by Kylie Chan
I ran the search again, but that was the only hit. I did a search of the news feed for the past three months, and nothing came up at all. I stared at the screen, now seriously concerned. I shouldn’t have been worrying about him so much – he was a long way away, and I’d never see him again – but his life was important to me.
There was a tap on the door. ‘Jian?’
It was Shiumo. I opened it for her.
‘Did your family say anything about Richard?’ she said without entering my quarters.
‘No. Just that they haven’t heard from him either.’
‘I respect his privacy, Jian, so I won’t have Marque interrogate your secure network about him. He asked me to leave him alone, so I will.’ She lowered her head. ‘I’m sorry. I miss him too.’
‘No news at all?’ I said.
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘It’s like he’s disappeared. Marque?’
‘I’m fully synched,’ our Marque sphere said. ‘He’s gone classified. Nothing public about him. I’m sorry, guys.’
‘I wrote him a letter. Can you take it back for me?’ I said.
‘Yes,’ Marque said.
‘But keep it between you and Marque,’ Shiumo said. ‘I won’t have anything to do with it as long as he’s requested I stay away.’
‘Dammit,’ I said under my breath, and sat at my little desk again to scroll through my messages.
‘I’ll leave you to it,’ Shiumo said, and disappeared.
After I’d read everything twice I left my room to go check on Emily. Her door was locked, and she was radiating grief and misery inside.
I tapped on her door. ‘Emily?’
‘Can you help me?’ she said, her voice thick with tears.
‘Let me in.’
She opened the door; her face was swollen and her eyes were red. ‘Jian, can you help me?’
I put my arm around her, closed the door, and led her to her bed. ‘What happened?’
She waved one hand at the screen, but the words wouldn’t come out. Eventually she managed a single strangled, ‘Look.’
‘At the message?’ I said.
She nodded, and wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand.
I sat in front of the screen. She’d closed the message from her family so I opened it. There was a photo album at the beginning, attached to a message from her mother and father. I skimmed through it. The usual stuff: photos of them smiling in front of a new prefab residence on some land that had been reclaimed from the sea; her brother grinning hugely and holding an adorable ginger kitten; a short video of them all herding a flock of sheep into a pen, the steep Galloway mountains behind them.
‘Sheep!’ I said. ‘They’re bringing back a traditional industry of Scotland. You must be so proud of them.’
She collapsed sideways on the bed, sobbing uncontrollably.
‘Uh, okay,’ I said, and checked the rest of the messages.
The sheep were doing well, a first crop of wool … And then a formally worded official letter from the Home Office. There’d been an avalanche above her parents’ farm and they’d all died.
‘Snow,’ I said with wonder. Earth hadn’t seen snow in more than two hundred years.
I read further. The change in climate after Shiumo’s intervention had caused regular snowfalls on the mountain. This past winter, they’d had more snow than ever, and in the spring it had slid off the mountain onto her home. Her entire family was dead.
I sat next to her on the bed and held her for a long time, using what little psi skills I had to ease her pain, and wishing I could do more.
I relieved the boredom of stacking the lichen onto the frames by mentally composing a message to Dianne and Victor for Shiumo to take back to Earth on her six-month resupply visit.
The stupid thing is that we don’t have enough to do. It’s mind-numbingly boring, but at the same time you never know when something will fail and you’ll be in a desperate fight to keep the colony alive. Most of my time is spent sticking super-hardy lichen to frames in the hope that it’ll start a water and oxygen cycle, and we can move on to more Earth-compatible plants. I hope the baby is well. Thanks for the photos you sent with Shiumo.
‘So Lena and Kenny have started seeing each other,’ Ella said to me as she misted the lichen with water. ‘Kenny was already sleeping with Alex. All three of them were bored, so they went for a threesome.’
‘And how did that work out for them?’ I said.
‘They liked it, and invited me for the next one.’
‘That’s not a threesome, that’s a foursome,’ I said.
‘You still don’t know if your impregnation was a success,’ Monique told Ella. ‘Don’t risk the second generation.’
‘Too early for the sexual activity to have any effect. Don’t worry, I’m careful.’ Ella’s voice became mischievous. ‘How about you and Emily, Jian?’
I shrugged in the suit, but of course she didn’t see it. ‘Friends with benefits, that’s all.’
‘Either of you due to be mothers? She’d make a great co-parent.’
‘Nah,’ I said, sticking the lichen more forcefully to the frame.
‘Oh yeah, the dragon,’ Ella said meaningfully.
‘I never slept with her,’ I said. My breather pinged. ‘Thank god for that,’ I added under my breath.
I stopped work and stretched my back, then checked the oxygen level. ‘I need to recharge.’
‘Sure thing. Go talk to Kenny – he wants to invite you too,’ Ella said.
‘I have enough to do without messing around with you and Kenny,’ I grumbled.
‘That’s the problem,’ she said. ‘None of us have enough to do.’
I trudged through the stronger gravity back to the dome. The carbon-dioxide-heavy atmosphere made the sky a streaky river of glowing red and gold. I stood for a while trying to decide whether what appeared to be high-atmospheric clouds were real or my imagination. Eventually I gave up, took a deep breath and held it, and removed my breather. I squinted at the red sky: the clouds had gone. Probably just condensation. I wiped my visor, but before I replaced the breather I noticed a rock nearby was smeared with a splash of dark red. A bolt of excitement rushed through me, and I returned my breather and ran to the rock. I checked it carefully. I was right: the rock had lichen growing on it. The lichen had spread from the racks onto the planet’s surface, and was growing outside our cultivated area. And if it was on these rocks, New Europa’s wild winds could also have spread it for hundreds, even thousands, of kilometres. The exponential growing effect could have started.
I took a few photos of the lichen, then hurried towards the dome, which was tinted red from six months’ worth of planetary dust that covered it. I entered the airlock, closed and cycled the external door, then removed my breather and placed it into the rack to recharge. I raced to the internal airlock door, jumped from foot to foot as it cycled, then ran into the dome and straight to Commander Vince’s office.
He was talking to Edwin; they were laughing together.
‘Geoff,’ I said, breathless from holding my breath in the airlock.
‘How’s Ella?’ he said. ‘Is she okay?’
‘She’s fine. But it happened!’ I waved my tablet. ‘I just found some lichen growing away from the racks. Spontaneous reproduction. We made it!’
Edwin whooped. Commander Vince pressed the comms button to share the good news with everyone in the dome. He opened his mouth to speak, then his face went strange. I picked it up too: it was at the edge of hearing, but definitely some sort of air transport device – and getting louder.
‘The hell?’ Commander Vince hit a different button on the communicator on his desk. ‘Marque? What’s going on?’
The colony’s Marque sphere didn’t reply, and we shared a concerned look.
The noise was getting louder still. If it was a rotocopter, it was a big one, and was landing just outside the dome.
Commander Vince hit the comms button again. ‘Any of you outside the dome, come in immediately.
Can anyone see what just landed?’
‘It’s the most gorgeous ship I’ve ever seen short of Shiumo’s,’ Ella said. ‘It’s small – only the size of a small bus – but sleek. You have to see this, Geoff.’
‘Ella, get into the dome now!’ Commander Vince said. ‘Anyone else out there, come in right away.’ He looked at me. ‘Are they likely to be hostile?’
‘I want to say no. But the fact that Marque is missing is a very bad sign.’
He nodded. ‘Jian, with me.’ He pushed the comms button. ‘Emily, I need you armed discreetly and with me right now.’
I followed Commander Vince out of his office into the dome’s central atrium. The colonists were standing around looking bewildered.
‘Everybody except security into quarters,’ Commander Vince said. ‘Anne with us to record what happens. Relay it back to Josh in the dome and he can transmit it to Earth.’
‘Where’s Marque?’ Emily said as she joined us. She fitted her weapon into its holster at her side.
‘We don’t know,’ I said, and she and Anne looked grim.
‘Lock it down,’ Commander Vince said into comms. ‘Everybody who’s trained for weapons, arm yourselves and take defensive positions. Anne, load up the posterity camera. Stay well back and record everything on livestream. If something happens to us, make sure Earth knows about it.’
‘Weapon for me, sir?’ I said.
‘You know the answer to that, Choumali.’
I pushed down my resentment and nodded.
We went into the airlock, collected some fresh breathers, then exited the dome. The ship had landed a hundred metres away. It was twenty metres long, with projecting fins down its side that made it look like a graceful sea creature. We could see ourselves in its reflective black surface. A crack of light appeared at the front end of the ship, and we readied ourselves. It opened into a three-metre tall hatch with stairs.
The alien appeared. It was taller than us – over two metres – and wearing a breather over its face. It was humanoid in shape, more slender and graceful than us, and wearing a tan-coloured jumpsuit not unlike our own. It had pointed ears on the top of its head.
I studied it carefully as it approached, trying to see past the breather to the face inside. The alien wasn’t wearing gloves, and the backs of its hands were covered in soft chamois-like tan-coloured fur. It turned its hand over, revealing oval pink pads like a cat’s.
‘Oh shit, it’s a cat,’ I said softly.
Commander Vince glanced at me. ‘Quick, Jian, what do you know about them?’
‘Too late,’ Emily said as the cat came to a stop in front of us.
They’re cruel, narcissistic, and not as technologically advanced as the dragons, I said. Shiumo warned us not to give them anything. They have no concept of personal property, and think everything they want belongs to them.
The cat raised its hand and opened and closed it, mimicking a mouth speaking.
‘You want to speak to us?’ Commander Vince said. ‘Welcome to New Europa, a colony of the Euroterre region of Earth. We greet you in peaceful friendship.’
He waited for it to reply. Instead it raised a small rectangular device and gestured a come-on to Commander Vince. It made the open-and-close motion again.
‘Oh, you need some samples for your translator,’ Commander Vince said, and gave it a quick lesson in English, using his tablet to show it pictures and corresponding words.
After three minutes, the cat interrupted him. ‘Do you have any new people here?’
Its translator’s tone was flat and emotionless, making it impossible to assign a gender to the cat.
‘New people?’ Commander Vince said, bewildered.
‘I will trade for new people. Young adults. How much young do you have? I want to buy them. If your young ones are smart and quick, I will trade a ship for them.’
‘Our children are not for sale!’ Commander Vince said.
The cat tilted its head. ‘If you don’t give me some children, I will kill you all.’
‘I don’t think the translator is working correctly,’ Commander Vince said. ‘Would you like to come inside, talk more and see if we can’t establish cross-species relations? What is your name, honoured sentient?’
‘Relations?’ the cat said, and smacked its lips loudly. ‘You have been relating with the dragons? We do not relate with other species – it is bad!’
‘I meant talk in friendship,’ Commander Vince said. ‘We greet you in peace, and would like to learn more about you. Please, come into our dome where we have an oxygen atmosphere, and we can talk. Do you have a name?’
‘I will come,’ the cat said, and headed towards the dome with us trailing it. ‘How did you travel here? I see no ship.’
‘A dragon brought us,’ Commander Vince said. ‘Princess Shiumo has been helping us colonise this part of the galaxy.’
‘Has she offered to make children with you so you can travel by yourselves?’ the cat said.
Commander Vince and I shared a look.
‘No. She says it’s a bad idea,’ he said.
‘That is what all dragons say, until they have you controlled and happy and having many children with them,’ the cat said. We entered the airlock and it looked around. ‘So primitive. You are at First Contact? The dragons are helping you colonise to gain your trust?’
‘Shiumo’s doing it because she likes us,’ I said.
‘Soon you will be overrun with half-dragon children and your species will be mind-controlled,’ the cat said.
The lights went green and we removed our breathers.
The cat checked a device on its wrist, then removed its own breather. Its face was longer and narrower than a cat’s, but there were definite similarities. It had feathery whiskers that divided into more threads as they left its face; and its eyes were smaller and further down its snout than an Earth cat’s, making its appearance slightly uncanny. Its eyes were deep brown, and it was hard to see where the pupils ended and the irises began.
Commander Vince spoke to me softly out of the corner of his mouth. ‘Jian, get out of here, find that scale, and call Shiumo right now.’
The cat leaned in close to Commander Vince and sniffed him. Commander Vince’s eyes widened and he pulled back, then relaxed as he realised it was probably a cat greeting.
He smiled ruefully. ‘I’m sure we don’t smell pleasant – we have restricted access to water for bathing. We’ve all been in the dome together for so long that we’ve stopped noticing.’
I slipped away, and ran to my quarters to fetch Shiumo’s scale. I tapped it a few times, then held it between my hands. Shiumo responded by tapping it back. I slipped the scale under the mattress, hoping it was sufficiently hidden, and went back to Commander Vince’s office.
Alan, his assistant, had provided Commander Vince and the cat with food and tea, and they were sitting at Commander Vince’s small meeting table. Emily stood next to the door, guarding.
The cat glared at the teapot. ‘We do not touch the dragon drink.’
‘Water?’ Commander Vince said.
‘That is acceptable,’ the cat said.
Its body language seemed stiff and unresponsive; and its unblinking eyes – staring at each of us in turn – were disconcerting. I couldn’t read any emotions off it at all. It registered like a mirror ball: self-centred and reflective.
‘These are some of the vegetables we have grown here ourselves,’ Commander Vince said proudly. I smiled; he’d been dying to show off our horticultural success. ‘These are potatoes; we slice them thinly and cook them in hot fat to make them last a long time without refrigeration.’
The cat pulled out a small device and placed a potato crisp into it. It nodded, removed the crisp and popped it into its mouth with a flash of long sharp canines.
‘Good?’ Commander Vince said.
The cat shot to its feet and pointed what was obviously a weapon at Commander Vince, who raised his hands. Emily pulled out her revolver and turned it
on the cat.
‘Stand down, Emily,’ Commander Vince said. He nodded to the cat, his hands still up. ‘I’m sorry if you didn’t like it. We have other food for you to try. We meant no insult.’
The cat swung its weapon to point it at Emily. ‘Lower weapon. Slowly,’ it said.
Do you want her to shoot it? I asked Commander Vince telepathically.
He shook his head. ‘This may just be a misunderstanding. Let’s not start a war.’
Emily put her gun on the floor, and backed off with her hands raised.
The cat turned back to Commander Vince. ‘Give me all of them.’
‘All of what?’ Commander Vince said, confused.
The cat pointed with its free hand at the crisps. ‘All of those foods.’
‘I can’t give you all of them – this is our food,’ Commander Vince said. ‘We need to eat. Perhaps we can trade them for other food?’
‘You will find something,’ the cat said. It gestured with the gun. ‘The dragons will feed you. Show me how you grow this food.’
Commander Vince turned to exit the office, making strong eye contact with Emily as he passed. She held off, waiting for the right moment.
Shoot it the minute it’s out of the office, I said in a general broadcast. It’s holding us hostage.
Commander Vince and Emily shared a short nod.
The cat gestured towards me with the weapon. ‘You go as well. Everybody else, stay here. I want those foods.’
I stepped out of the office, and ducked. There was a series of lightning-fast reports, and a few people shrieked with shock. The colonists who’d been waiting to ambush the cat all fell, dead. The air filled with the acrid smell of burning flesh.
Emily ran back to get her weapon, and the cat turned and shot her before she was through the door. She fell face down.
I took a step towards her – to find the cat’s weapon in my face. It moved incredibly fast; faster than all of us put together.
‘Emily?’ I said, my heart racing.
She made no movement, and didn’t appear to be breathing.
‘Anyone else resists, they will die,’ the cat said. It pulled out a different weapon, now armed in each hand. ‘This one burns as well as kills. It will burn your home down. Now take me to the food.’