by J. Benjamin
“Why is that?”
“Because if I’m on the outside, I can help you if anything bad happens.” As soon as Ty said this, Val smiled and grabbed her hand.
“I know you’ve got my back,” Val replied. “I guess one good thing to come from this is that you’ll be safe on the outside.”
“Always.” Ty kissed her wife on the cheek.
“I hope Thomas knows what he’s doing,” Val said. “He might be a military guy and one of the sharpest tacks on the board, but he’s also starting to rack up the mileage, if you know what I mean.”
“If anything, that’s probably why he should be the one going in,” Ty replied.
“You think so?”
“Absolutely. First, he might be in his late sixties, but he’s still built like a machine. Doesn’t drink. Early riser. Hits the gym six days a week. Also, he won’t hesitate to throw himself into harm’s way. This is a man who led the siege of Sagan to take down Isla Perez. He knows the lives he’s protecting have more years left than he does. Thomas Adler was born for this.”
“You’re wrong about one thing,” Val said. “He’s not an early riser. He’s an insomniac. I’ve seen him at night. The man never sleeps.” Val took a sip of her tea. A jet-ski whirred by. The waves crested and rippled outward in slow motion. The visualization of the moon’s gravity, especially in water, continued to amaze Val.
Chapter 20
The Krayasee
No amount of training could have prepared Edie and Alex for a moment like this. Three, four-legged creatures stood at their fore. Alien was not a term that did them justice. They were more like three beef carcasses connected to metal machines and a central nervous system inside a metal bowl. At least Edie assumed that metal bowl was what housed the brains of the creatures. If they had brains.
“What should we say?” Alex whispered to Edie with a tinge of urgency, as they stared at the beasts just mere feet in front of them. Behind Edie and Alex stood the Agamemnon vessel and flanking their sides, several Aquarian workers.
“I don’t know,” Edie replied. “Can they even talk?”
“You’re the alien whisperer. Say something!”
“Hello.” Edie projected her voice toward the three creatures. “My name is Edie Brenner. This is Alex Harper. We are human beings. We come from the planet Earth.”
“Hello,” Alex chimed in.
“You probably know our allies, the Aquarians,” Edie said, motioning to both the workers and hosts. “They brought us here. We come in peace.” Edie knew that last part was a cliche, but it was the only sentence she could come up with in the moment.
The alien standing center to the others looked to Edie. At least she thought it had. The quadruple sets of black grapes on its torso swiveled in her direction. Edie was certain they were eyes.
The alien moved its metal feet moved along the landing pad, stopping two feet from Edie.
The creature was half her height, nevertheless it was imposing. Its frame was larger than that of a human. Its limbs looked strong enough to bend titanium. Edie was certain she did not want to get on this creature’s bad side.
Edie looked into the metal bowl crowning the metal exoskeleton on one of the creatures. Each of them had the same bowl sitting atop their mantles. As the compound eyes looked at her, she could see movement happening on the other side of the transparent cover.
The ball of slime, or rather, the strands of nerves feeding into it from the sides, lit up in a chorus of varying colors.
“What is it doing?” Alex asked. “Is this how it talks?”
“Or perhaps it’s our words being relayed to it.”
Suddenly, a sting radiated on Edie’s arm beneath the Aquarian patch. It wasn’t painful, but it was irritating.
“Agamemnon,” Edie said. “Is that you?” The Aquarian host did not respond. The sensation Edie started to feel was far different than anything she had felt with the host on their journey.
A dull hum filled her ears, concurrent with the sting. The hum intensified in volume until it turned into a whistle.
“Do you hear that?” Edie asked Alex.
“I hear it,” he replied.
The whistle broke from one continuous noise into a series of beeps. The only comparison she knew were the blips of Morse Code. Except unlike Morse Code, there was no coherent message coming from the beeps. Instead, they intensified in frequency until a sequence of rapid clicks and beeps filled her head.
Without warning, a bright, near-blinding flash erupted from the central bowl on the creature. The series of clicks and beeps quickly disappeared, replaced by a noise like a groan fed through a metallic filter.
“Uuuuurrrrgggghhhhuuuuuuaaaaaaaaaaa . . .”
“Who are you?” Edie asked.
“Uuuuuuuurrrrrrggghhhhuaaauuaaaauauaaaa,” it came again. This time, Edie was certain it was a voice.
“I heard it too,” Alex said.
The mysterious voice ceased. Everything went silent for several seconds. Then, the clicks and hum returned, then stopped. Then, another voice emerged, much softer than before.
“Uuuurrrrgghhh . . . Pravixyt . . .”
“It’s talking!” Alex said, excitedly.
“Shh!” Edie reacted, trying to listen. “Pravixyt? What’s Pravixyt?” she asked the alien.
“. . . Pravixyt . . . exolutima . . . neerrvvaaanyxa . . . mananananana . . .”
Edie stood confounded. They were trying to talk. That much was obvious. What they were saying, neither human understood. It could be their language. It could be a series of guttural noises. Edie didn’t know.
“What is Pravixyt?”
“Pravixyt . . . yeeertz . . . panova . . . commence . . .”
“Say that again! Edie, did you catch that last word?”
“Commence,” Edie said to the alien. “Yes. That’s one of our words. Commence! Commence!”
“Ruutana sattui yeertz commence ten,” it reacted, this time in what sounded like more fluid sentences.”
“Ten?” Edie said in amazement. “Numbers. It could be communicating math with us. Ten? Is something commencing in ten?”
For several moments, the alien remained silent.
“Ten sequence particles. Pravixyt. Nine-seven-six-eight-dash-two-zero. Hello. Evenocence. Containment. Sequence commence. Five-nine-nine-nine-three-zero-four to power of quartz.”
“Holy shit! Okay, it knows some English,” Edie said. “Or it’s certainly trying.”
“Did it just say hello?”
“Hello! Hello! I am Edie Brenner! Alex Harper. Aquarians,” Edie said excitedly, while pointing to each of the respective parties. “Who are you?”
The alien paused. Then reacted once again with one word. “Pravixyt.”
“Pravixyt,” Edie replied. “Is that what you call your entire species? Or it that just you?”
“Pravixyt,” it responded without further elaboration.
“Who are they?” Edie said, pointing to its companions.
“Ruutana, Sattui.”
“Ruutana and Sattui!” Alex said. “Edie, those were two of the words it said before. I think it was introducing them for us.
“Ruutana?” Edie said to the alien on the left.
“Ruutana,” a second telepathic voice said.
“Sattui?” Edie asked the third alien.
“Sattui,” a third voice, presumably Sattui said. Each of their telepathic voices were distinct enough to distinguish from one another. Edie couldn’t tell if this was a gift from the Aquarian patch or whether the aliens themselves held unique vocal identities similar to humans.
Nevertheless, Pravixyt, Ruutana, and Sattui accomplished a new first in the history of human-alien communications. They were the first species to self-designate themselves with nomenclature that didn’t originate with humans.
“Pravixyt, Ruutana, Sattui,” Edie said slowly, making sure to acknowledge each individually. “Edie,” she said while pointing to herself. A long pause ensured.
“Edie
,” Pravixyt acknowledged. Edie felt a suspicion that Pravixyt might be in charge of this small pack.
“Yes,” Edie replied. She then turned to Alex and nodded for him to follow.
“Alex,” he said while also pointing to himself. Another pause ensued.
“Alex,” Pravixyt once again acknowledged. “Edie, Alex.”
“Very good!” Edie said approvingly. She prepared to point and name the Aquarians, but hesitated. Until she understood more about this species, she didn’t want to cause a misunderstanding by using a different name to describe the third species present.
“It’s okay,” Agamemnon said faintly, reading Edie’s mind. “Go ahead.”
Edie looked to Pravixyt, Ruutana, and Sattui and pointed to the Aquarians surrounding them. “Aquarians,” she said. “Aquarians,” she repeated, this time pointing to Agamemnon. Once again, several moments of silence.
“Yonapi,” Pravixyt replied. “Yonapi.”
“Yonapi?” Edie questioned. “Aquarians.”
“Yonapi is how they refer to us,” Agamemnon added.
“Who are you?” Edie asked. “You,” motioning to all three of the creatures present.
“Initializing in zero-five-three-nine-dash-zero-zero-five. Reticulating splines.” Pravixyt responded in another stream of seemingly-random words. “We are A’biran. Welcome. Welcome.”
Edie’s eyes widened in amazement. The aliens had already moved beyond single-word replies. They welcomed the humans. They had a name.
“A’biran,” Edie replied, smiling. “A’biran.”
“A’biran,” Alex repeated, equally amazed.
“Yes,” Ruutana replied.
“Incredible,” Edie whispered. She looked up at the city and stretched her hands to motion toward the entire colony. “What is this? Where are we?”
“Krayasee,” Pravixyt replied. “Krayasee.”
“We are honored to be here at the Krayasee,” Edie replied.
“Welcome, Edie and Alex,” Pravixyt said. Though the vocabulary range of the A’biran appeared limited, each word uttered felt like a thousand-word essay.
“Where do we go from here?” Edie asked.
“Follow,” Pravixyt said.
“Agamemnon?” Alex asked.
“Don’t worry about us,” Agamemnon said to the humans. “We’ve taught the A’biran the basic essentials necessary for human survival. They will guide you around the Krayasee. We’ve uploaded human languages, but they’re still adjusting. The more you converse with them, the better they will get.”
“What if we need you?” Edie asked.
“We will remain here in the port,” Agamemnon said. “The further you move, the weaker our communication will be, until we lose it.”
“When will we see you again?” Edie asked.
“Very soon,” Agamemnon said. “Very, very soon.”
Chapter 21
Edie had experienced living in the Aquarian anima. The first time she went through the spacetime sequence, like most of the humans living back at the Universal Crescent, she was reborn in an Aquarian body and transported to the human colony. Though Edie’s conscious returned to her natural human body and stayed there, Edie understood the experience of leaving an Aquarian eggshell, floating through the subterranean megacities of the aquatic creatures, finding a host, and traveling into the universe beyond.
But there was always a feeling about the Aquarians that Edie couldn’t quite shake. No matter how advanced they were, they always appeared to conform to the species present. Instead of presenting their own language, they absorbed human knowledge and spoke to the humans in their tongue. Whereas humans were defined by their culture, the Aquarians had no culture.
If there was one word Edie could conjure to describe the species that had adopted her and Alex and several dozen other humans, it was mathematical. The Aquarians did everything by calculations and numbers. Their forms seemed more comparable to biological supercomputers than creatures capable of emotion.
While it was too soon to determine how the A’biran processed concepts such as emotion and culture, many differences that separated them from the Aquarians were already glaringly obvious. Whereas the Aquarians were techno-biological, the A’biran were builders, much like humans.
Edie looked at the surrounding buildings from the landing platform, amazed by the architecture of the alien city. The skyscrapers that filled the horizon were carved into a brown, stone-like material, and interconnected with the neighboring buildings. Edie considered them far more elegant than the boxes of glass that filled cities on Earth. Most impressive was how the city stretched on endlessly, around and above.
A black walkway crossed through smaller buildings to their left and right. Along the path were several tall, blue cabbage-like growths that featured prominently.
Pravixyt walked ahead of the pack with Ruutana and Sattui following closely.
“Where do you think they’re taking us?” Alex asked Edie.
“We’re in an alien mega-city in the middle of a disk made of dust in some rando part of space. Your guess is as good as mine,” Edie said.
“Fair enough,” Alex replied.
“Now here’s the part I don’t get,” Edie said. “Agamemnon mentioned that the Krayasee was the first destination in the Aquarians grand plan. How? That’s what I want to know.”
“I’m sure we’ll get to ask them.”
“Hopefully.”
The humans continued to follow the A’biran. It wasn’t long before they stopped. The buildings were of a higher height than the ones by the port.
A small series of steps led to a platform. The A’biran proceeded up the wide stairs, which were more accommodating to the stride of the creatures native to the city.
Edie and Alex climbed the steps. Once atop, an empty space split the platform into two halves. In the ground beneath the space, a line of vents jutted across from one side of the platform to the other, disappearing behind buildings nearby.
Edie watched as heavy clouds of white smoke slowly billowed from the vents. It didn’t shoot out like exhaust. Rather, it poured like fog over a hill. The process immediately brought to Edie’s memory a chemical process she’d seen play out before.
“Nitrogen,” Edie said.
“What for?” Alex asked. A giant cube appeared from one end of the path. It floated on with no visible propulsion.
“Tidal locking. Incredible!” Edie said, once again amazed that a technology so familiar to humans could exist in another part of the universe from a different species.
The cube stopped at their feet and hovered perfectly without the slightest deviation. Once again, they saw more hieroglyphic symbols similar to those on the exterior of the Krayasee. This time it was on the cube-panel facing them. That very panel opened upward revealing a hollow interior.
“Follow,” Pravixyt said. The three A’biran hopped from the platform into the cube. Edie and Alex joined them inside the transport, which floated at the height of the platform. Each of the aliens hopped from the floor and latched their claws onto a rail along the ceiling of the floating cube then dangled like meat carcasses in a 20th century industrial freezer.
The walls of the cube slowly transitioned to a transparent state. Edie and Alex looked outside as the cube left the station.
“Where are you taking us?” Edie asked the aliens, looking particularly at Pravixyt, whose metal disc was far closer to her face than before.
“Four-six-three suspend, we are taking you to a factory,” Pravixyt replied, still improving on their English.
“A factory?” Edie questioned. “For what?”
“For stay,” Ruutana said.
“Makes sense,” Alex said to Edie. “Think about it. The Aquarians had to build our human goods from scratch. They had to conjure up furniture and toilets. Take a look around. They built a city.”
“You think that’s why the Aquarians brought us to them specifically?” Edie asked.
“Oh, I am sure of that,” Alex said
.
The view transitioned from a thin transit line between narrow, brown, alien buildings, to the horizon of the Krayasee. From their vantage point, it seemed as though the area they emerged from, though dense, didn’t compare to other central districts visible in other parts of the sphere, many miles away.
They saw similar cubes moving about the gigantic A’biran sphere. The network of vents extended across the entire surface of the colony, between buildings and in some cases, beneath them. Unlike monorails on Earth, with carefully fixed tracks, the ventilation system that kept the transit pods afloat allowed for pods to shift paths. Edie saw this happen once or twice.
“Incredible how they’re able to manipulate technology like this,” Alex said.
“Actually makes perfect sense now,” Edie said. “If they can manipulate the pH balance of the air to be hospitable to any species, they should have no problem building a nitrogen-based system which would make an urban planner on Earth cream their jeans.”
“And in a star system like this, they probably have nitrogen up the yin-yang,” Alex quipped.
The cube briefly went black as they passed into a dark tunnel. When they reemerged, they crossed over tall blue grass circling glowing pools that extended up the curved walls of the colony.
“Hey, it’s the green lakes again,” Edie said, this time admiring them.
“I think we know why they glow that way,” Alex said, pointing to movement within one of the ponds nearby. While it was hard to see clearly, Edie could make out tiny living creatures swimming through the lakes in every direction. Their tiny bodies were so bright that they gave the lakes the glow that made them visible from any angle.
“What is that?” Edie asked the aliens, pointing to the nearest lake.
“Feed,” Ruutan replied. Edie didn’t have to ask for elaboration.
“Edie, look at this!” Alex pointed out the back panel.
Thirty degrees up the sphere was Agamemnon, still in the same location where they left them. The Aquarian vessel appeared much smaller in size.