Parasites Love Earth!, Page 6

  Dunlop 4 popped out of the air car. He walked so quickly that it took Sam a few seconds to catch up with him.

  Dunlop 4 went into a Lamaze class. being held in a yoga studio. Pregnant women were sitting with their legs spread, practicing giving birth to babies.

  They saw the instructor, a young blonde hippie in her 30's, going from student to student, gently touching their bellies, giving each whispered words of encouragement.

  "You're doing so well, dear," said the instructor, touching one woman's belly. Then she went to another, and gave a small smile. "Such great love."

  Sam and Dunlop 4 walked down the rows of women. The instructor seemed to take no notice of them. They heard the women stretching, but then they heard one woman say the oddest thing.

  "Babies are an abomination."

  Sam stared at the woman.

  And then the woman behind her said, "All babies must die."

  "New life is poison," said another.

  "A cancer is growing inside me," said a third.

  "All life must die," said a fourth.

  Suddenly, one by one, the women started screaming and grabbing their bellies.

  Before Sam's eyes, their bellies started to crack and split open. Blood spurted everywhere. Sam could see a claw start to cut its way out of one woman's belly. The pregnant woman passed out from the pain.

  Sam heard a ripping sound and saw another baby burst out. It had claws and fangs and looked horrendous, like an animal.

  As the babies burst out, one after another, the instructor looked about her, full of glee, and laughed.

  " Klinisterian!" Dunlop 4 shouted, drawing his weapon. The instructor hissed and yelled something in a foreign tongue. Dunlop 4 was aiming when a baby lunged at him, knocking him down.

  The instructor turned to flee.

  "Oh no you don't," said Sam, running after her. But then one of the monster babies grabbed at Sam's leg. She kicked it in the head, but then another monster baby charged her.

  More than 30 monster babies ripped themselves out of pregnant, dying women. Dunlop 4 and Sam were suddenly surrounded. They stood back to back, firing wildly, Sam with her blaster, and Dunlop, with his weapon.

  Each time they fired a monster baby went down, but there were so many of them! One of them got close enough to bite Sam on the leg, and she went down. In seconds she was nearly smothered by a pile of snarling, biting monster babies.

  And then a mighty arm pulled one away from her, and send it crashing against the wall. And then another arm pulled another one away, Sam, with her arms free, reached for her blaster, and resumed shooting.

  In moments the only ones alive in the yoga studio were Sam and Dunlop 4. They were surrounded by bodies: the bodies of more than two dozen dead women, their bellies ripped open, and the smoking bodies of two dozen or more monster babies. Sam wanted to cry. She looked at one of the monster babies. It had red eyes, big fangs, and enormous claws. Who would engineer such a thing?

  Dunlop 4 grabbed her arm. "We must find the Klinisterian."

  She had fled out the back door. It led to an ally, which led back to the street.

  Sam and Dunlop 4 ran to the street. They looked around. There were all kinds of people on the street, but the yoga instructor was not in sight.

  "We lost her," said Sam.

  "Perhaps," said Dunlop. "Reach out with your senses, Sam." He closed his eyes and did the same. Dunlop 4 must have something similar to ESPer power.

  Sam tried to breathe slowly, to ignore the carnage she had just participated in. She heard the sound of approaching ambulances. She tried to tune them out. Suddenly, she found Dunlop 4 grasping her hand. She held it tightly. It seemed to calm her.

  Then time seemed to stop. She reached out and started probing minds around her. That one... no, not that one... not that one... not that one...

  And then Sam felt a presence. Close, really close. Was it Dunlop? No, this was something different.

  And then she turned around, and saw a man behind her in a business suit, smoking a pipe while reading a datapad. The man, seeing her glance, smiled at her.

  Sam lunged forward and smacked the man hard in the face. He should have collapsed to the ground, but he didn't. He started to run.

  But Dunlop was quicker.

  " Klinisterian!" he yelled.

  The Klinisterian turned and looked at Dunlop. "All flesh must die," it snarled.

  "You are flesh," Dunlop replied. He fired, and the Klinisterian went down, with a smokey hole in its chest.

  Sam went over to it. "Is it..."

  "Dead," said Dunlop 4. "This is not the kind of mission where one takes prisoners."

  The first ambulance arrived. Sam thought again of the carnage in the yoga studio. She started to cry. "Hold me. Just hold me," she said. Dunlop 4 took her in his arms.

  ********

  When they returned to HomePlanet Security Headquarters, General Henderson deplored the loss of life, but was obviously pleased. First, they had stopped one of the Klinisterians. Dunlop 4 had informed them that there were only two of them on the Containment Ship. And secondly, and more importantly, he had proven himself. Dunlop 4, it seemed, really was on their side.

  General Henderson gave Sam the rest of the day off to recover from the carnage she had witnessed, while other leads were pursued.

  When she got home, she found Gavin there. Since Gavin was a management consultant, he spent much of the time travelling the world. She was lucky to find him home at the same time. She sobbed, hugging him tightly.

  "I heard," he said softly.

  "You heard?" Sam asked. Her work was classified top secret, how would he know anything that had happened?

  Gavin held up a datapad. It was the news. There was a holo of the carnage in the yoga studio. And then there was a holo of Sam, sobbing, hugging Dunlop 4.

  "Do you want to tell me what's going on, Sam?" Gavin asked.

  "I... I can't," said Sam.

  "They say all those women were killed in an explosion caused by a heat converter," said Gavin. He held up the holo. "Does this look like the work of an explosion to you, Sam?"

  She shook her head.

  "I knew when I married you, that you were in the Survey Service, and that there were some things I could never know. Then when you transferred to HomePlanet Security, I knew I would know even less. But it doesn't take a genius to figure out that you're in the middle of something very dangerous. Am I right, Sam?"

  Sam, with tears in her eyes, nodded.

  "Then resign, Sam. Nothing is worth risking your life for. Let someone else do it."

  "I can't," said Sam.

  "Why? Because you have those magical ESPer powers? I don't want to lose you, Sam. I married a woman, not an ESPer."

  "You married both. You knew that going in," said Sam.

  "I suppose I did. All right then, who is this?" said Gavin, raising the holoimage of her hugging Dunlop 4. "You're in a Survey Service uniform. He's not. Are you going to tell me he's just a fellow coworker?"

  "I can't say," said Sam.

  "Can you assure me that there's nothing going on between you and this... mystery man?"

  "I can guarantee it," said Sam, sniffling. Then she smiled. "If you were an ESPer, like me, you'd know I was telling the truth."

  "Well, I'm not an ESPer, so I'll have to give you the hug test. Come here, woman."

  Sam ran into his arms.

  "I love you," said Gavin, hugging her tightly. "I love you so much. I don't want anything to happen to you, all right?"

  "I know," said Sam, blinking back tears. "I love you too."

  ********

  "There have been more reports of babies ripping out of their mother's wombs in a Lamaze class in Queens, New York." Sam said.

  Queens. That struck a memory for Dunlop 4. A useful one, involving the Klinisterians. He smiled and said, "Take me there."

  Once they arrived, they started to drive around Queens. "Are you married, Dunlop 4?"

  "No," said Dunlo
p 4.

  "Was your... original, married?" Sam asked.

  "Yes," said Dunlop 4.

  "Do you..."

  "Do I remember her, like she was my wife? Yes, I do," said Dunlop. Suddenly, he thought about Sirena, about her beautiful blonde hair, her gorgeous smile, her green eyes, her large breasts....

  "That must be very difficult for you," said Sam. Dunlop looked over at Sam. Over time, memories tended to fade, somewhat, but looking at Sam, who was also blonde, beautiful, had green eyes, and who also had big breasts, he suddenly realized that the two might even have resembled each other.

  "I try not to think about it. Only the job," said Dunlop.

  "And after your job is over? What then?"

  "Once my mission is successfully completed, I have been promised the ultimate reward."

  "What is that?" Sam asked.

  "A life," said Dunlop 4, staring at her with those eyes... those blue eyes, just like Jack's. Suddenly he frowned. "Stop here."

  They were just outside a hospital.

  Oh no. Not a maternity ward.

  They ran inside.

  When they got there, it seemed they were too late. There were women with big bellies, their eyes bulging in horror. "No.... no..... no......!" they cried.

  Their bellies shook, seeming to move on their own. Sam heard/felt a rumbling.

  "Get down!" Dunlop cried, tackling Sam and pushing her out of the room.

  A moment later there was a loud explosion. People screamed. The building shook. Windows shattered, and alarms went off. People in the hallway were battered, bloodied, and bruised by the explosion.

  Dunlop 4, who had protected Sam with his body, pulled her up. "Are you all right?"

  "I think so," said Sam. She looked around at the injured people. If people were injured in the hallway, what had actually happened in the maternity ward? She moved to go in, but Dunlop 4 stood in front of her. "You may not want to see this."

  Sam bit her lip and moved around him.

  There were craters in the maternity ward. She could see holes in the floors and ceilings, as if C4 explosives had gone off there. Of the pregnant women, there were only splattered remains of some; others had been blown to pieces by the blast.

  Sam struggled to figure out what had happened.

  "The women whose body parts are in pieces, those are the ones who were carrying girls," said Dunlop 4. "They were blown apart by the explosions."

  "What explosions?"

  "The women who were carrying boys are the ones you won't find body parts of. They were completely vaporized."

  "What are you saying?" Sam asked.

  "The Klinisterians have the ability to modify DNA in many deadly ways. One way you've already seen, where they change babies into mutated creatures who attack their own mothers. But even worse is where they charge the male and female chromosomes with catalytic energy."

  "Boys have an X and a Y chromosome," said Sam slowly. "Are you saying this creature charges their chromosomes with two kinds of power which explode when they come into contact with each other?"

  Dunlop 4 nodded. "In essence, they become living bombs."

  "And the women carrying girl babies?"

  "They were simply incidental casualties, too close to the explosions of the others," said Dunlop 4.

  Sam gritted her teeth. "We have to find this bastard. We have to find it, and kill it."

  "On that we are agreed," said Dunlop 4.

  ********

  Three days passed. There were no more reports of babies turning into monsters and attacking their mothers from within their wombs, and no more reports of baby boys turning into explosive devices. The remaining Klinisterian had become inactive.

  "Not inactive," said Dunlop 4. "It is simply taking longer to reach its next target."

  "But what could its target be?" said Sam. "At any given moment, there are literally hundreds of millions of pregnant women."

  Dunlop 4 remembered a thought he had had earlier.

  About Queens.

  Dunlop 4 remembered how Dunlop 1 captured the last of the Klinisterians, all those centuries ago.

  The Klinisterians had created a path of death and destruction across Ardentia, much like they were doing on Earth. And then one of the last Klinisterians suddenly went into hiding. Some of Dunlop's fellow hunters thought she was trying to escape, but Dunlop didn't believe it for a moment. He figured out that the Klinisterian would try to make the biggest statement possible by killing the baby of the most important figure on the planet.

  As it so happened, the Queen of Ardentia was pregnant, and was about to give birth. Dunlop 4 arrived at the Palace just as the Klinisterian was priming the Queen to explode. The Klinisterian fled at the sight of him. He had a choice: save the Queen, or capture the Klinisterian.

  Dunlop 4 chose to capture the Klinisterian.

  He was banished from Ardentia for eternity after that, but received a commendation from the Stellar Union, in private.

  Dunlop 4 did a search on the planetary network. Now that he had gained the human's trust, they had rewarded him with some freedom of movement and access to information. It took only a few searches to find out the identity of the most prominent pregnant woman on the planet.

  The Vice President of the World Government, Janice Parderan.

  ********

  He and Sam got to the Vice President's Palace in Stockholm just as the Klinisterian was finishing her work. They could see her fleeing as Vice President Parderan was lying in her quarters, with a crazed look in her eyes, saying, "All life is evil. All life must die." Her belly was rumbling.

  Sam took one look at the Vice President and at Dunlop's hesitancy, and she yelled, "Help her! I'll stop the Klinisterian!" Dunlop had told her that, given time, he could defuse a baby bomb.

  Dunlop paused for a split second, watching Sam pursue the Klinisterian, made a decision, and turned to the Vice President. Her belly started to bounce up and down more vigorously as Dunlop drew his gun, and pointed it at the Vice President's belly. "Now hold still, Madame Vice President. This won't hurt... much," he said, concentrating as he aimed his weapon at her belly.

  Meanwhile, Sam pursued the Klinisterian down a corridor of the Vice President's Palace. But the Klinisterian was waiting for her and ambushed her as she turned a corner. Sam went tumbling to the ground, and her blaster went skidding away.

  "A baby maker!" said the Klinisterian, this time a young, blonde woman, just like Sam. "My favorite kind! A pity you have no baby in you! Let us see what gift I can give you anyway!"

  And he/she/it started to put his hands on Sam. Sam tried to move her arms but found they were paralyzed. The Klinisterian smiled as it saw Sam realize it. But then Sam realized she had still had one weapon left.

  She had never used her ESPer powers as a weapon before, had never tried to. She didn't even know if it was possible. She had never thought of them in that way.

  But now need drove her to, need, with a great urgency. And then she was staring into the cold, sterile corridors of the Klinisterian's mind, and she was illuminating those corridors with a great warmth, a fire, a bright fire.

  The Klinisterian screamed, and grabbed its head. Sam was immediately freed of her paralysis, and she grabbed her blaster.

  "Mercy! Mercy!" the Klinisterian cried.

  Sam carefully set her blaster to its highest setting. "Here's the same mercy you gave those kids in the hospital." And she opened fire.

  She stared at the smoking body for a moment. These parasites might be powerful, but they could be killed with conventional weapons. At least this kind could.

  And then she remembered Dunlop 4, and the Vice President, and the ticking time bomb in her belly.

  She raced back to where she had left them.

  Dunlop 4 was standing there, staring impassively. The Vice President was very much alive, but crying hysterically.

  "What....?" Sam asked.

  "I saved her," said Dunlop 4.

  "But... why is she crying?" Sa
m asked.

  "Let's go," said Dunlop quietly.

  ********

  He explained it on the flight back to Alexandria. He had used an energy bolt from his weapon to neutralize the overload building up in the Vice President's belly.

  "So if it was neutralized, why was she crying?"

  "Because her baby was lost," said Dunlop.

  "Couldn't you save it?"

  Dunlop shook his head. "It was lost the moment its chromosomes were converted into energy. Its brain was fried. All I could do was save the mother."

  "That must have been... hard for you."

  "Harder for her," said Dunlop 4. He looked sad, the first time Sam had seen him show any emotion. She held onto his arm all the way back to HomePlanet Headquarters.

  Chapter 3: The Super Brains

  General Henderson was pleased to learn they had eliminated one of the six kinds of parasites that had arrived in the Containment Ship. But his pleasure was blunted when Dunlop 4 told him that there had only been two Klinisterians, and of all the parasites, they had been among the least dangerous.

  "What then would you say are the most dangerous?" General Henderson asked.

  "By far, the Hive Mind," said Dunlop 4 immediately. "They have many different forms. They can appear as Insects. Or round life forms called riders. Or-"

  "We have those," said Sam excitedly. "We have a worm and a pancake in captivity."

  "A pancake?" said Dunlop 4.

  "Attached to an old man's back. We have them both in isolation. Would you like to see them?"

  "I would," said Dunlop 4.

  Neil Truk and Cindy Nixon were kept in cells right next to each other. Their food was delivered via a slot in the wall. After Cindy had become infected by a worm from Neil's rider, no one risked going into their cells without hazmat suits and extensive decontamination checks.

  Sam brought Dunlop 4 to the cellblock. Both Neil and Cindy were behind separate forcefields.

  "Cindy, on the left, has a worm... in her genitals. We haven't been able to remove it," said Sam. "She's able to talk freely, if you like."