.

“So it's true.
You do live. Even after I killed you. Just like a cockroach.” His
face was filled with all the hatred he had, making even his once
more relatively normal features look like a caricature of
themselves. That unreasoning hatred though gave David an edge, and
even the beginnings of a plan. Dimock was always his own worst
enemy. He had to be. No one else could measure up.

“You know I
thought that once they’d stripped out all the mechanical bits and
pieces, they might at least have been able to make you look more
human. But it obviously hasn’t helped. Instead you look like
Frankenstein’s monster only uglier. Shame for such a pretty child.”
It might not have been politic, but it worked. He watched Dimock’s
face screw up into a mask of fury, as he started screaming
unintelligibly at the other end.

“I’m going to
-”

“You’re going
to do what freak? Kill me? You can’t even reach me. In case you’ve
missed the blindingly obvious I’m on a war ship, a Leinian war
ship, and you’re on a Mentan science vessel. Your weapons are
limited, only the ship’s stealth technology grants it an edge, and
the moment you fire, we have you and you die.” Whether that was
true or not David didn’t know. But he didn’t care. The only thing
that did matter was that Dimock believed it, and that it would hold
up the mad man’s plans for unleashing a worldwide holocaust.

“You’re
bluffing.” Yet it wasn’t only David who was worried. For the first
time ever he could sense nervousness in the psychopath, and he knew
Dimock was unsure of himself. This was a new environment for him, a
whole new level of learning, and he was physically weak, something
he hadn’t been in decades.

“You surely
can’t be that stupid as well as that ugly. That would just be too
cruel. Didn’t you even think to ask your captive before you stole
his ship?” Out of the corner of his eye David saw Lar and the other
Leinians staring at him as if he’d gone mad. They didn’t
understand. To fight the insane sometimes you have to drive them
even further round the bend. He ignored them.

“I asked him
most carefully.”

“Well obviously
he lied and you were too stupid to realize it. Your ship is a
lightly armed science vessel, which I might add, is piloted by a
Mentan criminal. Even now his people are hunting for him, and when
they find him, - well let’s just say it won’t be pretty. For either
of you. But then neither are you.” The screams of insane fury from
the other end would have put a jungle cat to shame, and it was many
long seconds before Dimock could say anything intelligible.

“He’s a
scientist of high standing.” And David watched with little surprise
as Dimock pulled his captive to him on a chain. He didn’t look
good. There were greenish fluids leaking from the tops of at least
a dozen of his tentacles, and burn marks over his entire body.
Evidence of Dimock’s persuasion techniques, as he doubtless tried
to get the Mentan to teach him how to pilot the ship. David was
actually surprised he was still alive. Obviously Dimock still had a
lot more to learn about space travel. Or, and he knew he had to
check with Lar, the ship wouldn’t respond to another pilot. Another
edge they just might have.