CHAPTER 6: The Trial for Terra

A blur of gray light signaled Alexander’s return to consciousness. The flash of cold metal on his flesh snapped him awake. Instinctively, he recoiled at the memory of the cold operating table, but upon opening his eyes he realized he was somewhere else. The dim light was barely sufficient to reveal a cylindrical dull metal room. Seamless metal plates clad the walls, distinguishable from each other only by grain and shade. There was an alien texture to the metal. There was a different feeling in the air; it was a feeling he couldn’t explain but it was obvious in the smell, the weight of the air, and the temperature. This was a different ship, and considering his past experiences that was all to the good.

Beyond this simple observation, however, there was nothing to enlighten him. An injury shortened five year career as a defensive tackle, a nine year stint in the Air Force, and four years in the airlines didn’t prepare him very well for this predicament. All he could trust were his instincts, but all they told him was that he was far, far away from home.

Alexander sat up and shivered. He was naked and cold—so cold the chill settled in the marrow of his bones and radiated outward into his flesh. The chill was worst in his metal knee, and it made the fused attachment points in his femur and tibia ache. It was a familiar sensation, though—he went through it every winter—and strangely enough that sense of familiarity made him more at ease. Other than the cold, his only discomfort was being hungry, and a slight pain behind his left ear.

Alexander reached behind his ear and found a minuscule lump. Beneath his skin there was a small hard substance; it felt like a granular sliver—irregular like shrapnel. He shook his head, unable to explain what was going on. He struggled for a moment, a profusion of thoughts and memories sporadically bombarded him. Making sense out of the deluge was impossible. Was this one of those dreams within dreams; where nothing made sense and every event twisted in its own strangely irrelevant direction, or was this reality? The former struck him as somehow disappointing, while the latter caused a buzz of trepidation in his stomach.

He stood up stiffly, grunting at the ache in his knee. Laboriously, he moved around the room; he desperately needed an activity, a goal or at least a purpose. It was not through any training that he accomplished this leap from languid apathy; rather it was the instinctual response of his nature to do something, anything constructive.

His movements, albeit slow and careful, were nonetheless painful. He stopped, and slowly methodically stretched the muscles in his great frame. Every muscle in his body was excruciatingly stiff; it was evidence of a long confinement. There was otherwise no sense of time for his captivity, but for the first time he had conscious memories of his internment. As he haltingly paced about the room examining the walls he felt his memory returning with more order. The strangeness of the memories attacked him, and everything he’d learned from institutional Earth told him to reject them out of hand. But Alexander trusted himself more than his teachers. In doing so a paradigm shift took place. As Alexander accepted his memories for what they were, he expanded his universe exponentially.

The shock of his ordeal with the aliens struck him with horrible clarity. Each capture, imprisonment, experiment and return was indelibly branded into in his mind. In fact, he had a clear memory of the Scythian Council’s message, his subsequent escape and the boarding by the Chem. That he could remember anything of these strange encounters was surprising. Certainly he’d remembered nothing of his previous abductions when he lived on Earth. The Scythians habitually repressed his memory before returning him to Earth, but they obviously had neither the opportunity nor the inclination to do so after being boarded.

The Chem killed the Scythians, but he knew nothing of what happened after they shot him on the bridge. He must therefore be under the Chem’s control. The slight deductive victory made him feel better, but beyond that, his reason failed. He still had no clear answers as to the basic questions of who, what, where, and why.

Those answers, he felt, would come eventually whether he wanted them to or not. The very memory of his previous abductions helped to steel him against the unwelcome sense of panic that now festered in the pit of his stomach. He at least understood the nature of his predicament. Events still controlled him, but he had his wits about him. He was still a prisoner, but he was conscious and unrestrained. In general his circumstances had improved considerably.

Alexander walked around the room a while longer—the strength returned to his body. Feeling physically better he now had to think, to concentrate. He sat down in the center of the room, assuming the closest approximation of the lotus position he could manage. He needed calm.

With a determination to prepare for the future, Alexander recalled every memory of his abductions from the first occurrence over ten years ago to his present situation. Reviewing them in minute detail, he became convinced that this situation was markedly different from the previous abductions in more ways than its interruption. He was cognizant of something unique about himself that troubled or excited the aliens considerably.

He took some comfort in the change of events, for two reasons. First, he was conscious, and that alone meant he’d have at least some control over things. Second, it was apparent that he had some value if, as it seemed, this other group of aliens had gone to the trouble of capturing him. Before, he was simply an object of study, now whoever had him would not so easily discard him, or so he hoped.

Suddenly he found himself laughing out loud. The action caught him off guard, but it was healthy. He attempted to remain calm and in control, but deep inside he was still deathly afraid. His instincts told him he was in deadly danger and completely out of his experience. No rationalization could make his circumstances better. He was afraid, and he’d every right to be. In admitting that fear he prevented it from controlling him. He couldn’t remove his fears, but he didn’t have to give in to them either. He laughed again, and this time he found comfort in his own voice.

“Well, Alexander you always wanted to get into space, but you weren’t prepared to make the political sacrifices to get there by a more traditional route. That would have meant selling your soul. You’ve been frustrated time and time again by a tedious existence where you didn’t make a difference. I don’t know what it is that drives you to the expectation of something more than the ordinary lot in life, but here it is. You’ve gotten what you wanted: something more exciting than the rat race everyone else has to deal with. Make the best of it! Fretting over it certainly won’t help.”

He’d always envisioned his life with a greater purpose than the institutions of Humanity could somehow provide. Now his mind cleared and a thrill of anticipation coursed through his sinews. His instincts told him this was what he’d been waiting for all these years. All remaining stiffness and discomfort faded, and his muscles filled with warm blood, swollen, tensed and ready for anything.

A voice filled the room. Initially it was absolutely unintelligible, but in a few seconds words formed in his head, even though his ears made no sense of them. “Terran, can you understand me? Terran, can you understand me?”

A look of consternation crowded his face, as the conflict between what his brain heard and what his ears heard caused a wave of nausea to wash over him. The speaker continued and he grew accustomed to the sensation. His ears and brain reached some form of agreement.

“Yes, I understand you,” he answered eventually, standing up and waiting for a door to open.

No door opened. Instead, the floor trembled, and then slowly rose. Looking up he watched the ceiling open. The floor rose through the hole, and a bank of lights flashed on, bathing him from above. The glare blinded him, and the old urge to panic returned, knotting itself in his throat. His mind raced to prevent his newfound courage from disappearing. He shut his eyes tightly and saw himself as his captors must: a naked blind Human, completely at their mercy, at the point of cowering in fear of his life.

Revulsion and anger rose in response, and the momentary fear left him. He told himself, “If these are your last moments Alexander don’t spend them as a quivering lump of flesh! You’ve lived proud and well, if to no purpose. You can die just the same!”

Alexander drew himself up, once again strong and resolute. Crossing his arms defiantly over his chest he flexed every muscle in his frame. He almost laughed at the attempt to look intimidating, thinking, “If Hollywood is right, then every other alien, excepting the ones who captured me, are bigger stronger, faster and smarter than me!”

The thought put a scowl of disdain on his face. His eyes smoldered under knit brows daring anything and anyone to challenge him. The harsh lights finished his transformation, cutting deep shadows into his body, amplifying the athletic build into the graven image of a gladiator. The lift stopped, and after a long silence a resonant voice came out of the glare.

“Terran, as Warlord of Terra you stand accused of acts of aggression towards the Galactic peoples! What say you?”

Alexander stared in the direction of the voice, astounded. The indictment was curt, damning and incomprehensible. Warlord? Terran? What was all this? They thought he, Alexander, was the Warlord of Terra? Terra? Earth! Warlord of Earth? Earth didn’t have a warlord, and never had, unless one went all the way back to Alexander the Great.

How could an advanced civilization ever come to that conclusion? He hated to admit it, but Alexander was as anonymous a Human Being as could be found. As for planet-bound Earthling’s threatening a space faring empire, well that was so farfetched it didn’t even register.

There was no way of answering the questioner, but he accepted the statement as their opinion—what else could he do? He didn’t trust his diplomatic skills so he made a demand instead. Drawing himself to full height Alexander lowered his voice to a forceful growl.

“I do not answer to thieves in the dark, nor do I answer to derogatory labels. I am Alexander Thorsson. If you wish to parley with me then let me see my accuser. Then I shall respond!”

“You are in no position to issue ultimatums, Terran!” the voice told him. “You will answer, and then you and your race will face punishment!”

The last statement held no room for argument, but it also held out little hope for reason. Alexander, by his own hastily formed opinion had nothing to lose, so he chose to retain the aggressive tact to the end. Pleading with unreasonable people never worked on Earth, so he had no expectation of success here.

He recalled the final moments on the previous ship. These were presumably the Chem, his new captors. They appeared strong and warlike, while the Scythians were anything but that. He played on the contrast, using his seeming ignorance as a dagger.

Shaking his head and putting contempt into his statement, he replied, “Enough of your games! Do not try to intimidate me! You Scythians, or whatever you call yourselves, have had your way with me in your experiments. That’s the only way you can face Terrans: in the dark with your technology as your shield. Well I grant your science gives you an advantage. You’re right to use it. With your puny bodies and technocratic ways I don’t expect you to have the courage to face me!”

There was a wrathful roar all around him. It was deafening. Then two sharp concussions, metal on metal, turned the cacophony into an uneasy silence.

The voice said, “You dare to mistake the glorious Chem for the worms of Scythia? With that you forfeit your life Terran, and the existence of your race!”

Alexander jumped upon the Chem’s response, trying to restrain the concern in his voice, but his words quavered just the same. He spread his arms wide and addressed the darkness behind the lights, his strength undiminished but rationality became the dominant tenor of his voice.

“You say to me I’m now in the hands of another captor? How should I know that? Moreover, you ask me to see a difference, how so? I am a captive, blinded, immobilized and subject to the basest treatment imaginable for an intelligent being: a subject for experimentation! Now another race has me, and rather than dissecting me with your machines you put me on trial. You bring me naked and blind to judgment for myself and my race? I ask you, as a civilized being, if you were in my position what difference would you see in your captors?”

The Chem met his answer with silence. The lights dimmed and the Chem revealed themselves to Alexander. They stood above and around him on the raised steps of a semi-circular chamber. Their blue eyes glowed from long angular faces. The Chem were a lean race, bipedal and in all obvious respects humanoid. They were almost as tall as Alexander, but not nearly as heavy in build. Ropy muscles cut through varying shades of tawny flesh, and their clothing accented their somewhat wild and warlike nature. The Chem wore metallic cloth of dull amber, red or purple beneath ceremonial armor. Alexander saw both male and female representatives in the audience. The dress of the two sexes was similar, though it differed in very Earth-like qualities. The male dress accented the arms and shoulders, while the female’s accented the breasts and hips. The commonalty between their worlds almost amused Alexander, but the expressions from the assembly, though alien, were obviously hostile.

“I am held captive by a race of warriors, as unlike to the worms of Scythia as a dead planet to the glory of a star,” he said quickly, and then he let his voice rise and become more demanding again. “But why then, people of Chem, do you treat me thus? If you have complaint with me or my race why did you not face us openly with your questions? Why this covert kidnapping, for it seems to me to be beneath you?”

“A fair question in appearance,” answered a smooth voice, and Alexander’s eyes darted to a female in the foremost ranks. The new speaker was exotic in her alien beauty; she was lithely built, with long blue-black hair sweeping back from her dark crested forehead. The vibrant blue eyes, strange in their absence of pupil or iris, but intent on him nonetheless, glowed under finely chiseled brows. Nobility marked her sharply cut cheeks and her aquiline nose. Her chin, providing a narrow base for such a proud visage, was almost delicate. A fantastic array of crimson-purple armor and clothing did nothing to conceal her strong but graceful form; rather, it accentuated her in a wild unrelenting air. With her arms clasped before her she lost none of the power or strength of her male counterparts, but she added a perilous feline ferocity to her presence. She continued her question in a dangerously venomous tone.

“Why should the Chem stoop to such tricks? Come now, Terran, we are not children. Is it any wonder you, of all beings, should demand stealth? Who else but Alexander himself should we expect to find communing with the Scythians? Who else would be so bold as to usurp the appellation of the legendary conqueror, and the privilege of the son of your God of War?”

She stepped down from the stands and walked around Alexander in a wide circle. “Look at you! Victories lay upon your breast, battle-scars upon your body, and blood upon your hands. There is dread upon you and within you; so much so that you enticed the intervention of the Galactic worms, and fell into our fortunate hands. It is now our part to play the inquisitor, Alexander of Terra, retrograde though that may be to your life experience.” She stopped in front of him and planted her hands on her hips. “This should prove an interesting test of adaptability, for what manner of being is Alexander, but one accustomed to command, or demand? Still, you are right to demand such an accounting from us, aren’t you?”

“Am I?” he asked, feeling that she expected a brutish answer from a brutish race—beneath their contempt. Alexander had no idea why they considered him a warlord of Earth, or what their beef was with his planet, but they thought so, and he didn’t get the impression that arguing the point with this woman would get him anywhere. He accepted the fact, and his responsibility—and it was surprisingly easy for him to do so. He didn’t have the time to hone his crude words into eloquence, but he sensed that at all costs he had to make her understand that he, and Humanity, was worth consideration and respect.

“Am I right to demand a reason for my kidnapping, and for these charges levied against my race and myself? Why should I wish to know the reason I’m suddenly plucked from my home and put on trial? Is it any wonder why I ask such questions or make such demands? If the Scythians did the initial theft and you, the Chem, merely took me from their laboratory then I may have some cause to thank you. I find that difficult to do under the circumstances. I find it doubly difficult to believe that you should rescue me from the Scythians and then put me on trial for such capital charges.”

He looked around at the tiers of Chem, and spread his arms wide. “You tell me that I stand accused of complicity against your empire, but that is a broad statement, my dear Chem. I find it a difficult concept to imagine considering our ignorance of you, and the superiority of your technology. What manner of threat can Humanity be to the Chem? The idea is fantastic but impossible!” He looked back at the woman, and said tersely, “We know nothing of you; you are not being reasonable. Can you explain any of this?”

The woman turned to her people and raised her arms, and Alexander had the unsettling feeling that she was telling them, “You see, just as I expected!”

She turned around and approached Alexander. She moved like a cat, with a silky deadly grace. She glared directly into his eyes. He returned her stare with conviction, but could not read her intent. The blue orbs of the Chem woman were almond in shape, but there was nothing that told Alexander she focused on him, unless it was the almost imperceptible and universal power of the stare. The eyes presented no clue as to her mood, or her soul, and that alone made him stridently uncomfortable.

She passed close by his shoulder, went behind him and came back around, as if stalking him. Alexander stood still, though he followed her with his eyes. Finally, she halted by his side and smiled. The effect of her sharp canines resting on her full lips increased his agitation, and his fascination, but he merely narrowed his eyes to grim slits.

“You are a wily one, Terran,” she told him, laying a sharp nailed hand on his shoulder. She smiled broadly now and looked about to her peers, saying, “Behold the innocent Terran, stolen with nefarious purpose from his Homeworld and charged with heinous crimes! Oh, ignorant Alexander of Terra, whom we plucked like a flower from his scholarly studies of wit and altruism!” She smiled again, and sauntered to stand directly before him. Brazenly she looked him up and down, and then she reached up and grasped his shoulders. She tried to shake him, but though Alexander endured her gaze and her advances, he barely shuddered as she tried to move him.

She nodded, stepping away with her arms spread wide, and announcing, “Behold the body of a scholar! Have we not seen, oh members of the Assemblage, the scholarly activities of Terrans through the millennia? Their many clever wars based upon reason and carried out through debate, where the victor beat the opponent in a battle of wits and words? By this Terran’s reasoning his mentor, the inestimable Alexander the Great, conquered Terra with his potent parables of philosophy! Look at this Terran and note the proportions of a thinker! Of what use are those shoulders and arms Terran? Are you brawny from lifting books? Where does your chest spring from, the tilling of flowers? Why are your legs so knotted and bulky? Is it from the chasing of women? By the looks of you they may need the chasing; I’ll warrant they’ll not come to you willingly!”

The assembled Chem laughed, and the Chem woman finally turned back to him. “Really, Terran, what would you have us believe? You are no scholar! If this is not the body of a warrior then what are you? I ask you, Terran, what are you?”

Alexander withstood her chiding, and her anger, stoically. It would do no good to rant or argue; he’d not win that battle. He was no orator, he was not gifted in debate but he thought he understood something of the woman before him; people, it seemed, were people after all—no matter where they might come from. He played on that. With no anger in his voice, and just a touch of sadness, as a teacher would a pupil who still didn’t understand, he asked simply, “What’s your name?”

The immediately identifiable question shifted the woman’s thought, for it was as if he heard nothing of what she just said. In seeming frustration she threw up her arms and stated, “There is no profit in this! Either the Terran has no understanding of his position at this moment, or he’s mad. I see no use in continuing this interrogation.”

She began to stalk off, but Alexander stopped her by saying, “I might very well be both you know.”

She turned around and stared at him.

He allowed a silence to develop and then he slowly began to make a circuit of the pit, as if lecturing a new assembly of college students. “Has it ever occurred to you and your fellow Chem that I might very well be wondering the very same things? What is it you really want of me, you Chem? You make sport of me, and bait me, but you don’t ask reasonable questions. I might eventually take such actions as a purposeful attack on my honor, but I don’t know you. So, for the moment, before I give in to any irreconcilable and unfortunate opinions, I shall give you Chem the benefit of the doubt.” He let his gaze sweep over every member of the audience before letting it rest with finality on the woman. “I assume you tempt me through your own ignorance and trepidation, but I warn you my patience has its limits.”

“Does it?” the woman smiled, approaching him again. “What would those limits be, I wonder?”

Alexander crossed his arms over his breast. “You have been walking upon their borders for quite some time now.”

“What happens if I cross that border, Terran?” The Chem prodded him.

Alexander’s brows furrowed, and his sigh of frustration rumbled from his chest like a discordant organ. The Chem woman actually leaned away from him, though she did not step back. Alexander shook his head. “What have I done that you should mock me so? Am I so far beneath you as a being that I should not be worth the slightest amount of your courtesy?”

“What would you have of me then, Terran?” she asked, relenting in her scorn somewhat.

“My name is Alexander,” he said forcefully.

“Very well, Alexander of Terra. You’ve earned that title on Terra—and we the Chem know how laudable that is. I will no longer admonish it, though I condemn you for it.”

“May I ask your name?” Alexander requested.

“For what purpose,” she asked, her manner at least partially decipherable to him: an irritated but amused puzzlement.

“If you want to start a dialogue then it would help if I knew your name—you, after all, know mine. It’s only fair.”

“We did not bring you here to begin a dialogue, Alexander of Terra,” she told him. “We brought you before the august body of the Chem Assemblage to answer charges.”

“Then you are my accuser,” Alexander told her. “Among my people it is the right of the accused to know one’s accuser. No person of name or rank should be charged by the nameless or the anonymous.”

The woman paced in front of him for a moment, cocking her head as if in consideration of his words. At length she turned again to him, and told him, “So it is with us. Very well, I am Nazeera of Chem, of the Triumvirate of Chem. Does that satisfy you, Alexander of Terra?”

“Thank you, Nazeera of Chem. For what crimes do you accuse my people and me?”

“Now you try my patience,” Nazeera told him, her eyes growing somewhat brighter.

“We are two new races, completely unfamiliar with each other, Nazeera of Chem,” Alexander told her quickly, following directly with a question. “Isn’t it reasonable to make things plain, instead of assuming they are understood?”

“Your understanding is of precious little importance to me, Alexander of Terra,” Nazeera told him curtly, but she added, in a matter of fact voice. “It is part of the Galactic record that Scythia subtly threatens her neighbors with forceful invasion by Terran legions to gain economical advantage. Terra has been at Scythia’s beck and call for over two millennia; that is not a matter for debate. What is a matter for debate is the particular threat Terrans pose to Chem. That is why you are here. You are here, Alexander of Terra, so that we may learn all that we can of you. Then we shall end your threat to ourselves and the galaxy.”

“This is a matter between Scythia and Chem, not Chem and my people,” Alexander told her.

“You are Scythia’s might, and so you are Scythia, Alexander of Terra,” Nazeera told him harshly, adding, “It is beneath your warrior’s nature to plead a separate innocence from your masters!”

“We recognize no masters but ourselves!”

“And you are justifiably damned for it!” Nazeera retorted. “You validate the Galactic legends then, and the Scythians’ threats! Terra has waited all this time to find the means of unleashing her power on the galaxy and continuing her conquests! Terra is the aggressor, and Scythia holds the key to her cage. You dare not cross your words now, Alexander of Terra. You’ve caught yourself in your own web!”

Alexander realized the utter futility of pursuing that tact further, and he felt he’d lost a valuable opportunity to his temper. He’d let a chance for reason, slight though it may have been, disappear for the moment at least. Still, he’d learned something: the Chem and the Galactics feared Earth, or to be more accurate, Terra. He had no idea why, but the name of Alexander the Great and the fear of Terran legions ready to advance upon the galaxy weren’t lost on him. The Scythians, his original captors, were involved in some way, but he had no time to figure out how.

The reality of the Chem conviction remained, however, and it was a more powerful tool than he could have hoped for. Returning to his former tactic, he told her grimly, “I can see your mind is set, and that no amount of truth or reason will sway it. Very well, think what you will, Nazeera of Chem, as your prejudice will prevent you from believing anything but what you wish to hear. Mark this, however, and mark it well! Terrans are a breed best left to themselves! Leave us alone and we will respect you in kind. Threaten us and we will respond in kind! Mark me, it is better to have Terrans as a possible threat on an isolated planet, than Terrans set in a desperate war against you. Do not make that mistake! The Chem are an honorable and admirable people, but take care. To declare us a renegade race is an offense of the first order. Measure your actions accordingly. We do not easily forgive treachery!”

“You speak proudly, Alexander of Terra, as one would expect from the mercenaries of Terran legend. Look, Chem warriors, how cunning the Terran is to demand answers from us, appeal to our justice and reason and then threaten us with defiance! I see through you Terran, as we all should. I will waste no more time bandying words with you. You are a common mercenary guilty of plotting with the Scythians. We shall treat you as such. You deserve no better.”

“Do you therefore favor execution Nazeera?” a heavy, white bearded Chem asked.

Nazeera bowed to him, saying, “Such a question, noble Elder of Chem, may perhaps be best directed to our prisoner.” A dangerous smile curled on the face of Nazeera, a face that Alexander, under other circumstances, would have called beautiful. There was a lilt in her raspy voice which translated across any distance, and she turned to the Terran and caressed his cheek with one razor sharp nail. Blood sprang from beneath the edge, but Alexander did not move.

“Well, Alexander of Terra,” she purred, “what would you have us do with you? Would you desire a death swift and painless? We can be merciful in that way. You will simply slide into a deep sleep with no pain, no discomfort. Or perhaps you would wish imprisonment instead. You could live out your days, alone, confined, but alive and comfortable. What do you say to that, Alexander?”