“We’ll draw them away from Luna, make them think we’ve got what we came for, and do whatever we can to shut them down. Engines, weapons systems, anything else. Then we’ll return and pick up the crew.”
“But what if they get to the Echo first? She isn’t some spy vessel like the Nachtfalke, for god’s sake! You’re gambling with the lives of human beings out there, never mind everyone here. Talk to them first. See if there’s a diplomatic way around this.”
Jenson interrupted them. “Thrusters ready and standing by, Captain.”
Powell turned to face Carter. “Sir?”
He stroked his chin and shook his head. This situation escalated far quicker than he’d ever imagined, but little choice remained. The moment the firefight in space began, all talk became useless. He hated abandoning Ishani and Dub on the surface. The others, he could not care less about.
“Awaiting your orders, sir.”
Carter grabbed Esther by the arms. “I’ll come back for the crew, Doctor, and Kate Braddock too.
“The Sara Waltz’s signatures have been detected,” Jenson said, “bearing 101 mark 2.”
Powell turned in his seat and looked hard at Carter. “Orders, sir?” he emphasized.
“Don’t do it, please. Talk to them.”
“20,000 kilometers and closing. They see us, Captain.”
“Sir?”
Carter stared at the ship on the screen. She still ran dark but now that she appeared in visual range, the outline of her hull bearing down on his position became clear. In his mind, there was no doubting the Waltz’s ability to inflict serious damage. He understood what she was capable of doing from previous skirmishes along the Martian mineral runs. One direct hit of her rail guns could finish the Echo. That wouldn’t happen.
He set his jaw and raised his chin. “Captain Powell, get us the hell out of here. Now!”
When the thrusters engaged, both Carter and Esther scrambled to remain upright as the artificial gravity system strained under the quick movement. She grabbed on to a flight hook above the nav station. Carter held the back of Powell’s seat. At fifty meters elevation, the Echo’s full engines engaged.
Powell said calmly, “Increase forward engine thrusters on my mark, Mr. Jenson . . . mark.” The ship screamed away from the gloom of the Mare Marginis on a course over the sun-filled Mare Crisium, maintaining low altitude. The Sara Waltz arced around, hard in pursuit.
On one of the side viewscreens, Ishani’s suit cam showed Dub looking off into space, followed by Atteberry entering the shot, jumping up, waving his arms.
Carter turned away.
Mary
The only way Mary could describe the blizzard of information swirling into her brain was like this: a limitless expanse of knowledge comprising the essence of everything. Her hands and fingers continued twitching, but she sensed the data transfer nearing completion and better managed the parsing of it all into categories and layers of memory. Still, it didn’t curtail the overwhelming explosion of history in her thoughts.
The room had fallen silent. The last thing she remembered hearing was her dad tapping out a CQ and Kate wanting to leave. Now, the only sound in the ship was that ubiquitous low-level hum pulsing through the platform.
Mary moved her tongue and jaw, trying to find her voice. “Kate, are you still there?”
“Yes.”
“What’s happening? Is my dad near?”
Silence.
The scratchy clicks of the alien arose somewhere behind her head, and she sensed Kate’s presence.
“There’s an ugly situation going on out there, Mares. The Echo took off in a panic. They abandoned three people on the surface, right outside this ship. One of them’s your dad.”
Mary saw the image of the crew in her mind, standing and waving in Luna’s dust. How? Something terrifying, yet curiously intriguing was happening to her. A clarity she’d never known swiped through her thoughts with a new understanding of how the laws of physics really worked.
We never knew.
The transfer ended. Mary felt the optical wires being removed from her skull. Then, the restraints loosened, and she turned sideways to see Kate smiling. Keechik moved around behind her at one of the command consoles. Images of the Moon’s surface and ships in flight flashed across the wall in a collage of fast-moving, fiery scenes.
“How are you feeling, Mares?”
She closed her eyes and drew a deep breath before answering. “There’s so much information, an impossible amount of data, I . . . I can’t process it all yet.” She stared at Kate’s face. “But I know now, Kate. I know everything that happened.”
She propped herself up on her elbows and stretched her legs. After regaining her bearings, Mary pivoted her legs over the side of the platform and sat up. She took Kate’s hands in hers and studied her body that looked more beautiful than ever.
“Keechik has healed you.”
Kate’s eyes widened, and she swallowed hard, fighting back tears. “Yes, but now I’m messed up in a different way.” She chuckled nervously, then leaned closer, put her forehead against Mary’s and whispered, “This isn’t me. I mean, I think I’m still the same on the inside, but this,” she pointed to her chest, then stroked her lengthened hair, “this is foreign.”
Mary smiled. She was overwhelmed by a powerful attraction to Kate and a screaming desire to tell her everything she’d learned from the transfer, but the new pathways weren’t completely formed, and she struggled to sort it all out.
Keechik watched them from a corner in the shadows. Short, soft grunting noises punctured the silence in the room.
“It’s the last of its kind, Kate. There are no others like it anywhere in the universe, and Ross 128 is not its home. The creature hid there.”
The look on Kate’s face radiated confusion and trepidation.
How could she understand, poor, sweet thing?
Kate released Mary’s hands and stood back. “What happened to you here? I’ve got to know.”
Mary stretched her arms wide and slid off the table, almost losing her balance. She pointed to the mass of optical wires now hanging off the end where her head was and drew in a breath. “Everything this creature knows, everywhere it traveled, its history, all the other life forms it encountered . . . those experiences have been transferred to my brain. It’s like I’ve become not just one of them, but this one specifically. The Keechik. Sharing my mind and body.”
“But why you?”
“Because of my eidetic memory. I can’t forget.” Mary shuddered. With a sheepish look, she said, “I guess I’m still adjusting.” She leaned against the platform and continued. “The cry for water that Dad first heard reflected how utterly lonesome the Keechik was, floating around the Ross 128 system, not knowing whether other creatures would find it and keep it company. Or kill it.” She nodded over Keechik’s way. “It only wants what everyone else wants, Kate.”
“What do you mean?”
She smiled warmly, reached out and placed a palm on Kate’s cheek. She leaned in to the touch. “To be loved, Kate. Simply to be loved.”
The alien clacked from the shadows, and then croaked, “The one Keechik . . . is . . . small, I am Kate. So small . . .”
Other utterances filled Mary’s mind from some newly formed mental connection. She grabbed her head, shook it, and moaned. “Stop, Keechik. It’s . . . it’s too much. I can’t . . .” The pain dissipated, and tears overflowed her eyes.
Kate clutched her shoulder. “What just happened there?”
“I, er, sensed it’s thoughts. It was . . . terrifying.” She met Kate’s eyes. “We have no idea how much pain it has. No idea.” She fought to process and release the suffering and emptiness the alien impressed on her. Mary’s whole body shook with emotion.
Kate opened her arms and embraced her. They hugged long enough for the horrific thoughts of dying alone and full of fear to recede completely. Then she studied Kate. “You are healed now. You understand that?”
; She inspected herself. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to these. It’s like . . . oh God, Mary, it’s like I don’t know what I am anymore.”
“It’s more than physical, though. Your mind is changing, too. Have you not noticed yet?”
Kate frowned and pinched her eyebrows together. Finally, she said, “Maybe . . . there’s so much I can’t figure out.”
Keechik scuttled up to them and pointed with a limb to the flashing images on the wall. Kate stood upright and pushed her chin out. “We’ve got to leave this ship, Little One, and rejoin our friends and family. And you must find a safe place to go. Those humans out there in the ships are looking for you and your technology, and they’ll kill you if they need to.”
“The one Keechik is not . . . concerned, I am Kate.”
Mary peered down at the alien. They understood each other without using the words. Suddenly, Mary’s eyes widened, and confusion assaulted her emotions. “I can’t do that, Keechik.”
“The friend Mary, you must.”
“No, please.”
“You are the one to . . . to help remember. You must . . . mm . . .”
Kate spun around. “What’s going on? Tell me.”
“I can’t.”
“Tell me now.”
Mary slumped back against the table, staring off at the optical wires. Keechik clicked his limbs on the floor again, and she wrapped her arms around her chest.”
“Damn it, Mary, speak!”
Mary’s lip trembled, and she stared into the shadows. “I’m now the holder of Keechik’s entire civilization. It’s all been . . . downloaded here.” She pointed to her head, then turned to face Kate. “You see, it’s not just about Keechik saving itself.”
Silence filled the room.
“Mary, out with it. What does being this holder of knowledge mean?”
Tears pooled in her eyes and she swallowed the lump in her throat. “Keechik’s word for humans is impossible for me to pronounce with my tongue. The closest thing it comes to is vile. Humans are ugly, Kate.”
“We are. That’s why this creature needs to hide, and fast. Think about what they’ll do to it back on Earth. Stick it in a cage, poke it, cut it open, study its brain. If I understand what you’re saying, that would be worse than dying alone.”
“But it’s not just that. I know everything it knows about . . .” she paused, “. . . everything, Kate. Everything. Its thoughts are all duplicated in my mind. Technology, FTL travel, healing . . . love . . . death . . . other alien encounters . . . all inside me.” She stared into the darkness, thought about her dad, and wiped back a tear.
“Sweet Jesus, Mares . . .”
“Yes, I know.”
FORTY-TWO
Katie
They always met in dingy hotel rooms, and everyone knew it, but today something had changed. The hovercab floated through the autumn gloom and light drizzle, then slowed in front of Wills Memorial Building Tower at the University of Bristol. Katie peered out the window at the large, stone architecture that dominated this ancient section of campus, and asked the on-board AI, “Are you sure this is the place?”
“These are the coordinates provided. Please remain seated until the vehicle comes to rest.”
The hovercab purred a moment in front of the tower, then lowered onto its parking skids.
“Enjoy your day.” Her door swung open.
Katie stepped out and threw her pack over her shoulder. Then she quickly scanned the area to gather her bearings, noting hiding places, trails, the high points, possible kill zones. It had become an important if not a paranoid habit of hers as ingrained in her behavior as the cutting.
She thought this wasn’t right. This was unlike any other Program meet-up with Simon.
The indie-comm in her jacket pocket chimed, and she whipped it out and read the message.
Welcome to Bristol, Katie. We’re in room 412B.
As she took the steps two at a time, a few students passed on their way down but to her surprise, they paid her no attention. Perhaps because campuses attract people of all stripes, she was just another odd-looker in the crowd. Plus, she could easily pass as a student herself, not being much older than that population.
Katie took the stairs to the fourth floor. It helped bring her legs back to life after two weeks in space, but the exertion burned her chest and throat.
Something’s not right there, either.
At her last check-up, one of the Program doctors grimaced when she studied Katie’s diagnostics. There were more and more dark shadows appearing on her lungs, and the anti-rad pills had trouble managing them. She upped her dose.
The entrance to Room 412B looked like any other office door: light wood, with black metal numbers glued on. No window. Without thinking further, she knocked.
“Enter.”
Katie pushed the door open and stepped inside. The room may have been a professor’s office at one point but not anymore. Large, leather couches and two oversized reading chairs dominated a sitting area. A couple of workstations were tucked in to the far corner. Row upon row of books covered one wall, and several floor plants filled the interstices of the place. A small window provided spotty, natural light, but grey skies and dim lighting made her pause a moment so her eyes could adjust.
Two men greeted her. She recognized only the one.
“Katie Braddock, it’s good to see you again. Welcome to Bristol.” They shook hands. She couldn’t tell from looking at him whether Simon Delacroix had once been a Spacer. He never let on either way, but understood the Program and its history so well, she figured he must have done some time in the space trenches. That, and his voice rang oddly high for a fellow of his build.
He nodded to the suited man. “This is Director Sarangan.”
“How do you do, Ms. Braddock.”
Katie smirked. No one had called her Ms. or Mr. for several years. It sounded foreign to her now that she didn’t identify herself by anything but her name.
She dropped the pack at her feet and placed her hands on her bony hips. “This is quite the hang out you have, Simon. What’s the special occasion?”
“Have a seat, Katie.”
She plopped down on one of the massive couches, and it swallowed up her tiny frame. The two men flanked her in their own large chairs.
Director Delacroix leaned forward. “Katie, I’ll get right to the point. We, that is, Dr. Sarangan and I, both agree it’s time for you to move on from the Program.”
Katie’s jaw dropped. She stared at them, confused, but their expressions didn’t change.
“I don’t understand.”
Delacroix cleared his throat. “The career of a Spacer is limited, as you know. The body can only take so much radiation, so much stress from working in varying gravity environments. Most of your colleagues are finished by the time they’re eighteen.”
“I’m not like the others.”
“True enough. You’re . . . how shall I say it . . . more resilient than most. But the fact remains, Katie, that your latest medical reports suggest your time is up. The, er, infection in your lungs is—”
“The cancer, you mean.”
Delacroix paused. “All right, if you wish. The cancer in your lungs is getting more challenging to treat. Unless we pull you from the active roster immediately, you’re looking at more surgery. They’d have to remove a lung—the left one is a mess—and part of the right. You’d be hard-pressed to walk up a flight of stairs after that, never mind dismantle satellites in low Earth orbit.”
Katie felt as if the couch had squeezed in on her. She listened in deep silence, thoughts racing, as the director recounted in graphic detail all the other health issues facing her. Part way through his dissertation, she filled her thoughts with what she’d do to herself back at the hotel in Paris. It brought her a small measure of sickening, desperate comfort.
“Do you understand why we must pull you out, Katie.”
She stared at Delacroix, still unable to process everything he said
, then finally resigned and nodded. She scrunched up her face as the implications smacked her.
“What . . . what will I do? This is all I know, Simon. This life is all that I am.”
Delacroix leaned back and sighed. “Well, that’s where Dr. Sarangan comes in. Walter?”
This man definitely wasn’t a Spacer. He acted more like one of those beady-eyed bureaucrats she had to deal with from time to time. Too, the asshole was way too smarmy and smooth to be part of her tribe.
“Katie, we have a placement program for retiring Spacers, and we feel the best thing for you right now is a teaching position.”
She burst out laughing. “Me? Teach? That’s rich. Me, wrangling a bunch of idiots all hopped up on the brain juice.”
“Not exactly. You wouldn’t be a grade or high school teacher. No, what we’re thinking is a college or university, or perhaps one of the private training centers. Your strength has always been in logic and sequencing, and programming, and there’s no reason to quit doing that. In fact, you’d excel in it.”
Beady Eyes scratched his head, searching for words.
Katie picked at the front of her shirt. “Simon, must I do any of this? What if I just walk out of here and disappear?”
“Yes, well, you could certainly do that. No one will stop you. But I do hope you take advantage of this placement. We spend an enormous amount of effort building relationships with industry, research circles and so on. I’d hate to see anyone not transition smoothly into a new career.”
She thought about hanging out on a campus like Bristol, discussing science and politics with the long-hairs, going for coffee, hopping up in the green pastures with a bag of smokies. “What schools do you have in mind?”
Dr. Sarangan pulled a folded piece of paper from his jacket pocket. He looked at it briefly, then said. “There are three positions available at the moment. The first is at the University of Alberta in the Informatics department. You’d be an associate professor, splitting your time between research and teaching.”
“Alberta . . . that’s Canada, right? I’d freeze my puny ass off up there. What else?”
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