Archaea 3: Red

by Dain White

  The words had hardly left my lips before I realized we were almost out of time. I unclipped and forced myself to stretch.

  “Excellent. Pauli, can they track us?”

  “Negative, sir… Janis is ghosting us completely, and is in position to infiltrate the Revenge as soon as it comes into range of the orbitals.”

  “Well, it looks as if we’ve won this race, but just barely. Let’s look smart folks, and get ready to disembark. Shorty, do you have ears on?”

  She sounded bright-eyed, and bushy-tailed. “Ears on, aye… what’s up?”

  “Yak and I will meet you in the cargo bay. We only have about ten minutes to work through prep.”

  “Aye sir, be right there”, she called up.

  “Pauli, you take care of Janis and Gene. Remember, Gene’s in charge. He’s a crazy old coot, but he has what it takes.”

  “Well, thanks sir”, Gene said with a grimace, coming through the companionway at the perfect moment.

  “Sharp timing, Gene - you have the conn”

  “I have the conn, aye”, he replied, standing aside for us to pass.

  “Gene, this is really important, so I am phrasing this as a direct order. You are to put your damn feet up and relax for no less than twenty minutes, mister.”

  “Relax, aye”, he said, sitting down at the helm with a smile. “You be careful down there Dak. This isn’t some destroyer, or a dumb captain hauling a pass around a rock right into our shot… this is a potentially bad place for us to pop up uninvited.”

  “Well, you can be assured, Gene. If I have to pop, I will… but we will do our best to avoid it. We really don’t know for sure what is happening here, so our mission will be stealth. Everybody set?”

  “Captain?”

  “Yes Pauli?”

  “Something just occurred to me, sir. What if they aren’t enslaving… but testing their bioweapons in the field, collecting the bodies, then dissecting them in labs?”

  The captain stared at him with a shocked look. “That’s quite a thought you had there, son, but that’s definitely worth thinking about… Em, are your sensors equipped to sense weaponized biotics… mutagens, prions, that sort of thing?”

  “Not yet, sir”, she said sweetly. “However, I will be able to shortly. Janis recently completed an excellent sensor package.”

  “Janis, you knew this was needed?”

  “Of course, Captain. Everything I am doing is needed, sir”, Janis replied immediately. “An assembler is involved with installation at this time.”

  “Cutting it pretty close, aren’t you dear?”

  “Everything happens in time, sir.”

  “I guess that’s true… Pauli, are you going to be okay son?”

  “I’m fine, sir. I wish I could come with.”

  “Well, to be honest, I’d prefer you did, son… if you’re serious. We’d really benefit from having you aboard.”

  “That’d be great, sir”, he said, unclipping from the crash bars.

  “Well, I would hate to leave you here with nothing better to do than hunt down our medicinal rum. I know Gene can’t find it, but I’m not sure about your boozehound nose.”

  “I’m probably never going to drink again, sir”, he said with a grimace as we made our way aft towards the companionway ladder.

  “Was it that bad, Pauli?” I asked, smirking.

  “Yak, the few brief blips of memory I have from that night were scary enough, but the fact I don’t remember most of it terrifies me. Drinking to excess is pretty tricky, if you don’t drink very often. A few shots here, a few shots there, and before your body has time to metabolize it, you slip away into… somewhere else.”

  I laughed, having woken up in strange places enough times to know exactly what he meant.

  He continued. “It’s like a stranger, someone you’ve never met, rallies and calls for another round, and another, and if you’re not careful, another. “

  “Well, you were the life of the party, Pauli”, I replied. “You did buy a lot of rounds. Nasty stuff too, probably made from toe-jam and worm casings.”

  “Ugh…” he went silent for a moment.

  I took pity on him. “You were pretty damn entertaining, Pauli. There’s nothing to be ashamed of, you just drank too much.”

  “Yeah… but whoever was there, Yak, that person wasn’t me. Eventually, even he blacked out, and then… after that… nothing.”

  “Not exactly, Pauli… after that we all had to take turns dragging you by a boot!” I chuckled.

  “Well, that’s the worst part. I hate the thought that I let you guys down. That’s the last thing I’d ever want.”

  Captain Smith called over his shoulder, “Pauli, just pace yourself, son. You should know by now you can’t stand with Yak and drink. Heck, he has triple your mass, and a combat-trained liver.” We laughed our way across the gun deck.

  And suddenly, Emwan spoke, in that completely strange but also completely natural way, as if she was just hanging out with us.

  “Steven, do you mind if I ask a question?”

  “Of course not, Em”, he replied.

  “Do you think it’s a good idea to put humans in mortal danger, even if it’s a requirement for successful mission completion?”

  Captain Smith turned his blank face on.

  Pauli thought for a moment. “Em, I wish we had more time to explore this paradigm… personally, I would be very reluctant putting anyone in harm’s way, but that is why I am not our Captain. I am sure, however, that our Captain shares my concern, even though it is his duty at times to make the tough decision to do so.”

  “Em”, the captain added, “in the event where the seriousness of the mission requires great personal risk and I have to put anyone in harm’s way… I work very hard to ensure that they are very skilled at survival in that environment.”

  “Are Yak and Jane skilled?”

  I snorted, but knew that right now was a perfect time to be quiet. We climbed into the inner lock and waited for the cycle.

  Pauli took a breath. “They are, Em. It is fair to say that they are probably the most skilled people I’ve ever known, or even heard of. To be honest, I’m more concerned for you, Em.”

  “But I will be fine, Steven”, she said softly.

  “Well, how do you know that?”

  She paused for just a moment. “I am able to… see it, Steven, though not exactly as Janis is able to. My perceptive interface intersects my timeline in a different manner. My perception of events is definitely more cloudlike.”

  Pauli’s face made it clear that wasn’t the answer he expected, and cringed as the weight of the captain’s stare bored through him like twin beam cannons. “If you are able to see your own track, can’t you see Yak and Shorty’s track?”

  Another brief moment passed. “Steven, I do not.”

  I fixed Pauli with my own blank stare as the door opened, and asked as casually as I could, “Em, are we away from your track for a while?”

  “Yes, Yak. Neither you nor Jane will be in my track, and I am unaware of what happens to you. Furthermore, unless I scroll forward far enough, I won’t know what it is that happens.”

  “Why don’t you just scroll forward and check?” I asked, receiving a double dose of ‘be quiet’, from both Pauli and Captain Smith.

  “Yak, Janis would like for me to try and use my intuition…” she trailed off, clearly unhappy at the thought.

  Captain Smith laughed. “Em, that’s a wonderful idea, and a perfect opportunity. This should be a pretty easy mission, dear; I think we’ll be just fine.”

  “Thank you sir, it relieves me to hear you say that. I agree with Janis that this is a perfect opportunity, but your safety, and the safety of the crew are most important.”

  “I couldn’t be more happy to hear you say that, my dear”, he replied with a broad smile, and called out across the bay, “Shorty, are you in the crab already?”

  “I just got in my suit, Captain”, a soft, tone-suppressed voice called
back. “I was thinking I better wait for Yak to get in first; otherwise he might have trouble squishing around in there.”

  He nodded, and leaned against a rack of tanks. “Well, suit up, Yak, I’ve been curious to see how this works.”

  It was a pretty cool process.

  As I drew close to the suit, the breastplate folded down, opening up the interior like an outstretched slot. The interior was very soft, a layer that felt like skin, or a slightly rubbery membrane. The arms and legs relaxed wide, ready for me to step in, once I had stripped down to my dignity.

  Feeling the suit contract against my legs until it felt like a second skin, I slid my arms into the sleeves, reached up to grab the helmet and the chest opening slid closed, tightening across my chest. I wiggled my head into the helmet and pulled it down where it settled into the front of the breastplate with a subtle, solid click.

  “You made that look pretty easy, Yak”, he said, impressed. “That’s way better than a suit, no more fumbling with valves, no more collar detents that refuse to click. Maybe I need one of those…” he paused briefly, looking for a moment at Jane and I. “Maybe later, I guess. We better get moving folks. Is everyone ready?”

  “Good to go, sir”, Shorty replied smartly, snapping a salute so crisp, it blurred.

  “Very well… Yak, after you”, he waved with a flourish.

  I made my way aboard the crab, though it wasn’t as bad as Jane had thought. The crab was definitely designed to accommodate these suits. The exterior lock would be pretty tight for both of us, but if we had to, I think we’d fit.

  As I sat down on the oversize crash couch, I could feel the suit lock in automatically – a nice touch.

  “Easy with the hardware, Shorty” the captain admonished as she thumped her helmet against the companionway overhang.

  “I’m not used to having to duck, sir”, she replied sheepishly. I laughed, without mercy. Ducking is one thing I am pretty good at.

  Captain Smith came in and gave us the customary shoulder tug, then whistled as neither of us moved a micrometer. We couldn’t have been more rock solid back here if we had been welded to the hull. He and Pauli made their way past the deployed hammocks, and through the forward lock.

  After a few more silent moments, we heard him on comms. “All hands, prepare for launch. Gene, please open the keel hatch.”

  “Open hatch, aye”, he replied.

  *****

  I could see pretty well from my vantage point behind the captain, as he rotated the crab and walked us over to the open hatch in the middle of the cargo bay. The occasional blast of wind blew mist and spray up into the opening, soaking the deck around the hatch. As we moved into position ready to drop, the captain pitched us forward, looking straight down into a windswept, roiling ocean.

  “Looks pretty wet down there”, he said softly. “Em, are you ready to go for a swim?”

  “I sure am, sir!”

  “Well, here we go. As easy as falling off a log”, he chuckled, and dropped us with a mighty splash into the waves below.

  “Gene, we’re clear and I am bringing us down to the bottom on compensation. Secure the keel hatch and park our log down here, please.”

  “Aye skipper, be safe out there.”

  “It’s the only way to fly, Gene”, he replied confidently.

  The crab bobbed momentarily from the action of the waves endlessly rolling by above us, but descended smoothly through to the calm waters below. The captain flipped on our forward arcs, though for a while there was nothing to see but particulates and other small bits of floating things.

  “Have you ever been in the ocean, Pauli?” he asked, noting my interest.

  “No, sir… I don’t even know how to swim. Growing up in a lunar hab, there wasn’t much opportunity.”

  “Pity, some of my best childhood memories were from the times we spent along the coast of New Turiana. The ocean there is blood warm, and you can swim all day. We used to go diving off of some shoals where some ships had wrecked, looking for treasure…” he trailed off, lost in a warm memory.

  “Did you ever find any, sir?”

  “Oh, no… we were just kids, and the wrecks were mostly crusty trawlers. We pretended they were pirate ships, rotting away their forgotten treasure to the depths of the ocean, but they were just ships.”

  “Was it like this, sir?” I asked, leaning forward to get another look at the rolling waves above, lit by the light of a strange star.

  “It was, Pauli, amazingly so, considering how far from New Turiana we are. Water is water, though. If it’s liquid, it tends to look the same no matter where you find it.”

  At that moment, we had dropped far enough under the surface that I couldn’t see anything, either above or below. It was a strange, disconnected, quiet feeling. Occasionally, through it grew more and more frequent, enormous strands of gelatinous fibers, tangled and woven, slid past on either side.

  “What are those, sir?”

  “Hard telling, Pauli… they could be a plant, or a critter… maybe both, maybe neither.” He paused for a moment as we drew closer to a few more, passing by as we dropped deeper. “They seem to be getting thicker as we approach the shallows.”

  I nodded silently, transfixed by the elegant and sensual beauty of the strands as they swayed in the wash of the waves above.

  After a few more moments, we descended completely and touched down on a rocky shoal, the captain picking his way through and around giant tangles, rooted into crevices in the jagged rocks. Occasionally, I saw strange little many-legged creatures moving around on the rocks below, oblivious to our passage. Other than that, we didn’t see much else, other than a beautiful school of what looked like brilliant pink orchids rapidly jetting off into the murky depths, fleeing our forward arcs.

  “Well, it looks like this is about where Em wants us to hold. Okay kids, prepare to disembark.”

  “Copy that, sir”, Yak replied on comms.

  I looked into the depths and shuddered involuntarily.

  *****

  “Ladies first, Jane”, he replied, waving me into the lock.

  “What a gentleman”, I replied, remembering hip deep mud and oozing worms.

  It was a tight fit, but we decided to go ahead and try to use the lock at the same time, as it was clearly designed for the purpose. The water started to flood in when I secured the inner hatch, and we waited patiently while it splashed and gurgled through the lock.

  Once the pressure had equalized, the outer door opened and slowly dropped down. “Feet wet, Jane”, Yak said on comms, and I slowly stepped out, slightly disoriented by the weight and strange resistance of the water.

  “I haven’t been swimming since I was a kid, Yak”, I said, hopping a little bit across the pebble strewn shoal with the current. He pulled himself free of the crab and touched down.

  “Nothing to it, Jane… but I don’t think we’re going to need to swim. Shouldn’t we move in on lifters?”

  As he said it, he immediately lifted off the surface, bobbing slowly with the current past me.

  “Well, if you say so…” I replied, and raised myself up to his altitude and followed behind him. “Maybe we can swim on the way back?”

  “You can swim all you want, I’ll meet you there”, he laughed. We waved at the captain and Pauli, looking out at us from the crab, and moved on into the murk.

  Ahead and around us, fantastic tendrils woven into intricate structures slowly undulated with the current, dancing. For a while we passed through them in silence, but then a quick flash of motion at their bases caught my eye.

  “Captain, did you see any critters on your way in?” I called on comms.

  “Nothing big, Shorty, though I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that the closer you get to the shallows…” he trailed off.

  “I don’t think there’s anything here that can really threaten us, Jane”, Yak chided good naturedly, waving an arm expansively.

  “Well, of course not… I was just curious, that’s all.
”

  “Well, there were some sort of little scuttling things in the rocks, and we saw some… ah… fish, I guess. They weren’t fish of course, but they were… well, not swimming. I don’t really know how to describe what they were doing…”

  “They looked like orchids, and they looked to me like they were jetting, sir”, Pauli added helpfully.

  “Yeah, that makes sense. I didn’t get a good look. They were mighty pretty Shorty, keep an eye open… I think you’d like them.”

  I was really overwhelmed by the majestic beauty of this undersea landscape, the thought of orchids jetting around amidst these towering silent tendrils didn’t seem in the slightest bit out of place.

  We passed through a deep canyon, clearly scored with erosion, drainages… deep under water now, barren and rocky. At the far edge, a low hillock at the upper end suddenly had a spray of what looked like glass shards knifing out of it. Just as rapidly, it vanished into the ground again.

  In a phased burst of static, Captain Smith called out on suit comms, “Kids, it looks like the Revenge has hove to in orbit above, though they may need to make another turn before they drop on your position, over.”

  “Copy that, sir”, Yak replied.

  “Yak, do you copy?”

  He tried again. “Sir, copy… we’re getting some interference…”

  “There you are. I can hear you, but not very well. Probably signal attenuation…” a hissing burst of static washed him out completely, “…might lose contact. How copy, over?”

  “Partial copy, sir… we’re about 1200 meters from the station; we just passed an umbilical, over.”

  I looked back, trying to spot what he meant.

  A rising hiss of static played on in comms for a moment, with some words at the end that almost sounded like ‘good luck’.

  “Sounds like we’re on our own here, Yak”, I said as bravely as I could.

  “Well, that umbilical leads somewhere… there are people out there, Jane.”

  He paused for a moment as we cut through a larger collection of boulders. “It has to be better than mud, right?”

  Shifting through various wavelengths of light as I tried to spot what he was talking about, I was frustrated that in the dense gloom near the ocean floor, there was no way to see. I wondered if there was some sort of active sonar that might help, and the suit instantly surprised me with an active layer of what appeared to be a vector analysis plot from sonograpic data. Immediately, I was able to spot the line tracing through the sediment along the bottom.