Maker - Michael Jan Friedman [3]
He hadn’t known that a telepath could pillage someone’s mind that way. But then, the only telepaths he had known were a couple of doe-eyed Indrotti on Risa, and they had obviously been more interested in his body than his mind.
He wished he were back on Risa at that very moment. He wished, in fact, that he were anywhere but on an Yridian cargo hauler inexplicably turned into an underground chamber.
He touched his fingers to the puddle in which he had been lying and tasted it. It was water, all right. But where the devil was it coming from? And how was it manufacturing cones of accumulated mineral matter so quickly?
Nikolas remembered what the alien had said to him: My doing. All my doing.
But that was ridiculous. No one had the power to create this kind of environment on a spacegoing vessel…did they?
Examining the mineral column closest to him, Nikolas saw that it was hard and surprisingly smooth to the touch. And it had to have come from somewhere.
He had read stories of seemingly magical beings in the logs of the early starship captains—a teenager who had been brought up by powerful aliens, a mysterious humanoid named Trelane, even the ancient Greek god Apollo. But no one like them had turned up in the last fifty years, and there was speculation that they had never really existed in the first place.
There has to be an explanation, he told himself. It can’t be the alien who’s doing this. Not on his own.
Then he remembered the other thing the behemoth had said: But it’s not enough. I need more.
What the hell did he mean by that? More mineral accumulations? What good could they possibly do him?
Nikolas would eventually have to find out. But first, he wanted to know what had happened to his crewmates—his friend Ed Locklear and all the others. If they were lying somewhere all broken up, Nikolas doubted they would get any assistance from the alien.
The question was where to look first. Fortunately, he didn’t have to dwell very long on the answer. He had been on his way to the bridge when he encountered the alien. It was still the most promising destination he could think of.
Making his way through the forest of blue and orange columns, he found a turbolift and waited until the doors slid aside for him. Then he entered the compartment, punched the necessary code into the control panel, and watched the doors close again.
The last time Nikolas had attempted a ride in the lift, the compartment had stopped partway to the bridge level and the doors had opened, apparently on their own. And that was when he had encountered the alien.
A coincidence? It didn’t seem like one. But he wasn’t ready to believe that the invader was responsible. It was one thing to violate a mind and another to stop a moving turbolift.
In any case, the lift didn’t stop this time. It kept going, moving in determined fashion through the ship, until it reached its appointed destination.
When the doors parted, giving Nikolas access to the corridor, he got out and looked around—and found the same conditions that had prevailed two decks below. Cone-shaped projections coming from both the ceiling and the deck beneath his feet, each of them waxing larger right before his eyes.
But that wasn’t all he saw. Partway to the bridge, nearly hidden by a bend in the corridor, a pair of boots was lying on the deck—and Nikolas had a feeling they weren’t empty.
Negotiating a path through the field of stalagmites, he got near enough to confirm it—there were legs attached to the boots, and a body attached to the legs. But it wasn’t yet clear to him whose it was. The only thing that was clear to him was that the body was no longer alive. It was too thin and too pale, and it was lying at too awkward an angle—the kind no humanoid could have adopted and survived.
Feeling a lump in his throat, Nikolas advanced a little farther and saw that it was Redonna, the Dedderac who had piloted the ship. She was tough as duranium, as reliable as they came—and she had made a pass at him the night before the attack.
“You see,” she had said, her voice low and