Close Encounters

by Katherine Allred

  We walked in silence, staying close the sheer bluff that loomed over the village, and at one point I recognized the fissure leading to the cave with the giant geode, where I’d been taken to prepare me for the mating ceremony. From there, the rock wall began a gentle curve to the right, and fifteen minutes later we came to another opening. This one was larger and showed evidence of tool marks on its face.

  Flickering light spilled from inside, almost blinding me after our walk through the night. In its brilliance a moving shape took form and I realized it was a Buri male I’d never seen before. He physically blocked the entrance with his spear held across his body, until Thor shook his head.

  Uncertainly, the male lowered his weapon and moved aside. Thor and I stepped across the threshold together, but then I came to a screeching halt, not believing what my eyes were showing me. Deliberately, I blinked twice. The action didn’t help. It was still there.

  Part of me had expected a ship. More than part, really. What I hadn’t expected was a SHIP, capital letters. The entire interior of the mountain was hollow, and if the vessel had been two feet longer, or another inch taller, that mother of a ship never would have fit inside.

  Back in the days when Old Earth had first started colonizing other star systems, they’d built big ships to travel in. But they’d built them in space, not dirt side. It would have taken more energy to pull them free from Earth’s gravity than could be generated. To see one nearly as big, here, inside a mountain, stunned me silent.

  I took a hesitant step forward, then another. When I was close enough, I put out a hand to touch the hull, still not trusting my eyes. My palm hit warm metal, but even as I watched, the color shifted, changed from iron gray to copper.

  And suddenly I remembered the report Max had given me while we were in orbit. He’d said there was an anomaly in these mountains. Veins of metal that seemed to change from copper to iron, and then to zinc.

  As a camouflage device, it was sheer genius. Neither Max nor I had even considered the possibility that it might be an alien ship. Worked metal wasn’t supposed to change properties all by itself. Whether it was deliberate or accidental didn’t much matter. It had succeeded in hiding the ship from our scan, and Dynatec’s too.

  Lowering my hand, I stepped back and looked as far along the side of the ship as I could see. The majority of its bulk vanished into the distance, but torches lined the walls of the cavern so the front of the ship was clearly visible. That’s when I noticed the scars and burn marks on the hull.

  Now that my brain was finally functioning on all cylinders again, it wasn’t hard to put two and two together and come up with four. There had been no meteor angling across the planet, burning all the vegetation in its path. It had been this ship, and obviously something had gone wrong, something that made it crash.

  Thor had been standing patiently beside me, waiting for me to accept what my senses were telling me. Now he moved farther down the ship and put his hand on a panel set into the hull. Silently a door slid to one side, letting artificial light spill out of the opening. No wonder the technology on board Max hadn’t awed the Buri. They were used to it.

  Come. With the one-word order, Thor stepped through the hatch, and I followed him, the slightly metallic scent of canned air assaulting my nose. Behind me, the door slid shut with a faint whirring noise.

  The area we stood in was an airlock, but the inner door was wide open. Through it I could see what had to be the command center. It took up the whole front section of the ship, and every wall was lined with electronic equipment. Thor moved confidently to a console filled with blinking lights, paused a moment to survey them, made a slight adjustment to one of the controls and then glanced over his shoulder as I joined him.

  “This is the ship that brought the last of my people to this world. We arrived fifteen of your cycles ago, after hundreds of cycles traveling through space. But the ship had suffered damage from space debris, and instead of going into orbit as it should have, it crashed. The Limantti kept the ship from disintegrating, and managed to protect it by hiding it inside the mountain, but part of its programming was destroyed. It did not awaken me until it detected the approach of another ship.”

  “Awaken you?”

  He turned to another console and pushed something. A screen sprang to life, and a gasp escaped me as I stared at the image it showed. Row after row of Buri-sized deep-sleep units hummed and gurgled quietly as they went about the business of keeping their occupants alive.

  Here, finally, was the source of that bright clump of strands I hadn’t been able to identify. Great Goddess. At one point I’d actually thought the clump might be more Buri and then got distracted by the individual strands. Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees.

  I swallowed hard, twice, before I could speak again. “How many?”

  “Three thousand made the voyage. It was all the ship could hold.”

  “How many females?”

  “Half.”

  Abruptly, adrenaline shot through my veins, hard on the heels of a wild surge of elation. With a whoop of excitement, I grabbed Thor and did a fast jig on the metal deck. “Do you know what this means?”

  I didn’t wait for an answer. “It means that Dynatec can’t file Chapter Twenty! You aren’t the indigenous species. You’re colonizers. Dynatec can’t touch Orpheus Two, because when it comes to an unknown planet without a sentient species in residence, by Federation law, it’s finder’s keepers. The Buri found it first, so the planet belongs to them.”

  My feet took off on another exuberant dance before I got them under control. “I can’t wait to see the look on Dorn’s face when she finds out. You have to wake them up. All of them.”

  Thor had remained silent throughout my antics, his expression inscrutable. Now he merely shook his head. “No.”

  “No?” I stopped bouncing and glared at him. “If it’s housing you’re worried about, the boss can have a load of Quonset huts here in three days, as well as enough food to support them until you can get more crops ready to harvest.”

  “No, I will not wake them. Not until I know it is safe, or unless a particular skill is needed now. And only the ones who possess the skill will be awakened.”

  “But—”

  “You believe the others will attack my people,” he interrupted me. “You said our weapons are no match for theirs, and you’re right. But as long as most of my people are here, safely hidden, the others cannot destroy us. The ship’s program has been repaired. If a code is not entered once every four sevendays, it will awaken my second in command.”

  “So the village is a decoy?”

  “It was, yes. I needed to know how your people would react to us. But it is also our home, and we will fight for it. If those of us now awake die, then my second will set the ship to only awaken him again after a hundred cycles have passed. And so it will continue until he deems it safe to bring out the rest of my people.”

  I put my hand on his arm and spoke earnestly. “Thor, there’s no need for these elaborate plans. The second we leave this cave I’ll contact Max. He’ll let the boss know what’s happened. Dr. Daniels will then arrange to have Dynatec’s application for a Chapter Twenty denied. If necessary, he’ll send Federation troops to forcibly remove them from the planet. Dorn can’t take action against you after that or she’ll end up spending the rest of her life imprisoned on Inferno. By this time next week, everything will be over and your people will be safe.”

  He didn’t bother taking the time to think about his response. “Then next week, when the others have gone, I will reassess the situation and make a decision based on the new circumstances.”

  The man’s middle name was stubborn. Come to think about it, stubborn could have been his last name for all I knew. Not that I blamed him. If the only members left of my species—assuming I had one—were in deep sleep on a spaceship, I’d be a tad overprotective too.

  Good grief. The things I didn’t know about him and the Buri were legion. The very
thought of everything that had brought them to this point was staggering. Add that to the information I wanted on the Limantti, and I didn’t know where to start.

  We will start by returning to the village. I will answer your questions there.

  “All of them?” Okay, call me suspicious, but he hadn’t exactly been forthcoming up till now.

  “Yes, all of them.”

  He ushered me back into the cave, then turned to seal the hatch closed. I noticed the unfamiliar male staring at me, so I waggled my fingers and gave him a big smile.

  “Hi there. I’m the new Shushanna.”

  He just looked blank until I said Shushanna, and then he glanced at Thor, one brow arched in question.

  “She is Shushanna and my bond mate,” Thor confirmed.

  Immediately the new guy bowed his head in acknowledgment. Oh, yeah. That was much better than being stared at as if I were a dangerous and exotic critter on display in a zoo.

  I strutted the rest of the way to the cave’s entrance even though I could feel Thor’s amusement. The guard followed us and took up his previous stance as we exited.

  As soon as we were clear of the cavern walls, I relayed everything I knew to Max, told him to get the information to the boss, and then continued my questioning. “You said you’d traveled hundreds of cycles. Do you know exactly how many?”

  “No. The chronometer on the ship was part of the program destroyed.”

  “Interesting. Humans discovered Ashwan two hundred and fifty cycles ago. The atmosphere was gone and the buildings were covered in a massive layer of ice. It takes ages for that to happen. You must have been in deep sleep for thousands of cycles, instead of hundreds.”

  He winced. “I do not wish to think of it.”

  Couldn’t blame him for that. It was giving me a headache and I hadn’t lived through it. Or maybe I should say slept through it.

  Shaking off the image of thousands of Buri, sleeping in those boxes for a seemingly endless number of cycles, I changed the subject. “Did you deliberately head for this planet, or was it an accident you landed here?”

  “The Limantti chose this planet even though it was a great distance from our home. She indicated this world had everything we needed to survive and prosper.”

  “So the rock told the Shushanna—” I stopped and grimaced. “That sounds like the beginning of a really bad joke. Maybe we should wait until we get back to the village, and then you can tell me the whole story from the beginning.”

  “Without interruption?” He was smiling when he spoke.

  “Hell no.” I shot him a glare for knowing me so well. “If I have a question, I’m asking.”

  “Yes.” He sighed. “I know.”

  We walked the rest of the way in silence, brushing against each other occasionally, either by accident or intentionally. When we reached the village, Churka was leaving the communal kitchen, heading toward her house, and it reminded me I hadn’t arranged for Claudia’s clothing.

  Since Lurran had already gone to bed, we stopped Churka and explained what was needed. With a yawn, she assured me she’d get together with Lurran first thing in the morning and work something out, although she seemed a bit puzzled by Claudia’s desire for a covering. For that matter, so was Thor, but I could tell he just chalked it up as an unexplainable female mystery.

  Apparently males were males regardless of species.

  As soon as we entered the stone building, I mentally checked Claudia’s status. She was sound asleep, but I could still feel satisfaction oozing from her, and I smiled.

  With his palm resting on the small of my back, Thor ushered me past her room to our own. Once there, I took a jug of wine from a shelf and poured two wooden glasses full before joining him at the small table. Just to be on the safe side, I took the jug with me.

  He’d lit two of the oil lamps, and in their dim glow we made ourselves comfortable on the pillows. From the doorway to the terrace a gentle, fragrant night breeze wafted, making the lamp flames dance gracefully.

  “Okay,” I said quietly. “Tell me how a people whose most advanced weapon is a sword can build a spaceship complete with computers and deep-sleep chambers.”

  “The swords are our primary weapon,” he told me absently. “But we normally keep them in storage because they aren’t needed on a daily basis.”

  Taking a drink of wine, he leaned back, resting an elbow on a bright yellow pillow. “Our lifestyle is from choice, mate, not necessity. As you will learn if you let me continue.”

  Chagrined, I zipped my lip and nodded.

  “My people are an ancient race. Some of our scholars believed that at one time we were as small as your people are, and that we lived under a different star, a brighter, warmer star. I only know that we lived long cycles without knowledge of the crystals, and that the facts of their discovery and learning their uses are lost in the past.”

  He took another drink of wine, his gaze distant, as though he were seeing the things he told me. And, I realized, I could see them too, through the mind bond. Mesmerized, I closed my eyes and let the images roll through me.

  “But use them we did,” he said. “And the power they gave us was unimaginable. With them, we built a technology that ruled our world. Great cities sprang up everywhere, and our population exploded. Life was good. Until our growth began to outstrip our resources.

  “Even then our sun was weak and dying. The planting seasons were short, the cold intense. And as the cities grew, they took more and more of the land once used for crops.”

  This time, he gulped the wine, and I didn’t blame him. I’d caught a glimpse in his mind of what was coming. Silently, I refilled his glass, and then closed my eyes again, the better to see what he was showing me.

  “We call it the Age of Darkness.” His voice was low and deep, as if it hurt just to say the name. “The crystals were turned into weapons of horror as people fought for every scrap of ground, every morsel of food. Families turned on families, brother against brother, and sister against sister. It was during this period that the great ships were created. From above, they rained down fire and ruin. The cities were destroyed and our blood soaked the places where they had once stood.”

  From down the hall, I felt a sudden pulse of something I can only describe as remorse from the Limantti, and I blinked in surprise. Apparently the stone was eavesdropping on our conversation. The intrusion reminded me of something, and I opened my eyes to gaze at Thor.

  “I thought you told me the Limantti had never hurt anyone before?”

  “It hasn’t. What occurred was due to our own innate greed, our need for power. We didn’t even know the Limantti existed. And while the Limantti knew of us, it was alien. It didn’t understand what was happening, how the crystals were being used.”

  From the little I knew of the Limantti, that made sense. It was the most alien intelligence I’d ever encountered before, and working for Alien Affairs, I’d encountered a lot. “So what happened to change things?”

  He sighed and gazed down into his wine. “A young girl, badly wounded in battle, escaped from the fight and sought refuge in a cave out of sight from those hunting her. She had lost her whole family, and the pain from her burns was so great she merely wanted a quiet place to die in peace. Instead, she found the Limantti.”

  Thor wasn’t the only one I was getting images from now. The Limantti showed me a young Buri female, blood and debris coating her ebony hair. Her dirty face was streaked with tears and it was obvious she was in shock from the horrible burns covering her body. Slowly, every move a study in agony, she dragged herself into the welcoming darkness of a small cave, where she collapsed and went still.

  And then her wounds began to heal. Gradually, at first, as if the Limantti wasn’t quite sure of what it was doing, then faster as the stone learned.

  Several days went by, but eventually the girl woke, whole and completely healed. At least she was physically healed. It wasn’t until she touched the stone that the Limantti discovered the
extent to which the crystals had been used, the pain they had caused. What the stone considered a gift had been employed as tools of destruction, and the Limantti was appalled.

  Immediately, the Limantti took back control of every crystal on the planet. From that day to this, she made sure the crystals could only be used on a small personal level. Never again would she allow one of her colony to become a weapon.

  Thor was watching me, and I knew he’d shared the information the Limantti gave me. The image of the girl stuck with me, and I realized she was one of only a handful of Buri I’d seen with black hair, if you counted the ones on the tapestry.

  “She was your ancestor, wasn’t she?”

  “Yes.” His lips curved in slight smile. “She was our first Shushanna. When the crystals stopped working and the bloodshed ended, she gathered what was left of our people and they began anew. It was then, in disgust and pain over so many unnecessary deaths, that we swore an oath to never again use weapons that could kill from a distance. We also decided to keep our lives simple, to concentrate on preserving our planet for future generations. And, except for the Rellanti, we decided not to use the crystals at all.”

  Curious, I tilted my head to one side and studied him. “Did you have a lot of children in those days?”

  “No.” He straightened into an upright position and put his glass on the table. “During the Age of Darkness, females fought just as fiercely as males. Bearing children interfered with their ability to wage war, so they used the crystals to inhibit the process. By the time it was over, it was too late. None of our females was able to conceive, and the knowledge to change them back had been lost. Only through the Limantti, with the Shushanna’s help, were the females able to bear young. Since then, a new Shushanna was born during each generation, and so it continued until our sun began its final death throes.”

  I leaned across the table and took his hand. “You revived one of the ships.”