Inoculated

Chapter 2

Chapter 2“Unlike Imperial Infection Control to revoke its clearances without warning,” Orrin Stamos told the fetching young woman across from him. “And I'm so sorry they treated your … father so badly. After her coronation, the Empress will be touring the outlying colonies. Based on the level of activity here, I'm guessing Theogony will be her first stop. I'm afraid an Imperial visit is going to complicate things.”

The CEO of Titanide Aquafoods hoped she hadn't heard his hesitation. His company was the largest exporter of fish on Theogony. Orrin frowned, distressed at the way she'd been treated, but having difficulty believing the alien was so important to her.

Now their deal was about to fall apart.

Her company was the biggest importer of didinium on Kzizn. Trawlers on Theogony dredged up didinium by the trillions, the creatures ubiquitous. A carnivorous unicellular ciliate protist, its gelatinous texture nauseated the human palate. The didinium preyed upon Titanide's main catch, so throwing them back wasn't an option, and disposing their carcasses into the sea had earned the company the castigation of local environmentalists. Selling the didinium to the Kzizn seemed like the perfect solution.

Orrin didn't want to lose the contract because of a diplomatic snafu.

When he'd met her at the spaceport, Orrin had seen how distressed she was, and she'd insisted on being taken immediately to the consulate. En route, she'd been furious and disconsolate by turns.

“How's Xsirh's detainment being received at home?” he asked hesitantly.

“I don't know yet,” Lydia replied, her gaze on the floor. “They probably won't release him any time soon, will they?”

“Difficult to say. Why do you ask?”

“My father's throwing a birthday party for me on Kziznvxrz three days from now.”

“Well, I hope you don't have to spend your birthday here.”

He could feel the contract slipping through his hands, as though coated in slime. He knew the creature who'd accompanied her to Theogony couldn't possibly be her biological father, but clearly, she regarded him highly. Her biographical information indicated she'd been reared by the Kzizn after being shipwrecked on the planet as a child. All right, Orrin asked himself, if I were visiting Kzizn with my father, and they detained him, how would I want to be treated?

“Look, why don't we go see him, make sure he's being treated all right?” Orrin knew he wouldn't be endearing himself to Immigration, but he was in exports, not tourism.

“Oh, could we?” she said, brightening immediately. “That'd be wonderful! They probably don't even know what to feed him. And he'll dehydrate within hours if he's not immersed. Oh, thank you, Orrin!”

She looks about to leap across the desk! he thought. Himself, he wouldn't mind, the young woman quite attractive, but his girlfriend certainly would. I'd better com her, he thought, I'll probably be late for our date.

Orrin had Lydia wait in the foyer while he made arrangements, having to reschedule two afternoon meetings with suppliers.

He wondered what he was getting himself into.

* * *

Carissa Minas, Warden at the Helios Immigration Detention Center, frowned at the uproar.

We're Immigration! she thought in disgust. We should be trained for this!

Instead of a calm and orderly detention, chaos had erupted from the moment the detainee had arrived, the Kzizn's odor causing revulsion and nausea. Carissa had nearly fainted when she'd entered the holding area.

Now, watching on holo, she struggled to keep her face impassive, her bowels grinding and heaving, just like everyone else's in the facility. The creature's stupefying smell pervaded the place, and the sights and sounds hovering above her desk made it worse.

The elliptical glob of shimmering muck squirmed and writhed on the cell floor, bright mucous green along most its length. The purple splotching on its midriff almost looked like bruises. And it emitted a constant stream of blurts, blats, phorts, and phlats, the sounds a human might make when undergoing extreme gastrointestinal ejection.

“Sounds like C-Diff in there,” said the man across from her, Lieutenant Simon Hatzis, her second in command. “Smells like it, too.”

“What? What's that?” Carissa asked, looking at him through the holo.

“Clostridium difficile,” he said immediately. “A bacteria in the human intestine which releases toxins that attack the intestinal lining. Causes projectile diarrhea, highly infectious.”

“It's infectious?!” she asked, pointing at the writhing creature. The recent infectious outbreaks on two nearby planets were causing considerable consternation.

“Well, not according to the ship's manifest,” Simon replied, looking at a hand-held holo, text swirling above it. “ `All passengers inoculated and assured to be free of infectious pathogens per interstellar protocols.' It's even signed off by Imperial Infection Control.” He extended the holo toward her.

“I don't need to see it, thank you.” She hated his manner, redolent of a teacher lecturing young boys on imitating bathroom sounds.

The holographic figure blatted sonorously.

“Oh, my! What I wouldn't give to have been able to emit such sounds in grade school!”

Her stomach cramped as if in sympathy, and she realized she had to pass gas.

No! she thought, not in front of Lieutenant Hatzis! She couldn't stop the flatulence, but thankfully, it was silent, and the cloud of miasma that seeped up around her head wasn't terribly different from the stench already pervading the facility.

It wasn't enough that Imperial Infection Control had issued a detain-all-aliens order for Theogony. Then that insufferable Field Commander, Sarantos, had foisted upon her a detainee that the facility was unprepared to care for, one who appeared to be in distress, perhaps injured. And then this i***t Lieutenant waltzes into my office and spews his discursive diffi-whatever dissertation! Carissa fumed, wondering what she'd done to deserve such a fate.

“Visitor to see the Kzizn, Warden,” her intercom blatted.

Maybe someone from the embassy to tell us how to care for the creature, she thought. Carissa had commed them immediately after the alien's arrival, needing a translator. She'd quickly realized she needed more than translation. “Thank you, Stan, and can you ask environmental services to do something about the smell?”

“Yes, Warden.” Stan's voice over the intercom was almost as unpleasant as the sounds from the cell, the equipment ancient.

“Shall we, Lieutenant?” She gestured him to go first. I'd do anything to get his officious a*s out of my office! Carissa thought, carefully keeping her sentiments off her face.

He preceded her into the corridor and turned toward the foyer.

There, in the septic-smelling, antiseptic waiting room, they found not another Kzizn from the embassy but two humans, both of them looking distraught.

“I'm Orrin Stamos, CEO of Titanide Aquafoods,” the man said.

“Lydia Procopio,” the woman said. “I'm told my father is being detained here.”

Carissa shook both their hands, introducing herself. Even in her distress, the woman was stunning. “I'm afraid you must be mistaken, Ms. Procopio. Our only current detainee is an alien.”

“A Kziznvxrfn,” the woman said. “I know he's here.”

For a moment, Carissa was baffled. She'd never heard the full, non-diminutive name for the aliens spoken by someone fluent in the Kziznvxrfn language. Nonplussed by the bizarre sounds issuing from the beautiful woman's mouth, Carissa was befuddled by what she was trying to tell her. “Forgive me, a what?”

“A Kzizn.”

“Your father's a …” She coughed, taken aback. “Forgive me, but …”

“He adopted me when I was four. He's the only father I've ever known.”

Spoken with such simplicity, the words moved her. Further, the woman looked as if she'd been crying.

“I know he's here, Warden.”

A bit difficult to disguise that fact, Carissa thought sardonically. “Yes, the Kzizn is here. Uh, er, what's his name?”

“Xsirh.”

“ `Sure'?” Carissa repeated.

“Well, almost. It's short for Xsirhglksvi, spelled X-S-I-R-H.”

“Xsirh?” Carissa marveled that anyone could master such difficult sounds. She could see Lieutenant Hatzis suppressing his laughter. I'll pummel him later, she thought.

“Please, I have to see him. He was injured when Infection Control put a tractor beam on our ship. And he has to be immersed every few hours or he'll die from dehydration.”

“Of course, Ms. Procopio.” Even better than a translator from the embassy, Carissa thought. They didn't have a machine that could translate a language as difficult as Kziznvxrz. Even among human settlements across the galaxy, the proliferation of languages challenged even the most sophisticated translation equipment, despite the near ubiquity of Galactim, the lingua franca. “A few questions, first, if I may?” Carissa asked. “What was the purpose of your visit?”

“They were meeting with me to negotiate a didinium export contract,” the man said.

Orrin is his name, she reminded herself. “Thank you, Mr. Stamos.” She looked at the woman. “You mentioned injury, Ms. Procopio. How was he injured, and how severely?”

“He got up from his chair to get into an envirosuit after Infection Control said they were boarding our vessel. The tractor beam caused our ship to lurch, throwing him against the wall and bruising his micronuclei, the human equivalent of testicles.”

Carissa saw the two men squirm. “Sorry to hear he was injured, Ms. Procopio. You mentioned immersion?”

“Yes, Warden, preferably in salt water to maintain his electrolytes. Fresh water will work for a day or two, but will eventually cause delirium, seizures, coma, and respiratory arrest.”

“Lieutenant Hatzis, secure what he needs.”

“Huh?”

She whirled on him. “Get on it, man! He's in our care. His health is our responsibility.”

Hatzis hesitated again.

She stepped up to him, shoved her face into his, and ground her heel into his foot. “Now, please,” she said sweetly. Carissa turned to the woman as the Lieutenant limped away. “Ms. Procopio, we'll do everything we can to insure he's well. Typically, visitors aren't allowed, but given the circumstances, we'll make an exception. If you'll give us a few minutes, I'll escort you back myself.”

* * *

Wait for it! Erastus thought, wait for it!

He was Erastus Doukas, Agent Provocateur from the Imperial Bureau of Suspicion, and he watched the Immigration Detention Center like a hawk for anyone exiting.

He'd seen his target entering with an unknown man ten minutes ago.

Wait for it! he told himself yet again.

For the next two minutes, no one else entered or exited the building.

The detention center was isolated, sitting on the point, perched atop an escarpment overlooking the sea. Purposively so. No one got in or out without being observed. And there was only one bridge.

He surveilled the facility from across an estuary where rough seas surged. Erastus was somewhat dismayed at how close the facility was to the water. Not that anyone would dare try to escape into the roiling seas, waves battering rocks just a few feet below the facility's foundation. What do they do in a storm? he wondered.

But no matter. She'd gone in the facility, and hadn't come out.

And if everything went well, she never would. Not of her own volition.

He grinned, his mission nearly finished. “T-minus three minutes,” he said into his com.

Rarely did he complete such missions so fast, but this one had been unusual from the start. A month ago, he'd been contacted by agent control in a brightly-lit alley on Lucina IX.

A woman wearing a fedora and a long trench coat was slumped against the alley wall between two malodorous bins of refuse, glaring radon lamps high overhead throwing every object into sharp relief. “Agent Doukas,” she said, her eyes barely visible under the wide brim, her nose as perfect as an axe blade.

“If you're gonna do the cloak-and-dagger routine, you might consider a darker alley,” he told her.

“What concern of yours is that?” she snapped. “Besides, dark alleys are spooky.”

He could see the fine, classic lines of her face, the perfect nose, the luscious lips. “They don't find dead dames in bright alleys.”

“Precisely my point, Doukas,” she snarled, mispronouncing his name like a homophobic slur. “I've a special assignment for you. One which has the bouquet of a fine Metaxa.”

He immediately went on high alert. As exalted as it was rare, Metaxa was a distilled blend of brandy, spices, and wine from Pelopone VI. Nearly no one except the Imperial Family could afford it. Nearly no one but the Imperials drank it. He knew what she meant but he didn't say it: Orders from the Palace.

“You are to travel immediately to Erato IV in the Mnemosyne Constellation. The planet is locally known as Theogony. You're familiar?”

“Adjacent to the system of that alien species with the unpronounceable name, right? The Kzizn?”

“That's the one. In fact, that's your task. Secure the planet under the Bureau's auspices, capture all aliens and their human companions, and ship them back to Gaea for interrogation.”

“All of them?”

“Did I specify any exemptions?” Her tone was as sharp as her nose.

“What about indigenous species?”

“There's no intelligent life on Theogony!”

Taken aback, he realized the orders applied only to … “Ah, sentient aliens,” he said. Sentience was a characteristic ascribed to just a few elite forms of life in the galaxy, a category rumored to exclude Homo sapiens.

“Of course I mean `sentient,' i***t!”

Proving once again that an assumption on his part would have made an anatomical posterior of them both. She doesn't need my help in that regard, he thought. He suspected he didn't need hers, either. “How long do I have?”

“A month.”

At first, he thought to object, Theogony just a parsec from Kziznvxrz. But how do I know any Kzizn are even there? he wondered.

“Relations between the two species aren't spectacular,” the woman said, “so you might not have any difficulty at all.”

“Which means very few human companions, too,” he said, nodding. “What about the embassy?”

“Don't worry about it. Cleared by Immigration, and technically, not even Imperial Territory.”

And he and a crew of ten subordinates had come to Theogony and had scoured the planet for any sentient aliens, not just Kzizn. Within a week, they'd secured their removal to Gaea for interrogation.

Done, he commed agent control to say he'd finished early. “What do you mean, I gotta stay?” he objected to the shadowy, fedora-obscured woman.

The blade-nosed face in the holocom nearly leaped from the machine into his hotel room. “I told you a month, do you hear?!”

And the very next day, Emperor Zenon died, throwing the Empire into an uproar. Fortunately, Princess Hecuba stepped into the breach and declared herself Empress, a startling move for a young woman at the tender age of twenty-four.

Watching events on Gaea from the border planet Theogony, Erastus couldn't help but notice that in the background of every vid or still of the Empress-designate lurked the Dowager Empress, Narcissa Thanos, the Emperor's surviving second wife. The first wife had died in childbirth some thirty years ago.

Doukas wasn't a genius, but he wasn't ingenuous either. Rot in the rarified air of a palace smelled the same as that in brightly-lit alleys. And something smelled rotten in Denmark, wherever that was.

And then, that morning, a Kzizn ship had commed Helios Control for permission to land on Theogony. Aboard were a Kzizn and a human. Intuitively, he knew his bird had alighted.

Watching the building to assure for himself that not a soul emerged from the Immigration Detention Center, he lifted his com to his mouth. “All right, katáskopos, time to capture our bird. Go, go, go!”

Hovers and ground cars descended upon the facility like a swarm of bees. Instantly, the place was surrounded, and the ordnance aimed at it was enough to blast it off the precipice and into the sea.

Doukas and two subordinates brandishing sidearms blew into the waiting room, badges out. “IBS,” he intoned in his deepest voice, displaying his badge in one hand. With the other, he held his weapon at his shoulder, its point glowing and ready.

The stench was hideous, and he nearly gagged.

Behind partitioned glass, the receptionist quailed and slowly sank to the floor, his hands in the air.

Three agents surged in behind him, one going left, one going right, and one staying at the door. Three more entered behind them, all of them looking bilious.

Two agents on his heels, Doukas headed straight in, toward the holding tanks, already familiar with the layout. He opened his trake to the paging system, trying to contain his gag reflex.

“This is Agent Erastus Doukas of the Imperial Bureau of Suspicion.” His voice boomed back at him from overhead. “This facility is being commandeered by Imperial authority. All planetary Immigration officers are hereby deputized as IBS agents under my command. You will lower yourself to the floor immediately. You will be shot after the count of five if you are not on the floor. Five, four, three, two, one.”

Six agents reported all clear.

Doukas marched past wormwire-reinforced glasma panes toward a set of double doors.

A uniformed female burst through the doors. “What's the meaning of this!?”

“Hold your fire!” he told his agents, two guns trained on her. “Warden Minas, I hope. If you're not, you're dead.”

“Indeed. What the stars is going on?”

“Your detention center is now under my command by order of her Imperial Majesty. All your staff are now my staff, and all your prisoners are now my prisoners.”

“Fine by me. How are you going to care for the Kzizn?”

Doukas was taken aback, not quite the response he expected. “I'm not. It's to be transported to Gaea immediately for interrogation. And its companion, the woman it arrived with. Who's the man?” He strode through the next set of doors, the Warden on his heels.

“A business associate, a Theogony native.”

In the corridor beyond, the stench intensified. “The Kzizn's through this door?” Doukas stopped abruptly before going through.

“In the holding tank, yes,” Warden Minas said.

He signaled to the two agents with him, both of them female.

All three burst through the door.

Partitioned cells lined the walls, their shiny, carbo-nick alloy bars stretching from plascrete floor to plascrete ceiling. Bare loomglobes hung near the ceiling, bathing the scene in stark, surreal light.

A woman lay on the floor in front of the rear-most cage, her wide-eyed stare on the agents. Nearby lay a man, the Theogony native. Just beyond the bars lay a lump of green protoplasm, a large purple splotch in its middle.

The stench was overpowering, and Doukas nearly retched.

His two agents turned the same putrid green as the creature beyond the bars from the stench. They pounced upon the couple. His other two Kzizn detainees had worn envirosuits, the Theogony atmosphere eventually fatal to the Kzizn. None of them had had human companions.

“What's the meaning of this?” the woman asked, a plaster barrel to the base of her skull.

He saw she was exceptionally pretty, even face down on the floor. Doukas knelt where they could both see him. He flipped out his badge and repocketed it, so practiced at the maneuver that no one had time to peruse it. “Agent Erastus Doukas, Imperial Bureau of Suspicion. You're under arrest.”

“On what charges?!” the man demanded. “I want to speak with my lawyer!”

“He wants his lawyer,” Doukas mocked, his voice a high-pitch whine. “Sequester them,” he ordered. “No further contact between the prisoners until after interrogation. Put the female in isolation and take the male immediately to interrogation room two. I'll question him first.”

Other agents converged to assist, and as they hauled the female to isolation, Doukas was taken aback by her breath-taking beauty.

“My father needs help,” she protested as she was dragged away. “He'll die if he' not immersed within an hour!”

Father? Doukas wondered, bewildered for a moment. Then he realized she was talking about the Kzizn.

“R'oo yv zoo irtsg uli z grnv,” the alien inside the cage blatted.

Doukas cringed at the sound, as if to dodge projectile diarrhea. He stepped to the bars to look at the amorphous figure, its cilia writhing helplessly in the air. “Get a Kzizn envirosuit,” he told the agent beside him, Lieutenant Special Agent Jace Eliades.

“Why do you suppose she called it `Father'?” Eliades asked.

Doukas shrugged. “And then get me her dossier, Lieutenant.”

“Yes, Sir.”

Warden Minas stepped up beside him. “How soon can you get them going to Gaea?”

“An hour maybe. Lieutenant Eliades, secure transport. We'll be ready by the time they get here.”

“Yes, Sir.” Eliades had his hand to his ear, his lips moving soundlessly as he issued a series of orders.

“I can't believe the smell,” Doukas said. “And she calls this thing her father?” he asked the Warden.

Minas shrugged. “Reared by the Kzizn since she was four, apparently.”

He glanced over his shoulder toward the isolation cell where his agents had taken her, wondering what the palace wanted from her.

Erastus Doukas, Agent Provocateur from the Imperial Bureau of Suspicion, was convinced she was the reason he'd been sent to this backwater planet.

But why her? he wondered.