The Spy Who Haunted Me

Walker had known better than to try to interfere. He came forward, stepping carefully over blood and offal, and put his arms around me and held me as I cried. And just for a moment, it felt like my father was with me again, and I was comforted. After a while I found the strength to stand up straight again, and Walker immediately let go of me and stepped back. He watched silently as I rubbed the drying tears from my face and took a deep steadying breath.

“Damn them,” I said, and my voice was cold, so cold. “Damn the aliens to Hell for making me do that.”

“Yes,” said Walker.

“The aliens have to die,” I said. “They all have to die. No treaties or agreements for them. No mercy. I have to send a message. That no one can be allowed to get away with things like this.”

“I never thought otherwise,” said Walker.

The centre of operations wasn’t far away. My Sight led me straight to it. Just another cavern, perhaps a little larger than the others, the slick curving walls almost buried under extruded alien machinery and some things that looked to be at least half alive, studded with metal protrusions and lights like staring eyes. Long silvery tendrils hung down from the high ceiling, twisting and turning and twitching in response to unfelt breezes or perhaps just the passing of unknowable thoughts and impulses. And there were aliens, whole bunches of them, working at unrecognisable tasks, lurching across the smooth floor like tangles of knotted ropes. They operated the u

They all stopped at the same moment, and then three of them rolled together to melt and merge into one great pile over eight feet high, hundreds of dripping tentacles piled on top of each other. Disturbingly human eyeballs formed on the end of bobbing tendrils, all aimed at me and Walker. A bright pink speaking trumpet extruded from beneath the eyes, flushing with rhythmic crimson pulses.

“Welcome,” it said. “Be calm. You will not be killed; you are useful. Of use to us. You have demonstrated impressive capabilities. Your value will be incorporated into us, and when you have been improved we will send you back out into your world to prepare the way for us. You shall be our voice, our messengers and prophets.”

“I wouldn’t put money on it,” I said.

“Their language skills are improving,” said Walker.

“Practice makes perfect,” I said.

Parts of the greater alien reached out to manipulate semi-organic machines that rose up out of the floor. The eyeballs still looked steadily in our direction. Creamy white eyeballs without any veins and pure black irises.

“I destroyed your discarded experiments,” I said. “The people you ruined and threw away. They’re all dead now.”

“They were failures,” said the alien. “Of no further use to us. You will be of use to us. There is much that we can do with you.”

“I’ll die first,” said Walker. “Better yet, you’ll die first.”

“I represent the Droods,” I said, raising my voice so all of them could hear. “No visiting alien species goes anywhere or does anything on our world without our consent. We exist to protect humanity from things like you. You should have come to us first. We could have worked something out. Prevented all this.”

“No,” said the alien. “This is necessary. You are small, limited, incapable of understanding what is best for you. We know. We are experienced in changing, upgrading species.”

“You’ve done this before?” said Walker. “On other worlds?”

“On many other worlds,” said the alien. “You must be changed; your species is inefficient. It will not survive the future that is coming. You are wasteful of your potential, but you can be made better. Remade. You must not try to interfere. That is wasteful, of time and energy and resources. We are doing important work here. You will thank us later. This is our work. Our responsibility. Our joy. We make things better.”

“Not here,” I said. “Not to us. We decide our own destiny. The experiment you’re pla

“You can’t stop it,” said the alien. “It is already in motion. Humans. You think so small. So petty. Even your language is barely adequate for communication. You do not even see us clearly. We are not what you look at. This body. You talk with an extension. You are inside our body.”

“The mound,” said Walker. “The whole damned mound is the alien . . . One massive organism. That changes things.”

“Yes,” I said. “Don’t suppose you have any explosives about you?”

“Nothing big enough.”

“You will be remade,” said the alien speaker. “Improved, made speakers of our purpose. You will convince others to do what is necessary. Conflict is wasteful. You will observe the results of our experiment, the greater things we will make out of those who survive. You will tell your world to cooperate, that it is all for the best.”

“We’ll never work for you,” said Walker. “No one on this world will do anything but fight you to the last breath in their bodies.”

“You won’t fight us,” said the alien. “After a point, you won’t want to. You will become greater. And it starts now.”

Dozens of aliens appeared in the chamber: rising up out of the floor, sliding out of walls, dropping from the ceiling. They blocked all the entrances to the chamber. More and more of them, too many to count, surrounding Walker and me as we moved quickly to stand back-to-back. He had his sword blade in his hand again. I called up my armour and took on my battle form, bristling with weapons. Holding its form was a strain, but I was too angry to care. The aliens filled the chamber around us, packing the place from wall to wall, piles of slimy ropes sliding in and out of each other.

“Bad odds,” said Walker, his voice as calm and cool as always.

“I’ve seen worse,” I said.

“Really?”

“Actually, yes. Of course, I had reinforcements then.”

“Terrific,” said Walker. “How powerful are those energy weapons protruding from your armour?”

“The blades are sharp enough to cut through a loud noise,” I said. “Everything else . . . is just for show.”

“No energy weapons?”

“No. I don’t normally need them.”

“Well,” said Walker. “When there’s nothing left to do but die, die well. And take as many of your enemies as possible down to Hell with you. Get out of here, Eddie.”

“What?”

“I’ll hold their attention while you make for the surface. Don’t worry; you’re not the only one with a few tricks up his sleeve. You get the hell out of here and do whatever’s necessary to stop them. I’ll buy you time. Go, Eddie. It’s all up to you now.”

“I can’t leave you here! Not with them; they’ll—”

“No, they won’t. I’ll make them kill me first.”

“I can’t . . .”

“You must, Eddie. It’s the human thing to do.”

I was still looking at him, trying to decide what to do for the best, when a blast of searing energy slammed out of one entrance, incinerating a whole bunch of aliens. They blew apart, great lengths of burning ropes flying through the air. More energy blasts raked across the cavern, blasting aliens out of the way, as Honey Lake came striding in with her shimmering crystal weapon in her hands. She laughed cheerfully, a bright and wonderfully sane sound in that hellish place, like a Valkyrie come down to Hel to rescue her heroes. She fired again and again, and pieces of ragged tentacles flew this way and that as she opened up a space around her.

“Heads up, guys!” she yelled cheerfully. “The cavalry just arrived!”

I whooped with joy and relief and ploughed through the nearest aliens, hacking them apart and kicking the pieces aside so I could get to the next. My golden blades tore through them as though they were made of paper. I waded through alien gore like a hungry man going to a feast. A cold and vicious rage burned within me, not just at what they had done and pla