An Atmosphere Of Angels

by H C Turk

  “Excuse my enthusiasm,” she muttered, and settled, pressing her suit’s wrist inputs.

  “Excuse my humor. I love your enthusiasm.”

  “What’s a ‘hagillator’?”

  “An old-lady alligator.”

  “Parno, I just accepted a scene from Ward. He’s still in transit to the village.”

  “We call it the city. It’s the greatest population center on the island, a dozen houses made of tree logs with frond roofs. The entire island is populated by only a few thousand people. Most of them are spread all over in little clumps of three, five, ten. We presume these are family groups.”

  “How will your approach differ from Ward’s?” Kathlynn wondered.

  “To learn of a city,” Parno explained, “it’s best to remain in space and steal their communications. If they have none, take info pics from orbit and read their chemistry. The last staff did all that. After learning enough to approach, you don’t land in the middle of town and show your face. You begin at the outskirts. You chat with farmers and study their machines. You observe their beaches. See if people sunbathe there, or offer sacrifices to their deities, or execute and consume their enemy. You examine their garbage dumps and cemeteries. I think we’ve seen the latter.”

  Parno then spoke only to his suit.

  “Ward’s vid up.”

  A holovid expanded before Parno and Kathlynn. The vid depicted the edge of a lake, the boundary of a more open forest, and dwellings situated between. Circular in cross-section, the huts were constructed of brown limbs and yellow thatch. A faux-wooden cart rolled slowly between opposing, irregular rows of huts. The cart then halted, and Ward and Stacy stepped off, pausing. Their coveralls of imitation weaving did not seem indigenous wear to Parno, especially considering their irregular gleam. Parno saw no alien livestock, no native person. Ward and Stacy waited.

  Parno killed the holovid.

  “That’s real-time,” he told Kathlynn. “Ward plans on moving slowly in the village.”

  “Are you suggesting that you are in a rush?” Kathlynn asked.

  Parno shrugged.

  “Not when the ENU superfem is eyeing me from contract to conundrum. Should we wait for further mysteries?”

  A movement came from the deeper forest, high. In the shadow of the foliage canopy, a large bird spread its wings, then flew slowly out of sight, wing tips slapping branches. Lower, nearer, Parno and Kathlynn saw a shape that was alien to this forest. Thick limbs and fronds had been piled and tied into walls to make a hut. Similar animal movement came from within this home: a humanoid inside stretched his legs, then stepped out onto the sand, toward the Terran sled.

  Stopping the sled, but not abruptly, Parno stepped off, looking toward that man. Kathlynn had gone rigid, an animal aware that movement reveals position.

  “I deserve a job this great,” Parno smiled, and pressed his wrist controls.

  Kathlynn did not view a freak. A nude man with recognizable legs, genitals, and hips faced the sled without staring. Kathlynn considered his face unusually flat, though not unattractive. His shoulders jutted forward more than Earth-norm, but his skin and hair resembled Parno’s. Though interstellar anthropology did not support the concept of distinct racial types, having found too much heterogeneity among people on every planet—from Earth to Ypiresia—even the business regulator did not feel she viewed an alien.

  With a crisp verbal command, Parno expanded a holovid the height of a man beside the sled. Inside the sphere, glittering airships swooped at building height above the streets of an Earth city. Then, dolphins swam through clear water past an infinity of multicolored fishes, twisting between sharks with open mouths. The background sound was classical music from Asia and Europe.

  Kathlynn had raised one hand to shield her eyes from the holovid. She often saw vids, but seldom viewed an alien. The indigene male walked along the forest’s edge, oblivious to the foreign display.

  “That’s bad,” Parno said as the man entered the forest, his back to the Earthers. “Pray to the spirits of success that the child comes out. It takes years for a child to become imbued with the ways of his culture.”

  “What child?” Kathlynn asked.

  Ending the holovid, Parno replied:

  “The senser is reading two more humanoids within, both smaller in mass than the one who exited. Should I show you how to receive that data feed?”

  “I can do it,” she grumbled, and fingered her wrist.

  Kathlynn jerked her head as her suit’s bubble filled with flashing graphs, slashing vids, and overlaid voices spewing chemical analyses. Then, the data all disappeared. Kathlynn exhaled a deep breath as her bubble went blank.

  “Let’s learn more about this dwelling before we proceed,” Parno suggested, and held out his clenched hand toward Kathlynn, wiggling his wrist.

  Reluctantly she extended her hand, palm up.

  “This had better not be a bomb,” she muttered, looking down as Parno opened his fist, dropping…nothing.

  “What’s that, Parno, a grain of sand?” Kathlynn asked, looking closely to her hand.

  “A fly-eye.”

  “Oh, of course,” she said brightly. “A common technol, though not commonly visible. Should I toss it?”

  “Please do.”

  Kathlynn flexed her arm, and the miniature aircraft flew to the hut. Parno expanded a holovid that revealed the magnified hut, the doorway, then a flashing dragon in the air, huge beak and eyes filing the holovid.

  Kathlynn gasped as the holovid disappeared. Parno saw a small bird flit into the forest.

  “The spirits of science defeated by nature,” he grumbled, and stepped across the pink sand.

  He continued to the sled’s rear compartment. This cargo area had been covered with a plasfab top mimicking the seat’s artificial straw. Lifting the cover, Parno removed a feather sculpture, which he placed ten paces nearer the hut. Then he sat in the sand, not feeling the grit, not hearing the waves rising only to rush violently down.

  Kathlynn joined him, her knee brushing his before she settled. A sphere of feathers twirled inside out above a chrome base.

  “That is so lovely,” Kathlynn said. “I had one in my bedroom when I was a girl.”

  “Lovely, yes, but not obtrusive. To our knowledge, this culture does not shun feathers.”

  “They do have a verbal language, correct?” Kathlynn said quietly.

  “Yes, but they hardly ever use it. I can speak with them if I have to, but I’ll need the senser to translate. Kathlynn, look.”

  A glint came from within that hut, a glint from eyes, eyes on a small face, a small body that stepped out. A boy. A very foreign boy, but not inhuman.

  “He’s looking at the feathers,” Kathlynn whispered, trying not to move her lips. “His little eyes are so wide. Oh, Parno, Parno, he’s stepping near.”

  “Remain calm. Smile, but don’t show your teeth, and don’t meet his eyes.”

  The boy stepped to within two paces of the sculpture, his attention taken by the swirling feathers. He then looked up to the humans. Slowly Parno extended his arms, pulling his hands back in an “approach me” gesture. The boy complied, stepping directly to Parno. At this distance, Kathlynn saw that his skin had a segmented texture unlike that of any Earth race. She saw that the boy’s fingers were bony, angular, as he grasped his common penis and urinated on Parno, pale liquid splashing on the Earther’s suit, his bubble.

  Parno only lowered his arms. Kathlynn went rigid, because another alien approached. An older boy, nearly adult, ran from the hut.

  “Don’t move,” Parno said to Kathlynn.

  Without viewing Earther or sculpture, the older boy ran to the younger, clutched him in one arm and lifted him, then reached to grasp Kathlynn’s breast, squeezing so hard he grimaced. So did Kathlynn, yelping in pain as she bent double protectively. The older indigene boy then turned and ran away, entering the hut with the smaller boy.

  Parno stood, looking down to his suit, which was self-c
leaning. But yellow fluid remained on the plasfab.

  “Let’s go,” he said, and sat on the sled. “I’ll leave the sculpture. This meeting has become too intense. They have no means of rapid communication, so they can’t warn their peers of our arrival. We’ll go to the next building. It’s a few minutes away.”

  Kathlynn slowly rose, looking toward the hut, settling in the sled. As the vehicle moved away, she said:

  “Parno, what should I do?”

  “About what?”

  “I was assaulted.”

  “Were you harmed?”

  “Parno, I wasn’t injured, but it hurt. No woman in the universe should have to accept such abuse. Not even from an alien.”

  Having been violated more profoundly, Parno hollered out:

  “Dammit, Vera, Grazio—what in the hell is going on? Did you get that?”

  “Yeah, we got it,” Grazio grumbled. “I don’t know how the hell Kathlynn felt that through her suit. I don’t know why your sack didn’t clean itself.”

  Ward’s voice then loudly declared:

  “I know. We are suffering an intrinsic system failure. Everyone return to the settlement immediately.”

  Parno’s sled stopped, turned, and retreated at a moderate rate.

  “After Vera and Grazio get our gear fixed,” Parno told Kathlynn, “we’ll return. Depending on bad equipment can get you killed.”

  “I see.”

  “I don’t,” he grumbled. “That sort of thing should not happen. It should not happen.”

  They rode silently for minutes. Bending slightly, turning away from Parno somewhat, Kathlynn unobtrusively reached to press her bosom where bruised by the indigene. Though her eyebrows furrowed, Kathlynn avoided a grimace. Parno looked straight ahead. Decorum was retained.

  Waves rushed down beside them, thrusting water against the shore. Parno watched the pink stain spread. He loved that wet music. The alien urine by then had dripped away from the plasfab of his suit. In his imagination, he smelled it. Then, new data came to the sled. Parno and Kathlynn looked to each other simultaneously.

  “Are you receiving that?” he asked.

  “Yes, I’m getting the knack of the data feeds. A human, small, increased respiration and pulse, stationary but showing exertion, is in our vicinity.”

  “The map shows a lagoon at that site. Hold on.”

  The sled turned sharply, wheels retracted, heading into the forest. Human reflexes could not have directed the vehicle so quickly: past a shrub with stiff leaves as sharp as a weapon, bouncing above a rotted tree trunk, not jostling the air-restrained occupants, proceeding in acute turns to placid water. Dark water in the forest’s shade. No wind disturbed any leaf or limb. The only movement was a child thrashing.

  Parno stopped five feet from a girl with one leg caught among dense, yellow vines. This grid of yellow strings formed the brightest shape in the forest composition, a moving pattern jostled by desperation. The girl was inverted, her head down in the water as she struggled to pull or press herself away, becoming more entangled, unable to grasp the nearest brush, her hand slipping on the slimy bank.

  “Is this a cultural event, Parno?” Kathlynn gasped.

  Parno leapt from the sled and rushed to the girl. But as he reached to grasp her shoulders, Parno slid into the water—and continued downward, only thinking that his suit should have floated. His thoughts were then replaced by panic, for filthy water invaded his nose. Violently shaking his head while swimming upward, Parno gained the surface and calmed, allowing the water inside his suit to flow out. Able to breathe again despite his coughing, Parno turned to see that Kathlynn had freed the child.

  The bank was so slippery that Parno had to crawl on his hands and knees to escape. He sneezed and coughed again, but his breathing had nearly returned to normal. Kathlynn looked between Parno and the girl, who showed no agitation while pulling vines from her leg. Kathlynn offered no further aid to either person. As his suit pumped out the invasive water through ankle flaps, Parno stood. He instructed the ground suit to divulge its log: no breach in the plasfab, he heard, and the bubble remained tight—so how had water entered?

  For a moment, Parno only gasped while watching the girl methodically remove yellow vines from her lower legs. Then he glimpsed the sled. Self-cleaning in and out, but on the floor lay gritty pink sand stained with foreign urine.

  “Why are the damn plants yellow?” he growled, to Kathlynn, to himself, to the island. “Where is the damn chlorophyll?”

  “We like yellow,” the girl said.

  Having cleared her legs, she turned from the Earthers, offering no gratitude, no greeting. The girl walked away, having spoken in that alien language of English.

  Chapter 4

  Beneath A Darkening Sky

  His mother and sister stood before him, tapping their toes and shaking their heads in frustration. Parno looked down to the casket they expected him to enter.

  “I’m not getting in there,” he growled.

  Wearing checked Stellar Service coveralls instead of the fake-grass variety, the three stood in the matter hold. Ward had allowed the staff to shed their ground suits; now these fems expected Parno to strip.

  To his great disappointment, Kathlynn was not included in the fems offering this suggestion.

  “Parno,” Vera said, “Director Hanshaw has instructed you to enter the infirmary to verify that you were not polluted by imbibing the local water.”

  “It will also clean out your tummy and lungs,” Stacy added. “Just think of all the nasties that could be in the swamp water of an alien planet.”

  “It was a lagoon, Stacy. Brackish. That was minutes and minutes ago, and I feel fine.”

  “Parno,” Stacy said with a motherly smile, “we know you’re not a brat, so be a good little soldier and step in.”

  Situated on an integral stand at hip height, the infirmary resembled a coffin with a clear lid. Parno stared down to the medical cabinet, called a med cab or doc box. Or casket by some.

  “It’s too small and dark,” Parno insisted.

  “Parno,” Vera declared, “you know it can be made transparent.”

  She pressed a tab and the infirmary’s sides turned clear. Parno saw only the reclining pad within.

  “Parno, you need to hurry,” Stacy said firmly, still smiling. In that moment, she resembled her husband. “Ward is waiting for you to be flushed before we have the debriefing. We are making him wait.”

  “We don’t want to make him wait any longer,” Vera added.

  Parno pressed the curtain tab, and an opaque projection the height of a humanoid surrounded the doc box. Parno pressed again to make the curtain obscure but translucent. Then he reached for his coverall release.

  “Go away,” he growled, “or you’ll see my bare boobies.”

  The fems quickly stepped through the curtain. Parno removed his coveralls, undergear, and shoes, placing his apparel in the infirmary’s clothing hold. Then he pushed the control pad, and the box opened its lid, lowering and tilting to allow easy entry. Parno sat, then reclined, and the lid closed as the med cab straightened. He hated tight places, he hated tight places.

  “Claustrophobia assuaging,” he instructed.

  He heard a hiss. In the next moment, the space did not seem so constricting. In fact, he did not feel bad at all.

  The med cab spoke.

  “Hello, hello, I’m ready to check you for naughty things inside.”

  “Doc box, change your settings to adult,” Parno grumbled.

  “Sorry, young man, I can’t do that for kids. Ready, little soldier?”

  Somewhere in the near distance of separated space, Parno heard a pair of fems snicker.

  “Permission granted, doc,” he sighed. “Get your box moving.”

  “Affirmed,” the dull voice spoke, “achieving, little soldier.”

  Parno soon felt numb all over. He did not notice the vibrations and prods, none of the latter approaching within his vision. He knew the tests. Extra-
rays, fluid analyses, electreencephalogram, metasound, organ-izing, et cetera. Parno smelled a strange scent, emitted a small cough, then closed his eyes. Thinking of nothing for medical moments, he felt unclear jostlings here and there. He did not open his eyes again until the infirmary spoke.

  “Patient’s condition judged normal. Incompatible matter neutralized and/or removed with plasmic and pulmonary flushing. Assignment achieved.”

  The med cab then opened its lid, twisted and lowered, allowing the patient to leave.

  “Thanks for the bath,” Parno muttered. He began stepping away, but the doc box stopped him.

  “Suggestion that the patient reclothe himself.”

  “Oh. Thanks, Mom,” Parno said, and pulled on his attire.

  He felt a little numb, but not bad, not bad. Perhaps he should get flushed more often. As the curtain receded, Parno saw people waiting for him in the space room. Everyone but Kathlynn.

  “Shall we?” Ward offered with his standard smile, and gestured toward the cargo bay’s entry.

  No one had to ask of Parno’s condition. The doc box had tattled. On this boat, pertinent information was shared with everyone but the ENU supervisor.

  Ward led the way. Parno waited for the fems to pass. Grazio brought up the rear. Looking Parno up and down, the pilot had to comment.

  “The man who ate alien water, and lived.”

  “Grazio, would you care to attend?” Ward called out sharply.

  Parno only sneered as he and Grazio bumped shoulders.

  Once in the cargo bay, Ward did not begin the meeting with a cordial introduction.

  “This is the most disastrous off-world expedition I’ve heard of in nineteen years,” he seethed.

  They stood in the near-empty hold. Vera and Grazio had unloaded the mining equipment.

  “We have had more data aberrations here than I have encountered during my entire career. An indigene approaches to within paces of us, but we don’t know in advance. At least two ground suits—not one, but two—fail to function correctly. We have an air sled that would not immediately clean itself. A dangerous reptile nearly injured Parno and the ENU supervisor. All of that is too much. We cannot function in an informationally unpredictable environ. Vera, you will now inform me that our data systems are functioning correctly.”