It had been another long and uncomfortable night for Cassiopia. Strange hands had guided her down and down into the unknown. In the darkness of her sealed Sensesuit, she had seen none of it. There had not been the slightest clue as to where she was being taken. Even in standby, the suit imposed a near total isolation of the senses, though all the necessary functions had been left operating; air was being introduced, temperature controlled. Her captors had led her to a strange and very hard place and left her sitting in the dark. Restraints of some kind were attached. Sounds had been muffled beyond recognition. The night had been long.
When at last she felt a click against the side of the depressive helmet and heard the sounds of snapping and popping that signaled the suit had disengaged, she closed her eyes in relief that the desensitized blindness was nearly over. As the helmet was lifted off, the first burst of yellow light broke through the blackness, and made her squint and turn away. She wished dearly that her eyes would focus, and reveal where she was. But when her eyes finally did begin to see, she quickly wished they had not. There were neither billows of flame, nor columns of foggy smoke to be seen anywhere, but apart from that, the place was Hell.
The huge rocky cavern was poorly lit by subdued yellowed light that made the pale faces of the busy workers seem even more deranged-looking. A moment later, she inhaled the horrid, inescapable odor that dominated the stale air. The workers were racing to and fro with mechanized steps, groups of them everywhere. Their clothes were tattered, torn and dirty. Their eyes were sunken and dark. They never spoke, but worked hurriedly, carrying out indistinguishable tasks from one chamber to the next. Unfamiliar electronic equipment was strewn everywhere. A steady, unidentifiable hum came from an adjacent chamber on her left. The inert TEL stood just behind her. An unfamiliar voice brought her weary mind to attention.
“Oh, how marvelous, it’s a female!” A grim-looking gentleman in a coal black suit clapped his wrinkled hands in glee. He balanced a silver cane on one wrist and stared down at her with jubilant expectation. “Oh my, this is more than we could have hoped for. If only it hadn’t happened so late!”
Two chalky-white figures stood on either side of her, resting their dirty white hands on her shoulders. Both were men, and they had bruises around the nose and mouth. Their gazes lacked any emotion, dead stares from dark, sunken eyes.
The man who had spoken was directly in front of her. He was less obtrusively white than the others, but the similarities were still very apparent. His thinning, black hair was combed back sloppily over his head and cut unevenly. He maintained a sick, little smirk and his eyes were a dull, chilling red-brown. “If only we had known. We never expected a female to complete the game. I don’t even recall any ever being admitted. How extraordinary!”
Cassiopia thought to protest but gagged on the rancid smell as she opened her mouth to speak. She coughed and choked as she found herself still strapped to the cold, metal seat on which she had spent the long night. The dark-suited man jerked his head back and gave a short, simpering laugh.
“Patience, my dear, patience. All of your questions will be answered. You are unaccustomed to our unusual brand of odor. It is very special. It is one of the many ways we communicate here. Completely harmless, I assure you, and extremely efficient.”
Cassiopia regained her composure and winced at the harshness of the foul smell. Her newest captor seemed just as heartless as the others had been. A progression of ghostlike figures passed close behind the rude man, and he paused briefly to admire them.
“You must excuse our disarray, my dear. Usually we would be celebrating your arrival by now, but there has been an intrusion into one of our entrances. It is serious enough that we must relocate immediately. There is so much to do that I fear we might lose some of the workers. Nevertheless, I assure you, you will get a complete tour of the colony, and I apologize for the long wait you have been subjected to. Arrangements had to be made, you understand. No one expected a player to complete the game as quickly as you did. And yet you are a female. You are a prized specimen, indeed. I regret you are not well on your way through the Vortport already, and unfortunately, I doubt we will have time to send you.”
Cassiopia, staggered by the incredible scene surrounding her, looked up at her abductor with a blank stare. His frozen smile remained.
“Allow me to formally introduce myself. My new name is Inkman. Leo Inkman. It is the name previously attached to this tenement I now occupy. Its original owner was the first to win at the game, thus paving the way for my journey here. My real number which is my name where I originally come from, cannot be expressed phonetically. I know you are Ms. Leeds. Ms. P. Leeds. It is somewhat embarrassing that my information is incomplete on you. I generally screen all of the prospective specimens, but in your case I was indisposed in Washington on important business. Our evacuation of this transfer site has precluded my catching up, so to speak.”
She answered in a hoarse and contemptuous voice, unsure the bizarre nightmare was real. “What...who are you?”
Her captor straightened up in a pathetic gesture of pride. “I am a Salantian. It is the best phonetic verbalization of the term we have found. I am Captain of the Soldiers and administrator of this forward colony. I was the first ranking official to successfully cross the Vortex and join the hunter-gatherers here. Only one other high-ranking individual had made the trip before me and his transfer was imperfect. But really, my dear, we must give you the tour so that you may fully understand the glorious role you will play in the dividing.”
In shock, she watched as the two pasty-white figures beside her undid the restraints. She was lifted gently to her feet and her hands were bound behind her back. With a nod from Inkman, she was escorted across the uneven, stony floor toward the brightly-lit cavern entrance to the left. Inkman led the way, strutting his cane proudly as he went, like a man walking on a sunny day in the park. Cassiopia staggered behind in the grasp of her guards, gagging on the thick, rotten smell.
They crossed into an adjacent chamber the size of a small house. It was packed with even more electronics than the room before it had been. To her right, a large oval hatchway with a gear-like door that was big enough to drive a tractor trailer through was embedded into the rocky wall. It was constructed of a heavy, dark green metal. Thousands of pairs of giant bolts drew a pattern around its circular frame. A control stand that looked like a movie theater ticket booth stood off to the right, occupied by still another pale-skinned man with an empty gaze. With a single gesture from Inkman, the pathetic-looking creature tugged at the controls in front of him, and the massive portal door came noisily to life. It rolled slowly open on its geared track and exposed the beauty of the kaleidoscopic Vortex that lay behind it. Within the circular opening, colors of all shades and luminance sparkled and glowed. There seemed to be no pattern in it. It swirled unceasingly through design after design and cast eerie reflections on the dark cavern walls. The sound of soft, crackling static filled the room as diamond and ruby beads formed and dissolved in a convoluted cascade. The beauty of the Vortex was hypnotic.
“This is where it began, Ms. Leeds. You deserve to see it. Many workers fell to make it operate. Many of your Earth-years were required to make it passable. At first we could transmit only inorganic matter, so we sent what you might call remote probes—dozens of them until one finally returned with a large enough sample of the atmosphere to confirm that the Vortex configuration was correctly aligned. In our original forms, we were not able to survive here for more than brief periods. The pressure was too much and the atmosphere too caustic. Several hundred died before we were able to capture and return an actual human to our domain, and the passage through the Vortex proved fatal to him as well.”
“But we learned. We learned exactly what was required to survive here. Everything needed was present in these protoplasmic forms in which you dwell. We developed a process by which we could share such an existence, but it took time. Since your species did not seem able to survive the trip through the
Vortex, the adjustments had to be made here. We constructed a simple incubator and a small laboratory to make the necessary surgical transformations possible in this very antechamber. It was a simple process really, but so excruciatingly slow. The brain is carefully removed through the nostrils, it makes an excellent pudding, by the way, so nothing is wasted, then the egg is rushed through the Vortex at precisely the right moment and implanted in the cranial cavity where it develops to a useful maturity.”
“Unfortunately this method was crude and required more than ten of your years to finally produce the first administrator-level Salantian. Even now my associate, Mr. Fishkin, still exhibits some imperfections as a consequence. Oh, the system was just fine to produce laborers or soldiers or foragers, but without the higher levels there could be no organization. Once we learned that it was shock to the nervous system that was preventing transfer of your kind through the Vortex, we were able to minimize the effect, and by using only those with superior reflexes and physical strength, we were able to begin incubating on our side. That, Ms. Leeds, is how I came to be. I was the product of the first implantation on our side of the Vortex. The body of the former Mr. Inkman was the first to survive the journey to our world. Come, let me show you the cells.”
Psychologically paralyzed, Cassiopia fought nausea as she was dragged along into the next cavern. It was a grand hall with dozens of workers racing to and fro carrying things away to a safer haven. The chamber was the size of a ballroom and had walls that were embedded with cubicles covered with a semitransparent, white, membrane material. Silhouettes of human figures could be seen through the material, dozens of them, the newest members of the colony, the recently implanted. Inkman proudly resumed his story.
“So now, in special cases, the implantation can be done on the Salantian side of the Vortex, and then the candidates are quickly brought back here to their own environment for incubation. The process is extremely successful, though we have just begun to use it. I want you to understand; we use only those that are thrown away for the lower castes of workers and soldiers.”
Her voice weak and broken, Cassiopia asked, “Thrown away? What are you talking about?”
Inkman answered matter-of-factly, “The ones left in the streets and alleys late at night. The ones nobody wants. We use them for the lower castes. All others are carefully screened. It is the reason for the game. The suit allows us extensive analysis of what you call DNA, as well as ethereal brain patterns. Those that win the Dragon Master’s competition are the ones fit enough and compatible enough to survive the trip through the Vortport. They are reserved for the elitist class, the leaders. Until now we have not been able to incubate soldiers sophisticated enough to even understand weapons, and that has been a tiresome hindrance.”
Anger surged in Cassiopia. “You’re invaders. You developed all of these things just to invade other civilizations?”
“Hardly my dear. I dare say we barely are able to operate most of it, much less understand it. The Vortex was a gift from..., oh my, I’ve forgotten their name. Oh well, whoever it was opened the Vortex into our world and discovered us. We turned out to be the dominant species, however, since their lack of immunity eventually destroyed them. The Vortex has allowed us to divide many times into many different places since then. It is only natural when our numbers grow large that the dividing takes place. The Dragon Master’s game, on the other hand, was recovered from the Crillians. They were at first amused when we entered their domain. I’m not sure there are any of them left. They did not seem to coexist well.”
“In any case, the Dragon Master computer turned out to be exactly what we needed to analyze other species. It allowed us the necessary physical screening, as well as a very convenient way to dispose of infiltrators. Since it was intended for use by a great number of humanoid species, it can translate any language instantly. Odd how things like that work out, isn’t it? It’s just as interesting how we found there to be tunnels already running everywhere under your domain. They are our natural habitat. We did not even have to make those. It saved an enormous amount of time and many workers. So many fortunate things have contributed to Salantian propagation. It must be an act of providence, don’t you think?”
Inkman paused. A look of despair came over his face. “Regretfully, time is short for us at the moment, Ms. Leeds. Which brings me to the end of your abbreviated tour. This last opening over to your left is where we carved our way into the tunnels that run under your city. From here we can travel to almost any district. It was a luxurious convenience, though I fear we have lost that for a time.”
Cassiopia’s mind felt overloaded. She began to feel light-headed, and her vision blurred as waves of confusion and realization collided in disbelief. She swayed slightly against the grasp of her tormentors. The foul air added to her discomfort. In a faint voice, she fought off unconsciousness. “What are you going to do to me?”
“Why, my dear, you are a winner. An exceptional athlete. That makes you, as a female, a rare candidate for special impregnation. You could become the first interVortex Matriarch. All of our previous attempts failed horribly. Eventually, we had to incubate one on this side, a process that has taken years. In fact, we expect her to emerge from the cocoon tomorrow, but there is no guarantee of success. Until such time as we are able to produce a Matriarch on this side, we have no one to bear eggs and are forced to use the slow and painstaking method of bringing them through the Vortex. It is what we have been striving so long to accomplish. With our own Queen, we can generate a massive colony here very quickly. It will be a new day. You could become Queen of your own splinter colony, my dear. The ultimate honor.”
Inkman’s voice swelled with exhilaration and pride. He hesitated as though relishing the idea of his goals, then quickly sank back into placidity. “Unfortunately, it is likely we will need to solidify the Vortex before you could be surgically prepared for the journey. We will have to see....”
Cassiopia could take no more. The underworld began to whirl around her, as Inkman’s voice turned to a dull drone. She reeled suddenly over backward and fell unconscious into an irritating dream about ghouls in doorways of yellow light, and her feet too heavy to run. She was captured and a hollow crown placed crookedly on her head as a chorus of pallid, white angels sang monotone death marches that echoed down an empty black hole. Dreams, it seemed, were no escape from the Salantian underworld.
Chapter 26