by DG SIDNA
I wish all evenings could be so lovely, filled with such joy. Such innocence. But dark storms still linger over our heads. I feel them. And I fear them. It doesn't escape my notice that as I finally do fall asleep, Careena is on her side, wide awake, staring off into the distance.
Battling her own demons.
TWENTY-ONE
The next morning is sunny and bright. The boys pull the bamboo hatch off their hole and order their prisoner out. She follows directions without complaint. The swampies are too young to notice, but Careena was right; it's as clear as day to me that this girl has openly dismissed the boys as any sort of threat. She's simply playing along, like a disinterested babysitter going through the motions of a child's imaginary tea party, even while there are obviously a hundred better things she could be doing right now.
Careena addresses the girl. "You might be wondering why you can't hear your friends, yeah? Well, that's me, hotcakes. And I can do a lot more than just scramble your signals. So if you attempt to hurt any of these little boogers, I'll blow your forking head off. We clear on that?"
The girl says nothing, only nodding politely. She even allows the boys to wrap her wrists together with handmade twine, though I'm pretty sure even I could break the knot they spent five minutes arguing with one another over how to tie.
An away team is assembled to escort the prisoner to the space temple, but I ask Hagen and Dinah to remain behind. Zipporah put their safety in my charge and I want to take that responsibility seriously. Hagen doesn't argue, but Dinah isn't so easy to convince.
"You can't go alone, Miss Isabel. It's dangerous."
"I'll be safe, Dinah."
"But I want to help," the girl protests.
"I know. Which is why I need you to stay here. I need you to do something for me while we're away."
"Anything."
I look over to the swampies, to a row of innocent faces, smudged with dirt and sunburnt as they are. "Talk to these boys," I tell her. "They're too scared and too proud to come home. But they need to. And they want to. Deep down they want to come home. You and Hagen can convince them to come back with us. I know you can."
She agrees and gives me a hug, before pulling something from her pocket and handing it to me. "Take this, Miss Isabel. It will keep you safe."
It's a necklace, the one I saw in the chapel. Hanging from the chain is the small, six-sided star, its tiny diamonds twinkling in the morning light. I don't know what to say. Dinah closes my fingers around it, ensuring that I don't try to give it back. "It wasn't doing no one no good locked up in that musty chapel," she whispers.
"Alright, I'll see you soon. And thank you."
I turn to see who will be leading our expedition. Careena told the swampies she wants no more than two guides to join us. It appears Gunther and Fasolt have been selected for the mission. Neither one is much larger than a mouse.
Careena is addressing Fasolt, who has the tallest cowlick I've ever seen on a kid. "What's your name, shortie?" she asks him.
"Fasolt!" he proclaims with pride.
"Alright, Fasolt, let's get one thing straight. We're getting your friend back. You can take that to the bank. But under no circumstances are we starting a war with these schnitzelheads. So all these knives you've got, lose them."
"Ah, man!" he complains.
I can't help but laugh. Fasolt and his unfortunate bedhead came with straps and harnesses holding so many knives, forks, and screwdrivers that his tiny frame was nearly lost under all the clanging steel. As he unloads them to his friend Alberich, I realize most were, in actuality, cooking implements stolen from cabin homes in Nyssa. When he's finished, he has only one left, a spatula that he keeps sheathed in his belt like a sword.
His buddy Gunther takes the lead and we head out. We're a company of only five. Me, with some new confidence I've obtained over the last few days. Careena, with her odd quilted jacket and air of eccentric arrogance that so well defines her. In front of us are Gunther and Fasolt, mere boys, unaware of the demands destiny has placed on their young shoulders. And finally the Kheltic girl, who walks a few steps ahead of Careena's tiny pistol.
As we hike through the swamps, following strips of dry land toward what the settlers call the Lord's Sea, at one point I find myself accidentally walking alongside our taciturn prisoner. Before I realize what I'm doing, I strike up a conversation; it's simply a habit one develops on long hikes.
"What's your name?" I ask.
The girl seems surprised. She's a little taller than I am. Her skin and features are flawless. But I can't discount her as human, not like Careena does. I still see something familiar in those dark hazel eyes.
"Rhoda," she says. "Rhoda al-Khansa."
"I'm Isabel Mendelssohn."
"And your friends?" Rhoda asks.
"The boys are Gunther and Fasolt. Her name is Careena."
Rhoda nods toward the old woman. "She is angry with me. Yet I've done nothing to her or these children."
I'm not sure how to respond. "Apparently, you're not supposed to be on this world."
She looks right through my politeness. "I could say the same about you, Isabel Mendelssohn."
Touche.
She continues, respectful but guarded. "I heard the two of you talking. Your friend speaks of imaginary wars that have never happened. We are at peace with your people, I assure you. I know I was in stasis for some years before my arrival here, but I received a correspondence from my sister only seven days ago."
I should never have started this stupid conversation. "I'm sure your sister is fine," I tell her.
"The old maid claims to know more than mortal knowledge would allow."
Oh boy. "She's just prone to exaggeration and fantasy is all."
"Clearly."
There's a stretch of silence as we walk. This time it's Rhoda who picks the conversation back up. "I know what else she told you. It is also not true."
"What's not true?" I ask.
"That we're not human."
"But you have a plastic body," I point out.
"Synthetic, yes."
"That doesn't seem very human to me," I tell her.
"Would you condemn your parents were they to require an artificial hip or synthetic heart? I'm sure you'd agree they're still the same person afterward. That has always been our philosophy; improve the body but preserve the person. We simply don't wait for the heart to fail. Or the kidneys. Or the liver. I've never understood why your Earth unions don't take the same approach. It's most illogical."
I really have no answer. It's all science fiction to me. And if I'm being honest, her argument sounds pretty solid. But I've also been given the gift of foreknowledge. Or the curse, I've come to believe. So I know that the path Rhoda's people are heading down, so rational, so analytical, will ultimately lead to the abdication of their human soul.
I can imagine how it will happen. With a synthetic body like Rhoda's must also come synthetic hormones, designed to mimic the effects and desires of their organic counterparts. But for better or worse, my hormones are completely outside the realm of my control, and therefor, to some extent, so are my emotions. The same can likely not be said about the Khelts.
At some point they must realize that while hormones and emotions are required for human bonding and the experience of joy, there are darker consequences to them as well. Millions of years of evolution have left a long shadow of impulses and instincts that are now painfully obsolete in the modern age. These are the hormones and neural wiring that drive irrational jealousy, fear and xenophobia, greed, unrequited lust, uncontrollable anger. Even the unfortunate habit of gorging ourselves on sugar and desserts can be traced back to the evolutionary demands of prehistory.
So how tempting would be it be to have an on-off switch for these spigots of emotion? We could rewrite the human experience, make reading a book as pleasurable an endeavor for a child as eating ice cream. It makes me wonder what else we could do, what other unsightly parts we could crop out of the human e
xperience.
After all, how often have our ancestral instincts led us down a path of self-destruction? To drive a little too fast on a rural road? To cheat on a spouse? To attend a party out of fear of being left out, all while knowing about an important interview the following morning?
Would Rhoda fall for such trivial emotional hijinks? Could she still be swayed by the smile of a pretty face? Would she shoplift from a bodega or high dive off a dangerous cliff, just for the thrill of it? Or had her thrills been remapped onto more productive and logical endeavors?
I find myself very curious about her.
"What's your sister's name," I ask the enigmatic girl.
"Fareena."
"It's a pretty name."
She confides in me. "She was only six when I left. Now she's almost finished with youth academy. Yet for me it feels like only a few weeks have passed. I hardly recognized her face. And to think, she'll be older than me by the time I'm back home. I'd share a photo of her with you, but I don't think you do this, with the mind."
"Me? No, just by email."
"It doesn't matter anyway," she says. "I can't share thoughts, not while your friend is doing whatever she's doing."
"She thinks it's for the best."
"Perhaps later I can show you," she tells me.
"I would like that."
By nightfall we reach her ship. It's a great mining facility, sitting on the beach with arms like sewer pipes reaching horizontally over the sea before dropping straight down into the ocean bed. I understand why the swampies believed it to be a temple. The command module of the ship is cone-shaped, sitting upright like some religious pyramid, ominously dark at this hour save a few lit windows.
The moonlight is creating an eeriness along the shore that I don't particularly like. Silver light glimmers on the waves of the sea. The sandy beach is endless, broken only by the ship, an intruder that is clearly unwelcome.
"Should we wait until morning?" I ask Careena.
"No, I want to get this over with as soon as possible. Either they'll make the trade or they won't. I don't give a fork if they're in the middle of reading their bedtime stories."
Gunther whispers from behind me. "A storm is a'coming."
"A storm?" I ask.
"Yeah, you see it? Gonna be a big one, man."
I strain my eyes. In the darkness are clouds like rolling balls of angry cotton spilling out over the horizon of the sea. Already a low hanging fog is seeping onto the beach. There's a stillness in the air, one that says very soon the world was going to be turned upside down.
"Great," Careena mutters. She turns to Rhoda. "You, the walking toaster, why don't you go first."
Rhoda leads us out onto the open beach. The distance we have to cover is greater than I first thought, meaning by the time we reach the cone-shaped vessel, it's far larger, and more intimidating, than I imagined.
A wind and drizzle have arrived as well. I'm thinking that even if the Khelts do accept our trade, they won't be so friendly as to board us for the night. Our journey home is not going to be a pleasant one.
Two soldiers meet us at a ramp leading up into the ship. They are dressed in the same black outfits as Rhoda. They never raise their weapons. Instead, they lead us up several floors on a freight elevator. We're deposited into a large waiting room. We're given no instructions other than to wait.
There are several couches, which Gunther and Fasolt immediately take a liking to. They touch everything, including the paintings on the walls and the lamps.
I walk over to the large window, gazing out onto an alien sea. I'd say we're about thirty floors up. Rain is now beating angrily against the pane, but the full brutality of the storm has yet to arrive. Far in the distance are flashes of lightning. This won't be like the storm from the day before. This will be something much, much worse.
Rhoda sits in an armchair under Careena's watchful eye.
"What happens now?" I ask the old woman.
Her answer is simple. "We wait."
Gunther and Fasolt come to join me at the window, their hands pressed against the glass like binoculars while they eye the coming storm with near religious reverence. Their breath makes foggy patterns on the glass. Their silent glances of worry to one another frighten me. I realize they know something. Something that I don't.
They know what the storm has awakened.
TWENTY-TWO
I turn away from the windows when the glass doors to the waiting room slide open and a woman enters with two officers. She's tall, with dark hair, high cheekbones, and olive shaped eyes. Rhoda jumps to attention in her presence. I hope beyond hope that these negotiations will go smoothly.
The woman at the doorway addresses all of us. "I am Captain Itoti Nordenskjold of the Kheltaris Mining Directorate. I would like to personally welcome you all aboard the Isidora. I hope you have been treated well by my staff."
Careena stands. "It's all been fine, captain. But you needn't worry about any pleasantries on our account. We brought back your rubber duck. We just want our girl back, and then we'll be on our way."
Captain Nordenskjold nods. "Very well. Directly to the point. Admirable. I know these two boys from our recon drones. They are Gunther and Fasolt, I believe." The two boys perk up at the mention of their name, but otherwise return their attention to the window and the approaching storm. "I don't believe I know who either of you are, however. An introduction would be in order before we continue any further."
"I'm Careena Smith and this is my travel companion Isabel Mendelssohn."
At the mention of our names, one of the officers searches records on a tablet. He informs the captain that their sensors detected no lie, but that neither of us are in the system either.
Captain Nordenskjold sizes us up. "You're not listed in any of the colonial databases."
"Maybe your records are for schnitzel," Careena says.
Sometimes I really wish this woman could be more diplomatic. Also, one of these days, we should probably have her translator fixed.
"You must understand my concern, Ms. Smith," the captain says. "You've arrived on this planet on no ship that we have detected. Our internal scanners detect no equipment on you, yet you're jamming Ensign al-Khansa's communicator. Some would call it mysterious, given that it's certainly more sophisticated than any capability the Earth unions are known to possess."
"We're not here to bust up your illegal little mining operation, if that's what you're worried about, captain," Careena says. "Check your lie detector, if you want. We're not supposed to be here anymore than you are. Discretion is as important to us as it is to you. We just want our rugrat back."
The officer nods to Captain Nordenskjold in affirmation.
"Alright," the woman says.
I let out an enormous sigh of relief. "We can have Sapphira?"
"Of course," the woman says. "We're not child abductors. The girl was malnourished and needed attention. But you came here to make a trade. That you must still do."
I hold my hand toward Rhoda. "We brought your cadet back."
The captain shakes her head, as if I've said something so obviously wrong as to hardly be worth consideration. "Ensign al-Khansa was never your prisoner, so I can hardly accept her for trade, Ms. Mendelssohn. You must offer something else."
Like a flipped switch, the mood in the room is suddenly very tense. The captain has placed her cards on the table. Her eyes are locked with Careena's. It's a battle of wills now and I have the very unpleasant feeling that this showdown will not end well for anyone.
There's a cry from down the hall behind the captain, from the first door on the right—a little girl demanding to be set free. The sound of her voice is almost lost as winds and rains beat like angry fists against the windows, wailing in violence.
The storm has arrived.
Seconds are starting to feel like minutes.
"What do you want?" Careena manages through her teeth.
"Your jamming device. Give us that and you may all go."
"It can't be done."
I understand why the request is out of the question. Careena can't put 31st Century technology into the hands of the 25th Century, and most especially not into the hands of humanity's future adversary. It might take them decades to understand how the earrings function, it might be like handing a smartwatch over to Sir Isaac Newton; he wouldn't have the first idea how to understand the mechanisms that control it. But given enough time, eventually the Khelts would crack the secrets of Careena's earrings, and it would alter the course of history irrevocably.
"Then no deal," the captain says flatly.
To my surprise, Rhoda jumps to our defense. "Captain Nordenskjold, please, they came here in good faith."
The captain shoots the girl a look both furious and unapproving. She turns back to Careena. "Ms. Smith, how did you arrive on this planet?"
I watch Careena's jaw go tense.
Nordenskjold continues. "Where is your ship? How many forces do you currently have aboard?"
The old woman's hands are clenching into fists.
The captain doesn't stop. "To which union do the two of you answer?"
Careena hisses. "The girl, captain, or things are going to get real ugly."
"Is that a threat, Ms. Smith?"
"It's a bloody forking promise, you tart."
Oy. I have to teach this woman tact.
Everything happens in a blur after that. With a nod from the captain, the glass doors slam shut, separating us from the Khelts. Rhoda yells for everyone to get down, warning us they're about to stun the room.
I don't even have time to react. With reflexes I wouldn't have believed possible, Rhoda flings an armchair into a freestanding lamp just as it flares up with a stun charge. There's a blast of white light as the chair breaks apart and the young ensign is flung backwards across the room. She's taken the brunt of the stun charge to protect us. She doesn't get back up. She's out cold.
With her own impressive speed, at least for a lady her age, Careena has Old Bessie in hand, pointed directly at Captain Nordenskjold on the other side of a sheet of fortified glass.