Tad Williams - A Stark And Wormy Knight

“Bear with us, Shipman Jatt,” the captain said. “You’re here by special request, but we’re in the middle of an actual mission here and we don’t have time to…” Her attention was distracted by a murmur from the first lieutenant.

“They’re not going for it,” he said.

“Maybe they’re just not in a hurry,” said Doc Swainsea. “Their approach is slow. Give it time…”

Even as she said it, one of the lifeboats suddenly flew apart. The others scattered away from their stricken comrade in all directions, but slowly — too slowly. The small ships dodged and dived, but within only a few minutes every one of them had been reduced to shattered flotsam. I blinked hard as my eyes filled with tears.

“There he is!” said Captain Watanabe. “See, Jatt?” When she turned to me she saw my face. “No, look, he got through!”

“He? What are you talking about? They’re all dead!” It was all I could do to keep from sobbing out loud at the waste, the murderous stupidity of it all.

“No! No, Jatt, the lifeboats were unmanned. They were cover, that’s all.” She pointed to the screen again, at what I had taken for another small, rounded chunk of debris. “See, that’s him! He’s almost reached them!”

“He doesn’t know, Captain,” said Chinh-Herrera suddenly. “Balcescu didn’t tell him.”

“For Christ’s sake, who is this he you keep talking about…?” Then suddenly it hit me. “Wait a minute…Balcescu? Are you telling me that’s Balcescu out there? What’s he doing? What’s going on?” I was almost crying again, and if you don’t think that’s embarrassing for a guy my age no matter how tall he is, you’re a damn idiot.

“He’s in one of our exterior repair pods,” said Chinh-Herrrera, pointing to the tiny, avocado-shaped object floating across the starfield toward the jellyfish, which loomed above it now like a frozen tidal wave. “The engineers modified it. Wait’ll you see what it can do.”

“If the ship lets it get close enough,” said Doc Swainsea. I noticed for the first time that her eyes were red, too.

I still didn’t really understand, but I sat in silence now with everyone else, holding my breath as I watched the tiny object float closer to the monstrous ship. At last it touched and stuck. Everyone cheered, even me, although I still wasn’t quite sure why. Slowly, the rounded shape of the repair pod flattened against the side of the jellyfish ship until had turned itself into a wide, shallow dome like a black blister.

“It’s slicing its way through,” said Chinh-Herrera. “Monofilament cutter.”

“Put on the helmet feed,” said the captain.

A moment later another picture jumped onto the screen — a close-up view of something falling away — a section of the alien ship’s skin that had been cut away now falling into the ship, I realized. The hole it left pulsed with blueish light.

“How’s the pod holding up?” the captain called to the engineers.

“The blister beams have gone rigid — no loss of pressure. We’re solid, ma’am!”

A moment later we could see feet in an excursion suit fill the screen as Balcescu looked down while he stepped through the hole cut in the alien hull. It seemed crazy — the aliens must know he was there. How many seconds could he have until they were on him? And what the hell was he supposed to do in that little time — plant a bomb? Why would they send Balcescu to do that instead of one of the marines?

But all I asked was, “Why isn’t he talking to us?”

“Radio silence,” Chinh-Herrera whispered. “To make sure we give him as long as possible before he’s detected.”

“He likes it better that way, anyway,” said Doc Swainsea.

As Balcescu moved inside it was as though he had been swallowed into some giant living thing — the blue-lit corridor was mostly smooth except for low bumps in strange formations, and as shiny-wet as internal organs. I half expected him to be swept up like a corpuscle in a blood stream, but instead he turned into the main passage, which seemed to be about half a hundred feet tall and nearly that wide, and began to move down it. He was walking, I realized, which meant that the ship had to have some kind of artificial gravity.

“What’s he looking for?” I whispered, but nobody answered me.

Suddenly a trio of inhuman shapes emerged from a side-corridor into the main passageway. I heard several of the observers swear bitterly — I must confess Captain Watanabe was one of them — as the horrors turned toward Balcescu. I couldn’t make a sound, I was so frightened. They were at least twice human height, rippling like ash in a fire, but undeniably real, even seen only on com screen. Whatever complicated arrangement was at the bottom of their bodies didn’t touch the floor, but they did not give the impression of being light or airy or ghostly. And their faces — if those were their faces…! Well, I’ll just say I think I know now what was under the Commendatore’s mask.

Balcescu stopped and stood waiting for them. We could tell he’d stopped because the walls around him stopped moving. I guess he thought there was no point in running away, although if it had been me I sure as hell would have given it a try. The entire bridge was silent. You know that expressions about hearing a pin drop? If someone had dropped one just then we all would have jumped right out of our skins.

The terrible things approached Balcescu until they were right in front of him — and then they glided right past him.

“What the hell…?” I said, louder than I meant to, but nobody seemed to care. They were too busy cheering. For a second I thought they’d lost their minds. “Has he got some kind of cloaking device…? I asked.

Balcescu had turned around for some reason and was following the floating aliens. To my horror, he actually hurried after them until he caught them, then reached out and shoved the nearest one in the back. The creature stumbled slightly, or at least bobbed off balance, but then righted itself and went on as if it hadn’t noticed anything unusual. Neither of them even looked back.

I felt like crying again, even as everyone else was celebrating. I just didn’t get it. I almost thought I’d lost my mind.

“I hope you all saw that,” Balcescu said. I realized it was the first time I’d heard his voice in days. Who would have guessed I’d be hearing it over a comlink from the alien ship? “I humbly submit that I have won the argument.”

“You sure did, you arrogant sonuvabitch!” shouted Chinh-Herrera, but I think the comlink was only working one way.

“What happened?” I asked Doc Swainsea. She seemed more restrained than the others, as if she didn’t quite believe this was the victory everyone else seemed to think it was.

“They’re not real,” she said. “He was right, Rahul.” The doctor is the only person who calls me by my true name.

“Not real? But they blew up our ships! And just now…he pushed one of them!”

“Oh, they’re real enough — they have weight and mass. But they’re constructs. They’re not real people, any more than a child’s toy soldiers are real.” She frowned. She looked very tired, like it was taking all her energy just to keep talking to me. “No, that’s a bad analogy. They’re not that kind of toys, they’re puppets. This was all a show.”

“A show? They killed people! Hundreds of shipmen! What kind of show is that?”

But before she could answer me I heard Balcescu’s voice and turned back.

“This looks like it, don’t you think?” he asked, as if having a conversation with an old friend. “Time to make a little trouble for the local repertory company, I think.” George Sanders, maybe even Cary Grant — I have to admit, the superior bastard did have style. He seemed to be standing in a large chamber, one that was even more intestinal than the passageway, if such a thing was possible. At the center of it floated a huge, shifting transparency, a moving gob of glass-clear gelatin as big as a jumbo jet. Balcescu walked toward it, then stopped and held up his com wand, thumbed it. A deep rasp of sound echoed through the room and the jelly rippled. Then a vast pseudopod abruptly reached out toward Balcescu and engulfed him. I must have cried out, because Chinh-Herrera turned to me and said, “Nah, don’t worry. He was right again, damn him. Look, it understood!”