5 Chapter 5: False Idols, Part 3

He heard a rustling noise from behind him. He half turned as something exploded into the back of his knee. He fell, cracking his other knee on the corner of the altar. He rolled onto the clay as the vines on the cross's arms lashed out for him.

A man in an environment suit stepped between Travis and the sky, aiming a flare gun at his stomach. Travis squinted. Through the reflected landscape in the faceplate, he could make out ice-blue eyes peering down at him from a somber, wrinkled face.

His helmet speaker snapped on with a click. "Very slowly," James said in a cold, commanding voice, "remove your knife, and toss it over."

Travis held up his mutilated hand. "I lost it when this happened," he said.

"When what happened?"

Travis stared up at James, aware of the vines attached to the altar flexing just at the edge of his vision. "I tried to cut a sample of the road, and it exploded," he said. "There was some sort of resonance feedback from the crystal."

James tilted his head, considering. "I'm not sure if I believe you," he said, "but it doesn't matter. Hold your hand out."

Travis extended his right hand. James opened his pouch, removed a DualCoder, and laid it on the clay. He knelt on one knee, his flare gun steady, his eyes never leaving Travis's. He slipped his pinky inside. There was a chirp, and his end of the device lit up with a red glow.

"Now you," he instructed.

"Answers first."

James's face remained expressionless. "I can still make your finger work after you're dead," he said. "It's not as difficult as the advertising claims."

Travis bit his lip, and pushed his finger inside. He felt a tingle, like static electricity. His end of the device lit up blue. At the center of the DualCoder the colors swirled, forming fractal patterns. They merged into a violet ring, and the device emitted a high, satisfied chord. James yanked it off Travis's finger, and stood. He pressed a button, and a chip the size of his fingernail popped out. He removed it, and placed it in his pouch.

"Thank you Travis," James said. "The secrets of Intelligrain will be the icing on the cake."

Panic bloomed in Travis's chest. "Who do you work for?" he asked.

"Don't be cliché," said James. "Does it matter? All the religions are fighting over colonization rights. The Vatican, Hunahpu City, the Pontifex Maximus, the Synod, the Caliphate... everybody wants a piece of this planet."

The pulse in Travis's temples began to throb. "There's intelligent life here," he said. "We're contaminators. No one would ever think of rescuing you now, no matter what you've discovered."

The elder man gestured to the statue. "This planet's already been contaminated," he said. "Look at the ridges around the eyes. What does that tell you?"

"Insomnia?"

"If you had only bothered to look," James continued, "you would have seen that every organ, vein, bone, and muscle have been crystalized. Those ridges are gills. There seems to be some sort of artificial breathing mechanism grafted inside. Apparently, non-biological material isn't affected by the process."

Travis shrugged.

"Gills, you idiot, on a world without an ocean. At least one other race made it to this planet before us, which makes the contamination charge invalid. The problem was that we needed a way to accidentally 'discover' that. And then you came along with your crusade, looking for a hacker, and promising espionage of Intelligrain intel from a ship on the Cassiopeiae run no less. How could we pass it up?"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Travis asked.

James let out a weary sigh. "Survey probes suggested months ago that this planet has some very unique life-forms. The natives are some sort of microscopic insects. They can chew material up and spit it out with molecular detail, like bees masticating honey into wax. But this wax has a crystalline structure more perfect than a diamond's."

"Imagine that, bugs that can transubstantiate."

James glowered at him. "Imagine if we exposed certain biological forms to them," he said, "if we genetically engineered animal life in the exact shapes needed for light-phase hyperdrive crystals." He held his arms out. "This world will become the center of the galaxy. And it will be under our... guidance." He stepped back, and leveled the flare gun at Travis's chest. "This may sting a little."

"Wait," Travis said, holding his hands out. "What about my daughter?"

James gave him a look that was almost pity. "Don't you get it?" he asked. "Nobody gives a shit about Crimsons. Do you think that's the only disease Intelligrain causes? Who cares, it makes colonization possible." He clicked his tongue. "Besides, when has theology ever been a friend of knowledge? Adam and Eve were cast from paradise for wanting to think for themselves. For bringing mortals the gift of fire, Prometheus was damned to have his organs be eagle chow for all eternity. For daring to teach that the Earth was not the center of creation, Galileo was imprisoned. The other religions don't want to bring Sol Invictus down, they just want their cut."

Travis nodded at the altar. "It won't be perfect though," he said. "There's some organic matter there. How come it hasn't been transformed?"

James's eyes narrowed. Almost involuntarily, they flicked to the polished ankh.

Travis kicked upward into James's stomach. The engineer fired as he fell, burning a path through the air millimeters from Travis's faceplate. Travis staggered, blinded. He squeezed his eyes tight against the pain, waiting for the killing shot.

Seconds passed. He opened his eyes, and blinked through the dying after-glare.

James had fallen onto the ankh. The vines wrapped around his shoulder and neck, pulling him against the altar in an iron grasp, the flare gun still clenched in his hand. Obeying an unheard command, a wind blew across the wasteland, pushing the dank fog back to the horizon. Only the glowing wisps remained.