Sn6 1: Tvorgh Kor (Part 6)

Part 6 "—Xana, what are you doing here?" Tvorgh asked, somewhat surprised that she had recovered so quickly. Xana approached and lowered her head. "—Forgive me, Tvorgh, but I know better than you how things are in these times. You need me here urgently." Tvorgh didn't really want to put her in danger, but he had to admit that Xana was not entirely wrong; with her PSI abilities, he had a better chance of getting an audience with the King.

"—Take me to the King now!" Tvorgh said to the hypnotized guards. They obeyed his every word and led him past all the other guards into the palace. Tvorgh remarked: "—I didn't know that you mastered tele-hypnosis. What other abilities do you have?" Xana didn't reveal her cards and replied: "—Let yourself be surprised!" Typical—an army led by strange Ectomorphs was on the march, and Xana didn't want to blurt out all of her abilities that might be useful during their capture.

The throne room looked incredibly magnificent; gold and silver glittered everywhere, and the Queen herself—she was simply the most wonderful creature Tvorgh had ever beheld. As she stood up from the throne in her golden dress, she looked like the Eternal One, the Goddess of Zer, who had been worshipped for ages. She looked exactly like the Eternal One in the pictures. Tvorgh could not take his eyes off her, but Xana stepped right between him and the Queen and said: "—Don't forget why you came here."

"—Oh, right!" shouted Tvorgh, who came back to his senses. The Queen asked curiously: "—May I then know who you are and why you have come here?" Tvorgh stepped closer: "—Your Highness, as you may know, an entire army stands before your city, led by my arch-enemies. I am prepared to neutralize them, but I need some soldiers for that."

"—Why should I agree to that? I don't know you at all, let alone trust you—convince me!"

"—Well, I am Tvorgh Kor, a Genomorph, and the girl beside me is Xana, and she possesses some incredible abilities. Furthermore, there are more of us."

"—I don't know what you are talking about," protested the Queen. Tvorgh thus realized that he had to bring out the big guns: "—Alright, to get to know each other better, I suggest that we spend a night together."

The Queen was not at all horrified as many might think now, because back then customs were somewhat different; one might call them harsher, but people back then were not as influenced by the Christian Church—after all, it didn't exist then—and people did not demonize sex as they do now; they were less prudish.

The next morning, Tvorgh stood with a small army in the desert before the city. At his side stood Xana and Ween with Tero, who, unaware of the past events, wondered where Tvorgh had gotten this army, but that remained a secret to them. Tvorgh warned the soldiers: "—Watch out for their leaders; you must not get too close to them. It is best if you leave them to us."

From afar, one could see a dust cloud approaching the city. Tvorgh took binoculars and switched to infrared vision. The displays stabilized and calculated the distance at five thousand Equads, nearly two kilometers away, but because of the dunes, a flawless identification could not be achieved. To get a better view, Ween sent a spy drone to a low altitude and watched the screen closely. Suddenly, he shouted: "—There is something, look at that, Tvorgh!"

Indeed! It was clearly visible that an army was getting closer, and the infrared sensors identified Ectomorphs at their head. "—Tell our army to stop the soldiers!"

"—And you?" asked Tero, a little worried.

"—I'll grab some Ectomorphs before they realize what's happening."

"—They are quite smart; how do you intend to do that, brother?"

"—Quite simply, I will disguise myself as a soldier and take some soldiers with me for camouflage. By the time the Ectomorphs are close enough to see through the trick, I will have already caught them. To capture them, I will use the PSKFG, and then we can dedicate ourselves to the pleasant sides of the mission."

"—Torture?" asked Ween as Tvorgh put on the armor.

"—Let's rather call it INTERROGATION!" replied Tero, for whom the word TORTURE had a bitter aftertaste.

Tvorgh and the soldiers ran exactly towards the head of the army where the Ectomorphs were, and indeed, they did not see through the trick at first and ran toward the small group with swords drawn. But shortly before the goal, one of them realized that Tvorgh had no soul—Tvorgh had already suspected that they could see souls. The Ectomorph just shouted: "—What is this!" and stopped in his bewilderment for a few seconds, enough time for Tvorgh to use the PSKFG. A force field enclosed the leadership of the enemy army. The remaining enemy soldiers were hardly deterred by this, however, and raced toward Tvorgh. Only when he made some of them disappear with his disperser did they realize that they should perhaps consider a retreat. They raced away like rabbits, straight into the stronger part of Tvorgh's army. I'd better not describe the massacre here, but it was gruesome for a human to watch. Tvorgh had a stronger stomach than Xana.

When the battle ended and the corpses were removed, Tvorgh stood next to the force field and adjusted something on his disperser. One of the Ectomorphs was visibly uneasy because of this; Tvorgh wanted exactly that and aimed playfully at him: "—Bang!" he shouted, so that the Ectomorph fell over in fright, but then he jumped up and shouted: "—I will do everything you want, just please don't kill me!"

"—Alright, I have some questions, Ectomorph! First, what was this all about? You have other methods and even protect humans, don't you?"

"—I can't say anything about that!"

"—Alright, I have other methods, Xana!" Xana came closer with quick steps and asked: "—What should I do?"

"—That is simple, teleport one of the Ectomorphs out of the force field to me. I cannot afford to turn off the field, or else some of them might escape."

"—Well, if you call that SIMPLE, I want to know what is difficult for you?"

"—Just do it, I know you have that ability, too."

Xana concentrated, and indeed, she managed to get one of the Ectomorphs. Tvorgh waited until he was fully materialized and then knocked him out to send him to the land of dreams; then he placed his hands on his forehead and began a precise brain scan.

Dral, a planet barely fifty light-years away, was the home of the Ectomorphs, and they hadn't been lazy for the last five thousand years. They irradiated Zer II with Elranium (Element 116), thus trapping the Lords of Zer in time for five thousand years until the emitter was struck by a comet a few days ago!

In the five thousand years, the Ectomorphs extended their life expectancy from two to seven hundred years and split up. Some still suck out souls with radiation, while others can no longer do that; they must kill the human and absorb his soul at the moment of death. That was an explanation for the enemy soldiers.

The Ectomorphs raid various cities to harvest humans in reserve. Then they abduct them into space in their ships, where they are killed and absorbed one by one. This type of Ectomorph was truly the meanest race in the universe; they spared neither the elderly, nor women, nor children.

If a world fights back, they use Shadow Nemesis and destroy it, which then gives them thousands of souls to feed on, but otherwise, they usually leave worlds alone after harvesting them so that the population can recover a bit. Tvorgh now knew everything he wanted to know, with the exception of the fact of how these beings actually control the Shadow Nemesis, because this Ectomorph did not know that, and presumably none of the others did either.

One of the Ectomorphs in the force field, apparently the leader of the group, shouted angrily: "—This will have consequences; from now on we are at war!"

"—Well, if that is so," Tvorgh said, calmly drew his disperser, and fired at the force field. At that moment, only a cloud of freely floating elementary particles remained of the group. Tvorgh operated according to the principle of BETTER HAVE NO ENEMIES.

He left the still unconscious Ectomorph lying on the ground, for somehow he did not feel comfortable killing someone unconscious, not even though it was an Ectomorph. He called everyone to him: "—Get the MAGNETIC STAR II ready, I have the data I wanted, we are leaving immediately as soon as I have said goodbye."

The Queen came to the battlefield and said from afar: "—Excellent, you could be my new Minister of War." Tvorgh declined with thanks and said goodbye to her. It was clear to him that the MAGNETIC STAR II would not return for a hundred years, although it would seem like hours to him; at a speed of 99.9% of the speed of light, time in the spaceship stands almost still, while it continues at a normal pace on Earth. When he returned, the Queen would have long been dead. He hugged her goodbye and overlooked the fact that the Ectomorph had woken up again. The latter took a glass ampoule from his breast pocket and hurled it at Tvorgh with full force.

As the ampoule shattered on his back, Tvorgh turned around and walked shakily toward the Ectomorph: "—What was in the ampoule? I feel so weak and my head hurts."

The Ectomorph laughed maliciously: "—He he, that was a virus specially bred for you; it will completely wipe out your Genomorph powers."

Tvorgh took some of the substance from the ampoule onto his fingers in horror and analyzed it. It was indeed a virus, but since the Ectomorphs did not know the cell structure of the Genomorphs, the statement was...

...of the Ectomorph, no virus would be capable of doing such a thing; unfortunately, the virus had a different effect, namely on the brain. It would wipe Tvorgh's memory almost completely every ten years, and that of any other Zer who came into contact with him.

While Tvorgh was still analyzing the virus in order to build up defenses, the Ectomorph stood up and transformed into a demon, as these beasts are called nowadays. Ween ran over quickly and also began to transform, into a kind of monster with many, many teeth. Tvorgh saw this and still tried to warn him, but by then it was already too late; the Ectomorph thrust his sword into Ween's body.

During morphing, a Genomorph's bloodstream is extremely fast, just like its entire metabolism. If you injure a Genomorph anywhere during this, the wound cannot close fast enough before all the blood gushes out of the body in a wide torrent like a fountain. However, the Ectomorph didn't laugh for long, as a wide dispersion beam disintegrated his body into loose elementary particles. Ween put his dispersor back and lay down on the sand. His body was not completely drained of blood, and the body cells had already begun producing new blood.

"That was close," remarked Tvorgh.

Ween smiled, grimacing in pain, and slowly pulled the sword out of his belly.

"Well, since you didn't kill him, I thought you wanted him alive."

Tvorgh didn't want to come any closer so as not to infect him; he knew that his mistake had almost cost Ween his life. He should have killed the Ectomorph long ago, then this wouldn't have happened here. Now his decision was final: he had to fly to Dral alone so as not to endanger any of the others.

"Take the MAGNETIC STAR II and fly to ZER II; Xana and I will mingle with the humans captured by the Ectomorphs and fly to Dral that way."

"They'll realize you're a Genomorph!" said Ween, whose wounds were slowly closing up again.

Yet Tvorgh already had a plan; he took Xana's genes and those of the queen to aid him and began to transform.

"Brilliant!" Ween said when he saw the end result. Tvorgh had turned into a little girl.

"Well, and now I'm Xana's little sister; nobody would suspect that I'm actually a Genomorph—it's the perfect disguise. But now use our equipment to generate an artificial soul energy bubble inside me!"

Xana objected: "They will definitely recognize me; they've already seen me several times and communicated this telepathically to the others."

"Well, then morph too!" said Tvorgh, who had long suspected that Xana was a Genomorph, a cross between a human and a Genomorph.

"And how am I supposed to do that?" she asked.

"Focus on the life form you want to turn into, then imagine your genetic material, and I'll take care of the rest," he answered and placed his hands on her head, even though it wasn't exactly easy, since Xana was now considerably taller than Tvorgh.

Telepathic assistance for a Genomorph had been practiced in the past, especially with children who didn't yet know how to use their powers, and Tvorgh had practice in this—a great deal of practice, as he used to be a teacher at the general school for Genomorphs before he had himself transferred to the space program.

Xana's morphing worked splendidly. She turned into a completely different girl, even though Xana only had her own genes at her disposal. But since she was still human, Tvorgh's virus—for which there was unfortunately no antidote, since it was already firmly established—could not harm her. Tvorgh did manage, however, to insert a counter-gene into Xana that could protect against a reinfection; after all, she had normal human cells, and in this case the virus might actually impair her morphing abilities.

Unfortunately, there were certain differences between the Zer and human Genomorphs: only the Zer were nearly immortal, while human Genomorphs, on the other hand, still possessed an immortal soul; furthermore, the Genomorphic abilities only emerged with sexual maturity.

Tvorgh didn't know for sure whether Xana's father or mother was a Genomorph, but one of them certainly was, because a Genomorph could not evolve from humans on its own.

As she grew older, Xana's PSI abilities would fade, and she would develop into a full-fledged Genomorph. A few questions still remained unanswered. First: why had her parents parted with her? And second: she was born when the Zer knew nothing of Earth's existence, so where did her Genomorph parent come from—was it even a Zer? Was it merely a coincidence that Tvorgh found her, or was it all predestined? Questions upon questions to which there was still no answer.

Tvorgh shrank the wristband of his computer and activated the scanner. It showed an Ectomorph ship speeding toward the city; apparently, they had already learned of their army's defeat.

"Come on, Xana, we have to get to the city quickly—it's about to be raided by Ectomorphs gathering food for their home planet," Tvorgh called out and began running toward the city, which wasn't exactly easy on his little legs.

Xana reminded him: "Hide your computer!"

Tvorgh pulled a sleeve over the wrist computer to hastily conceal it.

The Ectomorphs' spaceship hovered silently above the city, a true evolution compared to their old propeller machines. Tvorgh even believed that the Ectomorphs now possessed better technology than the Zer, precisely because they had had enough time to combine their own technology with what they had stolen. He thought about stealing and analyzing such a ship once he finished his mission.