Silhouette

by Arthur McMahon

  “How far out there have you flown, Toruk?” asked Silhouette.

  “Feels like everywhere,” he replied. “Many, many parsecs. I’ve been to all of the human worlds, and once out to the Senate. I only docked there, though— waited in the ship. I’ve never set foot on an alien world.”

  “Me neither,” she said. “But I think Nye will be pretty close.”

  “Yeah. I mean there’s gonna be people there, at least. I’ve heard of people being kidnapped and taken to strange alien places where no human’s ever been before. Who knows what kinda crazy shit they’ve seen.”

  “They never make it back to tell, do they?”

  Time came when they neared their destination. Toruk positioned the ship while Silhouette situated herself in the dropcraft. For the sake of furtiveness, her dropcraft was being let loose quite a long distance from Nye.

  “Approaching drop point,” said Toruk. “Are you ready?”

  “Of course not,” replied Silhouette. “Let’s do it anyway.”

  “If you say so. Good luck.”

  “Make that wish more than once; I’ll need it.”

  “Will do. Drop rockets firing in three… two… one.”

  Silhouette’s body jolted backward, but she was held stiffly in her seat by the firm, rubbery cushion which had enveloped her. She could not move much else aside from her eyes and fingers.

  Hoses were attached to her body for nutrition intake and waste disposal, the craft was designed to keep her alive and well nourished for the days it would take to reach her destination. The buttons within her reach controlled various displays, but one released an intravenous fluid which would put her to sleep. Some may consider using the drug as a sign of weakness, but Silhouette did not care. She had nothing to gain from being awake, staring at numbers and meters that she had no control over, so she tapped the button and slept. When she woke up and saw that everything remained functional, she hit the button again. She slept right through the entire flight.

  * * *

  “Yaaahhh!!!” hollered Silhouette as she woke to her body being injected full of epinephrine. The landing sequence had been initiated, which included ensuring the passenger was alert and ready for action. The craft was hurtling through Nye’s atmosphere.

  Panting and eyes wide, she watched as the altimeter displayed an increasing rate of descent. Silhouette braced herself for a jarring impact, though she knew better than to expect the thing to crash. The altimeter plummeted toward zero, but a boost of force halted the dive in the moments before collision. Several feet of altitude were gained prior to the craft gently lowering itself to the surface.

  The craft landed with a thud, but the suspension kept most of the impact from hitting Silhouette. The door slid open and the interior padding expanded, pushing her forward and out of the ship. She found herself in an abandoned quarry, as was planned, and she took her first steps in several days, slowly accelerating as she started up the dirt road which led to the top of the quarry.

  At the crest of her climb she turned back to see her craft glowing a bright orange, collapsing in on itself as it went through its destructive sequence. The smell of burning metal, plastic, and dirt stuck with her as she left the quarry.

  It was night. Wispy clouds were illuminated by the bright, red moon.

  Silhouette loaded data from her Ocu and accessed the directions to find the man the Presider called X. She flipped the mental switch to activate her visuals, launching a semitransparent topographic map which was displayed across her vision. She found herself in the Drägg Desert, a place for bugs, rocks, and not much else. Accessing the global positioning system would get her noticed by the Burmin, so instead she plotted her course manually, which felt odd. The GRID ID for X placed the man’s farm a few degrees north of true west, adjacent to a set of tall cliffs and a creek.

  She ran. The night was quiet— empty— without a living soul around to be seen, but that did not ensure that no one was watching. Silhouette used the shadows of rocks and the shading of hills to connect the dots of her path, always staying close to the comfort of darkness. The farm was miles away, but she did not lack endurance.

  Sweaty, but not exhausted, Silhouette approached the outer wire fence of the property with caution. She rolled under the lowest strand and moved along the inside of the fence. Acres of green things were lined up in rows and a small house with a barn stood at the far end of the field beneath a stone cliff. She made her way toward the house.

  Silhouette came to a stop at the edge of the planted field nearest to the house and concentrated on her senses, hiding in the vegetation. An array of insects besieged the solitary porch light. A light breeze blew, making waves in the tall wheat. Fertilizer was used recently. The odor was pungent. Nothing seemed to stir in the barn across the way, and chickens slept in a pen next to the house, sheltered from the breeze and softly clucking to one another.

  The shades of every window were drawn, but Silhouette activated the thermal sensor in her Ocu and peered inside, seeing a single man sitting in an armchair next to a lamp. The water heater was the only other source of heat inside the home.

  Silhouette moved to the corner of the house opposite of the man and tried the window, but it was closed. She gradually applied upward force to the glass until it budged. She slid it open, very slowly. When it was open just wide enough to fit her small frame, she climbed inside.

  The bedroom was neat and simple. Everywhere was dark. She crept through the open door and down the hall. The man sat in the front room reading a book in the weak lamplight.

  “Hello,” said the man. Silhouette was startled, not expecting to be detected. She froze in place and thought to retreat. “I kent see yeh, but I know yer here. Not quite as sneaky as yeh might thenk yeh are.”

  She remained silent.

  “Don’t come any closer,” said the man. “I don’t want to see yeh.” He paused, waiting for a response, but there was none. “I knew yeh would be here t’day. They told me, and so I waited. There’s now a breeze licking my cheek that wasn’t there a few minutes ago, that’s how yeh gave yerself away. Was no draft before.”

  “Are you X?” asked Silhouette.

  “Yes. They didn’t tell me yer name and I don’t want to know.”

  “You have something for me?”

  “Yes. If yeh leave this room the way yeh came in there will be a small table in the hallway on yer right. The data drive in the drawer is yers. It contains everything I know.”

  “What kind of data?”

  “Maps, itineraries, schedules, other mishmashes of details on the Burmin at Jhiik Compound. Take it and leave.”

  “How did you come upon this?”

  “Years of obedience and a good memory. After decades of quality service, the Burmin released me from working the compound to come out here and grow their food. A gift of insignificant freedom, but at least it’s outdoors.”

  “This will help more than you know.” Silhouette opened the drawer, grabbed the data drive, and immediately started loading the information into her Ocu.

  “I think nething. I know nething. Get out of here and don’t come back. Yeh cannot stay on this farm tonight. If I find that yer still around this place in ten minutes I’m going to notify the compound. We never spoke.”

  “I understand.” Once the data transfer was complete, Silhouette crushed the physical drive between her thumb and forefinger and tossed it back onto the table. “Burn it.”

  And with that Silhouette left the way she had come. Once outside she closed the window and ran away from the man’s home.

  * * *

  Silhouette climbed a trail of switchbacks up the stone cliffs, finding more pastures and farmland which were divided by a single strip of paved road. She moved north, away from the road and around the backside of several cultivated fields. The farms were spread along a plain which was bordered by two separate hillsides, both joining into one as they intersected in the distance. She ran for the hills, using the terrain to keep out of sight a
s dawn encroached upon the horizon.

  Large boulders rested atop the westward hills, most having rolled away from their peaks and collected into piles within various depressions. An outcrop of rocks held in place by a few scraggly trees had caught Silhouette’s attention, and she decided to use it as a shelter. She sat down and scanned through the files in her Ocu.

  Maps. Detailed maps, mostly of the Jhiik Compound. X had created a digital 3D rendering of nearly every space within the Burmin camp. The corridors and rooms were labeled with names and the purposes for each; there was detailed information on the routines of the Burmin officers, including where they could most often be found and at what times. He had listed the names of certain Burmin and human slaves who accepted bribes, and there was even an inventory of weapons in the armory. How did that man get into the armory? A few spaces in the maps contained limited information or estimations for what they were used for, and a couple spots were altogether dark and unlabeled, but overall this was a gold mine.

  There were other maps, far less detailed representations of some of the streets in the neighboring cities of Vix and Heron Springs, but nothing on the nearby villages. Silhouette already had maps for the cities stored away, but X had provided some useful information on the towns, such as caravan routes and Burmin gathering places.

  She studied the documents for hours. The files were digitally available to her at a moment’s notice, but she wanted to memorize all that she could. After numbing her brain with names and numbers, she finally decided to rest. The first day back in action was always exhausting.

  * * *

  Vix was the largest city near the Jhiik Compound, and that meant the easiest to get lost in, to hide in. Back alleys cross-stitched the city blocks and there were always piles of trash to hide behind or parked vehicles to duck under. Sue had never visited Vix as a child, but it was where her mother had been born. She had heard plenty of stories about the city from her parents. It sounded like a nice place, at least before the Burmin had arrived.

  Silhouette blended into the city’s shadows and watched as both human and Burmin walked the streets. People hustled, often carrying heavy loads, each one busy or at least pretending to be. Humans skittered around passing Burmin, staying out of reach and not making eye contact, behaving differently than the people she was accustomed to seeing on Erde. They showed no personality, only fear— or survival, if that could be called an emotion. They moved about like rats. Silhouette looked over her shoulder into the dreary backstreet that she had been moving through and watched the people for a while as they slunk in and out of the alleyways, staying out of sight and darting over to their next source of cover. The overflowing dumpster at her side was ripe with spoiled food and she was crouched next to a heap of crusted, sticky gunk. Rats. That’s all these people were.

  The Burmin, on the other hand, walked tall and were tall. They were a bit larger than the average human, but appeared massive compared to the skulking Nyian populace. Their body shapes varied, often having broad torsos and big feet, and the bones in their faces were striking, prominent and more angular than a human’s, but not in a grotesque way. Their spines protruded from their head and back, making them appear strong and sturdy. The Burmin had no hair and no nose. Their ears were big, floppy pieces of skin which were worn similar to how people wear their hair, ranging in size, style, and color. Some of their ears were long enough to be tied or knotted. Do they keep on growing forever and need to be trimmed? Silhouette wondered.

  It was odd, all of it. Humanity was struggling to find it’s place in the universe, and here Silhouette was witnessing the future that the Presider was working to prevent. Who would have ever thought that an alien corporation could have enslaved an entire world and gotten away with it? It was unfathomable, but here it was.

  The Burmin had come to Nye because the planet’s depths were rich with rare minerals, and the surface was habitable. If they were to simply exterminate the human population and take over the planet, they would be subject to discipline from other intergalactic powers since mass killing was a big no-no under intergalactic law. Instead the Burmin arrived as a corporation, a business which built a global presence overnight and disregarded all Nye law. The planet’s paltry forces were unable to dissuade the colonization.

  Burmin ships filled the skies, preventing any aid or escape, and they built compounds to establish order and control on the ground, forcing all Nylings to become indentured servants to the Burmin corporation. The Burmin quickly established among the human worlds that any attack against the corporation would be seen as an act of war against the entire Burmin race, and the retribution was guaranteed to be devastating. The Intergalactic Senate cared little about planetary labor disputes, and without an official seat in the senate the people of Nye did not have enough power to bring attention to the injustices they faced. No one in all of the Verse was going to help.

  With no support, the Nylings were easily subjugated and given meager provisions in exchange for hard labor. Everyone worked the mines with the most obedient workers gifted less arduous service positions. The Burmin had enslaved a human world, and no one was going to do anything about it.

  Though there was no genocide, humans did disappear, and as a child Sue nearly did.

  Years ago, when she lived with her family on Nye, Sue’s mother Aasha was sick. Despite her illness Aasha was still required to work, and the Burmin offered no medical attention. Through the help of a friend, Sue had learned what medicine her mother needed and she would sneak away at night to steal medication and food. One night she was caught and thrown into a cell where she was neglected and cutoff from her family. Time passed slowly in that cell. She was unable to keep track of the days and weeks as they passed. One day while she was still locked away another Nyling, a servant in the compound, shared word with her that her mother had died.

  Sue stopped eating altogether, but was kept alive with forced nutrient injections, and after some time she was carried onto a ship with all of the other prisoners. Someone told her that they were to be sold as slaves to the highest bidder. Before heading further into the galaxy to be put on the galactic black market, the transfer ship made a short stop in human space where the lowlifes of the free human worlds would gather for their own nefarious purposes. The prisoners were placed together in a room for viewing and selection. Sue laid on the floor in apathy, eyes open and staring at the wall.

  Luckily for Sue, someone liked her. She was purchased by a dark-skinned woman with a veiled face. After being nursed back to health, she was thrust into vigorous training of her body and mind. The woman promised Sue that her family would one day be free.

  * * *

  X’s data was remarkable. Silhouette used the information to identify a particularly popular tavern in downtown where Burmin congregated. She needed to find a way into the compound, and following a drunken Burmin home should not prove difficult.

  The Rathskeller was a modest business which did not try to call too much attention to itself. The back door was propped open, venting a brightly lit, noisy kitchen. A cook stood outside in the back alley smoking something in one hand and scratching his ass with the other. He snorted loudly and spat out something gross, then flicked his smoke into the alley and stepped back inside the kitchen. Silhouette stepped toward the door and peeked inside.

  Men and women raced this way and that. They were not serving any human patrons, not at this time of night. Odd meats were being sliced and grilled, and the colors did not seem natural, but to Silhouette the smell was intoxicating. She had not filled her stomach since landing on Nye. The aroma of warm spices and fresh bread wafted through the air and it was painfully pleasant.

  Silhouette saw that people moved in and out of the swinging door at the opposite end of the kitchen and noticed that it led to the body of the tavern. She wanted to find a way in. Inside she could spy on some Burmin and maybe she would be lucky enough to grab a quick meal without being seen.

  Next to Silhouette, just inside the alle
y door, were the light switches. She flipped them and the room went completely dark except for two gas burners off to one side of the kitchen.

  “What the fuck?” yelled a cook.

  “Who turned out the lights?” said another.

  “My fillets are burning!” shouted one more. “Someone give me a damn light!”

  Bodies moved with confidence in the darkness, having worked in the kitchen for years, but they still felt around, hands outstretched as any momentarily blinded person would do. Silhouette activated her Ocu’s night vision as she leapt, ducked, and moved her body around the cooks, making her way toward the tavern dining area. A waiter burst in through the swinging doors and Silhouette slipped behind the man, sliding through the doorway on one of the backswings. She disappeared into a dark corner of a decorative alcove near the restrooms and hid behind a large potted plant as the kitchen lights came back on. Her shadowsuit bent the light around her body to create the illusion that she was nothing more than a shadow.

  “Which one of you turned out the goddamn lights?” shouted a cook. “I burned my fucking hand!”

  A Burmin passed Silhouette as it left its table and walked into the kitchen, brandishing its gun. The cooks went quiet. A moment later some pots and pans were knocked over and something hit the ground, hard. A man squealed in pain, quieting as the Burmin hollered at him. Silhouette could not understand what the alien creature had said, but she understood through its tone that it was furious. The Presider had tried to help her learn some of the language, but human knowledge of the Burmin race was sparse. The beast yelled something about anger, and something about food, but Silhouette could not understand much beyond that.

  The night rolled by. The Burmin were rather jolly for most of the evening, enjoying each other’s company over games and conversation. At one point a human waitress approached a table to refresh drinks, but she spilled some ale on top of a game board and one of the Burmin players smashed his mug over her head. The table laughed over the incident and another waiter brought over fresh ale and cleaned the table while the bartender hustled over and dragged the unconscious waitress back into the kitchen. The Burmin went back to their game.