by Sam Coulson
“So what’s his game?” Ju-lin asked, the conversation was going too slow for her taste.
“New Haven is up in the mountains,” Lee continued. “I’m going to guess that MineWorks located some high-value minerals in the mountains, and Hollace has a mind to set-up a mining operation to stockpile and export whatever bits of shiny they can find off-world for a profit.”
“They move the colonists off of Lagrange and ship them out here to be free labor for a new mining operation, nice scam.” Ju-lin said, glancing over at me. “Though I don’t see why we’re having a secret meeting in the middle of the night, or why he is here.”
“MineWork’s mineral development plans are not our concern,” Lee shrugged. “Corporations do what corporations do, and everyone who lives and dies in the shadow of the Protectorate’s Dreadnaughts is out to flip a few credits and fatten their wallet. If any of the colonists believed that there wouldn’t be any strings attached when they boarded up those colony ships for a brand new world then they need to get their heads out of their asses. MineWork’s motivations are not our worry. What concerns me is that it looks like Hollace has already began prospecting and found something that seems… let’s say unusual.”
“Unusual?” Ju-lin sat up, her interest piqued.
“Yes,” Lee nodded toward his son. “Marin intercepted a coded wave that Growd sent up to the orbital relay. The message was addressed to MineWorks corporate.”
From what I could recall from my nights with the Slate, signals could not be sent directly through the flux points that ships traveled between worlds, so colonies relied on an unmanned long range communications courier drones. If the colony needed to send a message, they could send a priority signal to the unmanned orbital communications relay, and it would dispatch a communication drone to the destination and deliver the message.
“Intercepted?” Ju-lin’s eyebrows raised and she looked over at Marin, amused. “You? Mr. Legalist?”
“As Dad points out, we’re far from the umbrella of the Protectorate’s law.” Marin was clearly proud of himself for bending the rules. “When we docked at the orbital terraforming station I got access to their Comsat system and added a coded redundancy.”
“You bugged MineWork’s orbital monitoring station?” Ju-lin leaned back in her seat. “Okay brother, I’m almost impressed.”
“What did you find?” I tried to make the question sound as nonchalant as possible. My mind burned with questions: Did they know where I came from? Had they found others like me?
All three paused and looked at me, startled by the unintended urgency in my voice.
“Expecting something?” Lee gave me a long and probing look.
I was silent. Lee continued, watching me as he spoke
“They found some kind of ruins buried in a hillside. Growd’s report didn’t include any pictures or vids. He says that the terraforming had scoured most of it and that there isn’t much left, but some stonework remains. He seems to be certain that whatever is there is very, very old, but dating the area is impossible because the terraforming process corrupted any carbon on the site.”
“What kind of ruins? Did it say?” I blurted out, though I wanted to be quiet and patient, I found I couldn’t help myself.
“No, his report didn’t provide any details,” Lee either didn’t notice, or chose to ignore my anxiousness. “He did, however, find what he thinks is some sort of writing. He notes that he intends to get a scanning crew down there within the week because, in his words: ‘it may be here after all’.”
“It?” Ju-lin asked. “What is it?”
“That’s my question,” Lee answered. “He’s sent the same message twice more over the following days. Whatever it is, he wants to make sure that MineWorks gets the message.”
“This is all well and interesting,” Ju-lin broke in. “But we’re not archeologists or linguists. Hell, I barely passed basic human history.”
“Ah, but you’re wrong there,” Lee interrupted and turned to look at me. “One of us is a linguist.”
Ju-lin and Marin looked at me, and then exchanged skeptical glances.
“The kid?” Marin asked.
“Elicio,” Lee nodded toward me. “When we found you, you didn’t understand a word we said, I could see it in your eyes. Doctor Chen did some scans. He couldn’t find any brain trauma, and he saw a high level of activity in Brocha’s area: the language center of your brain. After we talked in the hospital, I had him conduct regular scans, and they told a story. As you recovered, you didn’t remember how to speak Common. You learned it.”
My mind was raced, but I said nothing.
Lee continued, “When Chen noticed it, he thought that it was some kind of anomaly, some side effect of an unidentified trauma, a concussion, or other traumatic event that caused memory loss. But when we looked at the scans your brain activity was consistent with language acquisition.”
“He was only in the hospital for a little over two months before he was released,” Ju-lin said. “And he talked to you after two weeks. You’re telling me he taught himself to be fluent in Common after a few weeks of lying in a bed?”
“More or less,” Lee answered. “Eli, I looked through the search logs on your Slate. At the end of every day you started making seemingly random searches. At first I thought it was just that, random. But then I put it together. You were learning the language as you went.”
All three McCulloughs sat quietly, waiting for me to say or do something. All I could manage was a nod.
“I don’t buy it,” Marin said. “You can’t just learn a language by lying there, you need to read gestures, context clues. I took a xenolinguistics course at the academy. Do you have any idea how rare that kind of ability is?”
“They say that when we first encountered the Collective it took them weeks to learn Common, but it took us months to learn Domari,” Ju-lin countered. “What’s that face Marin, I said I almost failed human history.”
“Yeah, well, he’s not any subspecies in the Collective,” Marin retorted. “Genetic scans say Elicio’s one hundred percent Earthborn.”
“Enough,” Lee silenced then and looked at me. “Speak for yourself.”
“I learned it,” I paused. “Maybe I re-learned it. But I sure don’t remember any of it. In the hospital, I wasn’t just lying there. My body was weak, but everyone was constantly talking to me. At first I had no idea what they were saying, but after a while it started to make sense. You’re right about the Slate. Once you let me have it in the hospital learning the language became easier. But, what you’re talking about, deciphering a written language, it’s not the same thing. In the hospital I was surrounded by people talking, and I had the Slate to look things up and help bridge the gap between the spoken and written word. You want me to go and try to decipher a language off some scratches on a wall?”
“We don’t even know if it’s language. It could be art. It could be a random natural occurrence. It could be pornography. We won’t know until you two go and check it out,” Lee said, his tone shifted as he looked at me intently. “Look, I don’t know where you came from. But my gut says there may be some kind of connection there.”
“Between me and the writing?” I stiffened. Had he somehow guessed where I had come from?
“Don’t look so nervous,” Lee said, his tone was light and easy. “Listen, I’ve found that when strange and inexplicable things start happening in the same place at the same time, that there’s most likely some kind of connection, even if we don’t understand it at the time. Most of the time we never understand it. But if you can make sense of the writing, that would be a helluva thing. But that’s not the only reason I want your help. I called you here because you’re not one of the colonists. They are a tight-knit group, and they’ve been through a lot. Did you know that 20 percent of their population died from illness before MineWorks relocated them? There aren’t many kids, and there aren’t many grandparents. That’s because the young and old didn’t survive. They don’t
trust outsiders, and with good reason. I’m sure you’ve felt a bit of that yourself. And if they don’t trust me, I can’t trust them.”
“But you can trust me?” I asked.
“Let’s just say I don’t distrust you,” Lee answered. “I’ve been around. I know when a man is hiding something. And you,” he paused, leveling his gaze at me, searching my face, “You’re definitely hiding something. But I also know how to judge a man’s intent and purpose. I’ve worked with enemy agents, double agents, and deployed a few of my own. Hell, we once had a triple agent aboard a dreadnaught who confessed to being an enemy agent, and then faked a sabotage operation to fool the other side, only as a means of getting access to a secure weapons area so that he could make off with a prototype warhead and use it to frame a weapons dealer. That one took some serious time to sort out. I’m still not sure whose side he was on.
“Those types of men are different. They have a sense of purpose, misplaced and convoluted as it may be. You look like you have more questions than answers.”
I felt a rush of self-confidence and a swell of loyalty toward Lee. I hadn’t realized that, in my isolation, I had been so hungry for acceptance and approval.
“So what do you want me to do?” my voice sounded more anxious than I’d intended.
Lee smiled.
“Based on his report, Growd’s site is a cave southeast of New Haven. When you walked in, Ju-lin and I were plotting a clear path to get there. A quiet route beyond the range of prying eyes. Tomorrow afternoon, you and Ju-lin will take a small hover-skiff. It will take a few hours overland to get near the site. Hollace may have it under guard but I doubt it. However, I would expect that they will be monitoring all electronic activity in a three kilometer circle around the site from the orbital station. So, at nightfall, you two will park five klicks away and walk in so that you don’t trigger any tech scans in the area. Then, you should be able to have a look around without being noticed.
“This is a simple in and out job. Get in there, take some high-res scans, and slip on home, then we’ll see what you can figure out. You may not be a trained linguist, but you’re clearly clever and have a head for languages. See what you can find. The message was sent a few days ago, so it won’t be long before MineWorks has a research team swarming the area.”
“Why bother?” Marin asked. “I mean, MineWorks will take the place apart and figure it all out anyway.”
“True, but this is our world, too, and I want to know what we are dealing with. Besides, if whatever we find is important enough for Hollace to send three messages to corporate, it’s worth finding out what has him so excited.” Lee stood up from the table and looked at Marin and me expectantly. That was his final word.
I got to my feet.
“Go to work as usual in the morning, I’ll send someone to pull you off your weeding in the early afternoon,” Ju-lin nodded toward me. “And take a shower before meeting me at the garage. I don’t want to be cooped up in the cab of the skiff with someone who smells like stale fertilizer.”
“Sure,” I replied, smiling stupidly at her insult. I was too busy grappling with the sudden joy that came with my new sense of belonging. It was as if Lee’s trust and knowing kindness had filled a void within me that I hadn’t known existed. I felt simple, childlike, and happy.
“I will put in an authorization for Ju-lin to take one of the fast skiffs,” Marin said. “I’ll say that you are verifying security grid scanners. Elicio is a strong back in case you need to do some digging. That way you can take some survey scanning equipment with you and nobody will raise an eyebrow.”
“Settled,” Lee said. “Elicio, I’m glad to have your help. You have a quick mind. Quick minds are useful.”
I thanked him.
“Now, Elicio and Marin, please see yourself out. We’ll sit down again when you’re back to go over what you found. Lin, to your room, and so help me, keep the music down.”
When I returned to the barracks nobody questioned me, but I could tell Jager and Boils wanted to. I smiled to myself in the darkness, anxious for the following day.
Chapter 8.
We stood on opposite ends of the field at dawn, at least eighty paces apart. Barefoot, as was the custom. Across the tall grasses our eyes met and held. Though her features are shadowed in my memories, I knew she was beautiful. My certainty of her love came like an echo.
I took one step. She took one as well. When I took another, she did the same. For forty paces, we kept the slow and even pace. The slowness was agony. The slowness was tradition. In each step, our eyes never wavered. We were locked together in silence.
On my thirty second step I nearly stumbled. My nerves were getting the best of me. I was ashamed. Then on her thirty-second, she stumbled as well. Her purple eyes smiled. I had loved her since we were children, but I loved her even more in that moment. She would always find the places to fit in the smallest kindnesses. On our fortieth step our eyes parted as we passed. Shoulder-to-shoulder.
“As spirits we pass without touching, and in passing are eternally bound.” we both said the ancient words as we kept walking. As was tradition.
When I met Ju-lin at the garage, she had changed out of her work clothes and was wearing tan pants, a blue shirt, and a fitted dark brown leather jacket. It was a little warm out for the jacket, but she didn’t seem to mind. I noticed that she was more anxious than usual. Instead of restlessly shuffling her feet, she was pacing steadily.
“Where have you been?” She asked as she rolled a rubber band off her wrist and pulled her hair into a pony tail. “I sent Kuric to get you at least fifteen minutes ago. How long of a shower did you have to take?”
Instinctively I put my hand to my hair, smoothing it out.
“Oh never-mind,” She sighed and stepped toward the hover-skiff. “Get in. No not that side, those are controls. I’m sure as hell not going to let you drive. Hurry up.”
The powered-down hover-skiff was still sitting on the ground. I opened the door and slid myself down awkwardly into the seat.
“All set?” She had settled quickly into her seat and shut her door.
“I guess so,” I responded. “Anything I should know or do?”
“Enjoy the ride?” She said playfully as she reached over her shoulder and attached a safety harness to a latch near her hip.
She started flipping switches on the control panel and the skiff leaped upward and began to float. Before it had fully stabilized, Ju-lin grabbed the controls and jammed the throttle forward, sending the skiff leaping forward. I was pressed firmly into my seat, and decided it may be a good idea to put on my safety harness.
Within seconds we were outside of the Downs. She easily wove between trees with inches to spare as we crossed the valley. I held onto my seat so tightly that my knuckles were white. My heart was racing in my chest, I was certain that she had lost control. I had heard the colonists talking about hover accidents: jammed throttles, or blown actuators, all of which ended with vehicles crashing to the surface at murderous speeds. I held my breath, ready for death, but it didn’t come.
I spared a glance sideways to find that Ju-lin didn’t look worried. In fact, she wore an easy smile. I was getting used to Ju-lin’s anxious energy: the shifting feet, the rapid speech, and her universal impatience. But I realized that it wasn’t truly universal. As she steered the hover across the rugged landscape at breakneck speeds she looked calm and peaceful. This was her in her element.
“You-you enjoy this?” I sputtered.
“What’s not to enjoy?” She laughed loudly we crested a steep rise, sending us further into the air.
My stomach was in my throat and my body tensed. The skiff, which is configured to float about half a meter off the ground, dove down and bottomed out on the rocky ground before leaping back in the air and leveling out.
She glanced over at me, flashing a wicked smile.
“You know, the colonists say you’re just an icy wench,” I said, trying to sound conversational. “I
guess that’s not true.”
She slammed on the controls, sending the hover into a tight left turn. Caught unprepared, I slid sideways. The centripetal force pressed my face against the window.
After completing two full spins, she righted us back on our path.
“Why did you do that?” I asked.
“You really have no idea how to talk to people do you?” She tossed me a sideways glance.
“I’m trying to make conversation, what did I say wrong?”
“You’ve been listening to the grease monkeys in the barracks too much,” She paused and down-shifted the hover to a more comfortable pace. “You aren’t kidding, are you? You don’t remember anything from before?”
“Nothing complete,” I said.
“Nothing complete?” she repeated. “That means you remember something, but you didn’t remember Common? I still can’t quite believe that. Though the more I hear you talk it gets more believable. So, if you remember ‘nothing complete,’ what do you remember?”
“I remember weird things, as if they had happened to someone else.”
“Do you remember anything about what kind of ship you were on?” I could see her tone lighten with the mere mention of a ship.
“No, nothing like that. Memories of walking in fields. Strange alien faces.”
“Aliens? Maybe the Celestrials captured you and experimented on you or something. They may be human, but they’re strange looking.”
“I read about the Celestrials,” I said. “But I haven’t seen a picture to compare.”
“Yeah, the Governor didn’t want to waste precious data storage with images, so the colony archives are mostly text. So, let’s see. The Skins are humanoid, more or less like us except they have no hair whatsoever. Smooth skin, angular faces, big eyes. Serious bastards. Pretty decent pilots though.”
“Skins?” I asked.
“Slang. That’s what most of the jocks call them back on Tantatern Station,” she answered. “That’s where my father was stationed before he resigned from the fleet. Back before we moved out here to the middle of nowhere. Back where stuff happened. Back when I had a life.”