by Tim Andersen
Like mine, her cell was simple, with just a pad on a wooden frame, a table, a crucifix, a wash basin. Lika sat down on the bed, and I made do with the table, which creaked under my weight. “How are you doing?” I asked, not sure what to say.
“Okay, I guess,” she said. “What do you think they’re doing with Tolan?”
I told her what I had heard.
“Myths?” she said. “I can’t believe it. They act like the human race is on the brink of destruction, bring us all the way here, and then make Tolan study old stories!” He face flushed with rage. “What are they doing to us, Goshan?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
“Don’t tell me that!” she said. “Tolan would know what’s going on. He understands them. I think that’s why they kept us separated from him. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about it. I think they’re trying to manipulate us.”
“You don’t think we can trust them anymore?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “They may look human, but they’re aliens. We can’t guess at their motivations too well. All I know is that nothing they’ve done has made logical sense. Those messages, they knew all the right buttons to push to get Tolan to come. They knew that it would hurt his pride if relations broke off. They knew he wanted their technology. They did everything possible to get you and him here and maybe me and Lars too, indirectly, and then they made sure that Lars took the ship and stranded us here. The mission is falling apart.”
She put her head down on the soft pad, and I timidly reached out to stroke her shoulder. “Surely the Abbot didn’t know Crispin would take the ship,” I said.
She bolted upright, and I took back my hand. “Of course he knew. He chose his words so that fool Lars would snap at the right moment. What I don’t understand is why they’re doing it. Why bring us here, tell us about what the Sylvanians are doing, and then prevent us from leaving or even contacting Earth?”
“But we don’t know that they won’t let us do those things tomorrow. If you just asked them for access to a transmitter, you could send a message, ask how things are going, and tell them what we know.”
“I didn’t hear the Abbot offer, Goshan. You heard him: they are not ‘prepared to do anything about this particular incident’, and they will ‘give whatever help they feel appropriate’, whatever that means. I’m not prepared to wait for hours while our people are under attack. Anyway, what would be the point? The Sylvanians have already taken the ships. Earth probably already knows all about it, probably has ships on the way to parlay for the release of the hostages. You know what I think? I think they knew what the Sylvanians were planning and about the traitors for months.”
I had a disturbing thought. “Maybe there was no attack,” I said.
“Yes, it was the Abbot’s simulation. It wouldn’t be the first time aliens have tried to trick us. There may not be any traitors either. It could all be a ruse to lure us here. The only thing we know is that the Amidans really wanted to get us all here, and now they want to keep us here.”
“Do you think we’re prisoners, Lika?”
“We might as well be until they provide another ship or let us call for help.”
Help. That word activated a memory in me. I jammed my hand into my pocket and felt around. I pulled out the commtab that Trexel had given me and wiped off a bit of fluff stuck to it. “We can call for help with this,” I said.
“Where did you get that?”
“Trexel gave it to me. It’s supposed to call a warship from the edge of the system.”
I started to activate it when she grabbed my hand. “Wait,” she said, “what about Tolan?”
“Smith? Oh, I guess we should find him first.”
Lika and I crept out of her cell and into the corridor. It was empty. It was about ten o’clock. I began to wonder if the Amidans slept. From what I had seen in movies, monastics tended to go to bed and wake up early. I hoped the Amidans did too.
The night was cold, and the stars brilliant. The Amidans had approximated a 24 hour day on the planetoid. With artificial gravity, perhaps one day, humans would build similar colonies. The non-human Amidans above glowed, turning the whole valley a reddish-purple. They were disconcerting, as if they were watching us.
“Do you think they’ll try and stop us?” I whispered, shivering, as we crossed the deserted square.
“I don’t know. I hope not,” she said, her long coat swishing past her ankles. “They let Lars go, but I think they wanted him to. Who knows?”
Not reassured, we fast-walked to the exit gate. There was no one about, and it was easy to slip the bolt. The huge doors opened silently, and, without much more noise than a prowling cat, we glided out into the night.
Chapter 5 – Hypothermia
The path down the mountain was dark, even in the glow from above. We had to be careful because one side was a steep drop-off, and loose rocks and boulders glazed in black ice covered the path. It was slow-going. After what seemed like an hour we reached the depression in the ground where the ship had been. There were no scorch marks, another benefit of the anti-gravity engines.
Across the valley, we could make out dark crevices that I had seen earlier. They looked like mere shadows now. Smith would be there, I thought, performing whatever task the Prioress had given him.
Landing from the ship, the valley had appeared narrow, almost a gully. I saw that had been an illusion created by the swiftness of the ship and the height of the mountains. The valley was at least two kilometers wide with a river in the center. As we approached the river, the ground became soggy and soon my shoes (which I had put on that morning expecting to spend the day at the office) were completely soaked. Lika wore boots, but they were not waterproof.
“My feet are getting frozen,” I said, “maybe we should have waited till morning.”
“We’re not going to let them control us anymore, Goshan,” she said. “We’ve got to get away.”
“But they’ve been so friendly. Maybe they had good reasons for what they’ve done. We don’t know that they weren’t going to give us a new ship tomorrow or call for one.”
“Friendly aliens,” she said, as we picked our way over the less soggy ground, in between hip-deep sinkholes, “are a contradiction in terms. They know us better than we know ourselves, Goshan. Of course they’ve been friendly. That’s part of their trap. This has never been about Earth’s safety. It’s about us: Tolan, you, maybe even me. They want something from us, and I’m not about to wait here and find out what it is.” I couldn’t help noticing that she was contradicting what she had said earlier today.
“It’ll do us no good if we drown or die from exposure,” I said.
“Complain, complain, complain. You’re such a city-boy, Goshan,” she said. “Be a man. This is nothing. You should try doing a triathlon in sub-zero weather.”
I could tell she was enjoying herself. She was like a restless tigress let loose.
“I suppose you have,” I said.
“In college,” she said, hopping deftly over a mud-pit, while I inched my way around it.
“It must have been tough though.”
“Not really, I was always into that stuff,” she said, holding my hand as I climbed over a slick rock and we came to the river, “Dad wanted me to be competitive, like him. I was always entering competitions: running, climbing, sports, spelling bees. He actually hoped that I would go into business too, but I didn’t like it.”
“Must have been disappointing for him.”
“I guess, but he left while I was in grad school.”
“Oh, sorry.”
She waved a hand as if to say “it’s alright, I’m over it.” We both turned now and surveyed the dark river before us. It was at least twenty meters across. “Now, how are we going to get across,” she said to herself, tapping her boot on the wet gravel. “It looks like we could just wade through. It’s not too fast.”
“Wade through? We’ll freeze to death. It must be only five de
grees out.”
“Can’t freeze in five degree weather, Goshan.”
“You can damn well die of hypothermia,” I said.
“Well, I don’t see how else we can cross it. We don’t have a boat, and there are no logs about to build a raft. There could be a bridge,” she said, looking down the river in either direction. “But I don’t see one. This valley is at least twenty kilometers long. It’d take too long to find one.”
“Are we in some sort of hurry?” I asked. A bridge sounded nice right now, as I stamped my feet to keep my toes from going numb, assuming she was not going to be led back to the Abbey.
“Goshan, we can’t be scouting up and down the river in the dark for hours on the off chance that there’s a bridge. Did you even see one from the air today?”
“No,” I admitted, “but I wasn’t looking for one. I didn’t know we’d have to cross the river in the dark.”
“Come on, then. We’re going across.” She grabbed my arm as if to drag me physically into the river.
As I did not budge, she let go. I turned around and stared back at the Abbey on the mountain, the twinkling lights reminding me of the warm bed I was missing. I almost hoped I would see---what? Amidans following us with torches, Abbot Fidelis at the head, coming to drag us back? I didn’t know.
I turned back and saw Lika’s outline part way across, dark water swirling around her. I feared that she would be swept away, even in this slow moving current. I could barely see her against the river. When she reached the center, the water came up to her shoulders, but she moved on, and, not wanting to be left alone in the dark, I followed her.
The water was snow melt from the mountains. I exhaled sharply as it rose above my belly. I hoped that, whatever Smith was doing, he had a fire going. The river bottom was slippery with slimy rocks and mud and keeping my balance was hard. I moved quickly, desperately wanting to get out of the water, which seemed to be sucking the heat out of me. Lika was waiting for me on the other side, shivering and pale but looking a lot better than I felt. “Goshan, why is your coat wet?” she said, as I pulled myself, heaving, out of the icy water.
“I’ve just waded through a freezing cold river!” I said. I collapsed on the bank. Looking up at her, I saw that her coat was dry.
“You idiot. You’re supposed to carry it over your head so you’ll have something dry to wear on the other side. Did you ever do any survival training?”
“In simulations!” I said. “I can’t be expected to remember everything.” My hands were going numb, I was shivering violently, and my whole body was covered in goose bumps. I pumped my arms around my body, hugging myself, desperate to get the heat back in.
“Damn you, Goshan. We don’t have time for this,” she said. She was angry but looking worried as I began to lurch around. At least this side of the river was solid, not marshy at all, or I would have fallen into a sink-hole.
After a while, a warm sensation came over me, which felt nice. Even so, my shivering became even more intense, and I was starting to lose my balance. I sat down heavily, nearly breaking my coccyx. My vision was starting to blur, and I shook my head to clear it. I couldn’t think.
Lika put her face next to mine and held her hand up between our eyes. “Goshan, touch your thumb and little finger together,” she said, demonstrating.
I was confused. I could not think straight. “Why would I want to—to do a silly thing like that?”
“Do it.”
I tried, but I could not. My fingers seemed to be going the wrong way. “C-can’t do it. I need to rest. I’ll be alright,” I said. “Why is it so hot in here?” I started to take off my dripping coat.
“It’s not,” she said. “Get your clothes off.” She started to help me since I was hopelessly fumbling the clasps.
This made me laugh. “Gee, so soon,” I said, which sounded like “sho shoon”. For some reason, I could not talk properly.
Seeing that I was of no use, she forced me to lie down and began to strip my wet clothes off. Pretty soon I was naked except for my underwear. I wondered if she was going to do the same. I hoped she would, but she only covered the both of us in her coat. Even her shirt was dry.
“Mmm, nice,” I said.
“Shut up, Goshan,” she said. “You have hypothermia. We need to get you warm.”
“’Ts awfully nice of you,” I said, talking like a drunk.
She knelt down and put her face against mine, her hair falling over my eyes. “Just don’t die,” she said, and hugged me.
“’ll try,” I whispered, feeling very sleepy.
I slept for hours. When I started to wake up, the morning light was beginning to shine. Although the sun was still below the mountains, it illuminated the tops of the whitecaps brilliantly.
My first sensation was of rocks and twigs poking into my back. I had not shifted all night, and, although the grass had provided some cushion, my tailbone was terribly sore from pressing into the ground. I felt sick but was no longer shivering. Lika’s dry winter coat and her warm body had saved me from death. Thankfully, the air never dipped below freezing. Although my extremities were very cold, they did not develop frostbite, and a few minutes of wiggling them restored some sensation.
Lika was asleep next to me. I was not sure what to do now. Her hair covered my face, but, through the strands, I could see my clothes on the ground, still soaking wet. They would take hours to dry, and we could not afford to stay here hours. Nevertheless, climbing the mountain was not an option in my weakened state, especially in wet clothes.
I was wondering whether the Amidans would send a rescue party for us, when I heard Lika shift. Her head snapped up, and her body became stiff. “Goshan, Goshan,” she called, “wake up. Are you dead?”
“Not yet,” I said. I felt her body relax.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” she said. “Find Tolan and call the ship.” She stood up, and I felt a rush of cold air. Instinctively, I wanted to pull her (and the coat) back over me.
I sat up and immediately wished I had not. My head started spinning, and I narrowly avoided throwing up. I lay back down. “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe we should just let the Amidans rescue us.”
“No Goshan, we can’t go back,” she said, tugging at my arm. “We’ve got to find Tolan.”
She pulled me up, and I flopped back down, pulling her small body down over me in a heap.
“Am I interrupting something?” said a voice.
Our heads jerked around. Smith stood nearby. He was wearing a red robe like the Amidans and carrying a bottle. “You seem to be in a state of undress, Fenn,” he said.
Lika dropped my arm, and I grabbed her coat, covering myself with it. She ran over to Smith and threw her arms around him. He seemed surprised and gently placed a hand over her back. “What have you two been doing, Fenn?” he said.
“Erm,” I said, “trying to find you.”
“Whatever for? And what does getting naked have to do with finding me?”
“We, uh, had to cross the river, and I got hypothermia, and, er . . .” I trailed off.
Smith held up a hand. “I wonder if I have the most useless underlings in the universe or simply this galaxy. There is a bridge right over there,” he said, pointing to a low hill around which a dirt path wound. “If you were following the trail, you would have reached it.”
“Oh,” I said.
“Now that you’ve found me, though, it is I who do the rescuing. Drink this,” he said, proffering the bottle.
I took it and opened the stopper. Whatever was inside smelled like chili peppers and menthol. I took a swig and a sweet, burning liquid roared down my throat. The burning began to spread, filling me with a warm sensation from the tips of my fingers to my toes. I drank some more, feeling much refreshed.
“Careful, Fenn, that’s forty proof,” he said, then turned to Lika, giving her a look that was almost fatherly. “Now Lika, why was it so urgent that you come and rescue me. Have the Amidans not treated you well?”
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She looked up at him. “They’ve been manipulating us, Tolan. First they upset Lars, and he took the ship, and then they told us that the Sylvanians were attacking our base there, taking hostages, but that it was too late to do anything about it. I think they’ve set a trap for us Tolan. They just wanted to lure us here. They’ve set you studying their myths to separate us! They won’t even explain what’s really going on or why Earth is really in danger or if it even is--” She said all this very quickly, almost unintelligibly.
Smith cut her off. “Slow down, Lika,” he said. “You are jumping to conclusions. The Amidans are not manipulating us at all. They are trying to liberate us.”
“They are?” she said.
“Of course,” he said. “Their plan is masterful. I cannot say I entirely understand everything. They insist that we discover the truth ourselves, but I do know that they hold our welfare in their hearts deeply.”
“They do?” she said, looking confused.
“Yes, I’ll show you.” He reached into a small satchel at his side and pulled out two red robes, a small one and a large one, and two pairs of boots and gave them to us, then started back to the path nearby. After a moment he appeared to remember something, approached me, and snatched the bottle out of my hand. “Share, Fenn,” he said, and handed the bottle to Lika, who took a long drink from it, after which, she looked rosy.
Lika slipped her new clothes on and started following Smith. I fumbled with mine, fingers not working optimally yet, but the liquor had staunched my nausea.
Seeing that I was hopping on one foot, struggling with the boots, they stopped, and Smith said, “come Fenn,” and started off again. I managed to get my robe on just in time to run after them.
The robe was warm for such a thin, loose garment, almost as if it contained electrical heating wires, and the boots were sensual, lined with fur. As the sun peeked above the mountains, I was overjoyed to be warm again from head to toe.
Once we rounded the hill, I saw the bridge Smith had mentioned. It was constructed of wood painted red, which probably made it impossible to see from a distance in the reddish glow of the Amidan night.