Worlds Collide Read online

  A most sensible, relatable woman, that Anneliese. Better by far than this one.

  Her throaty voice interrupted his ruminations. “You must be mistaken about the aliens who have offered to help us. I have full confidence in my superiors’ trust in them.”

  “Your leaders are handing over your world to creatures who will kill most of you and enslave the rest.” Time was running out on Earth, and none of them knew it.

  “That can’t be right.” Her chin lifted, challenging him much as an undisciplined child might.

  Jape refused to answer her. Anneliese had warned him her people wouldn’t want to hear the truth. This one proved her right. She hadn’t asked for proof, hadn’t questioned what she’d been told on Earth. No, her refusal to accept what he’d said had been instant. Unshakable.

  He watched the golden fire outside the ship, fire that would freeze a man in less than a second. Cold fire, so unlike the hot flickers in the woman’s gaze.

  Best not to look at her. She was too lovely. Too soft.

  Too Earthling.

  He gazed at the colorful readouts of the pod’s status, which he could no more decipher than Earthling language without the translator. He glanced at the almost mirror-finish silver surfaces of ceiling, walls, and floors. Unfortunately, those granted him visions of his unwanted passenger’s curvaceous shape from every possible angle.

  Why did the return trip to Risnar feel as if it were taking twice as long?

  Jape forced himself to think of his failed mission. How soon would the situation on the Earth side of the portal calm down? He needed to send this creature home. He needed to carry out his assignment. He needed to make sure no more Risnarish died because of the Monsuda and their witless Earthling accomplices.

  “Where is your proof? How do you know these others from your planet mean Earth harm?”

  Though only seconds before Jape had silently disparaged her for not demanded evidence of his allegations, he glared at her for challenging him.

  She shrank at his stare, fear breaking through. Jape forced himself to pay attention to the computer, pretending he didn’t hate himself for scaring her.

  Wake up. She’s soft. Weak. Unable to see beyond what her species hopes to gain from the Monsuda. It’s best if she’s frightened. Best if she never smiles at you the way she did when you showed up in her world.

  Why had she smiled at him? What about his arrival had made her so happy?

  The question confused him. These days, confusion made him angry, made him do stupid things. Like abduct Earthling women.

  And lose those who meant most to him. Fury, hot and cleansing, washed through Jape.

  His deep voice verging toward a growl, he told her, “You want proof? My proof lies in the pyres of the dead, their ashes scattered among our grasslands. My men, my friends, killed by the Monsuda. Your species treats with those who would destroy us all. But I won’t let them. I will do what I must to save both our worlds—whether your people like it or not.”

  Chapter Four

  Jape mentally groaned to see Salno waiting for him when the pod safely arrived at its home berth in the Cas hive. No doubt she’d have plenty to say and judgments to cast when she saw the Earthling he’d brought back. He grimaced and readied his defense.

  Once he had sidestepped Salno, he could go on to his next move, now that there was a next move to perform. His conversation with the Earthling had given him an idea. She’d asked for proof. He could give it to her. Maybe he could impress upon at least this member of the Earthling military that they had sided with the wrong beings.

  The hatch opened automatically as the portal shut down. Jape grabbed the Earthling by the arm, easing his grip as soon as he was reminded of how soft her skin was. Damned tender-fleshed beings. How could such creatures survive?

  If the Monsuda had their way, they wouldn’t. Only those deemed worthwhile slaves would be allowed to live, in an existence worse than death.

  She resisted his determined tug. “Where are you taking me?”

  Jape didn’t bother to answer. He’d done plenty of talking. He was sure there was more of that to come. Instead, he pulled her along. She hung back to show her unhappiness with the situation, but they exited the collection pod.

  They entered another portal chamber, a near-identical twin to the one they’d left on Earth. Jape’s hearts slammed into overdrive. Though the bodies were long-gone, he could still see them lying on the floor.

  Stop it, he told his mind. His mind refused to listen.

  Unable to erase the memory, Jape faced Salno with a glower.

  The head scientist in charge of researching the portal and hive was the color of the grasslands that surrounded Cas Village, her soft-yellow skin striped with cream and brown. Her gaze on Jape and his unintended guest was as unruffled as it ever was, as if Jape absconded with the pod and returned with Earthlings every day. For the most part, Jape appreciated Salno. Liked her, even. But at this moment, she appeared as impervious as any Risnarish female.

  Her gaze narrowed as she placed her attention on Velia. Velia stared, her surprise apparent. As the two women took each other’s measure, Jape couldn’t help but compare the physical differences.

  Risnarish women were tall, willowy creatures. Like the men, they wore no clothing beyond belts with pouches to carry necessary items. Like men, they did not display overt gender characteristics unless it was to mate or nurse their newborns.

  In contrast, the Earthling was smaller. The top of her head would reach no higher than Jape’s chin. Instead of a body that stretched in a long, lean line, she possessed a fascinating collection of ample curves. Remembering how those curves had felt against him sent warmth stabbing deep in his gut.

  Beautiful.

  Salno chased those thoughts away with sharp words, though she delivered them in a quiet voice.

  “Jape, what have you done? An unauthorized use of the portal to Earth in the middle of the night? Why have you brought in this female?”

  There was no explaining himself to a Risnarish woman, not even Salno. She knew the pain of losing those who mattered, but she didn’t live with his guilt. She hadn’t been the reason Cas warriors had died. The losses did not weigh on her conscience. She didn’t possess the need to make sure nothing of that nature happened again.

  He snapped a nod at the Earthling who shared in his shortcomings, sure the creature would never admit to anything of that nature. “She’s with their military complex. She works with the Monsuda.”

  The human had been blinking at the room around her, as if to figure out where his and Salno’s translated speech emanated from. Jape’s accusation brought her to sharp attention. Her low voice rose an octave. “I’m an engineer who never heard the word ‘Monsuda’ before you dragged me to this place. I’ve on no occasion worked one-on-one with any alien, thank you so very much.”

  Salno’s tone was a cool counterpoint to her anger. “Kidnapping Earthlings, whether hostile or friendly, is not part of our plan, Jape. You achieve nothing with this action. Put the Earthling back where you found her.”

  At least he had a good answer for that. “I can’t. Their warriors were alerted when I entered the portal. No doubt they’ll be swarming the area for a while. Returning her tonight would get me killed.”

  More importantly, he wouldn’t be able to accomplish what he’d hoped to do. Finishing the job remained his priority.

  He’d had enough dealing with Salno. The scientist had her mission, and he had his. They both worked to stop the Monsudan predations on Risnarish and Earthlings, but they had come to a point of cross-purposes.

  “What are you going to do with her in the meantime?” Salno demanded. “You realize the situation in the village. My schedule is too hectic to mind her for you.”

  “I can mind myself.” The Earthling wasn’t looking at them. She was staring at the room around her, a
t the portal ring. “It’s like ours, but bigger. That could accommodate two saucers at once.”

  Two pods, filled with Monsudan drones, spilling out, firing, killing...

  Jape shook himself free of the vision. He told Salno, “First thing, she should face what her Monsudan friends do best. She’ll see what helping them gets her kind, how she’s inviting the destruction of both our civilizations. That will do for a start.”

  Still gripping the tiny arm of the woman, he started for the corridor outside the portal chamber.

  “Hey! Let go!” She appealed to Salno, “Help me, please!”

  The Risnarish woman called after them. “Where are you going with her? Jape!”

  “I’m taking her to face her guilt. She asked for proof of it, so I’ll show her.”

  “I’m not going with you! Help! Help!”

  The woman kicked and fought. She was a wild thing now, her whole being crackling with the fire he’d seen in her eyes. The creature couldn’t harm Jape, armored as he was, but she slowed him down. Even as he grimaced with frustration, he admired her spirit.

  If only her kind weren’t on the side of the Monsuda. On the heels of that thought, he heard the screams of the dying. Those her people had watched fall.

  With a curse, he picked her up and slung her over his shoulder.

  The little fool slammed a fist against his back and cried out in pain. Remorse flashed for an instant. Compared to the heavy conscience Jape already bore, it came and went quickly.

  * * *

  Fuck! That hurt!

  Velia stopped yelling at Jape and put her throbbing fist to her mouth, tears stinging her eyes. Damn the striped bastard and his cement-armored body. What she wouldn’t do for a jackhammer to flay the alien alive.

  The female creature had called this behemoth Jape. Rhymed with ape, in keeping with his animalistic manners. Or she could call him Stripes. She had a close-up view of the snowy-white blazes that cut like lightning across the golden stretch of his back.

  Jape carried her down a corridor, as if she were a prize. When Velia managed to blink the stinging tears free and had a look around from her inglorious perch, she realized the hallway was identical to the tunnel under Camp Noname. Stone, melted into metallic-sheened glass smoothness.

  The panic of having been kidnapped to another planet edged off as the analytical engineer in Velia woke with a thrill. The passage was the same! She’d been surrounded for the past two years by an alien-type environment and she’d never known it.

  It boggled the mind. As soon as she extricated herself out of her current mess, she’d wallow in the astonishment.

  For now, she needed to get free of Jape the Striped Ape. It gave her a small sense of relief that the female alien followed them. She seemed to be on Velia’s side. She wanted muscle-bound Stripes to take Velia home to Earth. Maybe there would be help there. Velia shot her an appealing gaze. It was greeted by no more than a blink.

  Thanks for the solidarity, sister. Way to back up your fellow woman.

  They didn’t go far before they went into another room. Jape set Velia on her feet and swept his hand in dramatic fashion at the space around them. “Here is your proof. This is what your allies do to our kind and yours.”

  Velia’s glance went immediately to the transparent enclosures, massive rectangle display cases set on their sides. She gaped at the menagerie of animals. It was a museum’s dream collection of life-size creations: lion, crocodile, camel, dog...incredibly lifelike animals of Earth. And others, oddities that were fantastic, beautiful, and awful. Depictions of this world’s beasts, perhaps?

  Stripes huffed impatiently. “Not those. They are only sleeping beasts with no spirit. Look at those.”

  He stabbed a finger toward the numerous rows of far different containers on the other side of the room. They made her think of coffins, vaguely human-shaped canisters with clear bubble glass on the top. Where someone’s head would go. Some were small, child-size. Some were large enough to hold a big lout like Jape.

  Velia’s gaze darted to the menagerie again. Stripes had said the animals were sleeping. Sleeping despite most of them appearing as if they’d been brought to bay, caught in an instant of defensive terror. The lion’s face wrinkled in a snarl, its teeth bared. The dog cringed, also showing its teeth. The camel stood at an awkward angle, twisting away from an unseen menace.

  Frozen in the moment of danger. Encapsulated in the poses they’d been caught in, if she was to theorize based on what Jape had said.

  She returned to the sarcophagi vessels. Human-shaped containers. The implications were obvious. Her heart slammed in her chest, and she took a step away from the hulking alien.

  “What is this? What are you planning to do to me?”

  Stripes’s silver eyes widened. “This isn’t what we Risnarish would do. It’s what the Monsuda have done in the past. This is their work.”

  As he spoke, his tone grew angrier, hotter. He seemed incensed she’d come to the conclusion that he planned to stick her in a capsule and keep her as part of the obscene collection.

  Velia pulled in a deep breath. Did the striped man think she could read his mind? That she could figure out the import of what he showed her? If he wasn’t planning on packing her in one of the coffins, then what was the point of the exercise?

  “These animals look dead and stuffed for display,” she said, wary of Jape’s obvious aggression. “These containers resemble coffins, shaped to put dead people in.”

  It was the female alien, standing aside and watching Jape carefully, who responded. “These capsules are not for the dead. They are to keep beings alive in stasis.”

  “Stasis?”

  “A preservation-type sleep. Bodily functions are slowed—”

  “I know what stasis means. It’s not something my world has the technology for. Is this a medical facility then? But why the animals and...and things?” She wasn’t sure all the creatures she saw qualified as mere beasts.

  “Not medicine.” The female swallowed, as if experiencing a moment’s nausea. “The Monsuda perform laboratory tests on unwilling subjects.” She nodded to the table Velia hadn’t noticed.

  It appeared to be a hospital examination table, minus a cushion that would have made it comfortable. It had numerous colored buttons on panels on the side, and the head of it plugged into a slot in the wall.

  She didn’t dwell on the table for long. Not when she spied the metallic horror hanging over it. A chrome many-armed squid, it was a looming nightmare. At the end of each arm was a tool of some sort. Some were needles. Some were blades. A couple reminded her of drills of different size bores. There were mechanisms that Velia couldn’t begin to guess the functions of, but they inspired nightmare visions all the same.

  The woman nodded, acknowledging Velia’s horrified grimace. “They’ve been taking people from your world and bringing them here for centuries. Our people too. They returned some subjects after erasing their memories. But many were kept in those containers for further experimentation.”

  Velia stared at her. “Alien abductions? Like in the movies?”

  “We had no idea the Monsuda were doing this until less than a year ago. When we invaded the Hahz hive and discovered a similar chamber full of victims, we deduced it was the same in all the hives.”

  Velia puzzled over the word “hive.” As if the place had been run by insects. Maybe the translation program had made a mistake.

  Since she could make little sense of what the woman was telling her, she walked down the front row of empty caskets. Dozens upon dozens of them, stretched into the shadowed rear of what was a vast chamber. “You found no test subjects here.”

  “Actually, we did. All were of your present time, or recent enough to return to their former lives on Earth. We sent them home.”

  Velia eyed both aliens with suspicion. “You discovered some of an e
arlier era?”

  The woman’s smooth face registered no dismay, but something in her demeanor suggested distress all the same. “In the largest hive we won, near our city of Yitrow. Those remain frozen in their capsules for now.”

  For once, Stripes answered without snarling at Velia. “Anneliese said it would be a disservice to revive and send back those who were so far out of their time.”

  “Anneliese?” The name sounded human.

  “One of the two Earthlings living on Risnar. Our planet.”

  Velia’s mouth dropped open. People were making their home on the alien world? She wasn’t given an opportunity to discuss it. The woman spoke again.

  “The situation of persons out of their era is the same with some of our race. The records we uncovered on one of the men we found in the Yitrow hive tell us he was captured over two centuries ago. We aren’t sure what to do with those like him. They should be allowed to live out their lives, but when all they’ve known and loved are gone—” She broke off with an unhappy sigh, her foxy ears flattening.

  “Lives destroyed. Whether through stasis or outright killing, the Monsuda have taken too much from us.” Stripes’s visage filled with anger and—pain? “You would collaborate with such monsters. With all they’ve done and plan to do, you work with them.”

  The alien woman shook her head. “I do not recall this woman being present when we encountered hostile Earthlings at their portal access.”

  “Working with killers is crime enough, Salno.”

  The female’s expression remained as tranquil as if they were discussing the weather, but Velia sensed a note of irritation as Salno addressed her. “You must excuse our head enforcer. He’s lost men, dear friends, because of the Monsuda. As an Earthling, you would recognize his great emotional concerns.”

  “I’m sorry for his loss, but I don’t understand what it has to do with me.” Velia strained to filter through all the information they were throwing at her.