by Geoff Nelder
He rushed out of the niche to see Penn shaking his fists with rage. “How dare those fuckers ignore us like that! We should be regarded as honoured visitors not something less than gum on your shoe.”
Em said, “Well, they don’t actually wear sh—”
“Maybe if I throw myself on top of them from behind. Take them by surprise.”
Gaston wagged his finger. “I would not advise it. Your Krav Maga martial arts would likely leave you on the floor with them continuing in ignorance. At least they have not harmed us.”
“How do you know?” Penn’s shoulders trembling with his whole body joining in. “One of those bastards going through Delta could’ve set her molecules into instability making her disintegrate at some triggering event in that building.”
Em frowned, picked up Penn’s backpack and handed it to him. “Is that really what you think happened to her?” She sidled up to Gaston for a hug, both of them quivering with shock at this second encounter of the weird kind.
Penn leant against the wall, now returning to yellow. He took a long drink from his canteen. “Em, the more I know, the more I realise how little I know.”
As the Keps glided around a bend in the tunnel, Gaston had an idea. “Let us follow them.”
“Best idea you’ve had all day,” Penn said.
CAPTAIN CAN’S LOGARITHM
The flitters allow me to access archive data. Overload, so I stream it to Suppose We although I’ve yet to locate its exact subterranean position. Time I accessed our own data satellites: the QM marbles. I exit to the surface.
I’ve analysed our satellite data and out spat a whirling dervish. Now I know why most of this planet is underground.
Jet streams are more vigorous here than on Earth, largely because of the greater heat energy available. A huge tropical storm has developed over the hot equatorial ocean and is cavorting its way inland.
My wind speed forecast is 110 metres/sec (400 km/hr) at the tropopause, but sadly up to 200 m/s (720 km/hr) at the surface, and the crew is directly in its path.
I send a warning. A bright scarlet flashing weather warning, but as yet I’ve no acknowledgement. I tell the comms sats to keep sending while I return below in search of mothership.
Signed CAN (as in buccaneer)
Date: Earth January 20th 3645 Kepler New 11 days
Decision made, they found following the Keps difficult. Not that they needed to be surreptitious. After all, it appeared that humans were persona non grata, or at least persona invisibilia. It was their speed. Gaston estimated the ghouls drifted at eight kilometres per hour, which is too fast to walk, too slow to run resulting in an ungainly jog.
Fortunately, the Keps slowed when the tunnel walls turned red. Maybe to glean data, energy, vapour—who knew?
Gaston voiced a question, “We are following to find the way out, oui? Just in case running at a random section of wall proves injurious.”
Penn puffed a laugh. “And to find where the bastards nest. Which ceiling they hang from, so that later—”
“Stop it, Penn,” Em said, clearly not as out of breath as the men.
Gaston, grateful for a slowdown at a junction, said, “We need to know more about them, to see if their technology can help us, or otherwise get Suppose We back. So far none of our communication efforts have succeeded with them or their robotic birds. We haven’t even been able to warn them about the spheres.”
“Listen, Gas,” Penn said, “the locals are inhospitable and dangerous, so we have to get that intel back to our people, or find a way to neutralise them.”
“I am unconvinced. It could be we appear as non-entities to them, or not appear at all. Out of phase somehow. It is a problem to solve and not with destruction.”
“Nah, they see us, it’s just that we’re like ants to them. Not in physical size, but—”
Em stopped and pointed down the tunnel to her left. “Guys, I can hear something coming from down there. Listen.”
Echoes of what sounded like Delta’s voice reverberated to them.
Em was the first to respond. “We must go find her. Come on!”
Penn objected. “Damn. I guess we should investigate, but I’m loathe to stop following those goons. I don’t suppose we could split up?”
“Non. We will see more Keps, but we might not hear Delta again.”
Reluctantly, Penn trailed behind his crew members as they dashed down the new tunnel.
Penn continued his lament. “Suppose we come to another junction. Do we wait until we hear an echo that might be human?”
“Ignore him, Gas.”
He had, but stopped when the tunnel’s white light erupted into a psychedelic kaleidoscope of colours.
“Whoa,” Penn yelled, “that’s hurting my eyes!”
After a few seconds of the explosion in a paint factory, the tunnel plunged into darkness, and silence.
The three had stopped but Gaston couldn’t hear any rattles or clinks from their boots and equipment. He turned on his torch and saw Em’s mouth moving without sound. Penn pulled Gaston round to look at him pointing at where the comms chip was embedded near his ear.
Gaston switched his on and immediately heard Penn. “Ambush.”
“Strange,” Emma said in her smallest voice, “I’m sure I saw skylights in the other tunnel.”
Gaston pointed his torch at the ceiling. Then switched it off. “I see stars.”
“Fuck me, it’s night time,” Penn said.
“No wonder I’m so tired,” Em said looking at her wrist pad. “Still not used to Kep-time. I need my sleep.”
“Hopefully, there will be somewhere for us to sleep down this tunnel. Shall we continue, mes amis?”
Knowing that he ought to be tired induced more lethargy in Gaston’s muscles. Even so, he needed to support Em in their quest to find their lost teammate.
“I had the impression lights in the tunnels came on when we were walking along them,” Penn grumbled.
Gaston stumbled in the dark when he directed the torch ahead rather than at his feet. “I thought so too, Penn. Perhaps it was just a coincidence or the sensors in the first tunnel were affected by the bacteria. I hope we do not encounter a pit of it in this gloom. Em, you go behind me and in front of Penn. You have already been a victim to the bacteria.”
Em stroked his right hand. “So have you, Gas.”
Penn shivered. “It was no picnic having a bastard Kep travel through me.”
Ten minutes later they saw a junction ahead via its pale blue light. Em started to run.
“Wait,” said Gaston. “We should exercise caution.”
She’d stopped, but called out, “Delta, can you hear us?” Then ran in front.
Gaston groaned.
They rounded a bend to be bathed in a faint blue light at a round chamber three metres tall in the middle and tapering to head height at the sides.
“Finally,” Penn said, “furniture.”
“But no sign of Delta,” Em moaned.
Gaston added, “Nor locals.”
Rounded cubes of different pastel colours and sizes from a fist to a wardrobe were arranged around the sides.
“Somewhere we can bed down for a few hours, eh Em?” Penn said.
“But, I’m dying for a pee.”
“Oui, me too, and we have not seen anything that could pass for ablutions nor a refreshment station. At least we have brought water and provisions. Perhaps one of these boxes can be opened. One serve as a commode?”
Penn brandished his laser. “Time for you guys to agree for a little sculpting. Make a hollow in the wall. Before you both start hollering, this isn’t the same as a house wall. We’re underground, though I’m happy to try and make a hole in the roof for us to escape into the open air.”
Gaston held up his hand. “Although we found a skylight earlier, I’ve not seen one near here. You could bring down the ceiling and a few metres of rock.”
“Good grief, man, I’ll aim at a spot away from us.”
A green line left his pistol and made a metre-wide circle glow red. Maybe a hundred kilograms of rubble fell, but a half moon could be seen.
Penn grinned at his success and continued flashing his teeth while manipulating a cube under the hole, scraping away the loose rock.
Gaston had to acknowledge with a thumbs up that his superior’s rashness paid off this time.
“Me first,” Em said, climbing on the cube and after checking the hole’s edge had cooled, hauled herself up.
Gaston followed, but his pet fluttered away to rest on one of the boxes. What did Papillon know about outside? His bladder release became urgent now that its relief was imminent.
Although some moonlight helped, it was as black as tar outside and a gale blew. He called to Em but the wind stole his words. She’d probably found a bush, so he did the same. He worried that they might have come up under the main square, but while there were structures around, nothing with lights. He thought he could see a silhouette of the spiral tower a kilometre away. He heard splashing and Penn grunting in satisfaction.
A few moments later, Gaston was struck on the back. He went down onto wet grass. Ah, rain, not Penn’s contamination.
He rose up and ducked from branches flying from the woodland, followed by a sudden squall and heavy, warm rain. He searched for Em. He yelled her name but the noise of the storm outranked his voice. Gusts blew rain at him like a machine gun. His face would be mottled with bruises in the morning. Where was that hole?
Em might be in danger, lying unconscious, or hit by a projectile. Another gust lifted him, threw him into a bush, thankfully without barbs. With heightened ignominy, he peered in the gloom around as if somebody might have seen him. Pity he wasn’t wearing his backpack with its heavy ballast. Breathless, he crawled back upwind. No wonder the locals preferred a subterranean existence. The rounded style of the buildings would mitigate against wind damage, assuming this kind of weather was frequent. After a few minutes of futile searching in a lull, although the rain continued to drench him, he crabbed around until he found the hole and peered down.
“Come on, Gas, where’ve you been?”
A few minutes later, Penn had used the extrusion gun to stick the largest piece of ceiling rubble back to the hole and seal the gaps. “No point us getting drowned in our sleep.”
Gaston and Em snuggled together in one of the two hammocks and fell asleep in moments.
Gaston awoke to daylight coming in through the reopened hole and the smell of what passed for coffee. He’d overslept. A glance at Em cleared his foggy brain. Tears cascaded down her face. He ran to her. She pointed at Penn, who stood by one of the containers. Inside, the late Delta.
Gaston expected Penn to be seething, voicing abuse at the Keps for luring Delta into the house, trapping and killing her, then hiding her body in this box where she’d rot. A fate no doubt, Penn would say, awaits all of them.
However, Penn spoke in a low conciliatory voice, “They’ve led us here so we could find her and do whatever we humans need to do with our departed comrades.”
“In which case,” Gaston added, “it is the first acknowledgement of our existence.” He pointed at the lilac butterfly now watching them from a large grey sphere they’d ignored. “With one exception.”
Penn looked at Gaston as if the cogs were turning, playing back events since they’d arrived. “You’re right. This has nothing to do with them taking care of us. It was an inconvenience finding her and this is their disposing of my wife. Bastards.”
Em mouthed a ‘wife?’ to Gaston, who raised his eyebrows as if to say, ‘another planet, new rules.’
Gaston leant over Delta. “I assume you checked her vital signs? I ask because her skin looks a healthy black to me.”
“By all means double-check, Gas, I’d hate us to misdiagnose,” Em said. “Please wake up, Delta!”
Gaston used his medkit. SATS zero; pulse zero; body temperature 32 Celsius, practically the same as ambient temperature; pupillary reflex none.
He shook his head. “It does seem that she has no brain activity, heartbeat, nothing. Em, je suis désolé.”
Em gasped, struggling to get words out. “But there’s no dust or debris in her hair or on her skin. She looks… perfect!”
“C’est vrai. It is as if she died of shock, heart attack or… I just do not know.” He couldn’t stop tears dribbling down his face.
The two of them hugged, both convulsing with tears after their hopes of Delta’s survival on this strange planet was buried.
“Why here, though?” asked Penn. A practical question, yet his eyes too were bloodshot.
It was a good question. Gaston ruminated on it while wiping his eyes on his sleeve. If a corpse of a human was found on Earth it would be taken to the local morgue for forensic examination and the centre of police activity, before being cremated or buried. What if the corpse was a strange alien from space? Then it would be the subject of intense scrutiny, but not by police, nor sent to a community morgue. This simple chamber was hardly a NASA lab, but who knew the protocols on this planet?
“Penn, let us suppose we were led to this chamber to find Delta’s body. How did you open that long casket?”
“I didn’t. When I woke up, Em was crying into it.”
“I didn’t do anything special. I sat on it at first to get breakfast stuff out of my bag. Then the lid vibrated a little. When I stood, the lid went transparent. I saw Delta and scooped my back pack off it just in time.”
“What happened to the lid?”
“Vanished.”
Gaston’s excitement index rose several notches, making him heat up more in this already too-hot room. The technology here was far in advance of Earth’s. “Perhaps the apparent solid lid was in a phase, which changed.
“Two things then. One: do we lift Delta out before the lid solidifies again? Two: it would be fascinating to discover what is inside these other containers.”
Penn fingered the rim of Delta’s box. “For sure we get Delta the hell out of that coffin. Give her a proper burial.”
Em put her hand on Penn’s arm and gave him a sympathetic smile, her blue eyes misty. “This chamber is a kind of crypt, wouldn’t you say?”
“And out of the elements above,” added Gaston. He walked over to a chair-sized pale green cube. Darker green oblongs showed inside. The more he stared, he increasingly perceived them to be moving infinitesimally. He waved his hand over the top, assuming it was the right way up. Nothing. He squatted before it, but found no seam, button, nor indentation.
Penn walked up to him. “Open sesame.”
Nothing.
Penn turned to Em. “Come and plant your pert ass on this box.”
Gaston coughed. He disapproved of such sexist comments although it would have been equally likely for Penn to mention his own anatomy in such terms. And while he might be scowling he was still a scientist and was eager to see the results of the experiment. “And make breakfast.”
Em laughed, but when she sat on the cube, nothing happened. “Maybe it really is just a seat.”
Gaston pulled at his chin in thought. “Perhaps it is empty. We should try the others.” He walked over to one of several spherical objects, but turned back when Em screamed.
She’d fallen into the cube, legs flailing in the air. Besides the shrieks, Gaston heard sloshing noises.
He and Penn took an arm each and pulled the now wet woman out of the box. An aroma of mixed fruits wafted out of liquid-spilled cartons and other lumps of brown and pink solids.
Penn snorted. “Ah. That might be my fault. I’d secretly hoped she’d fall in. Hey, it really is breakfast.”
Gaston used a glove from his pocket to wipe the worst off Em’s trousers, while sporadically peering into the alleged food. “I wonder if it was nourishment before we thought about it.”
Em laughed – more a short bark, still in shock from the discovery of Delta. “You mean a kind of telepathic 3-d printer? Cool.”
Penn risked picking up a
rose-coloured block and sniffed it. “How would they know what’s suitable for humans?” He glanced at Delta’s body, as if he suspected a possible answer.
“Allow me to test them first,” Gaston said. “Those mechanical birds...”
“Reporting back on the fucking fruit we’ve had to eat?”
Gaston stuck a mini probe into a block. “And seeds, roots, leaves, nuts, or their equivalent. Alors, we should be able to digest this safely. Ah, neither of you have waited…”
Em held up a tube. “It tastes minty. Hope it’s supposed to be a drink and not disinfectant.”
Gaston frowned at her. “I have only tested those food blocks, not any drinks. We have brought enough of our own, and there is rainwater up there. I can ensure—”
Penn projectile vomited a carrot-coloured gush in a puce arc onto the floor. Gaston and Em instinctively danced backwards.
“I’m all right guys. They’ve tried to poison me, but it hasn’t stuck. I’ll have that drink of ours, Gas?”
As Gaston handed him his canteen, he looked at Em, spitting out the drink from the Kep tube, back into the broken and leaking cartons in the cube.
“Comment tu te sens, Em?”
She wiped her mouth with the back of her sleeve. “I’m okay, just spewing it out in case. How’s it going with you, Penn?”
He was snarling at the cube then looked up at her with a slanted grin. “Could be better, but at least their attempt to poison me hasn’t worked. Or has it? Gas, is there any Pink-Bismol in your medicine bag?”
Gaston rummaged in his backpack. “It is likely to be merely a touch of travellers’ gastro. Ah, open wide. You too, Em.”
He used a tiny atomiser to squirt a spot of antiemetic such that every astronaut medic carries. “It is likely that Em’s apparel contaminated the contents of the cube.” He pointed at stains on her tunic. “Regardez, essence of organic sediment, surface soil, probable Prokaryate smears, unknown substances a, b, d—”