Vortex Part 13

VORTEX Part 13

Tya dragged me into the antigrav as fast as she could and took off toward the city, while things were looking worse and worse for me. The only thing that could help me now would be a mercy shot, but since the insects could also be highly dangerous to mortal humans and Sekrans, their venom had to be analyzed.

Fortunately, the hospital was one of the first buildings to be completed. A-Tya accompanied me straight into a sickroom where the examinations were to take place immediately. While a human doctor tended to me, A-Tya sat by my bed, crying.

* * *

"— Tero! Faln is indeed being influenced by a nearby star, but it is neither Alpha Centauri A nor B; it is a massive but invisible star somewhere near here. Let's just call it Alpha Centauri C," Dexter called out.

"— Were you able to determine its position?"

"— The computers are working on it, but I can only say more once Faln has completed a quarter orbit around Proxima; only then will all the data be evaluable."

"— All right, deploy a probe on the planet that will examine it automatically, and we'll turn to the other planets."

Dexter launched the probe. Jessie couldn't stand staying behind her computer console and asked Tero:

"— When do I finally get to examine a planet too?"

"— But you're doing that all the time."

"— I meant being there live on the expeditions. We have the space suits, after all."

"— We don't know enough yet, it's still too dangerous!"

Annoyed, Jessie ran off the bridge.

"— Set course for Dleb and then through the wormhole!" Tero said without a trace of emotion.

Thanks to the wormhole, the ALPHA was in the target area after just one second and could begin its investigations. The ice planet pursued its orbit in freezing cold, but the cold wasn't as extreme as on Faln; a human in a space suit could survive for several days. Jessie came onto the bridge once more and began to plead with Tero:

"— Please, let me land on the planet."

"— I'm sorry, despite your combat experience, you are still too young to gauge the risk. Believe me, I have hundreds of thousands of years of life experience, and that's longer than your 18 years. Something tells me that this planet is dangerous."

"— Possible, but you don't know what exactly is so dangerous about it, and if you risk nothing, you'll never find out."

"— If you want to play purely on risk, then you were the wrong choice for the crew. As soon as we have researched this planet from orbit, we fly back to Sek and you can stay there."

Jessie had heard enough; she ran away in tears, but quietly she had already formed a plan to show everyone that Tero was wrong. She didn't return to her cabin, but headed to one of the outer hatches instead. Quickly she put on a space suit with a jetpack and began venting the air from the airlock back into the ship's interior. When the pressure gauge showed zero, she slowly opened the hatch and looked down at the slowly rotating planet.

From this perspective, anyone would feel sick, and Jessie was no exception. Her stomach seemed to be rotating just like the planet. After only a brief moment of hesitation, she pushed off from the hull and glided weightlessly toward the planet. Unfortunately, it was impossible to tell from this perspective how far away the planet actually was. Now she understood the danger, because there wasn't all that much fuel in the rocket pack for precise maneuvering. Unfortunately, she was already too far from the ALPHA to turn back, because in focusing on the planet, she had lost sight of the spaceship. It could have been any one of the many stars all around.

The gravitational pull grew stronger and stronger, and Jessie tried to counter it with reverse thrust; she couldn't orient herself by the surface structures since the craters were of varying sizes. Too late she realized that the fuel was being consumed too quickly; she only had a small reserve left.

Since the planet had only low gravity, the landing ought to work out...

The doctors had drawn my blood samples; now I was ready to finally be put out of my misery, but one of the Genomorphs from Ikarus stormed into the room and held the doctors back. He said that the spider's venom could very easily destroy the biochip inside me. Without beating around the bush, he began to communicate with me telepathically:

"— Varlon, if you kill yourself now, you could really end up in the afterlife. Let me examine this insect venom first."

"— Fine by me," I replied without words.

I was growing weaker, and soon my heart would fail, but I didn't want to die yet. After a few hundred thousand years, I felt I hadn't fully savored my life yet. Tya burst into my room and shouted:

"— Var, Master One has transferred the rule of our city to himself."

"— There's nothing I can do about that!" I said as loudly as I could, but it still sounded like a whisper.

After two hours, my doctor came to me and said:

"— I have an antidote." Then he injected it into my vein. My metabolism immediately kicked into overdrive, just as if I were morphing or rapidly healing wounds. After a few seconds, I finally felt completely fine.

"— So you examined the venom?" I asked the doctor.

"— Yes, and I stumbled upon some astonishing facts: these spiders are apparently artificially created organisms that are harmless to humans."

"— But I have human genetic structure!"

"— This venom attacks all cells that are different from human or other life forms on the planet. Unlike human cells, your cells consist of several cell pockets that contain alternative genetic combinations."

Yes, that made sense; being a Genomorph had its drawbacks too. I immediately decided to make a protective suit and enter the cave again, but first I had to call that sneaky traitor Master One to account. What he had taken upon himself went too far. I may be a patient Genomorph, but somehow I finally had to set an example. We walked out of the hospital with complete composure; Tya refused to leave my side. I was really very glad to have someone who loved me just the way I am, with all my flaws and virtues; she was simply sweet!

When we finally entered the government building, we immediately noticed the hostile atmosphere radiating toward me from the other MASTER FORCE members. I had no idea what was going on, but then as I walked into the conference room, I saw it: Master One was sitting in a defensive posture in my chair, grinning stupidly at me.

"— What on earth is going on here?" Tya asked in astonishment.

While I was a bit slow on the uptake when it came to interpersonal relationships, even I realized that Master One was no longer the same man I had killed back then. One thing was clear: we weren't exactly going to be best friends.

"— Var, as I hear, you rigged the election results in your favor."

"— Who's saying this nonsense?"

"— Irrelevant. I am convinced that I can govern better than you, therefore..." Master One stood up. I know it's impolite to interrupt someone, but I was slowly losing my patience:

"— I don't know who is claiming otherwise, but I was elected!"

"— I heard that you manipulated the computer, therefore I demand new elections!"

I stepped closer to the table and simply knocked Master One over with the chair. He did an awkward backward somersault, and barely was he back on his feet when I was already sitting in the chair with my legs kicked up, grinning at him.

"— Master One, you took advantage of my little accident to seize power here. What's the point? We were friends, after all."

"— Mistake. We were never friends. You never learned the whole truth about us, the MASTER FORCE, and you were just a useful idiot who did the dirty work for us. And now that Lucifer is dead, we don't need you anymore."

I clenched my teeth tightly; this couldn't be true! Master One had set me up, and I fell into this trap like an ass!

"— Never make a Genomorph angry again!" I said loudly and dealt Master One a heavy blow to the stomach, doubling him over in pain. But then the other Masters grabbed my arms, and Master One slowly got back up.

"— Var, you fool, we are the new rulers of Sek, and you are about to feel our power."

"— I doubt that," I said, grinning, and whistled as loudly as I could. Several Sekrans immediately came rushing in and disarmed the traitors.

"— You are not worthy of living in our society, Judases, traitors. We banish you from this city."

Master One laughed loudly:

"— Almost all the humans will follow us, and we will build a new city. And when we're done, you'll wish you had never met us."

"— Wishful thinking!" I said.

Thousands of humans left the city and followed MASTER FORCE, who lured them with untenable promises, just like politicians used to do shortly before elections. Master One had some kind of plan, and I didn't know what it was.

A-Tya watched the mass exodus from the window. Finally she asked:

"— What do you think, Var?"

"— I was a damned fool! It's going to lead to another war."

"— But that wasn't your fault; you couldn't have foreseen that."

The semi-transparent Tero looked at me rather grimly:

"— Brother, I think we need to speak with Vahanara briefly."

"— I think so too, except I don't know where she's hiding."

* * *

Jessie slowly opened her eyes. It was cold, very cold even, and very dark on top of that. Only a few stars shone without flickering above the horizon, proving to her that she wasn't blind. When Jessie tried to stand up, she felt a stabbing pain in her chest; her bones rattled distinctly inside.

"— Oh dear, that was probably a mistake," she thought. "Hopefully they will look for me..."

...!"

The planet was an inhospitable desert, nowhere a reference point to navigate by, except for a few craters bearing witness to the fact that this planet had once been heavily bombarded by meteorites. Jessie's only chance now was to reach one of the probes left behind to survey the planet; there she could then send an SOS signal to the Alpha. However, with broken ribs, it was a rather arduous trek to the nearest probe, which according to Jessie's calculations was only eight kilometers away. She began to crawl forward, and with every movement it hurt more and more; the display in her helmet visor showed breathing air for only nine more hours. In the distance, a light shone: the beacon to the probe.

---

Master One was confident he could defeat us, but he had gathered barely ten percent of humanity to his side, and among them were only two members of the former ASO—too few to defeat us should it come to an open conflict. Master One therefore certainly had to have another plan. But I couldn't concern myself with that, because now, more than ever, I wanted to explore the cave where the spider had bitten me. This time I wanted to make sure and took a protective suit with me. During the night, I slipped out and got into the flying car, programmed the course to the cave, and took off. It was only a short trip, but my impatience made the duration feel like an eternity. Nobody was supposed to know what I was planning, otherwise they would try to talk me out of it; I was thinking especially of my wife—she always worried about me, even though I am immortal.

Finally, I arrived at the cave entrance and began putting on the protective suit. It was a spacesuit with breathing air that would easily last a human 24 hours; a Genomorph would be able to breathe with it ten times as long, if not even longer. With infrared vision and the helmet display, I saw the cave from a completely different perspective: it was clearly of artificial origin, as could easily be seen from the worked walls. I went further inside, past the spiders, which grew larger and larger the deeper I penetrated into the cave, until they were as big as dogs—disgusting!

The cave looked increasingly artificial until it finally turned into an illuminated tunnel. The luminaires were unusual, as their light was cold yet just as intense as that of Proxima. I reached my hand out toward the light and grasped at empty air, for these light fixtures were probably holograms.

There were no more spiders here, so I took off my spacesuit and packed it away; from then on, I could finally proceed unprotected, though from time to time my gaze fell upon suspicious spots on the walls. Fortunately, they weren't spider-creatures, but other insects.

I was already several kilometers deep into the cave when I came upon an airlock. Without hesitating, I opened it and stepped inside. A laser scanner scanned my face, and... nothing happened at all. On the keypad for entering the code, I noticed an old DNA trace, which I quickly copied and then slowly adapted my face to; after the next scan, the second door still didn't open, but thanks to the prions in the DNA strand, I knew which keys to press to open the other door. There were five strange symbols, and they had the desired effect. The door slid aside, and I was granted entry.

It was fantastic: as far as the eye could see, sprawled out before me was an underground city larger than all our cities on Zer II combined. I walked out onto one of the streets and examined everything closely. One of the first shops along my path was a clothing store with several mannequins in the display window. Since I hadn't yet seen my face in a mirror after morphing, I took a closer look at these mannequins—which wouldn't have been necessary if the windowpane had reflected even a little.

The beings were not unlike humans, probably also originating from the production of the Draals, only their eyes were very large; they were probably no longer accustomed to life on the surface, as the light in the city was less intense than in the tunnel. But what forced an entire civilization to live underground? Ectomorphs? Hardly, because the protective shield held them back effectively, and I couldn't imagine anything that could penetrate the shield except wormholes.

Not far away, I saw a library, and the idea came to me to use the absorbed prions to learn more about the history of this world. This planet was not called Sek, but Olotia, though I preferred the name Sek. What I learned from the library about Sek's inhabitants didn't sound good at all.

Sek's inhabitants formerly lived on Elnor, and Sek was a Venus-like world that they had terraformed because they knew Proxima would soon lose its luminosity. When they settled here, they unfortunately could not save all their fellow citizens from Elnor. This resulted in a terrible war that led to the creation of the protective shield. One day, the Elorians deployed a quark bomb, which they would have been better off not doing, because as every child knows, their explosions cause rifts between the dimensions of all parallel universes, of which there are infinitely many. Out of one of them came beings called BENDS. Almost invisible, invulnerable, and very aggressive, they fell upon the poor inhabitants of Sek and killed them in the most brutal manner. They were called BENDS because they bent the light shining through them when they moved.

The people moved beneath the planet's surface, but even there they were not safe; ultimately, they abandoned the planet for good and in total panic.

I only wondered why the system maps here showed fourteen planets everywhere instead of seven. I couldn't quite make sense of it, but one thing was clear: we, too, were threatened with danger from the BENDS—a very great danger!

End