She retracted her helmet, sat up and yawned.
“I would be lucky if I slept three hours,” I said. Outside of my suit, the air was warm and dry even though the orange sun had not quite emerged from over the horizon.
“My tummy’s gurgling,” Nako observed.
“Yes, I’m starving too,” I said.
We were only too happy to put on the oversize tunic and pants the boy’s mother had given us. Apart from full body protection, the only benefit the suit offered to us since the circuitry began to falter was the pure oxygen it still supplied to the helmet.
“Hey, maybe the benefit of a night of breathing oxygen had made up for the sleep we didn’t have,” I told her.
“Like hell it did,” she grumbled. “I’m a growing girl and I need my sleep. As much as I like the bed they gave us I’m going to sleep in fully suited up tonight and overnight until I know there will be no more freaking spiders visiting us.”
Breakfast was up and the aroma was quite agreeable.
Scarface ladled hot liquid from the large ceramic pot on the oven top into the bowls and handed them out.
Nako sat on a cushion beside me watching as I took the first sip.
“Sweet and meaty,” I told her.
I watched Nako gingerly poke a finger around the bowl and saw her sigh with relief when she found no sign of a caterpillar at the bottom.
The soup was good and our stomachs were grateful for being full.
Nako smiled when she finished.
“Say, Scarface really does know how to cook.”
As if she had understood what Nako said, Scarface walked over to the over and made a clicking sound to get our attention. She picked up two objects and held up two white shells.
If she had known how to wink, she would have done so.
My stomach launched into my throat but I swallowed it down again.
She fed us spider for breakfast.
“Oh, please,” Nako wailed.
She leaped to her feet and ran outside.
Scarface stared after Nako and looked back at me. She picked up her bowl and flipped it over to show me it was empty. Then, she slapped her chest.
“I know,” I said. “You eat the same food you cook for us.”
I smiled at her.
“Don’t worry, she’ll be okay.”
Scarface gazed at the empty front doorway, then picked up the bowls from the table. When I moved to help her, she pressed me back down with a hand on my shoulder.
The rest of the day we spent at what appeared to be a medical clinic.
Scarface wanted to stay in the room with us, but they shooed her out. Once our minder had left, they wasted no time stripping us of our clothing. We were poked, prodded, examined, and tested. They took samples of our fluids. They nicked our arm to sample our blood and sealed the wound with a paste that became a flexible skin in seconds. Everything they took from us they examined under the crystalline sheets.
We saw that when they turned to each other, they looked confused and unhappy.
After the medical was over, we were taken to a large hall filled with old folk sitting before a stage with two levels. Once again, they led us to the stage below the eleven solemn-faced officials. Those who examined our bodies told the audience of their findings, and then the debate began. The meeting took up the rest of the day. At least they left us alone, sitting on our cushions, up high on the stage, before all the eyes. Finally, two armed guards escorted us back to the house.
We found her waiting for us with the boy.
When we came in she glanced at us and I thought I saw regret in her eyes. She waved us to the table and set down bowls before us. It was a broth of vegetables and meat.
Even if she could have told us what kind of creature had given up their flesh for our soup, we were too tired to complain. As we ate in silence, we watched the two of them talking in earnest in the courtyard.
“The food tastes okay,” I said to Nako.
“I think we must be changing already,” she observed.
She pushed the bowl away and laid her head in her arms.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m hurting,” she said.
“What makes you say we are changing?” I asked.
“We must be. Look how long we’ve been here. Now we’re eating their food.”
“It’s only been a few days,” I told her.
“It feels a lot longer,” she replied.
She raised her head.
“You know it could be lack of sleep, but honestly, there were times today I thought I understood what was being said,” she told me. “I know. It’s stupid, right? But, I really did.”
“You must be right because that’s what I’ve been experiencing too,” I said. “The sounds they make are becoming familiar. I’m beginning to recognize words even if I don’t know the meaning. I’ve even been sorting them in my head. It gets easier all the time.”
“That’s what I’ve been doing too,” she said in astonishment. “It’s like I have boxes ready-made for the words I hear. Each one labeled for a particular category of sound. It’s like I might be able to understand a sentence pretty soon. I’ve never picked up a new language like I am now.”
“Do you think we’re safe here?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “But what are we going to do? Who else are we going to run to for help if they turn against us?”
I shake my head and wipe my eyes quickly, embarrassed by her own sudden show of emotion.
“To think we gave up the opportunity to work heavy machinery in a freezing gulag for this place,” I said.
She smiled and nodded.
“What I wouldn’t do to exchange this place for a gulag along with all the other miscreants,” she said.
I grab her shoulder and give her a shake and we burst into laughter.
Out in the courtyard, we saw them turn to stare at us in surprise.
44
Orange and Purple
It was late afternoon, two Earth hours before the great orange orb was due to slip behind the hills when we finally returned us to the house.
Scarface was in the courtyard going through some dangerous looking moves with a long stick.
We watched her as she crouched like a tiger in a state of readiness. She gripped the pole with one hand, lay it diagonally across her back, and balanced on three points; the balls of her feet, and a hand pointing straight down, the fingertips resting on the stone under her feet.
She arched her back and leaped into the air. The pole hissed and stopped inches above the surface of the courtyard. She flicked it up and lunged forward with a repeated stabbing motion, thrusting the end of the pole to the stone pavement, using her momentum, she leaped high into the air to fall lightly on her feet. A volley of vicious jabs, strikes, kicks, and punches followed.
“Martial arts ET style,” Nako said, raising her eyebrows. “It’s impressive what can be done in this gravity.”
“Never mind gravity, I’m just impressed outright,” I told her. We slumped at the table on the platform, with our heads in our arms. Before long we were both asleep.
The boy shook us awake. He pointed to the front door and walked off through it.
“Let him go,” Nako moaned. “I’m not moving from here until we’ve eaten then I’m going to bed.”
He popped his head around the doorway and whistled.
“Let’s go,” I told her.
“If he’s taking us back to the circus, I’m turning right around and coming back here,” she told me.
The boy appeared at the door again and clicked his tongue. It was a Kai sign of his impatience.
“C’mon,” she said. “It must be something important. Maybe they’re burning a heretic?”
“Oh, goody,” I said.
The boy’s headed off up the street and his urgency was unmistakable.
“You don’t think he is taking us back to that place where they did all those tests on us, do you?” Nako asked.
We lagged behind to see which way he would go when he reached the end of the street. The boy was doing what he was told, and like him, we had little choice but to cooperate if we wanted to live in the village. Only thing was, we didn’t want to live with these people at all. We wanted to go home and that meant any country on Earth.
He walked across the road, between the tall columns and stopped, at the bottom of the steps and looked back at us.
Glancing at the large polished wood building that loomed above the others, we hurried across the circular road after the boy. The steps up the hill were cut from stone and each was almost a foot in height. Once more we were thankful for the light gravity and the added spring it gave us.
On both sides of the hill grew a forest of ancient tall trees. At the top, we saw the hill did not have a peak at all, but instead at the top was a stretch of wide-open flagstones before three ancient wooden buildings. This was where the soldiers had gathered. There was no sign of the bonfire. The flagstones had been swept and then washed clean. Not a hint of ash, not even a burn mark remained.
“That looks like a temple,” Nako said. “I didn’t pick Kai as being religious.”
I stood in the open entrance of the largest of the buildings that stood between the two smaller structures. In the shadows were shiny metal instruments. Long and shiny with shiny glass at the end.
“I don’t think that’s what it is,” I told her. “Tell me they’re not telescopes.”
“It doesn’t look a lot like an observatory on the outside,” she said.
She stared into the darkening interior until her eyes got used to the gloom.
“Oh, I see what you mean.”
He perched at the top of the stairs and pointed to the faraway line of hills that bordered one side of the valley. The last beams of sunlight spread from the range into the sky turning it rosy pink.
“Sunset,” I told him.
Nako giggled.
“Oh, isn’t he a romantic?”
He glanced over his shoulder at her.
“It is a very pretty sunset,” she told him. “There’s no question about that.”
“Very pretty,” I agreed.
He stared at as we spoke, and it looked as though he mouthed the words in silence.
Nako and I looked at each other and laughed together.
“It’s pretty,” I told, and I repeated the word again, only much slower this time. “Pretty.”
He gave a nod, his eyes widening as he reached out to lift one of my punk pleats.
“Pretty,” he said.
“Hey!” Nako said. “I heard that. He’s speaking English.”
His finger traced the curve of my face in the air. He gazed at me again and smiled.
I saw his teeth were white, and even, and perfect.
“Pretty,” he said again.
Nako laughed at loud.
“I should be jealous, I guess,” she told me.
“He’s said it three times,” I said with a grin. “It must be true.”
The orange orb had slipped out of sight while we talked. The evening sky was a deep crimson.
I was eager to change the subject.
“What are we here to see, I wonder?”
“We’ve just seen it,” she said, waving her hand in the direction the orange ball had disappeared.
The boy pointed again and got to his feet. He was staring at the horizon. Waiting for something to happen.
“I don’t see anything,” she said, straining to a sign of movement on the distant range of hills.
He waved his hand in front of her and pointed to a spot on the horizon.
Then we saw it.
A large dark mass bobbed into view. A blob growing in size until it became a giant purple ball.
“We’ve been here all this time and never seen this?” I exclaimed in wonder.
“That’s at least three times the size of the Moon!” Nako gasped.
We watched as the massive orb rapidly ascended the sky when it reached forty degrees it began to slow as though it had found its favorite spot.
“The brown dwarf,” Nako said.
“It’s glowing,” she said.
And she was right. The star had an even soft purple glow. There was no shadow. It could not be a reflection
“Pretty,” the boy said again glancing back at me.
“Is it possible he learned the meaning of the word?” I asked.
He grinned at me.
“Oh, come on,” Nako said. “He understood an ancient Japanese phrase. I can’t explain that. But he doesn’t understand English. He’s mimicking you like a parrot.”
She turned to him.
“You don’t understand what I’m saying, do you?”
The boy looked back at the brown dwarf.
We fell silent, staring in awe at the size of the orb that hung above us. He turned to us and slapped his chest, his voice
“I think he’s introducing himself,” I told her.
He swung around and faced me, slapping his chest and repeating a single word.
“Ilyin-Ilyin.”
“Ilyin?” I asked him. “Your name is Ilyin?”
The delight on his face was unmistakable.
“Is it possible he has an implant too?” She asked in surprise.
I knew what she was thinking. Attaapa must be an illusion. The Kai were going to turn out to be androids. We would be learning a language the Kai had been programmed to speak. A language dreamed up on Earth.
Only, the Kai were surely too real and complex to be androids.
“Calm down,” I told her. “He’s very observant, that’s all.”
“And he’s really smart,” she added.
“Yes,” I said.
“Yes,” he repeated, and he beamed happily at us.
At the bottom of the hill, a group had gathered. Three grandmothers and a group of young children, smaller even than Nako and I, waiting patiently for us. We had seen them from the top, lingering by the twin columns, working up the courage to approach us.
Ilyin started off down the steps. He stopped to see if we were following. He gestured for us to follow him.
“Let’s go,” I told him. “Say, let’s go. Go.”
“Go,” he repeated his face a picture of concentration. “Go.”
“Yes,” I nodded. “Go.”
I started off after him with Nako close behind.
“Go,” he said, and he looked back at me. “Go.”
“Yeah,” Nako said. “It’s obvious he fancies you.”
“You are jealous of the attention he gives me,” I said in surprise. “It’s the pleats, that’s all.”
“You keep saying I’m jealous, but I’m not,” she told me. “That would be like being jealous of a monkey’s attention.”
“He’s as human as we are,” I said.
“He’s not, Atoma! We couldn’t have babies with them. How could we be the same?”
“He’s human,” I snapped.
“You couldn’t have a relationship with him,” she said. “That would be—weird. You don’t even know how old he is.”
“I think we getting a little ahead of ourselves,” I told her.
Ilyin paused at the bottom of the steps.
The old women and the children craned their long necks to look past him and catch a glimpse of us.
“Go!” He yelled.
They stared at him as if he had gone mad. The sound of the word assaulted their ears. Like nothing, they expected to hear from a Kai.
“Go!” He said to the closest woman. “Go!” He shouted at the other two.
Satisfied with the effect, he strode away on his long legs, leaving the startled woman and children behind him.
We hurried past before they had gathered their wits about them.
“Hey,” Nako said. “We’ve found a translator.”
“If we can learn their language we don’t need one,” I replied.
“Yes, a race between smarty-boy alien and augmented lang
uage learning,” Nako said.
“So, you really think we can do it?” I asked.
“Definitely!” She said. “I’ve never caught on to a language like I am doing with Kai. It’s like I’m absorbing it through my skin. I recognize the sounds already.”
“I’m sure I sometimes see the sentence when they speak,” I said. “I’ve even begun to recognize words for things and people.”
“Names and patterns of talking,” she said. “Yes, that’s exactly how it’s happening for me too.”
“It’s got to be whatever it was they did to us,” I said.
She stopped and turned around.
“You know Atoma, we’ve hit on it. It points to our purpose here.”
I remembered what the computer had told us.
“We are gathering information,” I said.
Suddenly I knew what that really meant, and I felt sick.
“We’ve been sent to spy on them,” I said. “You’re thinking the same, aren’t you?”
Nako didn’t answer.
“What if that’s what they’ve been talking about at those meetings?” I asked. “That we’re here to spy on them.”
I didn’t like to think what they might do to us if they thought we were the point of a spear. There was one thing I feared more than finding out no one was coming back for us. That we would not survive long enough to be rescued.
The story of Atoma and the Blockchain Game continues in book 2.
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About the Author
GERARD O’NEILL was born and raised in New Zealand, and now lives across the great ditch in Sydney, Australia. He writes science thrillers, but more recently has dived into science fiction for the teens and young adult audience. The second book in the Atoma and the Blockchain Game series will be out late February 2019.
Atoma and the Blockchain Game Page 17