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  Copyright © 2019 by Philippe Mercurio

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  ISBN: 9791097258184

  First published in France : February 2019

  Translated from French to English by Michele Rosen

  Cover art : © 2019 - Sariya Asavametha

  I

  REUNION

  MALLORY Sajean released the Sirgan’s helm. Through the cockpit’s shielded windows, she looked out onto an orange star forty times bigger than the Sun: Aldebaran. The pilot extended her clasped hands above her head to stretch her arms, which were covered with sensitive tattoos. A few budding roses bloomed on her pale skin, echoing her even temper. With a groan, she rose and continued the stretching session on her feet.

  While she practiced touching the tips of her toes without bending her knees, she called out, “Jazz? Are you awake?”

  A voice emerged from the on-board loudspeakers, “Yes, Captain. I was just daydreaming. When you twist your athletic body around in front of my lenses, I sometimes remember that I was a man once.”

  Jazz’s tone almost sounded sad to Mallory. She stood up straight and arranged her black hair, cut into an inverted bob. The gesture exposed her oval face and its balanced features. Her slightly slanted black eyes glanced at one of the cameras installed throughout the ship. “Nostalgic? I thought those kinds of needs had disappeared along with your endocrine system.”

  Jazz was a disembodied brain, a prisoner of the complex device that kept him alive. Connected to the ship’s control systems, he served as co-pilot in place of the standard AI. He belonged to the rare category of “Natural Intelligences.”

  “Of course! Otherwise I’d have gone mad a long time ago. The thought was purely intellectual.”

  A smile appeared on Mallory’s full lips as she gazed at the massive star. “Since your neurons are already active, give me a rundown of the area.”

  Adopting a professorial tone, Jazz launched into a description of the system. “Aldebaran contains twelve planets. The most important is Solicor. It’s a city-planet with 300 billion inhabitants. It’s nothing like Kenval with its desolate regions ceded to the mutants. Here, it’s all hypercivilized—there isn’t one single inch that hasn’t been urbanized. The population consists mostly of Gibrals and Xilfs. These two species evolved on this planet and have been living together for a long time. The Gibrals manufacture and sell passenger ships, primarily liners and yachts, but you already knew that…”

  “True. Magnificent architecture… a bit too oppressive for my taste. Tell me about the Xilfs instead.”

  “Oh, them… It’s difficult to get information about them. Apparently, while they co-exist with the Gibrals willingly, they are wary of all other species. They live in clan groups at the lowest levels of the city-planet. They have rather strange features. Here, see for yourself.”

  An image appeared above the Sirgan’s controls, projected by the on-board navcom. Mallory examined it, intrigued. She had trouble understanding how the creature was put together. Its chest looked like a tree stump. The upper portion was divided into two branches near its broad mouth. Both of its necks were crowned by an enormous ocular globe whose dimpled texture closely resembled a fly’s eyes. Three pairs of arms ending in crab pincers extended from the cylindrical body. Instead of legs, four long, thin limbs that looked as fragile as glass supported what passed for a pelvis. Mallory noticed some numbers at the bottom of the image: on average, the Xilfs stood six-and-a-half feet tall.

  “I don’t have much more, other than a vague theory about symbiosis between the Xilfs and the Gibrals,” the Natural Intelligence continued.

  “Okay. And what about the rest of the inhabitants?”

  “A bit of everything! Aldebaran’s shipyards attract a lot of people. You’ll find beings from the most obscure corners of the galaxy here, from client companies to lowly itinerant workers.”

  Looking away from the giant star, Mallory wrinkled her forehead. She recalled the instructions she’d received before her departure. “In the middle of all of that is a Vohrn ambassador who appears to have blown a fuse. I wonder why Hanosk insisted I be the one to monitor him. It’s not exactly my specialty.”

  Mallory still had trouble grasping the fact that the Vohrn—tall, bipedal aliens with scaly skin who were essentially headless—had become her full-time employers. Hanosk was one of their most important leaders, and, indeed, Mallory’s “patron.”

  “The Vohrn are anything but stupid,” Jazz replied. “I’m sure they have a good reason for sending you here without telling you anything.”

  “Exactly! We dealt with a psychopathic billionaire, a self-cloning killer cyborg, and an attempted genocide… Even if they didn’t tell me everything at the time, I wasn’t completely in the dark! Now that I work for them, I have to wonder what could be bad enough that they would refuse to keep me in the loop.”

  “Bah! Whatever. Let’s go figure it out ourselves. Don’t tell me your legendary curiosity has failed you! And besides, you won’t mind seeing your friend Laorcq Adrinov again, will you?”

  Mallory felt a guilty smile spread across her lips. Jazz knew her too well: her interest in the veteran hadn’t escaped him. Who knows? Maybe this will turn out to be fun!

  Leaving the cockpit, she took the passageway that led from one end of her transport ship to the other. She arrived at the Sirgan’s galley. The little kitchen seemed more narrow than usual: Torg, an eight-foot-tall colossus with black-and-red striped fur occupied most of the space. He belonged to the rare category of cybrids, creatures who were half-animal, half-artificial, created by an extinct civilization.

  He was engaging, rather loudly, in one of his two favorite pastimes: devouring the ship’s food reserves, the other being smashing anything that threatened Mallory.

  With each mouthful, his giant, hemispheric head, equipped with wide blue eyes, tilted back to reveal an immense orifice with pointed teeth. He ate the way black holes swallow careless spaceships…

  The pilot slid into the narrow space on the bench not occupied by the giant and cuddled up to him. True to form, he broke off his feast for a moment to ruffle her hair with his beefy, six-fingered hand.

  “Good idea to fill your belly,” she declared. “I have a feeling we’re going to need your strength quite soon.”

  A gigantic steel and composite ring suspended in geostationary orbit 23,000 miles above Solicor functioned as both astroport and shipyard. Given its record-setting population density, landing a ship on the planet’s surface was out of the question. The titanic orbital station was almost three miles wide, even more in some places. Given its 170,000-mile circumference, its mass was calculated in numbers that were difficult for humans to comprehend. The ring’s surface bristled with docks and loading bays where ships progressed through their immutable lifecycles: construction, repair, and demolition.

  The matte-black, diamond-shaped Sirgan glided past the liners built by the Gibrals. Compared to these mastodons, the transport vessel seemed miniscule. Thrusters at each end made it possible to change trajectory, while the synergetic drive—a large tube that traversed the length of the ship—supplied the power necessary to travel between the stars.

  While maneuvering, Mallory gazed at the Aldebaran liners. At first glance, they seemed monolithic: massive cubes or parallelograms… But when the Sirgan pulled alongside one of them, the shape resolved into a jumble of modules, each more sophisticated than the last. They were more like space cities than mere liners. Some had as many as ten synergetic drives, or e
ven more…

  “Captain! Are you asleep?” Jazz said.

  Distracted by the ships under construction, the pilot saw that she was about to pass by their assigned dock. Too proud to admit her mistake, she turned sharply in the direction of the platform and retorted, “Relax! I was considering the best trajectory.”

  Jazz retreated into brooding silence. To make amends, she took care to come alongside smoothly: only the light vibration of the magnetic docking clamps punctuated the maneuver.

  She realized that she was eager to see Laorcq again. She missed the tall, scarred, impassive veteran.

  She hurried to her cabin, freshened up, and put on one of her usual skin-tight black suits, accompanied by equally dark, heavy boots. The only touch of color was her burgundy leather jacket, whose numerous scratches bore witness to her previous adventures.

  She found Torg, who was impatient to disembark, in front of the airlock.

  “I’ve spent too much time cooped up! I need to get some air!” he said.

  Together, they passed through the airlock separating the Sirgan’s interior from the massive orbital spaceport. To Mallory’s surprise, the place was deserted. She had expected to find all sorts of aliens in transit, but there was only an empty, narrow corridor. Fortunately, the left side of the passageway was lined with windows that were slightly curved to help them resist the spatial vacuum. Solicor filled the entire view. On the planet’s surface, a sharp line marked the boundary between day and night. As the wave of darkness advanced, the continents were bathed in light, reducing the oceans to black, lifeless regions. This extreme contrast between shadow and artificial light gave Mallory the impression of looking at a painting.

  She and Torg followed the windowed corridor for a while. A hologram in the form of a big red X as wide as the passage appeared abruptly in front of them, accompanied by a strident ringing sound.

  On the right, a section of the wall vanished to reveal the threatening barrel of an automatic sub-machine gun. A neutral voice that seemed to emerge from the weapon declared, “Dangerous equipment detected: Cybrid, category A. Please state your identity and weapons license number.”

  Mallory sighed. In the absence of a welcoming committee, she had almost forgotten they would have to submit to inspection, just like everyone else.

  “Captain Sajean. License number ZK746, issued by the Vohrn diplomatic corps.”

  The hatch concealing the sub-machine gun closed and the hologram disappeared. They continued along the corridor until they reached a matte-gray sliding door.

  Between them and the exit, a new, scarlet-colored hologram appeared, this time in the form of a sphere inscribed with the words “Please wait” in a dozen common dialects.

  Mallory turned away and walked over to one of the hallway’s large windows. Pressing her forehead against it so she could see as far down as possible, she noticed a tube that was several feet in diameter descending toward the planet’s surface.

  “An orbital elevator – how swanky!” she commented.

  Originally used as an economical solution for traveling to and from space stations, this mode of transport had become obsolete, supplanted by shuttles with increasingly reliable and cost-effective conventional thrusters.

  The text displayed by the hologram turned green for a second, then disappeared. The door slid aside, revealing a cabin fitted with wide benches. Mallory and Torg sat. Half an hour later, they stepped out onto Solicor.

  The elevator opened onto a hall that was packed with people, a compact mass made up of all of the known species in this sector of the galaxy. The pilot spotted creatures covered with fur, feathers, scales, and strange combinations of the three. Many Gibrals were scattered through the crowd: they appeared vaguely humanoid, but could be easily distinguished from Earthlings because of their three-foot-long necks, complete lack of hair, and pale blue skin. Their most remarkable characteristic was uncontestably their single eye, which was three times larger than a human’s. Echoing ancient legends, these cyclopes’ appearance stood out to the human than any of the other alien species.

  Mallory forced herself to look away from the Gibrals for fear of offending them. The absence of the Xilfs was notable. She thought she saw one slip through the crowd, but it vanished among the multitude of creatures.

  Finally, she saw among the crowd the silhouette she had unconsciously been looking for: a tall, broad-shouldered man. His cropped salt-and-pepper hair exposed a scar that ran from his neck to his right temple.

  “Laorcq!” she cried out, raising her arms.

  On the backs of her hands, her sensitive tattoos transformed into superb red roses, betraying her joy at seeing the veteran again. However, she didn’t really know where she stood with him. Just when she thought they had been growing closer, he had gone off to settle an old score, and she hadn’t seen him since. She wondered where her sudden impatience was coming from. I wasn’t harboring illusions about him without realizing it, was I? Crap. You’d think I was regressing back to adolescence. I’d better get a grip on myself, or else…

  Her thoughts skidded to an abrupt halt. There was a blonde woman at Laorcq’s side. Her stiff posture and perfectly coiffed hair made her plain outfit look like a uniform.

  “Alrine Lafora! What is that bossy cop doing with him?” Mallory whispered between gritted teeth, surprised, feeling a pinch of jealousy in her gut.

  Okay. So, the illusions were definitely there, she admitted in her heart of hearts, acknowledging her instinctive reaction. Taking pains to act as if everything were fine, she called out to Laorcq again, loudly enough to carry over the crowd noise.

  The man looked around, finally catching sight of Torg’s eight-foot frame. He approached the cybrid and glimpsed the pilot standing behind a taller-than-average Gibral.

  “Mallory! Torg!”

  He crossed the distance separating them in two strides, laid his hands on Mallory’s shoulders, and kissed her on the cheek. She became even more disoriented: she had never seen the veteran in such good humor. On the other hand, he looked the same. His face was shrouded by a three-day beard almost as long as his hair. Without letting go of Mallory, he said, “How are you? It’s been almost six months…”

  “Eight. You must have been in a quite a rush, seeing how you disappeared from one day to the next.”

  That sounded like a reprimand, she realized. To change the subject, she said, “I suppose you took care of Morsak?”

  He pulled his hands away from her shoulders, all traces of joy erased.

  Good job! Keep digging, she reproached herself silently.

  “Yes,” Laorcq replied. “That bastard didn’t deserve to live. You were right: revenge didn’t fix anything, but at least I can move forward now.”

  As he spoke these last words, his head turned slightly toward Alrine Lafora.

  Mallory understood immediately that her instincts had been correct. Something had happened between them. On her arms, the roses disappeared, leaving only buds.

  She decided to be happy for him. After his wife and child were murdered, Laorcq had endured more than his fair share of misfortune. It was time for him to live again. After all, she couldn’t resent Lafora: she should have taken her shot when she’d had the chance…

  Torg barely understood the subtleties of human relations, but he must have sensed his captain’s consternation. He slid behind her, put an arm across her shoulders, and pulled her to him protectively. He addressed Laorcq in a conspiratorial tone. “Jazz is happy you’re here, even though he’ll never admit it. You should take the time to visit him on the Sirgan.”

  The cybrid’s comment was a welcome diversion. Mallory relaxed while Laorcq replied, “With pleasure. He’ll just have to wait a little while. We’ve got quite a bit of work ahead of us…”

  The three humans and the cybrid walked out of the orbital elevator’s lobby. Mallory was surprised to see a clear horizon. She expected to find herself surrounded by dozens of buildings vying to be the tallest, and instead found an prom
enade that stretched to infinity. The architectural monotony was broken only by the multi-colored splotches created by small parks overflowing with abundant plant life. Mallory imagined a mad surgeon grafting patches of jungle onto the city-planet’s metallic skin. There were delicate blue bushes and clusters of thick branches with brown leaves and yellow bark. Finally, past the park there stood another elevator that looked from a distance like a black thread disappearing into the orange sky.

  Alrine Lafora walked at Mallory’s side, a million miles from noticing her sullen humor. Torg and Laorcq followed behind the two women. Alrine, formerly a lieutenant in Kenval’s police force, was telling the pilot why she was there. The Vohrn leader Hanosk had recruited her, just as he had Mallory and the veteran. She was now part of their special division, whose members hailed from a variety of species.

  Created by the Vohrn in response to an attempted genocide against them, the unit’s mission was to investigate unusual events and determine if they were connected to the appearance of an unknown species.

  Interpreting Mallory’s silence as shyness, Alrine tried to start a conversation.

  “Solicor is nothing like Kenval. When we arrived, I was expecting all the disadvantages of a big city, but the Gibrals and the Xilfs manage the planet really well.”

  The subject drew the pilot’s attention. From the very beginning, her choice of profession hadn’t been an accident: all she had ever wanted was to travel and learn about the different civilizations she found at each port.

  Having distracted Mallory, Alrine continued. “Four hundred levels covering all of the continents and part of the oceans. No matter where they are, there are always the same number of levels rising to the same height above the surface. That’s what gives the planet such a uniform appearance.”

  Mallory was impressed. So many levels… The surface must be more than a mile down. Alrine went on with her explanation. At least twenty percent of each level was reserved for plant life, and wide wells traversed the entire superstructure at regular intervals. The Gibrals primarily occupied the top floors, and the Xilfs lived near the ground.