Concept YUS (Cross-World Murder Cases Book 1) Read online

  “Yes, but at exactly that time I wasn’t there.”

  “Where were you?”

  “Here,” Reder insisted. “Right here.”

  He was lying to me, not even trying to sound convincing. I continued, “If he needed you personally, Stein would have just contacted you. In that case, why would he have gone to the site?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How far had he progressed with his own research?”

  “Very far.”

  “But not to the end, right?”

  “No, not to the end.” Reder shook his head. “If we look at it from the larger perspective, not only Stein but also humankind is just at the beginning. Maybe not even there.”

  I recognized the bitterly outspoken tone of his voice and tried to encourage it. “From what I saw in the greenhouse, I got the impression that you two have achieved incredible success.”

  “Well, yes”—he sighed—“it would seem so, if the Yusians didn’t exist. But now, by comparison—”

  “Do you think that the plants on Eyrena are their creations?”

  “Obviously! The question is, for what purpose did they create them?”

  “Do you at least have a guess about that purpose?”

  “I have a lot of guesses,” he answered gloomily, “but I hope all of them are wrong. From beginning to end, absolutely wrong!”

  “As far as I understand, you expect something to happen,” I threw in casually, looking around.

  “Yes. I do!” said Reder, annoyed by my indifference. “I expect something to happen very soon—something terrible.”

  “In what way?”

  “Well, most likely planetary.” His lips suddenly tightened with hatred. “Repulsive creatures! They deliberately keep us in the dark. They’re playing with us! But it’s OK, OK,” he added through clenched teeth, “we’re not just sitting here doing nothing either. And every living creature, even if it’s close to perfection, has its weaknesses!”

  The bitterly outspoken tone had disappeared. I knew that the dream of almost all human beings—myself included—was to discover the Yusian weak spot. Yet the fierceness with which Reder was apparently trying to achieve that dream repulsed me.

  I stared at him after this reaction and, seemingly at random, commented, “You’ve noticed the peculiarities of the local robots, haven’t you?”

  “What peculiarities?” he asked, shuddering. “What do you mean?” he corrected himself.

  “Well, I meant in their behavior and the way they communicate with each other. But if you have noticed something else—”

  “No, I haven’t noticed anything unusual about them.” Reder became thoughtful or at least pretended to be. “But it didn’t cross my mind to observe them either. They’re just machines after all.”

  “Too complicated though. Too intelligent, and I would say, too self-aware.”

  “Even if they are, so far that has only benefited us. They’re useful assistants.”

  “Useful enough to follow any orders?”

  “I’d rather you ask more concrete questions, Inspector.”

  “Good. Yesterday I had a—mishap among the cones or, as you call them, ‘the rocks,’ and two of your assistants saw me, Reder, but made no effort to help me—”

  “I see! I see!” he interrupted, as if relieved. “You simply stumbled into the whirlpool. That has already happened to me three or four times in their presence, so they knew that nothing bad would happen to you.”

  I decided not to comment on the incident nor to refer to our melodramatic “frank” conversation this morning. Time was too precious for either of us to waste on ambiguous discussions balancing precariously between truth and falsehoods. Looking at each other precariously, as if our mutual antipathy were ready to deepen, we parted with icy politeness.

  Chapter 18

  Fowler and Stein’s belongings were packed away in a few boxes left in an empty room near the server. I patiently searched them but, as I expected, found nothing either interesting or important, just the usual, personal effects, distinguished only by their depressing, somehow accusing, uselessness. As I arranged them back into the boxes, I also tried to order my thoughts. By now I was pretty sure that both men had been murdered in cold blood and, despite the many unknown factors, had formed a general hypothesis of how it must have happened.

  Someone catches up with Stein, kills him for some reason and takes the contents of his pockets to check later, expecting to find something in them. Starting back, that someone runs into Fowler so must kill him as well. To make it look like a homicide-suicide, he plants Stein’s things on Fowler, first having removed the something he was looking for. He could have returned the rest to Stein’s pockets but chose the faster and more convincing option.

  But what was that something? And was there any connection between it and the shipment from Earth that had arrived the previous day?

  I was certain there was, that this very shipment was at the heart of the matter. Unfortunately my conviction didn’t solve the riddles. Where was Stein going? Why did Fowler follow him? What were the killer’s motives? Since I hadn’t the slightest idea, I suspected everybody and everything. I was sure of only one thing: that over these murders, if only as a catalyst, hung the dark shadow of the Yusians.

  From the window where I was standing, I saw Jerry jumping happily behind the nearest garage with Elia just behind him. I stepped away from the window and observed her with more than a professional interest. She was wearing a white T-shirt and tight trousers—impractical but pleasing to the eye. She was walking at a snail’s pace, and when she finally reached the warehouses, she stopped and unexpectedly started shouting, “Jerry! Jerry! Come here!”

  The dog, which at that moment was right next to her, froze in bewilderment.

  “Jerry! Come on! Come here! Here, boy!” Elia wouldn’t stop shouting, even started clapping her hands loudly.

  Jerry sat on the asphalt, his head cocked as if trying to figure her out. He must have decided that she wanted to play, because he answered her invitation with a yelp of joy.

  She, however, again unexpectedly, turned her back on him, ran to the entrance of the warehouse, and activated the electric door. She stood right under it as it went up and then suddenly crouched as if to protect herself from something. She grabbed the dog and, instead of moving back, teetered back and forth as if she felt dizzy. For a second she turned her head in my direction and then she slipped inside, leaving me with the image of her face, twisted with horror. The door slammed down with the sinister zeal of a guillotine.

  I was at the warehouse door before I realized how I got there. I impatiently pushed the button, and the door slid straight up.

  “Elia! Elia!” I shouted in vain.

  Inside, the damned warehouse was as dark as it was quiet. I checked the wall left of the entrance for a light switch but saw nothing of the kind. I crossed to the right—still nothing. I took a step and then another, and at that instant, the door slammed shut. Looks like it’s really broken, I thought without much concern. I had noticed where the inside button was, groped for it, and pushed it. I pushed again and again. The door wouldn’t move.

  Feeling my way along the wall, I soon reached the loading gate, but my efforts to open it were equally fruitless. I grinned wryly—Elia’s behavior started to make sense. She must have known I was in that room and deliberately played the damsel in distress to lure me over. While I sped to her rescue, she went out the back door, waited for me to rush in, and locked the exits. I felt like an idiot. Luckily, however, I had done one smart thing by exchanging my gun for a flexor last night.

  I went back to the door and took out the flexor. I felt for the dosimeter, turned it to maximum power, and taking a couple of steps back, pulled the trigger. The beam bounced off the door several times and painfully burned my shoulder. I groped for the door and finally felt the spot where the beam had landed—it was just a bit warmer and slightly concave. I felt dizzy. Not from pain or dread—that ricochet
could have killed me—but because of this slightly warm, concave spot on the door, a door that remained intact after withstanding a beam that could pierce a twenty-centimeter-thick stone block!

  A Yusian door—Yusian like everything else around me, as I just realized. The darkness suddenly turned into a nightmare. The thought of being trapped in a Yusian warehouse filled with invisible, unthinkable Yusian creations made me gag in panic. I wanted to scream, to shoot blindly.

  “Damn it!” I swore quietly and stuck the useless flexor in its holster.

  I felt my shoulder. The shirt was ripped, but there was no blood under it. The ricochet had barely touched my skin, leaving only a small swelling. I looked around, hoping to identify the silhouettes of the nearest objects in the pitch dark. I could easily recall the outside of the warehouse—a huge, shabby hulk with no windows. Its height well exceeded twenty meters, which suggested to me that there was more than one floor and thus should be at least one elevator, albeit a Yusian one. I had to find it and use it somehow, to reach the basement, where hopefully there was an emergency exit. Provided, of course, that there was a basement.

  Further surmising that the elevator was probably in the center of the warehouse, I extended my arms and walked forward. I moved slowly, filled with resentment, until my fingers touched something cold and slippery. Shaken, I jerked backward. Then I calmed down, moved a step sideways, and extended my arms again, encountering the same slippery object. Slowly circling around the object, which seemed immense, I finally reached a narrow passage between it and another, similarly repulsive, Yusian surface. I stopped, hesitant whether to proceed or to search for another—wider—passage, when I sensed that something had already started around me—God knows what.

  I listened, squinting, and patchy blue spots started dancing before me. At first I thought they were caused by my tension but soon discounted that explanation. The darkness was indeed growing lighter and, without losing its opacity, gradually becoming a vivid electric blue.

  Well, this at least I can bear, I thought. But then, from somewhere behind my back, came a cloying, unfamiliar odor. It grew stronger, as if to signal the approach of a huge, sweaty body!

  I ducked and rushed blindly through the passage, ignoring even my brushes against slimy Yusian surfaces. The smell grew oppressive; I could tell that it was now spreading everywhere, which was more frightening than some imaginary creature because it could only mean that a gas, probably poisonous, had been released in the warehouse.

  I dropped to the floor, where the air was still breathable, and looked around. Yes! In the strange blue darkness, I could just make out a gleaming yellow dot, a meter, or ten, or fifty meters away. I couldn’t be sure. I rose to my knees, coughing spasmodically. My body was sticky with sweat or from the toxic gas. All around me, probably because of the gas penetrating their tissues, invisible Yusian substances began screaming, moaning, and groaning.

  As I crawled toward the dot of light, my fingers got caught in an oily pulp tentacle and tore it, causing a shrill hiss. I leaped up and ran until the dot grew into a circle—into a well-formed hexagon. I stood before it, barely breathing. It was level with my chest and pulsating—pulsating. I recalled seeing such a hexagon—in Chuks’s shuttle! I reached out and ripped it from its doughy soft nest with all the strength I had and collapsed on the floor.

  When I regained consciousness, the darkness was black again and the disgusting smell almost gone. I stood up. My shoulder hurt where the laser beam had struck me; otherwise, I felt fine. I groped my way back to the door. As I expected, this time it obediently opened as soon as I touched the button. I stumbled out into the splendid light of the Eyrenean day. Feeling better, I smoothed my hair, checked my clothes, and then headed for the parking lot in front of the nearest garage. Something told me that Elia was there. And she was.

  The Yusian machine she was standing next to was roughly the size and shape of a whale. At least that’s what it looked like when I first saw it. As it transformed itself, the “snout” blunted quickly, the “tail” wrinkled, hissing like a huge bellows, while the “belly” and the “back” swelled until everything finally merged into a polished gray sphere.

  The ball shook spasmodically until its diameter was reduced in half, then darkened—apparently because of its increased density—and stood still. Then the side facing Elia split open, and a robot climbed out.

  “Very good,” Elia praised him. “Everything seems to be in order.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked, coming in behind her and at the same time petting Jerry, who was greeting me cheerfully.

  She turned around in surprise. “You!”

  “Why not? You didn’t expect me?”

  Elia thought for a second and then waved her hand. “Well, yes. I’ve been expecting you. Only not so soon.”

  “I took a walk in one of the warehouses but didn’t stay long. The atmosphere there wasn’t exactly comfortable.”

  “Especially the aroma, I suppose,” she said, wrinkling her nose.

  I came right to the point: “Did you try to poison me in there?”

  “Nonsense. I just set a program for the general power supply.”

  “And this program automatically locks the doors,” I added. “In other words, you trapped me.”

  “Yes, precisely,” Elia said.

  “Why?”

  “Oh, reasons could be invented. Let’s say I wanted to teach you that here, as on Earth, playing the gallant can be dangerous. Or that until you get to know the base, anyone, especially the killer, could ambush you. Or—”

  “And the real reason?” I cut her off.

  Smiling mysteriously, Elia came closer and whispered in my ear. “I wanted to flirt with you, Inspector. To arouse your interest—”

  “By putting me to sleep forever?”

  “Oh, come on! Don’t be ridiculous.” She moved away, annoyed. “I’m not sure how it is in general, but those biomaterials are adjusted by the Yusians to discharge only gases harmless to human beings.”

  “Hmm. Have you been exposed to them?”

  “Well, yes,” Elia confirmed. “By mistake, of course. I entered a warehouse out of curiosity and almost died of fright, especially when the darkness turned that maddening electric blue and the noises. Good thing I fainted! What about you? Were you afraid?”

  “Me? Don’t be ridiculous, Elia,” I said pompously, and then we both burst out laughing. I was really glad she didn’t turn out to be the resident offender!

  “What’s wrong with your shoulder?” she asked me with real concern.

  “Nothing serious,” I answered. “I must have scratched it somewhere. By the way, the warehouse doors are also Yusian, right?”

  “Yes.” Elia nodded and frowned. “They are examples of their so-called pseudoterrestrial objects. There are very few at the base, but if you go to one of the settlements—it’s disgusting!”

  “Who needs all this pretense? Don’t the Yusians realize it makes them even less attractive to us?”

  “No, you’re wrong.” Elia shook her head. “Look at this machine—or worse, touch it. You must admit that it’s more repugnant to you than the pseudoterrestrial door, for example. You know, in general, we humans like a little deception. Even the fact that the Yusians are bothering to deceive us somehow flatters our ego. It’s all so pathetic, for both them and us!”

  Elia approached the machine and leaned against it heavily, as if she wanted to hide in its shell, distancing herself from the rest of fickle humanity. Her touch stirred the surface of the charcoal substance into small waves, which gradually calmed and died out. I could hardly resist grabbing her and pulling her away from it. Her presence next to that reactive alien sphere was absurd, appalling!

  “I need to clear a new site from the pillars.” She took a step toward me. “Will you join me?”

  My hesitation was insincere. “OK, if we go by the defractor site—”

  “The defractor?” She looked startled.

  “Actually to follow th
e route of the strange Yusian,” I explained. “Odesta said he passes by there every day at the rise of Shidexa.”

  “And now you want to see if that’s true?” Elia half smiled. “You’re very suspicious—about some things.”

  “And about others as naive as a child, right?”

  She didn’t answer. Instead, she called Jerry, picked him up, and entered the sphere through the opening the robot had made. I followed her. The even floor inside was so smooth that I worried I might slip. We had entered a crescent-shaped cockpit, empty except for two folding chairs planted in the floor. I pointed to them. “Were the Yusians that concerned with our comfort?”

  “No, I told the robot to bring them in.”

  I was offended. “You were so sure I would come with you—”

  “Which means,” she interrupted, “that I was also sure you would leave the warehouse safe and sound.”

  When we settled into the two chairs, Elia removed a small device from the pouch attached to her belt and looked at me. “Straight to the strange Yusian?”

  “No. Let’s take Jerry back to the lodge first.”

  She quickly agreed. The poor puppy was lying limply in her lap, his head on his paws. Clearly the Yusian machinery had destroyed his good mood. After petting him affectionately, Elia pressed the device against the wall. Once it sank in so that only its keyboard was visible, she touched one of its tiny buttons and said, “To the lodge entrance.” The sphere immediately erased its opening, and we were off.

  Chapter 19

  I took Jerry to my room, fed him to make him feel better, and after changing my shirt, returned to Elia.

  “Shidexa will soon rise,” she noticed as I took my seat next to her. She touched the same button and mechanically ordered the sphere to take us to the defractor “slowly.”

  As it rose, we sat calmly, in relaxed positions, but both of us avoided looking at the now completely transparent floor. For some reason, we also avoided looking at each other.

  “What exactly is this device?” I asked, without taking my eyes off the barely visible wrinkled gray wall in front of me.