Chapter 3

Iida regained consciousness and, without opening her eyes, began slowly coming to her senses. She tried to understand what was happening and to recall the last events. Judging by the fact that she could neither get up nor properly move her arms or legs, she was tightly bound and lay in a half-reclined position.

«The sensors show she’s awake», someone whispered loudly in Galacton. The voice clearly did not belong to a Vriinian.

To avoid guessing what was going on and not to strain her head, which was already splitting with pain, Iida tried to open her eyes. When they adjusted to the light, she saw someone standing beside her – a figure in a white medical jumpsuit, with a sloped and not quite symmetrical back, tapping in some commands on the control panel.

Sensing her gaze, he slowly turned toward her, and she recognized a smorg.

Iida winced involuntarily. Well, what could she do – with a splitting headache it was hard to stay politically correct. To put it mildly, this was not the most pleasant of races, neither visually nor in terms of the values Iida was used to.

The smorgs considered themselves brilliant scientists, and indeed they had made great advances in genetic engineering and biosymbiotic cloning. They could clone any living being, while their accompanying bioprograms and biorobots recreated not only the physical but also the mental likeness of the original.

In all civilized worlds, they were regarded as perverse sadists and monsters with an absurdly inflated sense of self-importance, and even the most reckless adventurers preferred not to deal with them unless absolutely necessary. Moreover, it had long been officially forbidden for them to engage in any kind of scientific research that violated the moral norms accepted throughout the Galactic Union.

However, by then, forbidding them anything had become meaningless as there were almost no smorgs left. Rumour had it that once, a deranged smorg scientist, while studying the Genomode, had accidentally modified it in such a way that it wiped out almost the entire population of the planets in their system. Only the inhabitants of a few small orbital stations had survived. After that, the smorg race found itself on the verge of complete extinction. Those who remained were largely unpredictable and viewed most things with their usual cold, pragmatic cynicism.

Judging by his appearance, this smorg was one of the most distinctive representatives of his kind – with a large, pale-ash, oval head, expressive cold eyes, three barely visible nasal slits, full black lips, and sharp, uneven teeth. His neck was almost nonexistent. From a torso of irregular shape extended long arms in glossy black gloves, while his massive, heavy legs gave an impression of awkwardness rather than true clumsiness. The smorg, of course, noticed Iida’s reaction.

«That’s all right, my dear», he whispered again in a loud, familiar tone, with a hint of wounded pride. «We’ll have time to become friends yet. Who knows – you might even fall in love with me. I’m quite the handsome one, after all!»

«Who can say», Iida tried to smile, still struggling to understand where she was. «Set me free then, since you’re so friendly! A mind like yours combined with such a charming appearance – how can I possibly resist the temptation?»

«I heard that before they captured you, you took down half the crew of a battle cruiser», the smorg said thoughtfully. «I may be handsome, but I’m not stupid – a rather rare combination, if I may say so», he added with a touch of pride. Like most of his kind, he suffered, to some degree, from a mild case of megalomania.

«Now that’s true enough», Iida agreed. «At least no one could deny you a certain sense of reason. Yes, I can get a bit irritable when someone tries to offend me. But ingratitude is definitely not among my flaws. Set me free, and I promise I won’t harm you.»

The smorg hesitated, as if weighing his options.

At that moment, a familiar voice of an officer burst from the communicator on the panel.

«You idiot! You were supposed to get information out of her, not make friends!»

«Smorg is not an idiot!» the smorg whispered, louder than usual. «A surface scan showed nothing, and a deep one could damage her brain.»

«All right, we’ll do this the old-fashioned way», the officer said as he entered the room.

«Now then», he continued, «state your name. Who are you, and what is your connection to the Armaon’s crew? Keep in mind, we already know quite a lot.» He gave a nasty grin. «And remember – wrong answers are not exactly encouraged here.»

«Interrogating a bound woman – that’s the height of military honor», Iida said mockingly. «I never would’ve thought the Vriinian code of honor meant so little to you.»

«We don’t belong to the military. We act on our own, and we couldn’t care less about the Vriinian code of honor», the officer replied with a malicious grin. Stepping up to the panel, he ran his finger across it.

A wave of searing pain washed over Iida. Her muscles seized in violent convulsions, and it felt as if her whole body were being torn apart. After a moment, the officer switched the wave off.

«That was just a little taste», he said with a sneer as the girl came to. «I’ve always thought a live demonstration is the best motivator! So, how do you like your bed? Quite the handy find from the smorgs’ abandoned world», he went on in a mocking tone. «Perfect for a friendly chat between two compatriots who just happened to bump into each other far from home! And now, let me ask you again – who are you, really?»

«Just an archaeologist», Iida said simply. «Nothing special.»

The officer activated the pain wave again, and after waiting for the girl’s convulsions to subside, he gave a wicked grin. “I can do this forever, you know! And the best part – I never get tired of it!»

The smorg shifted uneasily from foot to foot beside him. He clearly didn’t like these procedures, and a flicker of sympathy flashed in his restless eyes.

«As soon as I’m free», Iida said hoarsely to the officer, «I promise I’ll kill you first!» She found she could move one leg – apparently the violent vibrations had damaged the latch mechanism.

«Oh, don’t you worry about that», the officer replied with ironic pomposity, clearly savoring the girl’s helplessness. He stepped recklessly close, leaning toward her face. «We still have a great deal to put you through, and a lot to learn about one another.»

Iida strained with all her might, and the latch on her left leg gave way and flew off. She then slammed her heel against the lower strut, and a small blue blade tipped with a powerful paralyzing toxin sprung from the toe of her boot. She had never had cause to use it before, but the moment was clearly right.

Summoning herself, she drove the toe of her boot into the officer’s left shoulder blade. His eyes went glassy with shock and he collapsed, face-first, onto Iida. Overcoming her revulsion at the heavy, slack weight of his body, she fumbled with the officer’s pocket until, with great effort, she found a remote and mashed every button.

Freed from the remaining latches, she leaned over the officer, pulled from the inner pocket of his cloak a pistol and her bracelet, and fixed a steady, intent gaze on the smorg, who sat frozen in astonishment.

«Come on, handsome», she said, grabbing him by the collar of his jumpsuit and steering him confidently toward the exit. «I’m not done with you yet. By the way – where are we?»

«In the Station’s private transport docks, next to the residential sector», the smorg wheezed obediently, shuffling beside her and trying not to trip. They reached the coded exit door, and Iida pressed her ear against it, listening intently to the sounds outside.

«There can’t be more than two of them!» she whispered, bracing herself to kick the door open.

«Um, if I may point out», the smorg rasped quickly, raising his hands as if to stop her, «there’s another exit that leads straight to the docks, and it’s not guarded. No one has to be killed!»

«A smorg who can’t handle violence», Iida said with a wry shake of her head. «Well, isn’t that something. Today really is full of surprises. Either way, I’ve got to reach my ship, and fast.»

They slipped quietly toward the dock lifts, chose their level, and soon stepped out onto the right platform. The place was bustling, and nobody spared them so much as a glance. A few cargo bots clattered nearby, sorting containers and sending them off on slow-moving belts into the depths of the bay, while fresh ones rolled up to take their place.

As they neared the ship, Iida keyed the hatch open and dashed up the adjoining ramp. When she turned around, the smorg was still standing at the bottom, looking utterly lost – his slumped shoulders, drooping hands, and mournful little face radiated such a mixture of tragic and comic helplessness that Iida burst out laughing.

«Come on, get in!» she called. «There’s room for you too, and plenty we still need to discuss!»

After showing the smorg to the guest cabin, Iida suggested he get some rest, then headed to the bridge – it was time to plot a course. The ship’s systems were charting the route according to the coordinates left by Tarion. It turned out that their destination lay at the very edge of the Galactic Center – quite a considerable distance away.

This was a relatively small region in the heart of the Milky Way, and its most fascinating feature was a stellar cluster shaped like a rotating ellipsoid – a sight unlike anything else in existence. Venturing into the Center itself was considered utter madness because of the enormous, dense, and searing gas-and-dust clouds that filled it.

Their path led toward a small yellow-green planet almost entirely covered in jungles interspersed with high mountains. Originally uninhabited, the planet had, some time ago, been taken over by traders of every kind, race, and persuasion, and over the years it had turned into a vast open marketplace where absolutely anything could be bought or sold.

«I wonder what carried them so far?» Iida thought.

Once clearance for departure came through, she began carefully guiding the ship out of the Station. Preparing the engines for the jump, she switched on the autopilot. She never much liked piloting manually or meticulously overseeing all the in-flight processes – though she could do it almost flawlessly. In Iida’s own opinion, the ship’s hull being «almost without a single scratch» was proof enough of that.

The technicians on Ilion, however, didn’t always share her view. They could never understand how anyone could so carelessly drift through asteroid clouds or dense dust fields on autopilot, once again adjusting the misaligned engines packed to the brim with every kind of junk imaginable.