Extremis (17 page)

* * *

Ankaht rushed out of the observation cell with her arms in motion, her tentacles writhing. She knew she should calm herself, but at the moment she could not be bothered to conceal her urgency and distress from the members of her human research cluster.

“Ankaht—Elder—what is it? What distresses you so?”

(Insistence, focus.) “When Jennifer Peitchkov was taken from her house, there was a brief altercation. A human male resisted and was subdued. Rendered unconscious. What further information do we have on this?”

Orthezh, the linguistics prime, exchanged glances with Ipshef, the cognitive science prime. “There is no further information, so far as we know.”

(Fury.) “Then find the information, and swiftly.”

(Shock.) “Yes, at once, Elder—but what is so important about this human male?”

(Composure composure composure.) “This human male is our subject’s mate, the father of the human Firstling. And as far as Jennifer Peitchkov knows, he may have died.”

Ipshef nodded. “I see, Elder. We shall find if more information was recorded by the Enforcement team that went to collect her from her house. But even if the mate has been discarnated, it is not particularly seri—”

(Patience.) “Ipshef, these beings—the humans—apparently do not believe they incarnate again. They believe they live one life, and that is all. So she fears she has lost her mate to oblivion, to
xenzhet-narmat’ai
. For although my
selnarm
has touched her mind, which makes them people, they nonetheless believe themselves to be
zheteksh
.”

Ipshef and Orthezh started at the term
zheteksh
, which had heretofore been a synonym for a nonsentient species. But for a
zheteshk
to be able to think, to anticipate a death without incarnation—
zhet
—was the stuff of Ardu’s most fearsome myths. Only the most cursed or tragic of creatures fell forever into the abyss of eternal unlife, torment, and chaos that was called
xenzhet-narmat’ai
—“the place of eternal death beyond order or hope.” Ankaht felt Jennifer Peitchkov’s distress become very understandable to her two Primes.

“We shall search the files,” affirmed Ipshef.

Ankaht sent (urgency). “Do more—send an Enforcer unit to her house. I believe she shared it with the male. See if the house is inhabited. If so, determine if the male still lives there, or what his status might be.”

“It shall be done as you ask, Elder.”

“And call an immediate meeting of the rest of our research cluster. We need to concentrate all our efforts on completing the vocoder.”

The two primes looked at each other. “With respect, Ankaht, creating the vocoder is delicate work. To construct a portable, multimedia translation machine is a most difficult and time-consuming project. In order to achieve that goal any faster would require that we take effort away from—”

(Decisiveness, urgency, command.) “Do it. Do whatever you need to do. But complete the vocoder swiftly. Nothing is more important than this. This human, this artist and mother”—she flung all the tentacles of her left cluster so forcefully in Jennifer’s direction that they whipped out with a snapping sound—“she is the key—the touchstone and foundation—for the communication we must build with the humans. With her, and the vocoder, we will be able to bridge the gap between our races. But without them both—”

* * *

Heshfet toggled the communicator off: she radiated (annoyance). “More make-work.” The waves of her
selnarm
were irregular, testy, fierce: again, Lentsul had to temper and conceal his arousal.

“What is required of us?”

Heshfet rose, stretched out her spine with a sinuous and almost violent whipsawing snap and extended her arms and clusters until they quivered, rigid and golden. “The human-research cluster has ordered us to inspect a house near the Zone.”

“Suspected terrorists?”

“No such luck for us. We are just being sent to knock on the front door and see if the house is still infested—eh, ‘occupied.’ Apparently, one of the
griarfeksh
artists being studied by the cluster lived there, and her mate resisted the Enforcers. He was knocked in line and now the pathetic female
griarfeksh
is whining about what might have happened to him. So we have to check and see if he’s still in their ugly little warren of foul-patterned rooms.” She finished her stretching with a luxurious ripple of her spine.

Lentsul was sure Heshfet knew how provocative her motions were—which made themeven more provocative, of course. He watched her remove her machine-pistol from its ready locker, snug the toroid magazine into place beneath it, run a major tentacle through the round aperture made by the juncture between the weapon and the magazine: her
selnarm
radiated a primal (battlelust) that was already spreading to the other members of her group as they donned their torso armor. She seemed to have no consciousness of her own vulnerability, only of her profound certainty as, and eagerness to be, the annihilator of her race’s foes. She, like Torhok, took a certain fierce pride that their awareness stopped at the peripheries of their own present lives, which Lentsul could not comprehend. As he carefully slipped into his own armor, he sent a quiet pulse to Heshfet: “Does it not disturb you that you do not remember your past lives, Manip?”

(Amazement, amusement.) “Disturb me? Little
Ixturshaz
, not remembering all that past drivel
liberates
me. My mind is my own—no one has painted upon the canvas of my existence before me. I anoint the points of my
skeerba
with my enemy’s blood by my will and my skill alone, not in part-service to memories of times and places long gone, and meaningless to me.”

“Then how is it that you
shotan
your soul, your life and incarnations beyond this one? Remembering nothing before this life, does it not feel that this life is your
only
life?”

Heshfet’s answer was tossed to him almost as an aside. But it came a little too quickly, and the
selnarm
pulsed a little too stridently, to seem as fully nonchalant a response as Heshfet had apparently intended. “I need not feel a thing myself to know it exists and functions within me. What organ produces our
selnarm
? So far as we can tell, the brain. Have I ever seen my own brain? Has anyone been able to point to one part of it and say, “Here, here is the source of your
selnarm
?’ No and no. Similarly, have I memories of past lives? No. Do we know how it is that Illudor gathers up our souls and restores us to new bodies? No. Yet I know that both exist and function, and if I have no experience of the latter, I see it in others all around me. Why should I worry? I persist. I am greater than my memories, after all.”

I’m not so sure of that,
thought Lentsul.

But he kept that thought to himself.

* * *

Alessandro McGee steered the old fuel-cell four-wheeler around a bear-sized boulder, then swerved to dodge a tree stump that protruded past the margin of the road.
I know Rashid said the cabin was pretty remote, but hell
!

The forty-minute drive Rashid mentioned had already consumed seventy minutes, and that had only brought McGee to the beginning of the cabin’s ungroomed camp-road, off the main highway. And as far as McGee could tell, the only thing that made the last fifteen kilometers of road a “highway” was that it was paved. Or had been, sometime within the last ten years.

McGee checked the chronometer on the dashboard and winced: he was going to be late getting back. In fact, his guests were now sure to arrive at his house before he did: no doubt about it. And Van Felsen would not be happy.

Of course, Van Felsen would have been even less happy if she knew about his private war against the Baldies. On the other hand, given her comments at the training facility in Upper Thessalaborea, McGee suspected that she knew about those activities anyway. But she had also seemed to be sending him a message that, if he stopped, all was forgiven. And maybe, deep down, she understood why he had
had
to carry the war to the Baldies.

And she damn well should understand,
he thought.
It’s easier to wait and watch, now that I’m on a special action team, now that I know we’re really going to do something. But before, it had all been just inane training without any action. And that’s not my thing. I guess it’s just like Harry said when we mustered out: the drill instructors started calling me Tank not because of my size but because of how I deal with obstacles—I plow straight through them.
When Jennifer had arrived in his life, McGee had started to learn how to moderate that headfirst proclivity—but then the Baldies had come, and then the baby, and he couldn’t just sit around any longer.

But now I’ve got to clean up my act,
he thought, tapping his pocket communicator. He spoke: “Call home.”

The communicator complied. He heard a line open and a faint, rippling hum that meant his call was going through.

* * *

Just after the house’s comm net stopped toning, Corporal Diane Narejko reached the top of the basement stairs and, upon seeing who had summoned her, snapped her best salute.

“Commander Van Felsen, sir!”

Lieutenant Colonel Elizabeth Van Felsen smiled up at her. “Snap it any harder than that, Corporal, and you’ll shake the starch right out of your sleeve. At ease.”

Diane stood down into the official at-ease position: legs spread slightly, hands clasped behind her back.

Van Felsen, who had almost turned away, turned back. “Allow me to rephrase, Corporal. Relax—and pull up a chair.”

“Sir?”

“Leave your post to Corporal…Corporal…”

“Corporal Wismer, sir. I can’t, sir. He’s home with the flu.”

“Very well.” Van Felsen waved over one of the three burly “hunters”—all Marines—who had accompanied the group to Sandro’s house. “Private Dalkilik, please man Corporal Narejko’s watchpost down in the basement. A fairly standard comms and concealed-camera monitoring rig—shouldn’t be any problem.”

“Yes, sir,” mumbled the Marine uncertainly; he descended the stairs.

“You know everybody?” asked Van Felsen as she led Narejko to a seat.

Diane shook her head, but then, seeing the ranks clipped on collars, started snapping another set of salutes.

Captain Falco laughed and waved it off, then removed his bars. “You’ll wear your arm out, Corporal. Besides, since we’re all wearing civvies, we’d better start thinking and acting like civilians, at least insofar as routine gestures and address arre concerned. If we’re here long enough for anyone to see us, it wouldn’t do for them to remember us as saluting each other and standing at attention all the time. Might blow our cover.” He grinned at the two remaining, hulking Marines, who would never be mistaken for civilians, regardless of what they wore or did.

Van Felsen nodded. “Captain Falco—er, ‘Terrence’—is right. Diane, this is Lieutenant Koyazin—‘Vedat,’ for now. And that fellow signing off on the comm net is ‘Joao,’ or just ‘Joe,’ Adams.”

Vedat Koyazin looked up. “Hey, Joe, who was that on the comm?”

Joe slid into a seat at the table next to Diane. “That was McGee. He’s going to be back a little later than he expected.”

“Is there a problem?” Van Felsen’s posture and voice were relaxed, but Diane saw wariness in her eyes.

“No, sir. I mean—‘no.’ ”

Vedat leaned back. “Funny, him being away from his own place when we get here.”

Joe smiled. “Really? You think so? Haven’t you noticed anything—odd—about this place?”

“Other than that funny soapy smell, no.”

“Well, that funny soapy smell is probably connected to why McGee’s late.”

“Huh?”

Joe pointed at the walls, then into the kitchen. “Look around. Most of this place hasn’t been touched in weeks, not since McGee’s…” Joe trailed off, found a new way to approach the topic without mentioning Jennifer Peitchkov’s abduction. “Look, Ved, it’s a bachelor apartment now, don’t you see? And this bachelor was in mourning until we gave him some real hope just a few days ago. So, until then, he was in hermit mode. No amenities. Just enough food for the next day or two. He’s almost out of toilet paper. I’d say half of the rooms haven’t been entered since—uh, ‘the visit’ we’ve come to investigate.”

Ved frowned. “And so you’re telling me that McGee is out—?”

“Getting stuff. Some cans of soda, a few rolls of TP. You know—hospitality, Marine-style.”

“He told you that?”

“He intimated it.”

“Okay.” And Ved turned to look at Diane.

She noticed that everyone else had turned to look at her, too…except the two big Marines, who were watching the front door and street outside. “What?” she said.

Van Felsen rested her arms on the table and leaned forward. “Diane, does that sound about right to you—what Joe said about Sandro?”

“Yes, si—I mean, yes, ma’am. I mean, he really wasn’t around much after the abduction: Jennifer was taken, he got beat up and then was dropped at the hospital by the Baldies. As an afterthought, almost—they only came back to the house after securing her. They picked him up, dumped him curbside at General. After he was released, he was back here a few days, hardly went out, hardly spoke. Then he went off on his trip to Upper Thessalaborea.” She looked meaningfully around the table, and they all smiled at her. “He came back just a few days ago. But he’s still been pretty distracted.”

Van Felsen nodded. “Which is why we’re just as happy he’s not here, Diane. And why we asked you to join us—and help us find out what happened when the Baldies came for Jennifer.”

“Me, si—ma’am? Heck, I’m just an operator. Sandro’s an officer, and he—”

“We know that, Diane. But we don’t want him in the loop on this. He’s not—not the right person to debrief on this situation.”

“But why not? Don’t you trust him? Sir—ma’am—you can’t find a better Marine than Sandro McGee. He’s—”

“We know that, too, Diane. If it’s any consolation to you, I think I trust Sandro more than I trust myself. But trust is not what this is all about.”

“Then what’s it about, ma’am?”

Falco leaned forward. “Diane, think it through. He may have a child, who, along with its mother, would be a Baldy captive right now. If the Baldies wake up and smell the coffee on how the intelligence and counterinsurgency game is really played, that means they have leverage.”