CHAPTER 13
We have not seen great
things done in our time except by those who have been considered mean; the rest
have failed.
- Niccolo
Machiavelli,
"The Prince"
"Thank you, Mr. Renoldson, for that
fascinating story. Coming up next, we
have..."
Branard clicked the power button on
his remote control and Canter's face vanished in mid sentence, the remains of
his image shrinking momentarily to a white dot in the center of the television
screen before winking out completely.
When it faded, Branard caught a glimpse of his own reflection in the
darkened picture tube and he quickly turned away, lest he look upon it any
longer than he needed.
It had been over three years since
the lizard bitch had rent the greater portion of flesh from his face. The cosmetic surgeons had done their
best. But it wasn't good enough. Not nearly good enough. Three deep furrows now permanently ran in
parallel across his right cheek, diagonally from where his ear had one been to
the corner of his mouth, which was now disfigured into a kind of permanent
frown on the right side. That suited
Branard fine, he had no wish conscious wish to smile since he had been
mauled. He now grew his hair long to
cover the hole where his ear had been.
He also let his beard grow thick to try to hide the terrible scars as
much as possible. It wasn't
enough. Not nearly enough.
Branard opened the drawer of his
desk and pulled out a bottle of bourbon.
At least I'm not as ugly as that fat Renoldson clown, he thought as he
poured himself a shot and then raised the glass in a mock toast toward the
lifeless television set. He downed the
shot in a single gulp, not making any face at all. He thought back on the interview he has just watched.
He could have had Renoldson stopped
from talking to the press about what he saw.
In fact, he had to pull some chits just to prevent the agency from
stopping the fat bastard. Normally,
Branard would have wanted him silenced as well, but now it served his purpose
to have the man squeal to the airwaves about what he saw three years ago. Canter's piddling show was due to be
cancelled at the end of this season, so it was not likely his interview with
Renoldson would ever be broadcast again.
Too bad, thought Branard. He
hoped Renoldson would find more popular and respectable television shows to
spread his story. The more, the
merrier.
Branard poured himself another shot
and thought back on the day that Renoldson described. It had been easy enough for Branard to set up a chemistry
experiment and place Campbell's body near it, with a cigarette in the corpse's
hand to serve as the probable ignition source for any investigators that might
later come along. He set it up so
carefully to look like the aged Campbell had fallen asleep in the middle of an
experiment while smoking.
As it turned out, all his meticulous
attention to detail wasn't needed, as the fire Branard had started to cover his
crime quickly grew out of control. He
had to wait until he was sure the flames had reasonably consumed Campbell's
body before he sounded the alarm, but by then the fire had spread throughout
the lab. When the inferno had sufficiently
cooked a nearby chemical storage locker, it exploded, starting a chain reaction
that sent other explosions and flames careening throughout that part of the
complex. Campbell's body, as well as
the entire crime scene around it, was burned to ashes before it was blasted to
bits.
No one suspected a thing. The cause of the fire was listed as
"Unknown," although the investigators had assumed Campbell had
screwed up somehow. Branard wished he had
just taken Campbell's cigarettes for himself, instead of leaving them as false
evidence. What a waste of good smokes,
he thought.
In the bedlam that followed the
explosions, Branard's sole thought was to get the lizard alien to safety. Not that he cared one iota for the creature's
well being, but for the secrets it held he was most protective. He had waited a long time to retrieve that
knowledge and now he had killed for it.
He wasn't going to let a little fire rob him of his prize.
When he got to Siverelle's quarters,
he tried to open the door, but found his key would not fit the lock, just as
Campbell had said. He was trying to
decide what to do when Lester Moskowitz, one of Campbell's aids, showed up. Moskowitz also had the intent of rescuing
the alien from the approaching firestorm.
Campbell had already had the new key, so he was able to open the door
when Branard claimed to have lost his.
The lizard alien went ballistic when it saw Branard enter and they had
to sedate it with a dart gun to get it under control. They then strapped its drowsy body to a
gurney and wheeled it to safety.
By the time the fire was
extinguished, four people were dead; Campbell among them, and a third of the
complex was destroyed. Fortunately,
money was not a problem for this facility and it was quickly rebuilt within
weeks. As far as the agency was
concerned, the incident never happened.
The chemistry lab and Campbell's
body had been so completely destroyed that no evidence of foul play was ever
found. Fortunately for Branard, Campbell
had not yet told anyone of his plans to remove him from the assignment and with
Campbell dead, Branard was elevated to head of the project. With complete control, he quickly dismissed
the few aids Campbell had working for him, Moskowitz included. Alone with Siverelle at last, Branard set
about wresting the secrets from her.
Branard sipped his drink as he
thought back on what she finally told him.
He had to try several methods of persuasion before he finally found one
that worked best, but it was worth the effort.
He knew most people would consider him a monster because of the way he
treated the alien, but once he had learned the awful truth about her, he knew
he had done the right thing.
Of course, alien wasn't really the
right term for her. It implied she came
from somewhere else and had not fallen from the same evolutionary tree that
humans had, albeit a few branches further down. Branard shook his head in amazement at the notion. He had never been a religious man, but the
idea that all of humanity existed only because of the accident of another race;
a race of dinosaur people nonetheless, offended him somehow. He never gave much thought to the
philosophical questions of how and why the earth and human beings came about,
but he would have hoped for something more dignified than this!
When she first revealed the awful
truth to him, Branard stopped the interview right then and made a beeline for
the nearest bar. He had almost no
memory of the entire week following, as he was not sober for even a minute of
it.
Once Branard overcame his disbelief
and had returned from his stint of drunken denial, he resumed his
interrogations of Siverelle. The lizard
thing told him about her world and her people, she told him about how her
husband, Sarwin, had discovered time-travel.
She told him more about the accident that destroyed their world,
allowing humanity to come about in the process and causing her to crash here.
She also postulated that if she
arrived here, the others from her expedition into the past would arrive here
also, though she didn't know exactly when or where. She assumed that once Sarwin and his colleagues arrived, they
would try to rescue her and to also go back in time to try to undo the accident. That, of course, would be bad news for
humankind. Branard knew he had to
prevent that from happening.
So ironic, it seemed to Branard,
that he should become the savior of humanity, when so many of his fellow humans
would condemn him for his brutal techniques.
It only served to reinforce Branard's belief that his cruel methods were
the most superlative and efficient way to get things done. If he had not liberated the creature from
the compassionate but clueless Campbell, humanity would have been wiped out
without any warning of its impending peril.
Maybe someday the meek will inherit the earth, thought Branard, but he
would make sure they were meek humans.
An unconscious grin of self-satisfaction wrinkled his grotesque face.
He never told his superiors the
truth about what he learned. He didn't
think they could handle it; the pathetic, bumbling, bureaucratic fools. He gave them just enough knowledge about the
saucer that he wrested from Siverelle to keep them happy, so they would leave
him alone with his reptilian prize, while they fiddled and poked at her ship's
unfathomable innards.
Branard frowned when he thought
about the saucer. So much power, so
close, and yet he still couldn't control it.
The lizard thing had told him it was controlled primarily by the brain
waves of her kind, which no human could reproduce. He thought about forcing her to demonstrate the operation of the
ship, but he couldn't risk it. There
was no telling what she might be able to do, if given control of its
power. Besides, when Branard
interviewed her, her brain was in no condition to control its waves very well.
Branard considered pouring himself
yet another shot, but decided against it.
The savior of mankind couldn't get drunk all the time, after all. He returned the bottle to the drawer and lit
a cigarette instead. Now all he had to
do was wait. Wait for this Sarwin, whom
the lizard bitch was so sure would be coming to her rescue and restore this
planet to a world ruled by lizard people like her. He felt the wave of anger and hatred towards her that he always
felt when he thought about it. Over his
dead body would they take mankind's existence away.
Branard opened another drawer and
pulled out a thick book about dinosaurs that had a bookmark sticking out the
top. He flipped it open to the marked
page and starred at the drawing thereupon.
It was of a small, upright dinosaur named Troodon, which Siverelle had
picked out of the book as the one most resembling the dinosaur ancestors they
were studying in the past, just before causing the accident. She said the human artist had gotten some of
the details and the coloring all wrong though.
Branard slammed the book closed and shoved it back in the drawer. It angered him that these dinosauroids had
so much more power and knowledge than humans.
He needed to change that. He
would.
Branard decided he would have a talk
with the lizard thing again, right now.
He had planned to talk with it tomorrow, but why wait, he thought. It had been almost three weeks since his
last session with her and she had had time to recover enough for another round
of questioning.
Branard got up and left his
office. A short way down the corridor,
he came to a steel door with an electronic combination lock. He punched in a series of numbers and the
door clanked open. He entered, pulled
the door shut behind him and found himself in his lab. In the corner of the lab was a steel barred
cell and inside the cell was the green lizard thing. It was lying on its side with a thin blanket over it, shivering.
Branard approached the cage and
looked down at the creature. It was
much leaner now than when it was under Campbell's lavish care. He could see its ribs protruding, even
through the thin blanket. It looked up
at him with the miserable eyes of a helpless puppy that knew it was about to be
kicked again.
"What's the matter," he
asked in a mocking tone, "miss you're old quarters? I remember you complaining all the time
about how small they were. I'll bet
they don't seem so small to you now, eh?"
He laughed at his own joke.
Siverelle just stared in silence.
"You look better," he
continued, "I'm in the mood to talk some more, how about you?"
Siverelle said nothing, only
continued to stare blankly back at him.
Branard grinned wickedly, the smile
accenting the hideous scars on his face.
"You know, because of you, I haven't been laid in three years
now. Christ, even you're starting to
look good to me."
Again, Siverelle said nothing.
"Oh well, I guess you're not in
the mood to talk to me. Looks like I'll
have to break out the ol' social lubricant.
You know... to break the ice a
little. First, I'll have
mine..." Branard opened a nearby
drawer and produced yet another bottle of whiskey. He poured some into a nearby dirty beaker and downed it,
following it up with an exaggerated "ahhhh."
He then pulled a large hypodermic
needle from a drawer and waved it in her direction, "and now here's
yours. Come on, you know you want
it," he mocked.
"Please," Siverelle
finally squeaked out, in a voice so weak he could hardly hear it, "no more..."
"Now, now..." said Branard
as he fastened the injector onto a broom handle, so he could deliver it safely
through the bars, out of reach of her terrible claws, "this won't hurt a
bit."
Siverelle curled into a tight ball,
shuddering, as Branard started to work the needle through the bars, toward her.
"I want to talk more about
Sarwin today," said Branard. He
jabbed the big needle deep into her flesh, the puncturing of her skin was
audible. Siverelle herself made no
sound. As if she felt nothing
Siverelle didn't bother to fight
anymore. She had tried early on to
resist the drugs, but she could not hold out for long. The intoxicant swam deep into her blood,
warming her from the inside. It lifted her
up from the cold, hard floor of the cell, cradling her in gentle arms. It carried her into a narcotic netherworld
of liquid warmth and languid song, far from the shivering withdrawal spasms
that wracked her between the inquisitions.
Once here, she never wanted to leave.
She would tell the Vartyiar demon anything, just to stay one minute
more.
Tell me more of Sarwin, came the
hideous voice from somewhere beyond.
Sarwin. Siverelle found herself standing on a star-shrouded beach, the
crashing of waves all about her in the embracing darkness. She recognized this place. It was the night Sarwin had proposed to her,
on a beach facing the Anwar Sea. It all
seemed so far away... so far away and so long ago.
"What is your answer,
love?" came a familiar voice from behind.
She turned and shouted,
"Sarwin!" embracing him so hard she could feel him gasp from the
squeeze.
She could feel him laughing through
her suffocating hug.
"Shall I take this as a 'yes'
then?" he persisted, gleefully.
"Oh Sarwin... Where have you been?" She cupped his face in her hands, "Why
didn't you come for me?"
"I am always here for you,
love," he said. He produced a
folded handkerchief of red silk from his jacket pocket. He opened it to reveal two golden wedding
lockets nestled within, which glowed softly as they touched one another.
"With these," he went on,
"we will always know when the other is near and I would never want for
them to be dark. Will you wear them
with me, Siverelle?"
In answer, she bowed her head and he
slipped one of the lockets over it. She
in turn she did the same for him. The
lockets continued to glow as they again embraced.
"For me," he whispered in
her ear, "their radiance symbolizes the light you have brought into this
humble life of mine. As long as you
wear it, I will always strive to remain close to you, so that the light shall
never fade. I love you, Siverelle. I will love you until the end of the World
and beyond."
Siverelle squeezed her husband
hard. Some distant, fading part of her
knew this wasn't real, but she didn't care anymore. Sarwin had come to rescue her at last and now that she held him
in her arms, she would never let go.
She would never return to that icy prison or the furred demon that
tormented her endlessly. She was at last
free of it.
Wake up you lizard bitch, came again
the dreadful voice from beyond, now growing muted and distant.
Siverelle sank deeper into the
amorphous bliss, farther and farther from the fading demon voice that beckoned
her attention. She danced and dined
with her husband, and played joyfully with her children. In the span of a moment, Siverelle watched
them grow and marry, then move on to have families of their own. She and Sarwin grew old together and there
were so many grandchildren it was hard to recall all the names.
The long nightmare was over. Her life had at last become unfrozen. For Siverelle, time once again moved
leisurely on.