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  #

  The signals were not band-spread digital, therefore not Hoo-Lii; they were analog with frequency and amplitude modulation.

  Egg, she thought. It's another alien, different, and close. Why did we not see them before? I know we’ve looked at Kota previously.

  "Biocomputer, compare the Kota and Hoo-Lii star systems."

  "Specify parameters."

  "Compare spectra and planets in biozone. Compare the historical observations with the latest information received, note anomalies. Visual display."

  A holographic listing of the two-star systems appeared: Both had planets within their habitable zones, but they differed in size and amounts of water - not the same.

  Now, Bilik thought. I can call DalChik DuJuga, the Head Investigator, to tell of my discovery.

  #

  After Bilik’s call, the universal communication link--the Comm-net--spread the news planet-wide in less than a day. That set off a great debate and a consensus forming--a quooning--about what she’d discovered and what should be done. Each individual's implanted biocomputer--linked to the Prime Communicator--provided instant access to anyone and all data resources on their world. The volume of communication rose to an all-time high.

  Bilik realized these aliens were a dilemma, for there were other aliens, Hoo-Lii, somewhere, out there, too. These aliens, the second species, were close and proof of a habitable planet. She knew their over-crowded world, Qu’uda, needed living space.

  #

  Over the next six sleep cycles, Bilik became widely known, because consensus makers now called upon her frequently to discuss her discovery. The Qu'uda, in their formal and methodical way, quooned. All participated in the decision-making to a greater or lesser degree, depending on their closeness to the center. The exposure to the privileged core made her confidence grow. As a result, she moved closer to the center. It was intoxicating. Her ambitions rose.

  #

  After the seventh sleep cycle, PiRup, the Prime Communicator, announced; "The aliens may be a threat to Qu'uda. Yet, their planet may offer living space." It was the quooning - the consensus garnered from a massive web of bio-computers - which tied their society together, polling them for their opinions.

  "Our Defenders must go to Kota, the alien's star system and investigate this planet, to see if it is habitable." His words echoed and reflected the hopes of a crowded world. "We must continue to search for the other aliens, the Hoo-Lii."

  We're going to make contact with the aliens, Bilik thought. I want to be a part of it. I must be.

  "We shall build an interstellar spacecraft, strong and large enough to protect itself from attack," said Mata ChaLik BuMaru, speaker for the Defenders-of-Qu'uda. His voice resonated with the harsh tonalities of one who came from the continent of Ma. "We shall investigate the alien’s planet in the Kota star system."

  It was then, Bilik vowed to be on that ship. Why not? I now have the status that just might make it possible.

  #

  “Bilik Pudjata.” Mata ChaLik BuMaru’s holographic image appeared before Bilik.

  He was in a pale-yellow room with dark brown sinuously carved wood furnishings. It had a richness that showed his closeness to the center and all its attendant privileges.

  With rudeness bordering on challenge-to-combat, he said, "There are voices near the center who speak your name. Voices to whom I must listen. So I must take you on the expedition to Kota. I've decided you will construct the drive system." Mata ChaLik directed the ship’s construction.

  "You'll also be the expedition's alien specialist since you discovered the aliens." Mata ChaLik heaved on his perch. A yellow-green bower of twisted vines and drooping ferns moved into view. Water dripped freely from a Podu tree with a scarred and torn trunk.

  "Report to DalChik DuJuga on the ship," he said in a formal fashion. His head crest vibrated as though anger bubbled near the surface. "Now."

  Bilik felt a surge of triumph. A stray thought intruded. That garden looks a little tattered like it's been used recently for mating. Is Mata ChaLik like most males? Or is he one of those who doesn't need female stimulation to become aroused? It was rumored he sought out gravid females for trysts in his garden.

  Ugh, Bilik thought. She barely hid her distaste.

  Mata ChaLik briefly unsheathed his claws, indicating his growing impatience. He came from Ma, the smallest continent, whose inhabitants had a reputation for quick temper. "So, do you need more instruction?" He waved his limb in dismissal.

  A bittersweet victory, Bilik thought. I must leave my wriggler to my family, for they want me to succeed. Soon, I shall be male and be a Defender, like him. The vision disturbed her.

  #

  When Bilik arrived at the partially constructed ship, the Egg-that-Flies at its orbit high above Qu’uda, he met with DalChik DaJuga.

  “It’s much larger than I imagined,” Bilik said. Each end of the ship was made from a half of a hollowed-out asteroid, with a gigantic tubular fuel tank between the two ends.

  “We intend to avoid the fate of the Star Seeker,” DalChik said.

  She referred to the exploratory craft that had died at the claws of the powerful alien lasers of the Hoo-Lii.

  “Come, I want you to meet the navigator.”

  They descended from the outer rim of the living quarters toward the center of the ship at its forward end, which was also a giant centrifuge that provided gravity. It held a crew of five hundred and all the supplies needed for their thirty-year voyage. The forward part of the ship had an end-cap of one-half of the hollowed out asteroid. Its thick metal protected the crew from the hard radiation that would come from particle collisions at relativistic speeds.

  "Meet Cha KinLaat DoMar, the navigator," said DalChik. "He's also an environmental analyst."

  The room's solitary occupant turned and waggled his head crest. "Hello, DalChik." He glanced at Bilik.

  Bilik noticed an odd smell, a distasteful smell.

  "Cha KinLaat DoMar," DalChik said. "Meet Bilik Pudjata."

  "Ah, you're the one who discovered the aliens in the Kota system. May you move ever closer to the center." Cha KinLaat flattened his head crest to indicate respect. "Welcome to the navigation station," he said. "It won't get much use now I have another biocomputer." Cha KinLaat indicated a lump on the inside of his upper limb, with fresh, green scar tissue. "I can navigate from anywhere on the ship." He pointed at a bundle of wire hanging from a console. "I had to replace the station’s biocomputer with an electronic computer, because its life support system failed."

  "Oh." Bilik recognized the odor of rotting flesh. How does he control two biocomputers simultaneously? "You're the one who gives commands to change the course of the ship?"

  "Not really." Cha KinLaat's head wagged. "That's Mata ChaLik who speaks for the Defenders. I do as he bids.

  "Only those orders which the Keepers approve." DalChik’s head crest flared slightly.

  The Keepers-of-the-Egg were the restraining claw on the Defenders. To get this ship built, Mata ChaLik and the Defenders had to accept quooning partners. Many still remembered the military sects' propensity to dominate.

  "Well, yes." The topic seemed to make Cha KinLaat nervous. "A ship this size doesn't change course easily, nor stop quickly. Most of the trip, I'll just confirm vectors and location. I'll also monitor the electromagnetic spectrum of Kota."

  "What's it like on the ship?" Bilik wanted the real facts.

  "It's been non-stop for almost two years. I feel like an overworked machine. I can hardly wait until we're underway."

  "That won’t be for several more years." DalChik's head crest rippled with amusement. "Don't rush things. Come, explain your system and show Bilik its capabilities."

  Without a word, Cha KinLaat activated the external monitoring system and focused on the planet below to show Qu'uda's five continents intertwined about the equator with oceans covering both Polar Regions. Mountains bisected the continents from sea to sea, with tongues of the ocean lic
king far inland. Even from orbit, the bright green of swamps and cultivated fields and the red-brown of mud flats were visible. The star's orange light gave the land mass an amber hue and the oceans a turquoise color. A swirl of white clouds covered a quarter of the vast northern ocean, with fluffy arms curving across the supine land.

  "The first hot season storm." Cha KinLaat sent a thread of red to the heart of the white swirl. "It looks like a big one." The red thread danced across the image to the largest landmass following the equator. "That should fill the swamps and mud-flats, even on the interior of Yata."

  That triggered Bilik’s memory of the initiation for gender change, crossing the ocean to Yata in an open wind-boat during a storm. On that passage, fear of dying had triggered hormonal changes causing the gender transformation. It was the only way to become female. It was horrible, seeing others drown and fearing that would be his fate, too. After he’d reached the safety of land, the gender change had come. Bilik sought out a mentor, MuLaak YataBu for an explanation.

  Bilik initiated a sexual coupling with him, pushed on by a powerful drive. Afterwards, MuLaak explained a nubile female's powerful drive to couple came from the survival instinct of their species. Their world, subject to monster storms that roared out of its vast oceans, had periodic population collapses. All life on their world had a genetic mechanism to become female and breed furiously after such disasters.

  She remembered dropping her egg in the birthing swamp that lay between high mountains. As her egg had ripened in the sun-warmed mud, her claws grew large and she developed a ferocity that surprised her. After her little wriggler clawed its way out, Bilik took him to the safety of a shallow pond. Through the cool, dry season, she guarded him. As the water level dropped, her wriggler's gills atrophied. Before the first rain of the hot season fell, she took her wriggler home.

  A red line flickering out to a depression centered in the far end-cap of the ship brought Bilik back to the present. It was a short, stubby tube that was small in comparison to the massive ship. "That's the drive system," Cha KinLaat said. "The main propulsion tube still hasn't been made."

  "Why not? I'm supposed to work on it," Bilik said.

  "Well, it's behind schedule. We didn't get the zero-gravity metal-forming unit needed to cast the propulsion tubes." The droop in Cha KinLaat's head crest indicated that there was a story behind it. "You'll find out about it soon enough."

  Cha KinLaat moved the red indicator to eight slender arms that radiated at right angles from the front of the Egg-that-Flies. The arms, connected together with a faint net of wires, extended like a giant frill several times the ship's length. Winking fusion torches outlined its structure.

  "That's the magnetic sail. It'll gather deuterium from the atmosphere of Bata as well as provide deceleration at the trip's end." Cha KinLaat referred to the system’s giant gas planet.

  Bilik felt at ease with the young navigator. "I'd like to see more of your system, but I must go to another meeting."

  "Do come again. Next time, you must tell me how you discovered the aliens in Kota, with all the technical details that PiRup left out." Cha KinLaat bobbed his head.

  Chapter 4

  A Trip to the Park

  "Take Shepherd Lane into the park." Skid jerked his chin to indicate the tree-lined road that curved and descended into the Metropark. "We'll cross the river there.”

  "Uh, sure." Knuckles slowed the van.

  Skid whistled the opening bars of La Donna é Mobile right on key.

  He’d been told he could have been the next Pavarotti if only he’d learned how to accept criticism. But the streets never let go of him and his music career came to an abrupt end when he beat up his music professor at Oberlin College for berating him about his work ethic. Scar tissue from a motorcycle fall covered the left side of his face. He found that and the Deacon’s Death’s Head emblem on the back of his black leather jacket shocked, even frightened people. He liked that.

  I've got to find a way to make a buck, Skid thought. This fuckin' war has changed everything. If only I could've worked out something with Blade Velasquez and his Diablos; but that asshole wants to run the whole show. Since he got that fuckin' armored troop carrier, he's had a hard-on as big as the Terminal Tower. We should've got to the Armory first an' got that armored troop carrier instead of him. Now he’s got a shitload of firepower. It'd be suicide to take him on.

  Skid watched Knuckles who drove slowly and deliberately. Skid knew Knuckles was dumb, had enormous strength and would do as he was told, killing without any qualms. Skid liked that, too.

  Knuckles slowed the van and steered it into the park and then stepped on the gas. The van balked and ran roughly until it built up speed, rattling and squeaking over the potholes.

  This van sure is a piece of shit, Skid thought.

  Knuckles stood on the brakes, abruptly stopping the van.

  "What the fuck you doin'?"

  "Uh, I think I saw a van back there. It looked new.” Knuckles' smile revealed a mouthful of half-rotted teeth, the legacy of a lifetime of meth usage.

  There was a shiny, metallic-green conversion van in a parking lot surrounded by tall pines. Behind it was a large, angular building made of brown-stained wood that overlooked a tree-lined river. It was the Metropark's Nature Center.

  After Skid got out, he appraised the van with a practiced eye. It had no rust and sat low on its springs as though heavily laden. He glanced through the van’s window and tried its door but it was locked. He sighed and got out a lock-pick and went to work.

  "Hey, hey, you." A burly man in blue work clothes lumbered forward, shotgun pointed at them. "What d’you think you're doing with my van?"

  "Bingo, the keys." Skid said quietly. He put the lock-pick away and reached for the nine-millimeter handgun stuffed in the back of his jeans. He eased its safety off and stepped away from the van.

  "This yours?" Skid asked in as pleasant a tone as he could muster.

  "Yeah, what're you doing to my van?" The man moved between Skid and the van, shotgun at the ready.

  "Well." Skid waved his left hand in the air. "You got a mighty nice van here. We're in the market for one. We'd like to check it out, and, er, take it for a test drive, okay?"

  "It ain't for sale," the man said. "And we found this place first. So beat it."

  "Stosh, Stosh," a woman called from the Nature Center. "Who's there? Is it Fred?"

  "Naw, it's just a couple of drifters."

  Skid grinned and waved his hand in a placating manner. "Hey, man, it's cool, no problemo. We're going."

  "Sure, and keep moving.”

  Skid saw the man breathe a sigh of relief, glance back at the woman and lower the shotgun. In one fluid motion, Skid lunged forward, knocked the shotgun aside and jammed the handgun’s barrel in the man's face.

  "Drop it,” Skid said. “Or I'll blow your fuckin' brains out."

  The man blanched and dropped the shotgun.

  Knuckles picked it up.

  Skid smiled. "Let's go inside for a little chit-chat."

  Inside the Nature Center, Skid saw a dark-haired woman wearing a plaid shirt and jeans stood with her arms around two teenage girls. One was tall and gangly with an angular face. The other was shorter, pretty in a young and plump sort of way.

  Within the wood-paneled room, tall windows overlooked a slow-moving river. A wood stove crackled quietly, surrounded by several faded armchairs and a battered coffee table.

  "A regular family scene." Skid spat on the floor. "Okay asshole, gimme the keys to the van. Unnerstand?" He pushed the gun’s barrel into the man's nostril.

  Anger stormed across the man’s face as he pulled keys from his pocket. He dropped them into Skid's open hand.

  The women's fear aroused Skid. The full, petulant lips of the smaller girl caught his eye and he felt his cock stir. "Hey, you, baby bitch." Skid waved his gun at the younger girl. "Show me your tits."

  "W-what?" The girl's eyes opened wide.

  "Now just a g
oddamn minute." The man stepped between Skid and the girl. "Nobody talks to my daughter that way. Nobody. You get the hell out of here, like now." The man lunged for Skid’s gun.

  Skid fired. Blood and pink tissue exploded from the back of the man's head. He collapsed like an empty blanket.

  The women screamed.

  "Shaddup," Knuckles yelled.

  They became quiet.

  The smaller girl started to whimper.

  "What's the matter? You deaf or something? I wanna see your tits. Come on, show 'em to me." As Skid pointed the gun at her, he saw her pupils dilate.

  She's afraid, he thought. He felt his pecker grow harder. "Listen, bitch, when I say I wanna see your tits, I'm gonna see 'em, understand?"

  "No, no, please, don't. No." The girl fell to her knees and leaned forward, putting her head to the ground.

  Skid stuck the gun in the back of his jeans. He grabbed the girl's hair and dragged her upright. With both hands, he grasped her flowered blouse, ripped it open and tore off her brassiere.

  "You bastard." The older woman leaped at Skid, clawing for his eyes.

  Knuckles grabbed the woman's shirt from behind and threw her to the floor, tearing her shirt open. "Shaddup, bitch." When she tried to rise, he punched her between the eyes.

  "Nice tits." Skid twisted the girl's hair. He fondled the girl's breast as she tried to turn away. "Firm, too." He tightened his grip and pinched a nipple. Her closeness and the fear in her eyes made him want her even more. He unzipped his jeans and released his erect cock. "It's time to gimme some head. If you do it right, you won't get hurt. Understand?"

  "No, don't, please, I can't.” The girl tried to turn away.

  "Don't say no to me." Skid backhanded her across the face. "Listen, bitch, that's just a taste of what you'll get if you don't do what I say." Blood dripped from her nose.

  "Leave her alone, you bastard," the woman yelled as she staggered to her feet.

  "Shaddup, bitch." Knuckles punched the woman on the side of her face. She fell, sprawling, face down on the floor.