“Wow,” Jansen said. “Just wow. Something really weird musta happened to you as a child.”
“Is it that strange?”
“Uh, yeah.”
Jansen clicked the mouth piece. “And that brings us to tonight’s question… what makes a man dream of sailing the coast of New England? Joining us here in the Radio Free Copernicus studio is closet sailor, Marco Esquivel. Marco, are the rumors true? Do you think about the Massachusetts shore while you masturbate?”
“Screw off, Nils.”
“Riveting show,” Hopkins said.
“How about you, Hop? Any secret fantasies about cutting a jib?”
“Nope. Can’t stand the ocean. I dream about cutting your throat sometimes, though.”
“Zing!”
Right as Jansen started to laugh, there was a strange noise. It was a loud thunk, as if something had collided with the station. It sounded like someone docking.
“What the hell was that?”
“Not sure, but it can’t be good.” Jansen pulled out a metal rod that he’d carefully sharpened to a fine point. He’d planned to kill Hopkins with it when the last of their rations ran out. He was going to slide it between the vertebrae at the base of the whale-man’s neck, killing him instantly. Jansen didn’t like Hopkins much, but he at least owed him a quick death.
He wasn’t surprised to see Marco and Hopkins with shivs of their own.
“Should we take cover,” Hopkins asked in a stage whisper.
“No. Full frontal assault,” Marco said. “You go out ahead, and we’ll be right behind you.”
“It never fucking ends with you two,” Hopkins said, exasperated.
Jansen ducked behind his console. “Don’t talk like that, my cetacean friend. Everything ends. In fact, I bet yer gonna die real soon.”
There were a couple of loud pops, followed by a crackling noise. The acrid stench of ozone filled the air.
“Whatever happens,” Jansen said, “I want you sons of bitches to know I hate you both.”
“Same.”
“Ditto.”
There was a whine of metal shearing, followed by a gong-like-clang and then silence. Hopkins and Marco both found their own hiding spots evenly spaced around the room.
Then they heard the approach. Something moved through the inside of the station, pawing at the guide rails and scraping along the walls. All three men had been aboard Copernicus so long that each noise gave them new information, told them what bulkhead the invaders were passing and how quickly they were progressing.
The monsters split up at the habitation hub, while one headed toward the command center alone. A mistake. The alien bastard was going to be easy prey.
Jansen’s head suddenly filled with twisted fantasies. He imagined killing the invasion party one by one, stalking them like animals in the wild before sinking his shiv deep into their skulls. Then he’d commandeer the enemy ship and return to Earth, where the surviving humans would give him a hero’s welcome. With the captured alien technology, the resistance could craft new weapons and finally turn the tides of war back on their oppressors. Eventually, months or maybe years later, they would drive the enemy from their planet once and for all, and Nils Jansen would be immortalized with a marble statue the size of a skyscraper, which people would revere and worship for all time.
A bright light emerged from the shaft, and Jansen blasted back into the present. The thing’s lamp was so bright that he couldn’t make out the shape of it. How many arms did it have? Did its jaw gape open like a snake’s? Was it covered in breasts?
The creature floated out into the middle of the command center and Jansen’s moment had arrived. He wheeled into position, put his feet against the wall and pushed off, screaming, “Die you alien bastard!”
Shiv in hand, he hurtled through the air, slobbering with fury as he went. The thing’s lamp turned toward him and shined him in the eyes, but he would not be deterred. He neared his target and thrust his weapon forward, only to stab at open air.
The creature had evaded his strike like a Spanish matador taunting a bull, but the tactic only stoked Jansen’s anger. He twisted around and prepared to launch himself off the next wall, then finally got a good look at the invader.
It was a man in a standard white GAF pressure suit. The light came from his helmet lamp, and he was waving his arms around spastically.
“What in tarnation?” Jansen asked, and briefly wondered what or where ‘tarnation’ was.
The suited man unlatched his helmet and pulled it off, revealing a wonderfully familiar face.
“Mason?”
Mason Shen had a silly grin, but it quickly faded to a look of total disgust. “Oh man, it stinks in here.”
“Mason, is that you? I’m hallucinating. I’m just imagining you, right?”
“Nope. You’re not imagining me, but I wish you were. Jesus almighty is it foul.”
“Sorry,” Marco said, “our subscription to Good Housekeeping ran out a couple weeks ago.”
“I don’t understand,” Jansen said, “how are you here? Did Donovan bring the Shackleton back?”
“The Shackleton? That bucket is long gone, buddy. We’re here testing out Faulkland’s new ship, Phoenix. Listen, it’s a long story, and I’d like to do as little breathing in here as possible. Why don’t we get out of this stink pit, hop back in the skiff and get you guys a shave and a shower?”
“That sounds nice,” Marco said.
Hopkins was already floating dreamily toward the shaft.
Jansen went back to his console and clicked on the mouth piece one last time. “Due to unexpected developments, it appears that Radio Free Copernicus will be going off the air. I’d just like to take a moment to thank our long time listeners. To all of our supporters out there in radio land, thanks for listening during this long strange journey, and keep on truckin’.”
“Are you done?” Mason asked.
“Completely. Let’s blow this popsicle stand.”
Chapter 34:
Peeping Tom
Jack knew Uganda and Kenya well enough, and he thought he was pretty well acquainted with the Congo rainforest too, but things change. The Earth was now one of those things. The dense jungle had been supplanted by a new environment. A complete alien biosphere. The invaders hadn’t just colonized; they were transforming the Earth into a different world altogether.
Near the alien city, green jungle gave way to a strange twisting growth of orange and purple. The branches of alien trees joined together and intertwined in a latticework, making it impossible to gauge where one plant ended and the next began. They formed distinct levels suspended above the ground that Jack and his team traveled across with ease.
The wildlife was overtaken as well. The team saw plenty of native animals on the shores of Lake Edward, including hippos, elephants, crocodiles and even some okapi, but as they ventured deep into the alien world, they found creatures like nothing from Earth. Strange things with tendrils surrounding their mouths and multiple sets of wings flapped erratically overhead, while furry little beasts with arms ending in long hooks and too many eyes swung from branch to branch. The ground below was scavenged by a strange, sedate animal with leathery skin, which crawled around on five human-like arms, and devoured bugs it found with a long snout. It occasionally let out a call that sounded just like a poorly tuned bassoon.
The only natives curious enough to enter the strange world were Jack’s team and the occasional band of chimpanzees, both of whom avoided the forest floor and anything not of their world. The passing chimps would sometimes stop to watch Jack and his crew move from cover to cover, before taking off for some other destination.
A few kilometers into the obnoxiously colored forest, they finally found what they were looking for. The forest thinned and came to a halt, giving way to delicately arranged gardens and crop fields of yet more alien plants, and another half-kilometer beyond sat an impossibly large alien fortress in cerulean blue. It stood exactly where the maps had indicated. The great disc-shaped city was twenty kilometers in diameter, and sat above the ground atop a jumble of roots which dove into the soil below.