Coven

“A battery,” Wade concluded. “And that’s why you have to leave soon. Because your batteries are draining.”

“Exactly. Your perceptiveness is noteworthy.” Besser took him into another service pass. “Before full depletion is experienced, we recharge the stasisfield in a single spontaneous pulse with the remaining stored potential electron activity. That will occur tonight at five minutes before midnight. Then—”

“Blast off,” Wade said.

“More like a magnetic repulsion, but, yes, the labyrinth will project itself back into the active EM flux of space.”

“To where?”

“The next acquisition assignment. We go from world to world, Wade. From galaxy to galaxy.”

Wade was boggled. “What the fuck for?” he shouted. “To bury coeds? To pull people’s heads off? Why?”

Besser chuckled deeply. “I’ll show you why. Follow me.”

Strange light hummed around Wade’s head. There were no light fixtures, yet somehow he could see through the solid blackness. A mindsign hovered by: SUBINLET#4. And the very next: SUBINLET#5; and next: SUBINLET#999. The labyrinth was an endless maze.

But the next sign glowed GERMINATIONWARREN.

Dark, orange light pulsed in a long, narrow chamber. Large canisters sat in racks along one wall. The other side was a half wall, which looked down.

Besser pointed. “A thousand kingdoms, whose end is perfection.”

Wade lost his breath peering over the edge. From layers of orange light, production stratas descended ever downward. It was like looking down the slope of a mountain miles high. Each level bore movement, white bodies busying back and forth in arcane passages, pushing things about in some nameless onus.

“What the fuck is this?” Wade whispered, more to himself.

“A womb for whole civilizations,” Besser symbolized. “A processing plant where genetic structures are isolated for their most useful features, bred into one another, regressive genes removed, vital genes amplified. We distill life, combine it, and re create it—all to the Supremate’s specifications.”

Wade’s eyes locked down into the glowing chasm.

“Nature is base, but we’re making it serve a higher purpose. The labyrinth is only one of many; from world to world they go, processing dominant life forms for what will one day effect a flawless realm. We take the best of everything and make it better.”

“For the Supremate?”

“For the master plan. Our world is damned by its own error. War, hate, crime, etcetera. And all the other worlds in this universe, I’m sorry to say, are the same. All except one. The Supremate’s.”

Wade couldn’t look anymore, not into this Grand Canyon of flesh. He backed up, reeling, sick.

“Productivity versus waste,” Besser glorified on. “Mankind is wasteful, here and everywhere else. But the master plan culls the good from the bad, from all worlds, to a single, objective end. What better definition can there be for perfection?”

Wade turned, spied the canisters in the racks.

“And this room is where it all begins. The activeports.”

At first Wade thought they must be fuel cells of some kind, but Besser had said the labyrinth needed no fuel. Wade rolled one of the transparent canisters out. There was a bubble, and he saw something that looked suspiciously similar to a belly button. Whatever mass filled the canister twitched once, quivered. Part of the mass was a human face. Wade put it back in the rack.

“Prototypes are made here. A computer calculates the most useful possibilities, then the best prototypes are removed for further genetic embellishment. We breed females from one world with males from other worlds. Females are fissionizationvessels; males are holotypes—”

That word rang a bell, and Wade didn’t like the sound of it.

“Each target sector is indexed into the Supremate’s intelligence: natural resources, industrial potential, and environmental characteristics. Also indexed are the anatomical characteristics of each species. Then the Supremate calculates which combinations of which species would effect a superior interspecies. Initial prototypes, which we call interspecielmetisunits, are produced very quickly. The entire process involves a complex system of biological acclimations and growth acceleration sciences.”

Wade was leaning against the warm wall, wiping his mouth. “The girl in that thing—she’s from the college, isn’t she?”

“It’s not a thing. It’s an incubreedcatalyzationcapsule, with an expansionbolus to allow for natal growth. And, yes, she’s one of the five surrogate procurements from this planet.”

“What the hell did you do to her?”

“We removed her bones, of course. Antirejectorybifertilization demands some rather drastic acclimations. You don’t just impregnate one life form with the reproductive genes of another and expect to produce an interspeciel. The two physiologies aren’t compatible. So we make them compatible. One thing we do is modify the reproductive systems of the surrogates, but in this forced compatibility they wouldn’t survive the physical stress of intercourse and birth.”

“Like trying to drive a bus through a rabbit hole.”

“Crude, but correct. We remove their bone structures.” Besser picked up a big syringe. “Calciumdecimationliquefactor agents dissolve all bone material in the body, which is then drained off in a suspended state and disposed of.”

Besser pointed to one of the jugs. It was full to the top. Wade remembered seeing Jervis milking white sludge out of the girl in the harness, and how she stretched like putty afterward.

“We can produce primary interspeciels in a matter of hours, and the surrogates can be used repeatedly for future bifertilizations. It’s marvelous.”

Wade was not inclined to agree.

In the next warren, rows of glowing compartments throbbed with feeble movement. The noise was relentless, a raucous rise of squalls and whines.

Wade looked hard. The plump, misshapen things he saw lying there sent him back in an impact of vision. Tiny pudenda wriggled. Chubby arms and legs rowed the moist air. Some seemed to grow even as he watched.

“This is the biomaintenancecarbonsourcehypersaturationvault,” Besser proudly stated.

“It’s a fucking baby ward!” Wade yelled.

“Newborn interspeciels under hyperincubation. In mere days they’ll have sufficiently matured, hosting successfully bifertilized reproductive genes, which will then be transfected again and again until the target species has been produced. Then the desired gene groups will be stored in the cryowarrens until colonization time.”

“When’s that?”

Besser shrugged casually. “Only the Supremate knows. A year from now, or a thousand years. The labyrinth stores interspeciel gene groups for every annexation target.”

“You mean every planet.”

“Yes, and there are thousands, Wade—multiple thousands. Each interspecies, regardless of classification, is genetically created with identical sensor and transception cells. Born in total allegiance to the Supremate’s objectives. Whole worlds, Wade, which will live to serve his will. When the time comes, the stored gene groups will be exogenically mass produced…and dispersed.”

Wade’s brain felt like it was broiling. “Why?” was all he could groan. “Why, why, why?”

“Mass recolonization.” Besser held a finger up. “One day, a new social system will reign over all worlds, myriad populations under one guiding light. No war, Wade, no crime, no aggression. Imagine a world like that, then imagine a thousand worlds just the same. The second phase is merely implementation, and function is the third phase. Perfectly adapted beings will join hands in a new order and live forever.”

“You want to turn the universe into an anthill.”

“No, Wade. We want to make the universe more efficient,” Besser said. “What’s wrong with that?”

A group of sisters came down the warren, their clone smiles sharp in unthinking bliss. Efficiency, Wade thought. They were carrying buckets of defected fetuses to the meat shredder.