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

  “A transformer,” she answered with unexpected eagerness. “Only with these can we operate Yusian machinery. For this flight, I have plugged it into the structure of the sphere, because I’m giving it improvised voice commands. If we were taking a specific, detailed route, I would have to set the parameters before we left, which is generally required for all the more complicated programs.”

  “How would you do that?”

  “The same way I activated the system in the warehouse. Since you figured out that you had to remove the fragment, you must know how it appeared and what it’s used for.”

  “Just a lucky guess,” I admitted.

  “Well, OK, the programming itself is very simple. You tear off a fragment of the device you want to operate, in this case from the inside of the sphere, and use the transformer to set the chosen program. Then you stick the fragment back where it was, and that’s it.”

  “But we have no idea what happens next, do we?”

  “Oh, we do—basically.” Elia sighed sadly. “Because of the added information, the fragment becomes foreign to the ‘organism’ from which it was torn, and its return demands a process of assimilation. That process involves, in fact, realization of the set program; only by doing so can the ‘organism’ incorporate the information that had alienated it from the fragment. The visual evidence of this process is the gradual fading and disappearance of the glowing hexagon, within which the fragment transforms from the beginning of the assimilation process.”

  “I see,” I murmured. “It makes sense, as long as you don’t delve into it too deeply.”

  “Yes, but to our cyberneticists, who have been trying for years to go deeper, it’s a nightmare. Which is to be expected, since they have reached only one firm conclusion.”

  “Which is?”

  “That they will never be able to identify the attributes of that damned information-absorbing substance.”

  We fell silent as the incomprehensible Yusian machine seemed to separate us more completely, more zealously, from the outside world. Motionless, seized in its gray grip like preys of a monstrous wingless bird, we were swept up—and apart—by its noiseless, breathless, tremor-free flight.

  “You know,” Elia murmured, “there’s something else too: the fragment can only be torn out by direct human touch. You can’t use a glove, for example. If you cut it with a tool, it refuses to absorb any information. Then, when you put it back, it blends invisibly, leaving not even the slightest mark. It’s as if this substance has the qualities of a liquid as well—if it can be considered a substance at all.”

  My pragmatic reply, though Elia probably found it annoying, quickly dispelled the atmosphere of mystery and tension that was threatening to embrace us. “Only direct human touch, you say. What about the robots? How do they do it? I’ve seen how they operate. Not only do they easily tear the various fragments but they can also plug in directly to the shuttles.”

  “Well, no, not directly,” Elia objected. “Their transformers are incorporated into them by the same manufacturer. Maybe that explains it.”

  I stared with surprise at the keyboard of the device sticking out of the wall. Sure enough, in its lower left corner was the essiko trademark.

  “Yes—maybe that explains it,” I echoed, unconvinced.

  “We’re almost there,” Elia said.” Shall we land?”

  “No. I want to have a look at the Yusian without his suspecting that this is the purpose of our flight.”

  Elia nervously shook her head. “Ha! He probably doesn’t care about us at all.” Placing her index finger on one of the buttons, she said, “Take a turn around the south periphery of the defractor—a low, very slow turn.”

  Our sharp descent took my breath away. When I looked down, we were about a hundred meters above the field and twenty meters to the side of the forest. In the middle of the sparkling pink grass stood the dirt-brown figure of the Yusian. He was moving on the same path as yesterday, gliding along smoothly, dreamily. From our altitude, he looked touchingly small—even helpless.

  We flew over him without attracting his attention as he climbed the hill near the defractor. He stopped at the top and bent his limbs awkwardly. I watched him through the rocking “window” of the sphere his kind had created and thought that he must seem strange not only to us humans but also to the Yusians. So different from them. And thus so lonely.

  “He’s taking a walk. I think he’s just taking a walk,” I said quietly. “Not a spy, or a saboteur—just a sensitive, romantic loner. Or maybe he’s unhappy, ill—”

  “Stop it!” Elia’s reaction surprised me. “I don’t want us to talk about him—I don’t want to try to guess anymore what he is or is not!”

  She was very upset but surely not because of my inquisitive observations. She briskly ordered the sphere to continue, adding an unnecessarily harsh “quickly!” We flew back to the base, on past the cones in the valley, and then over the eastern ridge to the territory of the leafless crimson plants, the “pillars.”

  “Look to the right!” Elia’s harsh command startled me. “Do you see anything?”

  “No. I can see nothing yet. But my hearing has been very good ever since I was a child.”

  “I’m sorry.” She spoke softly now. “I meant that hill over there.”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, I wanted to let you know that under it is the Yusian base.”

  “The Yusian. Isn’t it close to the defractor?”

  “This is their old base that has been deserted for a long time now. Or at least it looks deserted.”

  “It doesn’t look like anything from here,” I said. “Just a hill. Have you been inside it?”

  “No, but Stein entered it once. He mentioned that it only seemed deserted.”

  “Why ‘only seemed’?”

  “We never found out.” Her voice sounded ominous. “Stein was planning to go again and then to write up a detailed report describing the situation there, but a few days later—both he and Fowler were dead.”

  We landed a kilometer or two from the base, right on top of the pillars, without even feeling the unceremonious crush. Now no sunlight entered the cockpit, but its walls emitted a soft pearl-white glow. I looked at Elia’s profile—she was as beautiful as an illusion.

  “Exit!” she ordered, and the illusion was immediately splashed by the red rays of Shidexa that poured through the opening. “In one minute, a clearing thirty by two hundred meters!” she ordered before removing the transformer, with visible repugnance, and returning it to her pouch. In place of its rectangular shape, a hexagon had “printed out” on the wall. Since I first landed on Eyrena, the feeling of complete absurdity, maybe even unreality, had never left me, but now it was stronger than ever.

  We rose from the idiotic chairs planted in the floor and exited the sphere. Only seconds later, the Yusian machine seemed to start breathing. With every inhalation it grew more amorphous, and with every exhalation it lengthened. When it had resumed its whalelike shape, it started moving in brisk, wide zigzags, digging at the earth and knocking down the pillars. They fell with a dry crackle that irritated our ears. As it quickly advanced, the machine left a depressing chaos in its wake.

  “What is this clearing going to be?” I asked Elia.

  “Just what you see at the moment.”

  “And then what?”

  “We’ll go back to the lodge,” she said. Noticing my bewilderment, she explained, “The aim is simply to uncover the rock base. Then tomorrow, at the rise of Ridon, everything will be settling outside.”

  “What about these pillars?”

  “That’s what I mean,” confirmed Elia. “There’s nothing else.”

  “What about the dirt?”

  “This is not dirt, Terence. This cover is, in fact, the joint root system of the plants.”

  I went to the fallen pillars: indeed, what looked like compacted earth turned out to be their natural extension. Beneath the devastating blows inflicted by the “whale,” the roots
had shattered into tiny pieces, so I could easily study their internal composition. They consisted of three layers of different thickness: the top one a tough brown membrane; the bottom something like spiky porous plastic; and the middle layer very dense but crisscrossed by small capillaries through which streamed a yellow fluid. I reached down to pick up a piece, amazed at their complexity.

  “Don’t !” Elia immediately stopped me. “It’s even hard to pull these spikes off a rock, and if they stick to your skin, they can injure you badly. Besides, that yellow fluid has a strong, corroding effect.”

  I pulled my hand away but continued to badger her with my questions, “How do these plants feed? It looks like they don’t have chlorophyll for photosynthesis.”

  “They ingest everything from rock particles through their root system to whatever reaches their surface through the air. Stein assumed that they somehow directly absorb solar energy too.”

  “Did this assumption apply only to the pillars?”

  “No, he included all four of the plant varieties on the planet,” Elia said. Then she stared at the machine and exclaimed, “But what is it doing, for Christ sake!” She started running toward it.

  I followed her, watching the “whale’s” bizarre behavior. It stuck its nose in the ground, vibrated, and dug deeper and deeper. It penetrated the rock base with a sequence of powerful head strokes, sucking the particles through its gaping snout. The convulsions in the area under the cockpit traced the stones’ progress toward its belly, where they were ground into a fine gray powder and then discharged from its bottom.

  I was so overwhelmed by this sight that I hardly noticed Elia advancing toward the opening of the cockpit. When she tried to enter it, I rushed toward her, intending to hold her back, but that became unnecessary. The opening closed—or healed—right under her nose.

  “Now that’s too much!” she protested. Then suddenly she laughed without restraint, like somebody freed from a heavy burden. “Oh! It simply broke down! It simply broke down, Terry! The perfect creation of the great Yusians!” I had never seen her so happy. She looked radiant. For a moment I even thought she might leap into my arms. Instead she turned her back on me and headed for one of the less-agitated parts of the machine. I followed.

  Still smiling, Elia took out the transformer and pressed it against the convulsing substance. I expected it to sink in as it had in the cockpit, but it didn’t. Elia tried again and again—still in vain. Then she slowly turned to me. Her eyes darkened with disappointment as she raised her arm and, somewhat accusingly, showed me the transformer. Its display was dark—not a single pulse left in it. And the machine kept digging.

  We moved away. The noise it made while pulverizing the stones wasn’t deafening, but it was very unsettling. Elia sat on one of the fallen pillars and immediately busied herself with her mobile phone.

  “It’s not working either!” she finally cried. “He’s taken care of that too.”

  I leaned over and looked her in the eye. “I’m running out of patience, Elia. If this is another one of your tricks.”

  “No! It’s not.”

  “If not, please explain me exactly what is happening.”

  “The machine didn’t break down,” she said bitterly. “Another program, a program on hold, has been set in it to begin running after mine expired. Only a new command could cancel that one.”

  “Or removing the fragment in which it’s been set,” I added.

  “Yes. But you saw for yourself that there’s no way we can get in and remove it.”

  “When will the others start looking for you?”

  “No sooner than four, maybe five, hours. Only when they find they can’t contact me will someone come to pick us up. It would be much faster if we just walk back.”

  I turned toward the machine. It was no longer just vibrating—it was shaking violently and digging deeper and deeper.

  “Listen, Elia,” I insisted, “we must try to stop it! We can’t just walk away as if we were primitive savages!”

  She nodded but said, “But there’s nothing else we can do. Only through the transformer.”

  “Oh, come on! I don’t believe you didn’t bring something else. It’s absurd to think you have no backup alternative.”

  “It is absurd, of course, but only the transformers were given to us. Those creatures want us to be in the closest possible contact with their machines so we can get used to them. That’s why they came up with the crazy idea of making more complex programs dependent on touching their nasty substances directly. Our only option is to tear out fragments and then stick them back! They are taming us, and then we might end up with implanted transformers like the robots. Or be transformed ourselves. Or implant us into.”

  She managed to control herself despite her obviously growing hysteria. Her face had altered beyond recognition—into a twisted, evil mask. I couldn’t blame her for that either. I couldn’t imagine what my face might look like after six or seven months here.

  Anyway, her tortured expression convinced me that indeed, this time, this “trick” wasn’t her idea.

  “Elia, you know, or at least guess, who—”

  “No, no,” she interrupted, “there must have been—some misunderstanding.”

  “Someone deleted the charge in your transformer, left us without radio contact, and set that insane program. You call all that a ‘misunderstanding’? Damn it! You could at least try to invent a good lie.”

  She stared at me absently and then turned her head away.

  I left her like that and went to have a closer look at the digging. The machine penetrated the rock layers very compactly, leaving no pits or even slits around its entry, and had now shape-shifted from a “whale” to some gigantic “worm” that grinds rocks in its intestines and then discharges them as a whirling jet of sand.

  Its front section, including the cockpit, was completely underground. It occurred to me that, had we remained inside, since the fragment was either well hidden or somewhere outside, we would probably be suffocating by now. Or maybe that was the plan?

  I moved to the back end, where a huge heap of sand had already started to slide down, shifting toward the “wormhole.” At this rate, the machine would be buried underground in less than an hour. How much energy did it still have? If the program was endless, without set parameters, how long and deep would it dig?

  I shook off the tiny particles of sand sticking to my clothes, turned around, and headed for the distant hill.

  “Terence!” Elia shouted after me. “Where are you going?”

  I looked at her over my shoulder but didn’t slow down. “Go straight back to the base! And send a robot to put an end to that mess.”

  “Wait!” she caught up with me and grabbed my hand. “And you—are you going to that Yusian base?”

  “That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it? Didn’t you arrange this entire ‘unfortunate’ trip just to get me to go there?”

  “No. Actually.” Elia was visibly confused and finally admitted, with her usual frankness, “Even if I had wanted it, I don’t now.”

  “You know what?” I countered, “This time there really is a misunderstanding. And frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn what you want!”

  Chapter 20

  “If you think you’ve been pushed into doing something stupid, do it without delay. That way you can surprise the enemy with your stupidity, if nothing else.” That was one of my boss’s favorite jokes, but now was the time to take it seriously. So I hurried to the base entrance and popped in “without delay.”

  I had hardly taken ten steps when the floor sank under my feet, enclosing me in a Yusian excuse for an elevator. I had expected worse, so this somewhat familiar experience was a relief. I just noticed the fact that I was plummeting to a great depth. As soon as the elevator stopped and disintegrated, I realized that whatever threat I might encounter would not be from humans. This was not a setting for human interactions.

  The room I had reached looked like a wide, shallow
container filled with burning lava. Flames resembling the wings of exotic birds ceaselessly flew out of the ceiling, the walls and the floor soared chaotically in the air, swooped up and down, and tore each other to shreds.

  Luckily these flames couldn’t reach me—they simply flew around this spot that had assimilated the disintegrated elevator. Yes, but to go back up, I had first to leave this spot and then to step back on it in order to provide the impulse for the elevator to reappear. Leaving the spot would mean entering the flames.

  I couldn’t decide what to do. After a while, however, in complete contrast to the flames in front of me, I felt a cool breeze. So it’s just an optical illusion, I thought. I stretched out my arm, and it was immediately covered with orange flames. They spread all over my body, but the sensation wasn’t unpleasant, just odd, like being covered with a veil of solid light. I started to peel it off as if it were a cobweb; it stuck to my fingers and crackled softly as I peeled but looked completely harmless. It didn’t even hinder my breathing. I drifted away from the fireless zone like some cold, smokeless torch.

  I had trouble finding the exit, but once I stepped over its threshold, the flames quickly withdrew to their dominions of light. I entered a corridor resembling a sleeve of pale-green velvet that ended in two darker branches. I hesitated briefly then before choosing the right branch. Just then from the left branch came a distant, prolonged moan!

  I backed out and entered the left branch instead, which looked exactly the same as the right. As I walked its dusky, pale-green length, the sounds of my footsteps, even my breathing, were completely absorbed. Even my shadow was being absorbed, maybe even me.

  The dusk thinned as the corridor widened into a strange gallery with constantly shifting contours. Here between these amorphous, probably immaterial, walls, I felt for the first time an overpowering, savage hatred—something I had often seen in other humans forced to interact with the Yusians.

  I was in one of their depositories for pseudoterrestrial samples. I could see what appeared to be carefully arranged metal containers—though I was sure they weren’t really metal—with false casing and fake rivets. There were “wooden” tables topped with colorful, bulky boxes and tubes made of strikingly false plastic, books with no pages, disgustingly soft flower vases, clothing and shoes sunk in slime, stuffed toys with the wrong heads, and so on.