“I can no longer tolerate being in this useless body that can’t even respond properly to the sight of a desirable woman. Get what you need for the procedure while I ready myself."
Nicoli heard the tentative steps of Kiera as she walked across the room and made a show of rifling through the various drawers and hoped she found something there that could be used as a weapon.
“Nathzur, are you sure these bodies are Coronadian? With their dark hair, they don't match the profile.”
“What?” Kiera asked, pausing in her search. "Coronado. Yes, of course." It was spoken softly, with a note of awe.
The Harvester sighed. “Good. Brother Joh'nan was most specific that we only use the bodies taken from Coronado. Shall we get started, then? I'll just--”
“What is going on here?”
At the sound of the newcomer's voice, Nicoli automatically cracked open an eyelid to see a robed figure standing in the doorway. His hood was pushed back and the eyes looking out of the marred face stared accusingly first at the other Harvester and then at Kiera.
“Brenneth, will you explain to me what you are doing in my lab with this...this...”
“Nathzur? But I thought...” Brenneth's voice trailed off as he stepped away from Kiera and the gurney. He'd removed his hood and his gaze shifted back and forth between the Nathzur and Kiera in obvious confusion.
Knowing the situation was only going to get worse, Nicoli jumped off the gurney. Both Harvesters stumbled back, startled and staring at him in horror.
Nicoli gave them no time to recover before rushing the larger of the two men. Nathzur stood frozen in place, staring wide-eyed as Nicoli’s fist slammed into Brenneth's face with the sickening smack of flesh and bone hitting flesh and bone. The man’s eyes rolled up into his head as his body slowly collapsed to the floor, unconscious.
At the sight of his fallen friend, Nathzur started screaming.
"Quiet, or you're next," Nicoli growled, rounding on him.
The man fell abruptly silent, a quiet desperation reflected in his gaze which darted first to Nicoli and then to Kiera, and back again.
“Now what?” She asked, coming to stand beside Nicoli.
“Now? We kill them.”
Nathzur’s eyes grew round and a sound escaped his mouth just before he sank to the floor in a faint.
She looked down on the unmoving figure. “That was effective. But seriously, now what do we do?”
“We kill them.” Nicoli’s tone was cold and hard.
“You can’t.”
“Yes, I can.”
“That's not what I mean. I know you can physically, but it's not right.”
He stared at her in shock. "Have you forgotten the rooms downstairs? I found you in one of those rooms. These men are part of a race that goes from planet to planet kidnapping and killing hundreds of people and I guarantee you they didn't give a moment's thought to the morality of it. As far as I'm concerned, they don’t deserve to live.”
“You have no respect for life.”
“Of course I do. Just not theirs. I say, let the punishment fit the crime.”
Nicoli's glare met her pleading gaze. Everything in him told him he was right, so why did he hesitate? Disgusted with his own reaction, he stepped forward planning to carry out his plan only to have Kiera block his way.
“I won't let you,” she warned him, raising hands clinched into fists like she intended to fight him.
In a move too fast for her to anticipate, he lifted her off the floor and set her aside. “I don’t fight women,” he growled.
It was obvious that she could never best him in a test of wills or force, but she had other weapons in her arsenal that were far more effective and she must have realized it because she moved in front of him again, but this time, pressed her hands flat against his chest and tilted her head up to meet his gaze.
"Please. For me. Don't do this."
Nicoli felt himself falling into the deep violet pools of her gaze and knew he was lost. Swearing under his breath, he managed to tear his gaze from hers. “This is a mistake.”
Stepping away from her, he missed the warmth of her touch immediately and would have given anything for a quiet moment devoid of danger to pull her into his arms and find out if his touch had the same dizzying effect on her as hers had on him.
But they didn't have that moment - and they wouldn't if they didn't leave soon. While Yanur might ignore his orders to leave the planet if he took too long returning to the ship, he doubted the young Michels would suffer the same pangs of leaving a close friend behind to certain death.
Grabbing Nuzthur’s still unconscious form by the ankles, he dragged it to the center of the room to lie beside Brenneth's.
“Help me get their robes off. We'll tear them into strips and use them to bind them. I don’t want them getting loose.”
A few minutes later, they stood looking down at the two unconscious aliens. The nude bodies of the Harvesters revealed that the patchwork skin grafting was not limited to just their faces. The robes had hidden other deformities as well – muscle atrophy in some places, abnormal swelling in others. There even seemed to be a skin rash, but Nicoli couldn't be sure and he wasn't about to get any closer in case it was contagious.
He gagged each man using the remaining pieces of robe and then dragged each one to the closet, safely concealing them behind the closed door.
By now, the computer's holographic image had disappeared. Nicoli hoped that meant his program had finished running. If it worked, then all of the Harvesters' data from their main database was being uploaded to an off-planet server, where Yanur and others could safely search it.
The entire process should only take seconds and once the data transfer was complete, a red-skull icon would appear.
"Shouldn't we go now?" Kiera asked, though for some reason, she wouldn’t look at him.
"Can't. Not yet.” Nicoli stared into space, willing the red skull to appear, feeling the passage of time like a heavy weight pressing him down.
When the red skull suddenly appeared, Nicoli let out a sigh. Entering a quick sequence of numbers, he activated the Holocaust virus which would work its way through the Harvesters' entire network and wipe it out. Once activated, there was no way to stop it.
“Okay,” he said. “Now we can go. In forty-eight hours, the entire system is going to crash and I want to be off this planet before that happens.”
He started for the door, stopping when he noticed she wasn't following. "What's the matter?"
"Forgetting something?" With her gaze still averted, she held out his robe and boots. "You might want to put these on."
Smiling to himself, he dressed quickly, remembering to pull the hood over his head. "Better?"
“That’s a matter of opinion,” he thought he heard her murmur, but she’d pulled her own hood over her head and he couldn’t be certain.
Finding an exit was easier than he expected and once again, the thought that everything was going much too smoothly, struck him.
He pushed the worry aside and focused on finding a form of transportation they could take back to the landing field. Exiting the building, he was please to find they were in a parking lot. Five hover-shuttles stood waiting.
“Shall we?” Nicoli asked, gesturing to one.
“Do you know how to fly one of these?”
“Of course.” He walked over to the first and found it locked. He tried the second and third with the same result. The hatch of the fourth shuttle, however, opened easily.
They wasted no time climbing aboard with Nicoli taking the pilot’s seat.
“Ready?” He studied the controls for a moment and then turned to make sure Kiera was securely strapped in beside him. Satisfied, he looked for a way to engage the engines. Most modern societies used electronic scanners and ID tags, but he hadn't found any tags in the Harvester robes and a thorough look at the console revealed no scanner on the panel. There were plenty of lighted buttons though.
"This might take a minute," he said, trying to figure out what the symbols on the buttons meant.
Before he could stop her, Kiera reached out and pressed a series of buttons. "Whoa - are you crazy? You don't know what--"
The sound of the engines roaring to life cut off his words and he stared at her, impressed despite himself.
She smiled. "Seemed like the thing to do."
She was full of mysteries and he realized he was looking forward to unraveling them.
Nicoli flipped the lever to raise the craft off the ground. As it did, the locks on the outer hatch doors automatically engaged, causing the two of them to exchange questioning looks. Without having to be asked, she walked back to the doors and tried to unlock them.
“It’s no use,” she said, coming back to sit next to him. “They won’t budge.”
Then the shuttle started moving. Using the steering column, Nicoli steered toward the airfield where the
Icarus
waited. The shuttle's response was sluggish and when it did finally change course, it was not toward the airfield.
Nicoli tried to alter its direction but nothing he did had any effect. He didn't have to tell her they were in trouble, trapped in a vehicle that was taking them to an unknown destination; she'd been watching.
"Now what?" she asked as the shuttle picked up speed.
"Now we go for a ride."
Chapter 10
“Welcome to Rebirth. My name is Tomas and I’ll be your Acclimation Guide.”
The young man standing outside the newly landed shuttle smiled up at Nicoli and Kiera who were staring at him out the side viewport. He looked to be in his early twenties, with a clear, smooth complexion Nicoli had yet to see on any Harvester and his sparsely clothed body boasted excellent health and a superior physique. Beneath the sun’s rays, the man’s blond hair shone like a halo about his head which, in turn, caused his violet-colored eyes to sparkle like two gemstones. Nicoli couldn't help but notice their color was the same as Kiera's the same color as all the eyes of the donors who'd been in that room It was further proof that Nicoli's suspicion was valid.
Yanur may have discovered how to extract a person's life essence from its body, but the Harvesters had learned how to transfer that life essence into a different body altogether.
Nicoli had arrived at this conclusion in the last two hours. Trapped in the shuttle, all attempts to alter or terminate their course having failed, there'd been little else to do but think. That's when the conversation back at the lab had replayed itself in his head and he'd realized what the Harvesters were doing. He'd kept his suspicions to himself, though. Kiera already had enough to worry about.
She'd spent the majority of the flight staring out the front viewport. Not that there had been much to see once they'd flown away from the city. Just vast stretches of barren ground, until they'd arrived at this remote encampment.
When the shuttle began its descent, Nicoli and Kiera had pulled their hoods over their heads and helplessly waited while the shuttle approached the small airfield and landed. The locks had automatically disengaged when the engines shut down, but upon seeing the welcoming party waiting for them, neither Nicoli nor Kiera had made an effort to leave the ship.
Now seeing Tomas move toward the hatch with the clear intent of opening it, Nicoli rose from his seat and moved to put himself between the opening door and Kiera.
“Please feel safe, Brothers,” Tomas said, upon seeing Nicoli's defensive stance. "You are among friends." He smiled again and gestured toward their robes. "We will find you more suitable clothing shortly, but please, remove your hoods. We have no need to cover our faces here."
With only a slight hesitation, Nicoli uncovered his head and then nodded for Kiera to follow suit. For a long moment, Tomas simply stared.
“Very nice,” he finally said. “Brothers Brenneth and Nathzur, I presume? We expected you tomorrow morning, but I can understand why you came earlier. You’ll wish to be partners, but should you have a change of mind,” he looked pointedly at Kiera, “please don’t hesitate to ask for me. I assure you, I may look young, but I get the job done – to everyone’s mutual satisfaction.” He gave a small chuckle. “Now, if you’ll come with me?” He turned to leave, clearly expecting them to follow.
Nicoli exchanged glances with Kiera. He could tell she wasn’t comfortable with the idea of leaving the shuttle, but resisting the invitation would alarm their host. Besides, Nicoli saw this as an opportunity to learn more. If his suspicion was correct, then introducing the Holocaust virus into the computer system hadn’t been an exercise in overkill.