Alien Freak - Calista Skye Page 0,38

inside. They were extremely interested in moons, the Elders. Often, one can find whole treasure troves on the inside of one. Occasionally, there are whole fleets of spaceships, dead and useless. Sometimes we can find genuinely wonderful and valuable objects inside them. And always going into any kind of Elder-made structure is dangerous. The moons especially.”

I frown. “They just vanished?”

“So it seems.”

“Was there a war? Some kind of pandemic?”

“Nobody knows. What it looks like is that they just left the universe. Collective suicide on a grand scale is possible, but it feels like that would be beneath them. Some say that they changed into pure energy and became immaterial, body-less. Or that they switched into higher dimensions. Lots of people, including emperors and major governments, have tried to contact them. No such luck.”

“Why would governments want to talk to the Elders?” I think I can guess why, but I’m supposed to be a journalist and I have to ask on-screen.

“They appear to have been extraordinarily powerful. Planets and stars were just toys to them, things they played with to amuse themselves. Today, space is full of all kinds of wars and conflicts between a million species that are primitive by comparison. If one army in a war could somehow get an Elder race on its side, as an ally, that army could rule the whole galaxy twenty days later. That’s why.”

“Nobody’s heard from them?”

“Not as far as we know. My databanks don’t show anything like that ever happening.”

“Did they leave anything that can be used by us today?”

“They left many small and big objects. From spaceships that still work to tiny devices that never run out of energy. So yes, they did. Elder objects are extremely sought after, especially if they do something. But genuinely useful objects are very rare.”

That arouses my suspicions. “Is that why we’re going to that moon, Zaroc?”

“Maybe.”

“Looking for useful objects made by the Elders?” I persist.

“Not necessarily useful,” he says. “Just one that still works. Apparently, it doesn’t matter what it does.”

“Zaroc,” Koyanara says urgently. “I think we have a little bit of a problem with Averie. Look at her fingers.”

I hold up my hand, and my heart turns to ice. “Oh no!”

15

- Zaroc -

I grab one little hand and hold it up to the light from hyperspace.

A coldness spreads through me.

“Let me see your feet.”

Averie hurriedly takes off her boots.

I grab her foot and examine the toes. “Here, too,” I observe. “The Fentrat?”

“That would be my guess,” Grandmother says very calmly. “I wondered why it didn’t do more to keep you there. It was my impression that it deliberately let you go.”

Each of Averie’s fingernails and toenails has tiny, round leaves sprouting out from underneath, bright green.

“It seeded her,” I conclude. “Even the Fentrat wanted to mate with a human female.”

“This is not mating,” Grandmother corrects. “This is a parasitic infection. The Fentrat wants to turn you into a copy of itself, Averie.”

“Oh my God,” Averie whimpers. “Can it be stopped?”

I check my own fingers, but I appear to not be infected. “It can.”

“Are you sure, grandson?” Grandmother says in our own language so Averie can’t understand. “This is a completely unknown phenomenon. I find nothing about it in my databanks. I think Averie has just discovered how the Fentrat procreates. It’s a big scientific discovery, but it’s probably not going to end well for her. Certainly, no cure is known.”

“She doesn’t need to know that,” I decide. “Let’s not give up right away.” I switch back to Interspeech. “Does this hurt?”

I pinch one of the little leaves with my own nails.

“A little,” Averie says in a small voice. “Oh no, no no no no…”

I understand her despair. She’s being turned into a plant from the inside.

Holding on to her hand, I look her straight in the eye. “We will fix this. We will cure you. Grandmother, any medical facilities in range?”

“An extremely advanced, leading research hospital of the kind you’d need for this? No, of course not. We are on the very outskirts of civilization here. And even if one existed, you couldn’t even pay for the first examination.”

“You said it’s a big discovery,” I protest. “Surely, any doctor would love to become famous from that and cure her for free.”

Grandmother hoots with mirthless laughter. “I’ve never known you to be an unthinking optimist, Zaroc. The whole team of leading medical experts you would absolutely require for something like this would absolutely require to be paid in full for their efforts, as well