by Barry Kirwan
***
Professor Dimitri Kostakis, with his uniquely persuasive personality, convinced IVS to allow him and his assistant, Jennifer, to be part of the study team for the ship, mainly on the grounds that they already had several days head-start on understanding its controls.
Jennifer adopted a low profile. Dimitri had explained how, when they had been attacked by the creature – which he now described as some kind of prehistoric hammerhead shark – they had dropped to the foot of the ship. He had then used the limited power and maneuverability left to traverse one of the sides, where they had found a large flooded open hatchway that led to a chamber where there was air. After they had entered, the hatchway had closed and would not open again, so they had left the capsule and entered the ship. He had no explanation as to why they had no decompression sickness symptoms.
Jennifer had played along with the story, nodding appropriately, adding small details that made the story seem true, whilst leaving the broad brush strokes to Kostakis, so the focus remained on him, and she seemed merely the dumb, not quite pretty assistant.
The truth was they had no idea what had happened: she had been about to jettison the escape hatch when a sharp, rising white noise had made her black out. They’d awoken inside the sphere in a chamber filled with air. As for the hammerhead shark, she knew it was no such thing, and probably as much a relic of Earth as this ship. It had to have been the one to drag them into the ship’s hold, for no reason she could even guess at. But she didn’t want to be interrogated, mind-probed, or profiled – and her lover’s story, which was, in true Dimitri form, just about what everyone wanted to hear, was preventing that, for now, at least.
Dimitri’s enthusiasm and brilliance soon had the IVS scientists trusting him as part of the technical team, if not its scientific guru. What they had found out so far was that it was indeed a space-faring vessel with massive storage and accommodation space. The controls consisted of some kind of three-dimensional holographic projection of space, with a means to enter co-ordinates plus a time reference. This seemed obvious to her, since stars and planets in the galaxy are in continual, if slow, relative motion. They had not yet figured out how to use this temporally-stamped destination entry system, and it was here that Dimitri’s rare grasp of what Einstein’s relativity theory really meant, in practical terms, stood him in good stead with the rest of the scientists. There were also what she guessed were start and stop controls. It was ridiculously easy, aside from figuring out the digital sequence and numerical language, and the temporal referencing system.
But she couldn’t believe people who could build such a ship would have made it so simple. Or were all the science fiction books and vids written by tech-junkies, and was this ship exactly how starships would one day be built? Space-flight for dummies? Her instincts rejected it. Something was very wrong. We’re the dummies.
"Eureka! I’ve got it, I’ve found it!" Dimitri exclaimed, one of the few who could get away with using Archimedes’ catch-phrase. Her spirits lifted – she still loved it when his sheer genius broke through. She crossed over to him, as did several others, to the console where he and several IVS scientists and technicians had been working for hours. But before she arrived he was surrounded by people, and was too short to see over their shoulders. She didn’t have to wait too long, however.
"Jennifer! Jennifer! Where is my wonderful assistant – you must see this!" The small crowd parted to let her through – they all knew her by now, guessing she was his muse. She smiled coyly, buoyed by his loyalty to her. A technician dutifully gave up his seat, and she sat down as Dimitri explained and expounded, expanding his entourage. She watched more than listened, his wild arms flying about in Mediterranean style, his eyes dancing like the child he was, a child of this universe, discovering its treasures while others went about their mundane existences.
He had worked out the digital sequence, not a simple binary code, but a cube-based numeric, a natural logarithm to the power of three rather than two. He said he’d noticed some figures on the console that were, he believed, also cube roots. She saw it now, too, but surveyed the faces around her as she always did, as his protector, to gauge their reaction. The technicians were impressed – those few who followed it only mildly less than those that did not understand, but all were nevertheless carried along by his wild and chaotic explanation. One of them, the IVS team leader, spoke up.
"We’d have spotted it sooner or later, but it might have taken days or even weeks. Well done, Professor." She saw in his eyes no jealousy – that was Dimitri’s unique survival trait, to be smarter than everyone else in the room and have them thank him for it without envy.
Without warning he pulled her towards him and gave her a bear hug. She succumbed, wishing they were alone, that he would really love her as much as his work, his discoveries. But she understood the checks and balances of their relationship. When he released her she gave him a private wink of pleasures to come – she always rewarded his genius, and his loyalty to her. Besides, one of the female technicians – Italian by the look of her – was young and pretty enough to catch his eye. Jennifer had seen her occasionally staring at him with saucer-shaped eyes when she thought no one was looking, and wasn’t going to leave anything to chance.
Four hours later they got the holo-projection to function. She watched closely. Although Dimitri and the other IVS engineers were working it out, it still seemed rather too easy for her, as if the ship itself was trying to help them learn. She wanted to discuss this with him privately, but there was no ‘private’ while the whole team, including him, pored over the console, making small discoveries every thirty minutes. By ten pm they had achieved something truly remarkable – they had accessed the ship’s navigational star-charts and had plotted, in three dimensions, a course between Earth and Eden. Mercifully, the ship had added the required temporal parameters automatically. Champagne corks had popped at that point, and they were all but worshipping her Professor.
She was tired, and during the hubbub, she spoke into his ear that she would be waiting for him in their cabin – one of several hastily installed affairs, an all-terrain tent, inside the ship itself to save time going to and from the surrounding vessels. "Don’t be long," she said, and headed off. She left the ship’s top control tower floor and descended to find their temporary lodging. They were on a different floor from the others, as they were the only "couple" onboard, so there would be no disturbance. She stripped off and walked naked to the portable bathroom cubicle and stood under the small rain-shower until it ran cold. She cleaned her teeth, chewing the brush as she always did, rather than brushing normally.
She came back to the tent and opened a small personal backpack she’d retrieved from their original IVS ship the day before. She pulled out a burgundy silk negligee and matching panties and put them on. She knew her legs were too short to be particularly attractive, but rather than cover them up, the lingerie she wore for such occasions simply re-directed the eye further up her body, to her hopefully more enticing assets. She lay belly-down on the futon, and adjusted the negligee to give Dimitri an appealing view when he arrived. She planned to stay awake until he arrived, but she was exhausted, and it was so quiet…
She watched a school of hammerhead sharks swimming far below her. As she dove closer to them, she noticed they had insect-like arms. They were playing with something which was thrashing around, caught between them. Blood swirled in the water. She heard someone call out her name, his voice gurgling. Except this person shouted "Jenny," and she never let anyone call her that: it had been reserved for someone very precious. The sound kept repeating, and she began weeping; her brother Gabriel was being torn apart by the hammerheads. She tried to swim downwards, but one of the creatures held her back. She thrashed to get free, and then the creature shouted her name, "Jennifer!"
She woke with a start, tangled in the folds of her nightdress and in the confused arms of her lover.
"My love – are you alright? A nightmare, just a nightm
are."
She looked at him, her face streaked with tears, her voice shaky. "Hold me," she murmured.
She never dreamt. Ever. She curled up inside Dimitri’s strong, warm arms, trembling, eyes closed, reaching back towards the dream that had receded into the depths. She called out again and again in her mind to her long lost brother, all the while clutching the locket on the necklace that she never took off.
Chapter 31
Hohash
The mirror travelled in long undulating arcs, weaving between the dune tops, as Eden’s mid-morning tangerine sun reached its summit. Blake wound the skimmer alongside, twenty meters to its left, never letting it out of his sight. He hadn’t decided if this alien artifact was good or evil; only that it held valuable information on what awaited mankind in the galaxy.
Rashid sat behind him, Kat – unconscious – strapped in at the rear, all of them helmeted to allow communications as the wind whipped by. Kat had blacked out shortly before leaving, he presumed due to the mirror again. But he couldn’t delay their departure, especially after the flare the previous evening. The mirror matched Blake’s every turn or change in velocity. The journey was becoming hypnotic, and he hadn’t had much sleep. He needed a distraction, or else he might just slam straight into a dune.
"Rashid, mind if I ask you some questions?"
"Not at all, I still have eleven months of conversing to catch up on."
"Right. First, how come those creatures – the ones you say you’ve seen – let you live? And keep your antenna?"
"A good question. I have only seen one of them a handful of times – or perhaps I saw a different one each time. In any case, I was far away and, well…"
"Well what?"
"Well, an old Irish friend of mine once said, if you go looking for trouble, you’ll find it. So I applied the reverse."
"You mean you saw where it was and never went back there."
"Exactly."
The wind continued to strafe past them, a distant roar in Blake’s helmet.
Rashid spoke up. "Commander, did you ever do something, even by accident, and then worry it might have triggered a catastrophe?"
Blake came out of a long bank a little early. He wondered if Rashid was trying to throw him off the scent. "No. Others might disagree. You?"
"Well, not yet. But, you see, you asked me a question yesterday I have not yet answered."
Blake saw a glint of reflected copper – the Lander – a few minutes away. "The desert wasn’t here before. You mean you think you caused it?"
Rashid cleared his throat. "No, no. It’s just that when the desert arrived, one of the creatures came to investigate. That was when I rigged the neutralino detonator. If it goes off, it will increase the desertification rate a hundred-fold. This whole continent will become a desert within weeks." He added, in a quieter voice. "I keep a remote trigger with me at all times."
"What do you think caused the desert?"
"I do not know." His voice was subdued.
"Your ship, the Phoenix, is the epicenter, isn’t it Rashid?"
Rashid’s voice rose in register. "Believe me, Commander, I have carried out every scientific analysis I could, and have no explanation."
But still, your ship is ground zero for the desert. "How fast is it spreading?"
Rashid’s voice softened again. "In a year, this entire continent will be desert."
Inside his helmet, Blake bit his lip. The bad news was stacking up: barren soil, hostile aliens, desertification...
The skimmer skipped over the threshold of the desert, small grey-green bushes appearing around them like splashes of spring rain. Blake examined the onboard navigation chart from yesterday – the desert had moved closer to the ship, around thirty meters. He switched back to the more immediate threat – the creatures.
"Rashid, how would they know that you’d rigged the ND to explode, or even know what it is or what it would do to the desert – and why would they care?"
"The first is a most interesting tactical question, is it not? How they would know? But that is almost certainly a mere matter of technology, a trick once understood, soon taken for granted. The second question you raise is the one I believe to be of strategic importance – why would they care?"
They drew closer to the Ulysses. Blake recognized the signs of an explosion on the hillside – a small impact crater, a medium-sized area denuded of bushes, leaving only scorched trees. He gunned the skimmer’s engine. A green light flickered on the skimmer console. About time, Blake said to himself.
"Zack, do you read me?" But even as he spoke he saw the tell-tale flash of a ground-to-air missile being launched – it raced toward him then veered to the right. The mirror!
"Zack – it’s friendly, dammit!" He pulled hard on the skimmer to shear away from the missile that had locked onto the mirror’s image, since it had no heat signature. In the last fraction of a second the mirror dove low enough to scrape the desert floor, sending a stream of sand up into the sky. The missile missed it by centimeters and slammed into a dune behind it. A mushroom of sand skewed upwards, momentarily blocking out the sun. There was no explosion: Blake guessed Zack had fired an armour penetrator, to avoid damaging the skimmer. He racked through the gears to slow down, Rashid sliding into his back as they decelerated hard. The mirror sped off and vanished into the hills.
"Blake – Skipper, can you hear me!" Zack hobbled towards them, using the long range pulse rifle as a makeshift crutch.
Blake drove the vehicle towards Zack, skittering to a stall, and then unsealed his helmet visor as the vehicle stabilized and powered down. "Some welcome, old friend. What was that for?"
Zack reddened. "Well, you weren’t answering the radio, and from here it looked like you were being chased by that thing."
Pierre approached, and Blake got the impression he hadn’t shared Zack’s opinion.
"Who the hell is this?" Zack looked Rashid up and down, noting the helmet Rashid had just taken off. "Jeez – don’t tell me IVS got here first!"
"Introductions later – first, help him with Kat."
But Zack was already there, catching her limp frame, trying to carry her and balance on his gel-cast leg at the same time. Pierre took her from him and rushed towards the Lander. Blake took off his helmet. It was good to be back to his ship. He eased off his ride, and faced Zack. "Tell me about the flare."
***
Kat’s head still swam from the mirror communication; she felt like her brain was full of drunken bees.
"Kat?" Blake said, close to her face, locking her eyes onto his own.
She realized she should respond. She tried at first to signal using the colors, and then remembered how to talk. "Yes, Captain. I’m a little out of it. I’ve been… somewhere else."
"What the hell’s been going on? Is she okay?" Zack asked.
"Will be," Blake replied. "Long story." He nodded his head toward Rashid. "Very long."
She saw Zack squint at her first, then look to Rashid. Zack was gripping the rifle firmly – and then she saw that Blake detected Zack’s distrust of Rashid. She was paying more attention to body and eye movements than speech. Her perception had been altered; not surprising, she thought, after where she’d just been.
"It’s okay, Zack." Blake said.
Kat listened to the introductions, the words flowing around her like a choppy sea. She heard the contours of each speaker, the rise and fall of the tone, the timbre, and read the emotions underneath all of it. The fear, the aggression, the concern, underlying all of their speech was like ribbons of color. But they were individually tempered by more subtle hues: honesty and scientific objectivity in both Rashid and Pierre, the tight control-maintenance of Blake, Zack’s tough-image exterior that belied his compassionate nature. She focused on Zack’s speech. There was something else there, something that didn’t belong. She felt like she was watching a foreign vid with alien subtitles. However, the talk of the creature and its attack on Pierre made her snap back into focus on the words, t
he content.
She sat up sharply. "Now. I have to talk right now."
"Okay, Kat. Go ahead. The rest can wait," Blake said.
No trace of irritation in Blake’s voice, she noticed. Good. She saw Pierre get up and activate a recording device. She began.
"Okay – this is going to be a little muddled – I’d ask you not to interrupt if possible, otherwise I might lose track."
"Go ahead Kat, we’re listening." It was Zack. Something she meant to remember about Zack; too late – already gone.
"Recording," Pierre said.
She took a deep breath, and reached back into her mind. "I was on the home planet of the… Our-shee-wan; Ourshiwann … best pronunciation I can give – their mouths are different to ours and they have no tongue. They don’t really use sounds at all, but they have a name in case visitors – I’ll explain later – come by. I – I know, because, you see, I was one of them for a while."
"What?"
"Later Zack," Blake said, raising a hand.
"I had four legs, like two of you have seen, no head, and no eyes as such. The senses are around the circumference of the body and the top. We – they – see, or perceive is probably better, three-sixty degrees around them, like a sphere. They communicate in colors that make soft watery sounds." She glanced from Pierre to Rashid.
"It’s so beautiful. For a while I was still thinking that way, that’s why I’ve not been saying much." And as if by stating it, she somehow catalysed it back into her forebrain: her vision shifted, colors swimming around them all, rainbow hues, including some colors she knew she shouldn’t be able to see. Rashid radiated mauve warmth at her, like a cloud; Blake’s earnest face was haloed by a shimmering vermillion shroud, more metallic in tone.