Steel World (23 page)

“I—I just don’t understand, sir. Have we identified the alien that I encountered?”

“Indeed we have. That’s the core of the problem. Do you want to know the scope of the damage you’ve done?”

I was beginning to sweat. Having acted without authority was one thing, but she seemed to be indicating this matter had exploded into some kind of diplomatic incident.

“I can only assume that the aliens were innocent, and that we acted without full knowledge of the situation.”

“No,” she said dryly, heaving a sigh. “The alien was far from innocent. None of his kind are.”

I turned my head and looked at her. “Who are
they
, if I may ask, Primus?”

She stared back at me. “We weren’t sure at first. But now we are. We sent the data off-planet for identification, and all hell broke loose.
You see, we don’t have their blood samples on hand for obvious reasons.”

The reasons weren’t obvious to me, but I waited patiently, hoping everything would be made clear to me.

Turov opened her mouth to speak further, but the door chimed. “Come in!” she shouted irritably.

The portal opened and a familiar face met mine. It was none other than Veteran Harris. He looked sick. He leaned on the doorframe with one hand and took a shuffling step forward.

“Veteran Harris?” Leeson asked. “What are you doing here? You should be in recovery, man. How long has it been since you came out of the revival machine?”

“A few minutes,” he said. His eyes were only half-open. He had his uniform on, but it looked like he’d pulled it over wet skin and it hung on his frame unevenly.

“Get back to the infirmary.”

“If I might ask to be present, sir…” he said.

Leeson looked at Turov.

Turov sighed.

“All right,” she said. “He’s your man. There should be a witness from his unit, anyway. I think there’s a regulation to that effect. But if you pass out on this deck, I’m throwing you out into the passageway until this is over.”

I watched this interchange with growing bewilderment.
A witness from his unit?
What did that mean? And why had Harris worked so hard to drag himself out of medical to this scolding, anyway?

Turov turned back to me. She stared at me for several seconds, looking me up and down.

“It’s a shame, really,” she said quietly. “We value recruits like you, McGill. Did you know that? Men who show initiative and leadership. Natural-born killers who shoot first and sort the enemy out later are useful. Under different circumstances, I’d call you a hero and give you a commendation. I’ve handed out promotions for less, in fact.”

I opened my mouth to speak but closed it again. As long as an officer is heaping praise on you, it’s best to stay quiet.

She turned to Adjunct Leeson. “Is the inspector able to join us yet?”

Leeson checked his tapper. “He’s coming down the hall now.”

The door chimed again, and everyone stiffened. Even the primus looked nervous. They opened the door and a now-familiar alien stepped into the room. It was none other than the six-handed creature I’d had run-ins with on two occasions.

“James McGill,” the Primus said, “let me introduce you to Inspector Xlur. He honors all of us with his presence.”

I looked from one of them to the next. I didn’t really understand what was going on.

“An honor to meet you, Inspector,” I said.

The alien didn’t look at me. It looked instead at the primus. A click sounded, and the translator scratched out words: “It still lives. Why has this matter not been attended to?”

“We thought you might wish to witness the event so that there could be no doubt.”

“Get on with it, then.”

Primus Turov turned to me and straightened her body. “Recruit James McGill of Legion Varus, I hereby sentence you to perma-death. The sentence is to be carried out immediately.”

Turov then took a step backwards and nodded to Leeson, who lifted his weapon.

I was in shock. I’d been surprised by the alien, but I had no idea I was going to be executed. Reflexively, I reached for my sidearm—but of course, it wasn’t there. I’d been ordered to leave it behind when I came to this “briefing”.

“I don’t understand,” I said loudly. “Who is this alien? How can I be executed for a crime I don’t even comprehend?”

“James,” said the primus, staring at me. “Inspector Xlur is a Galactic. One of the many species from the core of the galaxy. He is here to observe—and you should recognize him. You killed him twice within the span of a few days.”

I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. I was stunned. We’d never seen the Galactics on Earth. Naturally, there were plenty of vids of their ships. They had a vast armada that had once visited our backwater world and threatened to blow it up. But they never socialized with us directly.

Like most earthers, I’d always thought the Galactics looked like the mollusk race that had come to negotiate with us. But now I realized that species was just another member of the empire. Perhaps they traded services, such as their diplomatic expertise.

So here, standing before me on it six hands, was a true Galactic: A spider-like creature with warm, dark blood. At least I knew they could bleed like we could.

Leeson worked his weapon, ratcheting the muzzle. It wouldn’t do if the hull was pierced by a stray bullet. I watched him—watched his hands moving—as if in a dream. I was trying to think of a way out of this, but I didn’t see one. I thought about physically attacking them—that was my first instinct, I admit.

I didn’t feel guilty, I felt angry. What I did next came a surprise to everyone, including me. I stepped toward Inspector Xlur, baring my teeth like an animal. I wanted to dig my thumbs into those soft sensory organs of his. If their skulls were as thin as I suspected they were, maybe I could kill him a third time with my bare hands.

A gun muzzle touched my chest. I heard the chamber rattle. Six times—or maybe it was seven. It’s hard to count bullets as they’re slamming into your body.

I fell to my knees, and looked up. Veteran Harris looked back. It was his gun that had unloaded into my chest.

I didn’t feel pain. Not exactly. It was more like being dizzy, sick and weak. I fell forward onto my face, and I had time to roll onto my back.

“Vicious creatures,” the Inspector said. “They should put you all down.”

Harris looked at me, and I stared back. My eyes slowly dimmed.

The Veteran bent down, putting his hands on his knees.

“And now kid,” he said. “You and I are even.”

-16-

The first thought that impinged on my brain as I awakened an unknowable time later was that I
shouldn’t
be awakening at all. That was the entire point of perma-death—you didn’t come back.

But I was alive—barely. I was naked, cold and coughing. I gasped and coughed up thick liquids, choking. I rolled away from the attendants, who pushed me back down. I flopped onto an unforgiving slab and struggled weakly.

“He’s fibrillating. Defib—
defib
, dammit!”

The bios grabbed me and held me down. At the last instant, they all pulled their hands away and they shocked me. A wrenching pain bit my chest, my face—every inch of my skin.

“Again!”

Another ice-cold touch was followed by a sharp jolt. I squirmed weakly, no longer able to cough. My mouth opened but no breath was drawn.

“He’s going. We’re gonna to have to reroll.”

“Don’t do it. We’re not allowed.”

“He’s a bad grow.”

“I don’t give a shit. Hit him again.”

They zapped me a third time. Fortunately, I lost consciousness…

When I came back to the world of pain and bright lights, which was how I now thought of my universe, I did so with trepidation. I took each breath cautiously, experimentally.

No one grabbed me or shocked me this time around.

I opened my eyes and stared. There was a brilliant glare, but nothing else—was I still dead?

Slowly, I became more aware. I was on a slab of cold metal. There was no sheet over me, nothing. The room was cold, and I shivered in random twitches.

I heard footsteps.

“You made it. Congratulations.”

I forced my head to roll toward the voice. It was female and stern, but not without a hint of kindness.

I stared at her without recognition for a few seconds. Then it came to me.

“I know you,” I croaked.

“Speech?” she asked, tapping at her arm. “A good sign. This might not have been a total waste of time. The pool was fifty-fifty betting you’d come out brain-dead.”

“You’re from Cancri-9,” I said hazily. “You were running the revival unit at the base.”

I remembered her now, in a flood. She was Anne Grant, the woman who’d been killed after sending me out on point:  The woman who’d done my first revival. It all seemed so clear…but the current situation was fuzzy.

In fact, the moment of my first rebirth now seemed clearer to me than what I’d been doing more recently in the mines. It was strange how memories worked after they rebuilt a person. They didn’t come back with quite the same priority structure in the brain. It was very much like waking up and being uncertain if one was dreaming or fully awake.

“Yes,” Bio Specialist Grant said, her voice softening. “I know you, McGill.”

She put a hand on my wrist, took my pulse, then leaned over me and checked my eyes, spreading them open and looking into them. She had a light on her forehead, one that made me wince with the bright, probing glare it shot into my pupils. “I was on Cancri-9, and I ran the unit non-stop. Did you die down there?”

“Yeah…just once. The second time was aboard this ship.”

She withdrew her hands and worked on her tapper. “As soon as you can stand, you’re good to go.”

I couldn’t stop staring at Grant. She still had her short dark hair and narrow, careworn eyes. But her face was pretty. I remembered that part. I almost asked her to turn around—but stopped myself in time. I was a little out of it.

Specialist Grant turned away and made as if to leave. I reached out to her and caught the hem of her lab coat with rubbery fingers.

“Explain a few things to me,” I croaked. “Please, Anne.”

The bio turned back. She frowned, looking troubled. “I really shouldn’t,” she said quietly.

“Just tell me if I’m going to be normal. I heard you guys saying it went wrong.”

“You’ll be fine—I think. You’re recovering.”

“What could go bad? What should I look for?”

“Toxemia, necrolysis—there are a few other side-effects.”

I shook my head. “What went wrong?”

“Nothing, really. Nothing unexpected, anyway. Sometimes, when we revive someone with poor quality base materials, it doesn’t go right and we have to redo it. In your case, that wasn’t possible.”

I tried to lick my lips. They felt as dry as sandpaper. I frowned, trying to think.

“Bad materials? Why would you use—?”

She leaned forward and adjusted a pillow under my neck. Then she pretended to examine my head. This put her mouth quite near my ear.

“Do you recall the circumstances of your death?” she asked quietly.

“Yeah, I was supposedly permed. Executed by—”

Anne winced as I said that. “I don’t want to hear anything else about that, you understand? Don’t talk to
anyone
about that! Just pretend you don’t remember a thing.”

I thought that might be difficult to pull off, but I nodded. I needed whatever information she could give me.

“Why did you revive me?” I asked. “I didn’t think you liked me.”

“Saving lives is what I do,” she said.

“You know,” I said, my mind wandering a bit, “when I was first coming awake, I thought maybe the execution hadn’t been done according to regulations. I thought maybe they’d revived me to do it again.”

Grant looked at me with real concern. I thought it might be the first time I’d seen pity in a superior’s eyes during my tenure with Legion Varus.

“No, that wasn’t it,” she said. “Listen, I don’t know what you did, and I don’t want to know. I
never
want to hear that story, okay? All I know is they asked me to do an untraceable regrow. So that’s what I did.”

I frowned. “Untraceable?”

“The Galactics keep tight tabs on the use of key equipment like revival units.”

“Why?”

“The technology would be easy to abuse, don’t you think? What if a madman bought one on the black market and proceeded to copy himself a million times?”

“Oh,” I said, having never thought about that before. “Is that possible?”

“No.  They keep tight controls over how often it is used and for what purpose. Your regrowth wasn’t sanctioned, so I had to pretend it was a test. We do that sometimes, as part of maintenance. We grow a random biotic construct with expired protoplasm. Then we destroy the mess that issues.”