Terminus (Fringe Worlds #1) (22 page)

Chapter 30

“What?!” Browing screamed, coming to his feet.

“I said we found the Vacra,” Maker announced, repeating what he’d said a few moments earlier. “Then we got into a firefight with them.”

“But you had specific orders not to engage!” Browing hissed angrily.

They were in Browing’s office at the consulate – Browing sitting behind his desk while Maker and Dr. Chantrey sat in chairs facing him. (Erlen was also present, but lounging in a corner, where he casually licked the wall.) Following their battle with the Vacra, Maker’s squad had headed back to their base. After taking a short breather to change out of his armor, Maker had ordered his unit to break camp and be ready to move out asap. Next, he had piled into the hovercart with Erlen and their still-unconscious guest, and then headed to the Diplomat District. Once at the consulate, he had turned the rescued man over to the medical staff and gone to see Browing to make his report.

“From my perspective, the mission parameters changed the second it came to light that they had a hostage,” Maker said defensively.

“Where’s the man now?” asked Dr. Chantrey, cutting in.

“I left him with your medics,” Maker answered. “He appeared to be in pretty bad shape.”

“Do we know who he is?” she asked.

“No, he’s been unconscious most of the time,” said Maker, averting his eyes. “But my impression is that they’ve been holding him for a while.”

Browing frowned. “Holding him? For what purpose?”

“I don’t know, Browing,” Maker said impatiently. “Maybe they’ll fill out the survey I left for them and tell us.”

Browing’s hands gripped the arms of his chair in white-knuckled frustration. “So you’ve essentially gutted the mission. Knowing their location is useless to us, because they’re definitely not going to stay where they are. You should have just reported back the second you found them.”

Maker callously replied, “You’d feel differently if you were the one getting a taste of their hospitality. You do have a point, though.” He turned to Dr. Chantrey. “Why do
you
think they were holding that guy?”

The doctor was nonplussed. “You’re asking me?”

Maker nodded. “You’re the behavioral scientist.”

“My expertise is
human
behavior,” she corrected. “I don’t think my skill translates very well for other species. An entomologist would probably do a better job in this instance.”

“Speculate then,” Maker said.

She seemed to dwell on this for a few seconds before finally speaking.

“Alright, I’ll give it a try,” she said. “These things seem a lot like ants, which – back on Earth – were known to keep not just other ant species but also other insects, kind of like pets. For instance, some ants kept aphids, feeding on their secretions.”

“Kind of like humans with cattle,” Browing interjected.

“Exactly,” Dr. Chantrey agreed.

“Well, I think this guy was producing more
ex
cretions that
se
cretions, and I doubt even the Vacra were consuming any of that,” said Maker. “So the question is, what were they getting from him?”

Before anyone could answer, a musical chime sounded. Browing turned to an expensive comm unit perched on the edge of his desk and hit a button. The image of a lovely young woman, from head to shoulders, appeared above the unit. Maker recognized her as one of Browing’s assistants.

“I’m sorry to disturb you, sir,” the young woman began, “but they need you in Medical. Something to do with that vagrant who was brought in.”

“I’ll be right there,” Browing said, then pressed a button on the comm. Link disconnected, the young woman’s face disappeared.

Browing stood up. “Let’s go see what’s happening.”

Chapter 31

It only took a few minutes for Browing, Maker, Dr. Chantrey, and Erlen to reach the medical wing of the consulate. Once there, a white-haired man whose nametag identified him as Dr. Gill began to explain the situation, which he described as an emergency.

“We were just giving a routine scan to the man they brought in when we found it,” Dr. Gill said.

They were presently in an operating room. The man who Maker’s team had rescued lay facedown in a surgical bed, his bare back exposed and with numerous tubes and wires connected to his skeletal frame. Around him, various types of medical equipment and surgical apparatus hummed and droned, indicating that they were in operational mode.

Dr. Gill tapped the screen of a nearby computer, and an image appeared in the air next to him. It appeared to be the internal view of someone’s back – presumably the man in the surgical bed.

“It was attached to his spine,” Dr. Gill continued, “and if you look closely you can see it right
here
.”

He touched his finger to a portion of the image and it expanded in size, revealing the white bone of a vertebral column. Flush with the spine was an odd, oval-shaped device about the size of a fist. On it was a small diode that was slowly flashing red in color.

“At first, we thought it was some sort of spinal aid,” Gill said. “Or some kind of artificial or supplemental organ.”

“Like an auxiliary heart,” Dr. Chantrey suggested.

Dr. Gill nodded. “Precisely. But when we tried additional scans, we didn’t see it performing any kind of helpful biological function. And then it seemed to…activate.”

A frown surfaced on Browing’s face. “What do you mean, ‘activate’?”

Gill looked nervous as he answered. “That diode you see was dark before, but after one of our scans it started flashing. Something we did seems to have initiated a sequence in it.”

“So what does that mean?” Browing asked, plainly dissatisfied with what he was being told.

“We’re not sure,” Gill answered honestly. “In fact, about all we can tell is that it’s an alien device of some sort, containing some components and chemicals we can identify, and others that are basically unknown to us. In short, we don’t know what it is.”

“I can tell you what it is,” Maker said flatly. “It’s a bomb.”

Chapter 32

There was complete silence after Maker made his announcement, but the reactions were fairly diverse. Browing appeared angry, Chantrey appeared incredulous, and Dr. Gill just seemed to collapse in on himself. Erlen was the only individual who seemed to take the statement in stride, remaining where he was at Maker’s feet, face expressionless.

“Wh-What did you say?” Dr. Gill asked, sounding like he’d been punched in the gut.

“It’s a bomb,” Maker said again. “And you’re going to have to take it out of him.”

“Wait a minute,” Dr. Chantrey said, shaking her head as if to clear her thoughts. “It’s an alien device. How do you know it’s a bomb?”

“Because I’ve seen it before,” replied Maker. “The design, at least.”

Dr. Chantrey thought for a second, and then the answer came to her. “The derelict ship. The explosive you found on your shuttle.”

Maker nodded.

“This is too much,” Dr. Gill said, growing increasingly pale. “I need…I need to get some air.”

He began walking towards the door but didn’t get far as Maker placed a firm hand on his shoulder.

“No,” Maker insisted. “What you need to do is take this device out of this man right
now
.”

“But you said it was a bomb,” Gill stated nervously. “I don’t do bombs. I’m a doctor, not a munitions guy. I won’t do it.”

Maker considered various incentives he might use to convince the doctor to operate, but in the end rejected them. He didn’t want to punish the doctor for just being afraid – it was a natural response – and he also didn’t know how much time they had. (Glancing at the diode, he saw that it had started to blink faster.) He turned to Browing. “Do you have another doctor on staff?”

“We have three, but they rotate shifts,” Browing said. “Gill’s on duty at the moment, although he’s probably walked his last rounds as far as I’m concerned. I’ll try to get one of the others over here, but it may take time.”

“Time’s a luxury we may not have,” Maker said. He seemed to deliberate internally for a moment, and then stated, “I’ll do it.”

This time, all three of the other people in the room had dubious looks on their faces.

“Do what?” Dr. Chantrey asked.

“The surgery,” said Maker, rolling up the sleeves of his shirt.

“What? There’s no way!” Gill said, suddenly pompous. “You’re not a surgeon. You’re not qualified to do this. You’ll just end up killing this man.”

“You’re right. I’m not qualified to do this,” Maker admitted. “But in a minute, I will be.”

He held out his bare forearm towards Erlen, who took it in his mouth and bit down on it – not hard enough to cause real damage, but with enough force to break the skin. When the Niotan released him, there were two puncture wounds on Maker’s forearm where Erlen’s fangs had penetrated.

Maker’s eyelids fluttered, and Dr. Chantrey noticed him smile slightly as his body seemed to sway momentarily. Without warning, his eyelids snapped open, and she placed a startled hand to her mouth. Maker’s eyes had changed color and were now red.

Shocked, Browing involuntarily uttered a curse and then said to Maker, “That animal! It’s not the pet –
you
are!!”

Maker ignored him and went to work.

************************************

The operation was a success, as Maker had known it would be. Browing, Gill, and Dr. Chantrey had watched as he’d begun, and then – realizing their proximity to what was probably a deadly explosive device – they had hightailed it out of there and watched the remainder of the operation on a vid screen in Browing’s office.

Gill had tried to offer some advice during the surgery using Browing’s comm unit, but Maker found the man irritating and cut the audio off on his end.

In the end, he safely removed the device and handed it off to a bomb unit that Browing had called in while the operation was going on. (They later confirmed that it was indeed an extremely powerful explosive.) Afterwards, Maker found himself hustled off by a security unit to Browing’s office after being patted down and having his sidearm confiscated.

“You’ve been lying to us from the moment we met,” Browing said when two security guards escorted Maker in.

Maker, his eyes back to their normal color, raised an eyebrow. “Oh? About what?” He took a seat in a nearby chair, Erlen next to him, while the guards who had escorted him went to go stand by the door.

“Everything!” Browing replied, making an all-encompassing gesture. “Your pet, the derelict ship you encountered, the Vacra… All of it. It’s time to come clean.”

“Fine,” Maker replied. “I’ve been lying, but not for the reasons you might think. If you really want the truth, I’ll tell you – but only on two conditions. First though, this info isn’t for public consumption.” He nodded towards the guards as he leaned forward and began scratching Erlen’s nose.

“No, they stay,” Browing declared, crossing his arms.

At that moment, Erlen coughed – a harsh, grating sound – and then spat something into Maker’s hand.

“I’m afraid I must insist,” Maker said, rising and pointing a small firearm that he now held in his hand at the guards. The two men on the business end of the weapon, which was wet and dripping some sort of liquid, slowly raised their hands.

“You idiots!” Browing yelled. “I told you to search him!”

“We did,” one of the men replied. “He was clean except for the sidearm we took from him.”

“Speaking of which…” Maker said, snapping the fingers of his free hand and holding his palm open. The guard who had taken his sidearm slowly handed it over. Maker then motioned towards the door and the two men backed out of the room. Maker locked the door.

Browing was still grumbling. “Those two are so fired…”

“Don’t be too hard on them,” Maker said. “It’s not their fault. They really did do a good job of searching me.”

“Then how’d you end up with a weapon?” Dr. Chantrey asked.

Maker smiled. “Didn’t I tell you? Erlen has two stomachs. One’s for digesting food, and the other’s sort of a…”

“Smuggler’s pouch?” Dr. Chantrey suggested.

Maker shrugged. “That’s as good a term as any.”

“So anything you need, he can just swallow and regurgitate at will,” Browing surmised. “So what will you do now, hold us prisoner?”

“Not at all,” Maker said, putting his sidearm back in its holster and placing the smaller weapon in his pocket. “Like I said, I’ll tell you everything, but with two conditions.”

“Which are?” Dr. Chantrey asked.

“First, if I’m going to spill my guts, then you have to answer all of my questions as well,” Maker said.

The doctor and Browing exchanged glances, and a silent conversation seemed to take place between them. After a few seconds, Dr. Chantrey gave a noncommittal shrug.

“Agreed,” Browing said. “And your other condition?”

“That you tell no one –
no one
– about what you saw happen between me and Erlen in the operating room.”

“Fine,” Browing agreed, “but you have to tell us the truth about that…
thing
.” He inclined his head towards Erlen.

Maker frowned at the term Browing used in reference to Erlen, but merely said, “Agreed.”

“Now why don’t you start out by telling us the real story of what happened on that derelict four years ago,” Dr. Chantrey said.

“The truth really isn’t a lot different than what I’ve already told you,” Maker said. “Everything happened exactly as I said up until the point where I had the fight with Skullcap on top of the shuttle. When he had me down and was about to run me through, Erlen saved me.”

Dr. Chantrey seemed surprised. “Erlen?”

“Yes. He had a nasty habit of sneaking aboard vessels whenever I had a mission,” Maker said, scratching the Niotan’s head. “He doesn’t like getting left behind.”

“Which explains why just about every time we see you, we see him,” Browing concluded.

“Anyway, when the Vacra was about to finish me off, Erlen came up out of the shuttle behind him,” Maker said. “He tackled Skullcap – knocking the lance from his grip, which I picked up – and then ripped his arm off.”

“Wait a minute,” Dr. Chantrey said. “I thought you said the Vacra you fought – Skullcap, as you call him – was in armor.”

Maker nodded. “He was.”

“And Erlen ripped his arm off?” she asked, eyes wide in surprise.

“As you’ve probably guessed by now, Erlen’s a little special,” Maker said with a smile. “Anyway, the rest is pretty much exactly as I told you before, except Erlen was with us when we hightailed it back to the
Orpheus Moon
.”

Browing frowned. “So what’s the big deal? Granted, your little beastie wasn’t supposed to be there, but you haven’t mentioned anything earth-shattering. Why lie about any of that?”

Maker paused, taking a deep breath. “I lied because the derelict was a sub rosa ship.”