Across the Stars: Book Three of Seeds of a Fallen Empire

by Anne Spackman

  “I thought the ship was going to take us clear of that blue star,” Kansier spoke with strained composure through his wrist communicator to the bridge, moved by Dimitriev’s change of heart. So, he had been right all along in his suspicions. Such a shame that the young had not the clarity and wisdom of their elders, until it was too late to rectify past mistakes, he thought sadly. The young are masters of wasted time, he thought, then shook off the sentimentality. He was the ship’s captain; as much as he might grieve later, right now he had to put his crew above his own concerns. “Are you sure Selesta’s shields are holding against the gamma radiation?” He asked the bridge.

  “Yes, sir. Radiation levels show normal,” the voice of one of the ship’s communicators, lieutenant Sekuwan Fish, was heard.

  “All right—keep me informed if the situation changes. Kansier out—” he stopped suddenly, his lips still near the communicator on his wrist.

  There was no sound in the room. Scott had let go of Erin and froze, his eyes staring down at the dead girl lying on the examination table. The Earthlings gathered around Erin Mathieson didn’t dare to move. They watched the transmogrification, entranced. The skin of the young lieutenant, now bathed in the blue light, appeared to drink in the rays, turning a pale grey before their eyes. Her body began radiating a faint aura of energy. Her hair absorbed the light.

  Kansier stepped back, the hair on his neck rising. Erin now looked almost like a ghost.

  Though she had known the truth about Erin for several days now, Knightwood sucked in her breath. A reality of Erin’s origins had only sunk in at that moment, now that the illusion that had surrounded her had faded for good.

  Strange—in a way, she looks like the crew below Selesta, Knightwood thought unconsciously. And like both races, too—a bit like the Charon aliens as well.

  Now there was no mistaking the fact—Erin Mathieson had never been human. Then, as Knightwood watched her, the young lieutenant suddenly stirred to life, and the lifesigns monitor began to register strange fluctuations.

  “She’s alive!” Knightwood exclaimed, as Erin’s chest began to rise and fall.

  “Alive?” Scott breathed, looking down on a face he did not recognize.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Top Security had to be maintained for the time being, that much Kansier knew, and with this in mind, he quickly ordered Erin Mathieson’s room restricted to visitors. To Knightwood’s relief, the young woman had begun to register a pulse—though an uneven one—again, but she remained unconscious.

  Colonel Kansier called an emergency meeting to take place in the nearby medical wing conference room. Zhdanov, Cheung, Captain Kolesar, and a few other scientists arrived in under twenty minutes. Breaking the news of the discovery was not easy, but somehow witnessing the reactions of the new arrivals made it easy for those who had witnessed the transformation itself to accept it.

  Knightwood studied her husband as he was led into the room where Erin slept. His face froze, his lips slightly parted, but his eyes grew wide. The worst part was when he looked at his wife—he knew her well enough to suspect that she had known the truth for some time. At last he had his explanation as to why she had let Erin examine Faulkner, why all the secret tête-à-têtes.

  “How did they do it? How did they fool us for so long?” He asked, incredulous. “Erin looked as human as any of us—how could her people disguise her physical appearance to resemble a human being?” Zhdanov wondered aloud as the team returned to the conference room. The entire corridor connecting the rooms had been sealed from unauthorized access for at least the next few hours.

  “I don’t know. I understand why they might have—” Knightwood offered, realizing that the others had stopped to listen to their speculations, “—if they knew they were dying, they might have hoped she would be found and raised by us—but only if she appeared to be human. They were probably right—we would have used her as a guinea pig if we had known earlier, and she wouldn’t have had a normal, happy life.”

  “But what if they didn’t die—what if the others are still on Earth, disguised like she was?” Captain Kolesar suggested.

  “I guess it is possible—but it doesn’t really matter to us anymore,” Zhdanov nodded thoughtfully, soberly. “And if they were willing to leave the ship for our home, they left us in peace all those years. I don’t think the situation will change. If they are alive, they didn’t destroy us with Selesta when they could have. But none of what’s happened would make any sense if they were. Why would they give up one of their own and not try to reclaim her if they still lived?”

  Knightwood was struck with the sudden suspicion that perhaps these Orians were doing just that, trying to reclaim one of their own, the strange ‘Zariqua Enassa’. Although Knightwood saw that Erin did not look like the Orians, she couldn’t help but wonder if the girl were half-Orian and half of the race of Selesta’s former occupants, that perhaps Erin was a disputed child. The races could even have been fighting over her—perhaps even for control of her powerful psychic abilities.

  “Why was it that the Selesta allowed us inside and left the system with new passengers without waiting for the old ones to return?” Zhdanov continued; he did not state the unspoken possibility for the last question—that the ship itself had a mind of its own and had marooned the original crew deliberately.

  The last of the team entered the conference room and sat around the table, Knightwood next to Kansier and Zhdanov, Kolesar to the Colonel’s left, Cheung, then Dimitriev next to him. The Major hadn’t said a word since he called her and Dr. Koslov into Erin’s room.

  “What I want to know is—why didn’t one of you scientists suspect before that the girl we know as Erin Mathieson was in reality an alien?” Kansier asked. “Of course it all makes sense now—the ship has always responded to her since the day she found the entrance and led your UESRC recon team through it,” he added, shaking his head. “She instigated every new discovery—the holo-room, the memorial room, the forest—she herself waited to be found, wandering near the ship in the rural zone of sector eight as a child before being adopted by Mathieson and Blair.”

  “Perhaps one of us did suspect it,” Knightwood said, drawing all of the eyes around the table. “I just remembered something—all those years on Earth, Cameron performed Erin’s annual medical exams himself. He left a restriction order in her file banning her from outside treatment for her cancer that might interfere with his own treatments.”

  “Of course—he must have known.” Zhdanov nodded. “He must have done what he did to protect her—or watch to see what she might do. He probably hoped she would be the key to defeating the aliens, but thought she might never get the chance to become that key if we let her become a guinea pig.” Cameron, you knew us too well, Zhdanov thought. You wouldn’t allow her to be experimented on, would you? You always said that knowledge is a power and that is it is our responsibility to use it correctly, humanely. You were right—as scientists, we sometimes forget that. But not anymore, my friend—not after what we’ve been through since we left behind our Earth.

  “Do you think that the dead crew in the memorial room are her people?” Koslov asked. “Because if she’s one of them, then maybe she can help clear things up. They must have known who the other aliens are and what they were after. Remember that the pilot recognized her—he said she was disguised, that his leader wanted her.”

  “Maybe the Charon aliens—that is, maybe the Orians killed her people,” Knightwood suggested, “and that was why they disguised her among us. Maybe the reason they didn’t destroy us on Earth was that they weren’t trying to get us—they wanted her, and killed those that got in their way. And the city raids—do you suppose they were looking for the ship?”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” Cheung protested. “They should have been able to find it.”

  “Not necessarily.” Zhdanov interjected. “Remember that it was hidden by an anti-radar device for a long time. And perhaps they couldn’t risk bringing the En
lil to the Earth. They might not have known the crew of Selesta had gone, that they wouldn’t be destroyed by the Earth-bound ship. And without their larger cruisers on the surface, they might not have been able to thoroughly reconnoiter its whereabouts.” Zhdanov steepled his palms.

  “Maybe they hoped if they attacked us long enough, the crew on board would reveal themselves in an effort to protect us—all our evidence points to the fact that the Selesta’s crew didn’t intend us any harm,” Zhdanov continued. “They were willing to put one of their children among us, trusting our culture with her care. They must have had great faith in humanity. It could be why they fled to our world in the first place—maybe they hoped they would not be followed there.”

  The others considered what Zhdanov had said a moment.

  Just how long has our presence in the galaxy been known? Cheung wondered privately.

  “But why did Faulkner say that the computer brought them here—that he controls it all?” Cheung asked, scratching his cheek.

  “Do you think what he said might have been significant?” Kansier turned to Knightwood.

  “I don’t know. He was only raving until Erin withdrew her blood cells from his system.” Knightwood said. The others turned to glare at her, shocked. “Oh, I forgot that detail,” she added apologetically.

  The others listened attentively as she explained that Faulkner had also found out about Erin on Earth, how he had obtained her blood samples and what his purpose had been, why the ship had kept him and how Erin had redressed the damage by removing her blood cells, that for some reason had stayed like an emulsion in his bloodstream. At first, they were skeptical that Erin’s blood could have granted him any metamorphosis; many of them expressed doubts as to Faulkner’s sanity and credibility. But Knightwood insisted he had mentioned hearing the computer’s voice in his incarceration, that Erin herself admitted her blood in his system had allowed him to hear it.

  “Hmmm,” Kansier mused. “It would seem then that Faulkner’s imput is more significant than I first thought. What did he tell you about his hallucinations?”

  “Nothing much since he was cured.” Knightwood admitted. “The whole ordeal is buried in his mind like some bad dream, if you’ll pardon the expression. He only recalls his thoughts before the injection—how he was going to prove who Erin was.”

  “Then perhaps we should test the lieutenant to determine the extent of her abilities.” Kansier exhaled slowly. “If she is capable of telepathy, then she could try to reach the hallucinations in Faulkner’s mind. They may be nothing—but if the ship spoke to him all these years—” his voice trailed off.

  “Who were Hinev and Alessia?” Dimitriev suddenly asked, speaking for the first time. Knightwood looked at him curiously but then remembered Faulkner’s words. “He looked at me and asked if I was Hinev—then he looked at Erin and called her Alessia.”

  “It may be important,” Zhdanov shrugged. “If those people he saw in his dreams could tell us who Zariqua Enassa is and where to find her—the woman the pilot mistook Erin for,” he added, seeing Kolesar’s confusion. “I’ll bet the pilot knew that Erin was an alien but was thrown by her disguise. He might have thought that anyone on board the ship having reason to hide would have to be this Zariqua woman.”

  “Well, I don’t think speculation will lead us anywhere.” Koslov leaned back, folding his arms across his chest. “Knightwood, Zhdanov, do you think you can reach Erin’s hidden abilities and draw them out? You two have known her since the day she was found. If anyone can determine what she is—I’ll wager the pair of you can,” Dr. Koslov suggested. Kansier nodded his approval, and Knightwood and Zhdanov agreed to try.

  “Meanwhile, we’re going to have to figure out some way to inform the crew—we can’t keep Erin locked up in confinement forever. It is after all, well it may be her ship now. We have never been more than passengers,” Kansier coughed, relinquishing his own reservations to a general sense of right, not letting his emotions show.

  “No, Colonel,” a hypnotic, musical voice interrupted the meeting. Erin stood in the doorway, having entered silently. “You are the captain of this ship. Excuse me, sir.” She stood at attention, now appearing completely out of place among the Earthlings in the alien attire the Blue team crew had adopted. “Lieutenant Mathieson requesting permission to join the conference.”

  Kansier blinked mutely a moment, then smiled. “Permission granted, lieutenant. Welcome.”

  * * * * *

  Scott watched the others staring at Erin, some fearfully, others with mute surprise or hostile expressions of accusation. She was like a creature out of a dream, he thought. Her skin now had the pale, transient glow of a ghost or other supernatural creature, but Scott was not afraid.

  He had not been afraid of her even as he had witnessed her transformation; his mind just could not accept the truth about her real identity. He had been afraid that if he did accept it, he would not be able to forgive her, that he would come to resent her because her people had come to Earth and brought their battle there, because by so coming to the Earth they had endangered the entire human race.

  And destroyed his family.

  Yet strangely, seeing the others’ hostility towards her defeated his own resentments. What had she really done? Nothing, his reasoning told him, except fight alongside her Earth comrades against their common enemy. Anyway, the Earth never knew the aliens of Selesta, he told himself. Remembering their peaceful faces, so much like Erin’s, as they slept below in the ship, he realized he wanted to like them, Erin’s people who had also likely been victims of the Orians’ violence.

  However, he still couldn’t overlook the fact that their conflict had destroyed Earth’s peace and so many human lives, that all of the Earthlings’ assumptions about the innocence of the Selesta crew could have been unfounded. His own family would be alive if Selesta hadn’t come to the Earth.

  Scott looked up and across the room where Erin sat, trying to appear at ease in her environment but bristling under the attention of so many eyes. Then he noticed Captain Kolesar staring at her in dislike and suppressed a wave of indignant anger.

  He knew then that it didn’t matter what Erin had turned out to be.

  He would never deny his feelings for her again.

  * * * * *

  That afternoon, Kansier agreed to allow Ho-ling Chen and Nathalie Quinn to visit Erin in her room in the medical wing. Zhdanov hoped to measure their reactions to the change in their friend before releasing the information to the entire crew.

  Half an hour later, the two girls arrived in the medical unit, confused by the summons and even more surprised to see the large group of scientists and the top ship officers in the conference lounge.

  Knightwood stopped the pair at the door to Erin’s room to prepare them.

  “Knightwood, what’s going on?” Nathalie asked, suppressing a current of fear. She knew she would not be able to deal with Erin’s death; was that what all of the mystery was about? “Why did Kansier call us to visit Erin? Don’t tell me she’s gotten worse.” Knightwood shook her head, raising a hand to stop them from asking more questions of a similar nature.

  “I can’t explain everything out here.” Knightwood said calmly, not certain at all where to begin or how best to break the news of Erin’s true identity to them. “But listen carefully—Erin’s not the same person you left here this morning.” She continued evasively. “Something’s happened since then that has—changed... her.” Knightwood met their questioning faces and shook her head. “She wanted to see you two first, before the entire crew finds out—to see how you’ll handle the news, to make sure that you will still be her friends despite—what’s happened.”

  Nathalie and Ho-ling exchanged confused glances, as though Knightwood wasn’t making any sense at all; Knightwood sighed, sensing that they had begun to imagine some kind of horrible affliction that Erin might have developed.

  “Erin will always be our friend, Knightwood, no matter what happens to her,” Ho-ling
said, a little annoyed by Knightwood’s insinuations to the contrary. “We went through a lot together, Knightwood. I hope you aren’t suggesting something could change that. Whatever is happening to her, I imagine she’ll need us now more than ever.”

  “I hope you truly feel that way,” Knightwood said soberly. “Because this is going to test your convictions,” she finished, and extended an arm in a gesture to go ahead. “But please, prepare yourselves for quite a shock.”

  Nathalie knew something was wrong, but plunged ahead, determined to put an end to the mystery. Erin was looking at the opposite wall when they entered. Nathalie took one look at her and suppressed a shudder. Ho-ling stood staring blankly, an expression of incomprehension on her face.

  Erin was an alien.

  “Erin, I can’t believe—you’re—”

  “She’s an alien,” Ho-ling said quietly, with a vacant stare. The name Erin suddenly seemed entirely inappropriate for a creature not from the Earth.

  “No, it isn’t true!” Nathalie protested. “Is this some kind of game you’re trying to play? Knightwood, there’s something wrong with the light in this room,” she called back through the open doorway.

  Erin shook her head, facing them bravely. “I am what you see,” she said. “But I never knew until just a day ago—”

  “My God, then your family never knew who you really were?” Nathalie asked, shaking her head.

  “No. You seem upset, Nathalie.”

  “Upset? No, I’m not upset. Just surprised. No, more than surprised. Of everything that’s happened on this crazy ship, this is the one thing I didn’t expect.” Nathalie added, coming and sitting down beside her, looking into Erin’s once familiar face, “But you’re still the same somehow. It’s bizarre,” she declared. “You know, I can’t help but wonder what the others will think when they find out.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” Erin said.

  “The Blue Stripes will accept you, I’m certain of that.” Ho-ling offered. “But the others—”