First Flight

by Claremont, Chris

  "I agree. That's what's been driving me nutso." Her voice broke off as Ciari lunged for the door, shoving Andrei violently aside, and wrenched it open. The others piled into the corridor after him in time to see a slightly built female Alien disappear around a T-junction down the passage with Ciari close behind.

  "Damn, they're fast," he growled a minute later as he rejoined them.

  "What the hell was that all about," Nicole demanded.

  "Every time I turn around lately, there seems to be a cat standing close by with some kind of portable hand-held module pointing in my direction. And the moment they realize they've been spotted, they scoot. Or disappear into a crowd. I grant you, maybe they're naturally nervous. Or shy. They're certainly curious. Those critters could be taking pictures, just like we did when we came aboard. Unfortunately, cops are naturally paranoid. While you were talking, I noticed the door was open a fraction. Except that I recalled closing it after Hana left. Sure enough, right outside was that Alien, with a module."

  "I've noticed that, too," Nicole nodded, "though they hadn't made anywhere near as great an impression on me."

  "Remote scans for their data banks?" Andrei suggested. "Anything's possible."

  "If they're up to no good, Ben, there isn't a helluva lot we can do about it."

  "Dynamite legend for our tombstones, Shea. Right up there with Cat's 'take care, y'all.' "

  "On occasion, Marshal, you're a righteous prick."

  "I'm alive. I'd like us all to stay that way."

  Their dead-end corridor ended in a T-junction with a wider, longer hall and as they turned back to their door, Hana poked her head around the comer and called excitedly to them.

  "You pass an Alien?" Ciari asked her, adding a detailed description of the one he'd seen only for a moment. "About a hundred meters along," she replied, "heading UpShip. Why?"

  Nicole told her and with that slight prodding, Hana too realized she'd been under surveillance. She wasn't surprised and even less bothered, noting that she'd probably do no less were circumstances reversed.

  She led them to a large, mostly open room. In its center was the biggest hologram field Nicole had ever seen and that first look made her gasp in astonishment. There was no sense that she was looking at an image; for the seconds it existed, the projection was another reality, so complete she tried once to touch it, to convince herself it was illusion. The three dimensionality was perfect. The first picture was a beach scene and as she floated around it, the perspective changed, so that she moved into the surf, looking down the beach towards a cliff-lined horizon that faded naturally into daylight haze, flinching instinctively as a large wave crested past her. Then, she was out in the open ocean, grinning in delight at the sight of her friends standing on what appeared to be a splendid white sand beach. She looked up, and had to cover her eyes with her hands, squinting her lids almost completely shut, to protect herself from the glare of a star significantly brighter than Earth's Sol. Hotter, too—there was an environmental sub-routine operating within the holo field—and she felt sweat prickle her skin, heard strange cries as even stranger birds circled overhead, smelled the familiar salt tang of the sea. That, at least, these two worlds had in common. The only thing missing was the physical feel of water, and for that she was supremely grateful, considering she was probably in way over her head. At which point the ocean hissed and boiled nearby and something huge broke surface with a nerve-shattering roar, baring a mouth that was easily big enough to swallow her whole and jagged teeth well able to rip her to shreds. Reflex action threw Nicole backward head over heels, pinwheeling through air—and holo field—her spin dunking her head underwater, for an equally terrifying sight of an iridescent body ten times her size, with giant flukes and wickedly barbed spines. Then, Nicole spun into the air again, flailing like an idiot in a vain attempt to regain her equilibrium. By her next spin, she'd reached the land, which did her no good at all, because that solid ground was as much an illusion as the ocean and she spun through it just as easily, a few seconds of absolute darkness before she popped into bright sunlight again and, finally, into Ciari's arms. Her heart was thundering, but not loudly enough to drown the sound of laughter from her crew.

  Indeed, once she'd calmed a little, she couldn't help but join in at the memory of how she'd looked coming ashore. Ciari, bless him, held her close, letting her draw what strength and comfort she needed. She thanked him with a slight nuzzle of lips against the hollow of his throat and a slighter kiss, acknowledged with an equally slight tightening of his embrace.

  "Godalmighty," she said, her voice still shaky, "did you see that monster."

  "Not too shabby," Hana commented.

  "They have sharks," Ciari said, releasing Nicole, who took a moment to restore herself to a semblance of normality.

  Hana made a disparaging noise; obviously, she disagreed. "Or Orcas," she said thoughtfully. "Killer whales."

  "Intelligence?" Ciari asked, understanding her reference.

  "Impossible to say, Marshal, but that was the most expressive face I've ever seen on any sea-faring creature."

  "You're anthropomorphizing."

  "Maybe. Be fun to find out, though."

  The scene changed, to a stark mountain range, snowcapped peaks glittering diamond-like in the dawn sun, the air shivering with the rumble of a distant avalanche. Next was a forest, plants with wild, incredible shapes and colors that took their collective breaths away. Trees—or what passed for them—towered overhead, branches blocking the sun and reducing the ground to a perpetual twilight. They sensed a multitude of fragrances, not all of them pleasant, but saw no signs of animal life. Nicole kicked herself off the deck, but she hit the roof of the compartment before she'd passed through the bottommost tier of branches. While still in the forest, the seasons changed. Leaves burned bright with autumn's colors—a variety and intensity that put Nicole's New England home to shame—and the ground was buried in snow higher than the astronaut's heads. Even with the trees stripped to their bare branches, they could barely see the sky. They found themselves in a wild, empty land, and then before a waterfall plunging what appeared to be miles from the crest of a magnificent escarpment. They saw polar caps and an island covered with equatorial jungle. Even Ciari was caught up in the wonder of discovery, this unparalleled opportunity to explore a completely new world, and they lost all track of time as they explored each projection, calling out their observations and excitedly comparing notes.

  "A wondrous travelogue," Andrei noted, while a howling blizzard made them instinctively huddle together, even though they felt only the barest hint of its fury.

  "Okay, sourpuss," Hana grumped back at him, "we're seeing what they want us to see, does that really matter? We're still learning."

  "Oh, they're certainly being very free with views of their world," Andrei agreed. "But don't forget, Hana, I am the child of a society that views the control of information by the State as paramount. As a consequence, we become quite adept at reading 'between the lines.'

  "What have we seen," he asked, "really? Wild lands. For all we know, parks. And never on a clear night, when we could see their sky and thereby get a sense of where their planet is. We have never seen their Moon. Do they have one? Two? Any? Where do these people live, and how? Are there cities, technological centers, manufacturing ones? We have been given a sense of their world, not their society."

  "Not completely," Nicole said. "Assuming they're feeding us accurate data, the air is clean. We've seen very little unnatural haze, which we would if they were extensively burning fossil fuels for power, and it's sweeter than anything I can remember on Earth."

  "The question is, why are they doing this?" Andrei wondered.

  "Test."

  "How do you mean, Ben?"

  "You've brought four strangers abroad, representatives of a presumably unknown, but technologically equivalent, culture. You want a sense of what kind of people they are. So, you turn them loose in a sort of playground. How do they respond to the si
tuations they're thrown into, how do they interact? Are they a strict hierarchy, or loose and relaxed? Give them an opportunity to play and sufficient time to allow them to drop their guard, so we can see them as they really are. If they don't drop their guard, that's an answer, too."

  "Wonder how we scored?" Nicole asked, mostly to herself.

  The room changed again, returning to a beach scene, though not the one that had been manifested originally. The sun hung low in the offshore sky, which they arbitrarily christened "west," painting it with reds and oranges and purples and a wild streak of green. The atmosphere wasn't as blue as Earth's, there was just the barest hint of color to it when the sun was high. The beach, and land beyond, stretched away flat to the south, but rose steeply in the other direction to a towering, rocky bluff that loomed like a minor mountain over their heads. All of them noted a winding path etched into its side, rising to the top, which they could clearly see but which they were equally convinced would turn out to be above the ceiling, just like the roof of the forest From nowhere, a cheery bonfire materialized on the sand, in the lee of a small bluff that protected them from the evening breeze, and they hunkered down around it, enjoying the phantom warmth, Nicole smiling in appreciation as Hana waxed eloquent about the capabilities of this projection system. She caught Ciari's eyes, gave him a silent signal, and he left them, to return minutes later with their instruments.

  "The fire, the sun, the sea," she told the others as she tuned her guitar, "it's too good an opportunity to waste." They responded with grins and arranged themselves comfortably against soft stools scattered around the room, that, disguised by the holo field, appeared to be hummocks and drifts on the beach. Hana snuggled close to Nicole while Ciari kept his distance, facing her an arm's length away. Andrei stretched full-length on the far side of the flames, gazing up at the darkening sky.

  Ciari started with Bach's Partita Number 3, and Nicole quickly joined in. They segued smoothly to Mozart and then Nicole broke the mood by launching into the wildest, raunchiest rock-and-roll song she could remember. Hana was on her feet instantly, dancing up a storm, madcap poetry in motion as she boogied weightlessly over to Andrei and pulled him up to join her. The sun touched the horizon, atmospheric parallax trebling its size, clouds scudding across the ocean, far out to sea, suddenly rimmed with fire. So much of the moment, the setting, was illusion, that Nicole didn't blink an eye as Paul appeared laughing before her, applauding her performance with a wryly mocking tilt to his eyebrows that warned her not to let this acclaim go to her head. Her conscience, as she'd been his. He loved the ocean as much as she, but always lamented the fact that American beaches, and the women who roamed them, were so much tamer than those of his birthplace, Rio de Janeiro. Just last year, his father had been named Ambassador to Brazil and the pair of them had gone to visit during their post-graduation leave. How, oh how, am I going to tell him Paolo's dead, Nicole thought and attacked her tears, this resurgence of a grief she knew would never completely pass, with another Lila song. Paul had introduced her to all his favorite haunts and by the end of their two-week stay she'd become as relaxed and uninhibited as any carioca—a transformation that amazed them both, because neither thought she had it in her.

  Now, it was Ciari's turn to break the mood, by playing a quiet, rueful folk song, a Newfoundland sailor's lament about being far from home in a strange sea, bound for an unknown port, a yearning both for these undiscovered harbors and for the loved ones left behind. Andrei knew the words and filled the air with them, his perfect voice sending chills up Nicole's spine. The sun was gone, the sky a velvet dome above their heads. For the first time, she beheld the stars of the Aliens' home. There were dual shadows on the sand—those cast by the firelight combined with a fainter one going the other direction, thrown by the full moon that had just risen in the East. It appeared bigger than Earth's satellite, though Nicole had no way of telling whether it was due to actual size or its being closer than the Moon to its primary, and she knew that it would mean horrendous tides. Her eyes drifted down from the pock-marked face of the Alien moon, and found shadows that hadn't been there before. Aliens, at least a score, a fair chunk of the surviving crew, lined along the wall, some standing, some crouched or sitting, some together as couples or trios, an occasional quartet, very few alone. They were watching the four Terrans and, Nicole noticed, listening to their impromptu concert. When Ciari paused, she came in with an old Scots Christmas carol called Wassail, probably the most riotously joyous, good-humored and just plain silly song she knew. As she'd hoped, it finished raggedly, in four different keys, with all of them laughing like idiots.

  Then, suddenly, a deep, resonant tone rolled through the room and Nicole and the others looked upward at the crest of the bluff, where the sound had originated. The scene changed, beach gave way to a flat expanse of naked rock, and they all knew they were atop the bluff. Their bonfire had vanished, but when Nicole cast a glance over the edge of the precipice, she could see it cheerily burning on the sand far below. She breathed a faint whistle of amazement at the genius programming this fantastic simulation. And the raw technology needed to pull it off.

  The Alien Captain strode past them to a meter-high cairn set in the center of the small plateau. She faced the horizon, lifting her arms high and wide apart, and unleashed a high, ululating cry that echoed and re-echoed around them. A moment later, her crew did the same, although their collective voice was much deeper. They'd arranged themselves in a rough semi-circle before the cairn, with the astronauts off to one side, between them and their Captain, and each time their Captain spoke, the crew offered a response.

  "A ceremony," Hana whispered.

  "Memorial service, most likely," Ciari said.

  "Should we be here?" Andrei wondered, casting a nervous eye towards a doorway he could no longer see.

  "I think we're meant to be," Nicole told diem all. "There was nothing to prevent them shunting us back to our quarters before starting. For whatever reason, they want us involved. Better hush now," she finished, even more quietly, noting a couple of obviously angry glares from the Aliens nearest them and remembering how acute their hearing was. "We don't want to disturb things any more than we already have."

  They heard a skirl of what could have been bagpipes on another world, which gave way to a softer, more melodious sound, underlaid by a strongly rhythmic drumbeat. The Captain brought her arms together above her head, then lowered her barely touching palms to breast height, assuming an almost human attitude of prayer. An arm was thrown sharply back and to the side, the momentum pulling her weightless body off the ground, into the air, and Nicole couldn't repress a gasp of awe as she began to dance. The Captain moved in three dimensions, each gesture of such poetic eloquence that the finest dancers on Earth were put to shame. There was simply no comparison.

  A faint mist blurred the air, giving the plateau an unreal, faery aspect. The drum-sound grew louder, an insistent beat that brought the crew forward to begin their own dance and stirred resonances within Nicole herself. Five of the Aliens had been wrapped from neck to toe in brilliantly colored gowns, and as they moved through the assemblage, hands reached for them, gently peeling away the cloth in strips—each panel a different color—until they reached the cairn clothed only in simple shifts of pure white. Then, as the Captain danced above them, they matched her moves, perfect mirror-images, one by one pushing away from the ground to rise past her through the air and disappear into the ebony darkness overhead.

  "Those who died, rising to Heaven," Ciari noted, pitching his voice so only Nicole would hear.

  The music picked up its tempo and before anyone could stop her, Nicole was among the dancers. There was another minor crescendo and the other three found themselves impelled by physical urges that would not be denied. Each was partnered with one of the Aliens, but, impossibly, before their eyes, that partner slowly transformed into one of their lost companions. Hana danced with Paul DaCuhna, Ciari with Cat Garcia, Andrei with Chagay, each of the dead clad
in the same robes the Aliens had worn. Only Nicole danced alone, making her way to the cairn, to take the Captain's place in the air above it. And, as before, hands reached out to strip the avatars. The three humans tried to follow as their friends approached the cairn but they were held back in gentle grips that could not be broken. Their eyes went to Nicole as she repeated the Captain's dance, a flawless performance, her moves and manner becoming less human, more Alien, as it progressed. As before, the avatars matched her, but then, Nicole came down to the plateau, to circle among them, taking a moment to partner each, much more than a moment with the one representing Paul, bidding this last farewell. And they were gone. And the drums were louder, the music more elemental and demanding, the mist a fraction thicker, burning the throat and lungs as vintage whiskey does when swallowed too much, too quickly. Nicole sensed, in that rapidly dwindling part of her consciousness still taking notes, they'd been drugged, but she didn't care. Her heart had been ripped from her once more, her grief and shame laid bare for all to see, and the only solace was in yielding totally to the music and the dance, to sear away the pain with exhaustion. She faced the Captain, and then Hana as the Captain spun away towards Ciari. She found herself torn in two, gripped with an eerie double vision, experiencing the moment fully while simultaneously observing it Godlike from outside. The Captain returned to her, and a smile lighted Nicole's face with joy. Throughout the evening, save for the briefest of turns with Hana and Andrei, the Captain danced with none save Nicole and Ciari. And as time passed, it was more and more often with Nicole. Whenever she was gone, her place was taken by Hana. They never touched, but the space between them seemed to crackle with energy, the forging of a bond neither had anticipated yet neither refused. Nicole looked at Ciari, wondering why he stayed apart from her, and her mouth formed a perfect O of astonishment as she saw his features fade under an overlay of an Alien face and body. Was this illusion, she wondered, a trick of the hologram? He was as tall as the tallest male and though not so broad, his body rippled with a power and indomitable will that would give the strongest of them pause. A tiger, she thought, my tiger! And knew, even as she thought it, that was a lie. He was—and would forever remain—no one's but his own.