“What do we have?” the surgeon asked as the gurney sped into the triage area of the field hospital.
His uniform was marred with the blood of other soldiers whose lives he had fought to save until the bitter—inevitable—conclusion. It was the kind of hellish nightmare that only people in our line of work could understand. War was its own torture device, making prey of both sides, and reveling in its disastrous certainty.
“He’s with the Messenger Corps, sir.” I said. “They apparently dismembered him in an attempt to extract the latest message from the Court. My men found him about twenty minutes ago... alive.” I shook the bloody images from my mind. Each messenger was given a surgically-implanted chip that held information about military formations and other logistical data. It was the kind of information that would get you killed if caught. Few survived to deliver their message.
“Dammit, I’ve never seen them go this far before,” the surgeon said as he inspected the body for other injuries beyond the obvious. “It used to be just the hands, now those monsters take each limb and leave the torso to die. This war has brought out the worst of their kind.”
He continued to mutter while my mind drifted. Our own side had also carried out horrific deeds in order to preserve a government that should have ended a couple of hundred years ago. “It takes all kinds, sir,” I said, hoping he had taken my awkward silence for shock, exhaustion, or whatever one called the empty feeling and frayed nerves associated with this kind of work. “If you need me I’ll be on deck standing watch. Let me know if he pulls through.”
I left the surgeon and nurses to prepare the body for whatever life-saving operation they could manage on a man better off dead and headed for the exit at the end of a gleaming white passageway. The makeshift field hospital was state of the art, big enough to hold a triage center and recovery wing as well as house its staff, all on a mobile platform hovering five meters off the ground.
The technologically advanced native Daliqians had been instrumental to our survival as a human race. Problems crept in when the Daliqians and humans began to cross-breed and a new race known as the Hybriums made an appearance. That was about a thousand years ago. Civil war wiped out most of the Hybriums, the rest were driven underground. Strife is the only common thread between our two races now, the two purest life forms on the planet each fighting to preserve something that never should have existed in the first place, one’s racial dominance over the other.
The piercing light of the moon reflected its silver sheen over the colonies, looming in an amber sky that stifled all but the closest stars in our galaxy. The moon cast a glare nearly as strong as the twin suns that fed the daytime sky their warmth and illumination. The burning shades of violet swirls that emanated between the two sparring partners were a sight to behold when the sky was clearest.
Unfortunately those days were scarce due to the war or wars as we’ve come to know them. I leaned against the railing that guarded the port side of the medical craft and looked at the dirt field below me. I could still see the remains of the town that centuries ago had dominated this landscape. Clumps of gray ash were scattered like millions of mice frozen in time, devoured then expelled in a whirlwind of destruction. This place was now a ghost town, and it would forever be this way, regardless of whatever foreseeable future lay ahead.
“Sir,” a woman’s voice woke me from my thoughts.
“Yes?” I responded as I turned to look at her.
“We lost him, I’m sorry,” she said sincerely, with a hint of familiarity, if I noticed correctly.
“I understand. The surgeon did all that he could?”
“Yes, but it wasn’t enough. The messenger had lost too much blood. We can only spare a few pints per patient and the doctor had to take that into consideration as well.”
“I’m sure he made the right choice,” I said, not meaning to sound cold, but the loss of life caused little dread in our world anymore. We were a people with little purpose, and nothing more. The only quickening of my heart came when I gazed into her stare. The brown irises of her eyes drove into me like some kind of beautiful ornate piercing I had never experienced before. I was paralyzed by wonder as I beheld her. Her dark hair contrasted against her pale flesh, like night against day. Everything about her being carried over into her eyes, they were the gateway to her soul. It was not as if I had never seen a woman before, but she captured my attention.
I extended my hand towards her. “What is your name?”
“Coralene,” she said through ruby lips and perfect teeth. “You?”
“Gresham, May Gresham,” I said, perhaps a little redundantly. I was not used to first names in the Corps. I felt the need to clarify that my first name was not Gresham, not that it really mattered.
“May? That’s a beautiful name,” she said.
“Thank you; it was my grandfather’s name.” Our hands made contact with each other briefly, but I could tell that her skin was soft and warm. I was enraptured by her and did not want to be released from my captor. I felt like prey being seduced by my predator. I knew that I was in trouble, but I didn’t seem to care. All that mattered were those eyes, and that skin, and that smile.
I wasn’t sure how long I was staring into her eyes before the shockwave occurred, a concussion effect that seemed to emanate from underground. It was a sickening sensation much like falling to your death, or watching the blade of your adversary swing like a one way pendulum straight towards your face. I felt nauseated, the feeling kept spreading, and I was certain of asphyxia approaching as the heat evaporated the moisture in my throat. I watched as our bodies repelled from each other like oil and water poured violently into a cavity. The despair that I felt in my heart was unlike anything that I had ever imagined. The numbness of solitude had never bothered me in my life before. I was not prone to attachment, even to my next breath, but I was confounded and angry that my last thought drifted away from her.
Just as suddenly as the sensation had washed over me I found myself standing in front of her again, albeit with a certain recoil in my legs to keep from falling over. She looked immaculate, as if nothing had happened at all, and I could see the expression on her face move from puzzlement to acknowledgment as I collected my thoughts.
“Are you all right?” she asked, but I sensed that she already knew the answer. She knew because she was the cause of whatever the hell it was that had just happened.
“What did you do to me?” I asked sharply.
“I did nothing,” she said as she draped her hand over my shoulder. “It was merely a glimpse into the future, May. Nothing more.”
“A glimpse? I thought I was dying!” I struggled to regulate my breathing as the images reconnected in my mind.
“One of many possible futures. It is the gift—”
“Gift? Are you mad? That was not a gift,” I said, cutting her off. I rubbed my ashen hand over my eyes and pushed back the thoughts digging deeper into the crevices of my mind.
“It is a gift, only because it is triggered by a soul’s match.”
“Soul’s match? What are you talking about?” I asked, annoyed at my weakness, annoyed because I longed to look strong in front of her.
“My gift is to know predisposition. The future is already written based on the decisions we make. You can make any myriad of turns in life and yet the outcome of each is already known. Do you believe in fate?”
I hesitated. I had never given much thought to fate, something predetermined by a god or council of gods who toyed with us like puppets on a string. “I can’t say that I do,” I answered.
“I understand. Life has been hard for you, stripped you of any hope for faith,” she said sadly as she looked down at her hands, her fair skin reflecting the light of the suns in a shimmering kind of way. “What if I could show you your fate?”
“Will it be as painful as what I just experienced?” I asked nervously.
“Perhaps, but you can endure it, I know that much.”
“Then show me,” I said. No soo
ner had the words escaped my lips than she was on me. With her arms wrapped around my body and her face shoved into my chest, she gripped me with a strength that I did not know she had. It took a moment for the vision to come, but when it did it was paralyzing. The craft on which we stood was engulfed in flames as a swarm of Daliqian bombers rained ordnance onto the area around us. The already ashen landscape was once again in flames, and I could see people much like myself scurrying to find relief from the heat that radiated around us.
My skin burned at the image that she was putting into my mind, it felt so real, so immediate. My mind could barely contain every nuance of detail, from the smell of charred flesh, to the sound of creaking metal that warped as the fires raged. Everything was alight with fire, and yet it felt cast into darkness at the same time, like I was watching the world burn from some faraway place.
Coralene’s grip on me eased and I looked down on her. Tears flowed from her eyes, eyes that seemed tinged with red, as if her tears were mixed with blood. I realized why a moment later when I looked at our surroundings. The images imparted by her gift were now a reality. I could not gather my thoughts on what to do quickly enough. An explosion ripped the deck apart beneath our feet throwing us in opposite directions. The dull sensation of the concussion made it feel as though time were standing perfectly still. I was airborne for what seemed like years, even the feeling of my body hitting the deck of the craft was numbed by the sensation that could only have been the result of Coralene’s hold on me.
I scrambled to get to the nearest weapons depot to help guard the craft. I knew it was all for naught, everyone was going to die regardless of my actions, fate decreed it. Apparently fate did have a hold on our lives after all.
“Coralene!” I screamed, hoping she could hear me over the blasts erupting around us. She descended beside me almost immediately, her feet barely touching the deck beneath her.
“Now do you believe?” she asked, but I was too involved with defending the craft to answer.
I pulled the trigger and watched as the Daliqian bombers exploded in the air from each projectile I sent their way.
“Do you believe?” she asked yet again.
I turned my burning eyes toward her and could see a fierce intent in her eyes—I could tell she needed to hear that I believed her. I looked away like a coward and maintained my position, each pull of the trigger jarring my body as the recoil moved through me until Coralene placed her hands on my cheeks and turned me to face her.
“Do you believe?” she asked.
My eyes watered as the heat of the flames scorched the air that surrounded me. The only beauty in all of the chaos that surrounded us was the woman that I was looking at. Her eyes bore into me and tore at my heart in a way that I had never experienced before.
“Yes, I believe,” I gasped and realized that I choked down sobs as I spoke. “I believe.”
She wrapped me into her arms one last time as I felt the quake of destruction boil over us. I could not feel the pain as much as I felt the motion of falling. There was no fear, only expectancy. Life was over, and I had lost everything.
“May.”
I heard her voice and felt her hands over my body. Everything felt like it was on fire and my eyes burned as I opened them. It wasn’t from the flames, but from the violet canopy under which we lay beneath the heavens.
“It’s all right, I’m here,” she said as I blinked and flinched, trying to figure out what had happened.
“What happened? I thought we were dead,” I said sharply.
“We would have been, had you not chosen to believe,” she replied, her hand rested on my chest. The violet hue lit up her face and I could see a bit of the landscape through the transparent parts of the canopy that she had created.
“What is this?”
“This is the power of belief. This is what has saved us. Our love and our faith.”
“How could this be? We should surely be dead.”
“We should, but we are not. Fate has given us a second chance to right the wrongs of this world.”
“How can we do this?” I asked. The concept of righting a world so full of hate seemed impossibly daunting.
“By teaching acceptance, by rewarding peace. That is our fate.”
“Surely you are mistaken,” I said. “This world does not crave peace.”
“Make no mistake about it, May. We have a bigger purpose here than destroying the world. Otherwise I would not have been sent to find you.”
“What do you mean you were sent to find me?”
Coralene sat up and the canopy warped to allow her new position to maintain cover. She looked up at the sky before speaking. “I am not a Hybrium, I am a messenger of the heavens.” She looked down at me with tears in her eyes. “I was sent to protect you in hopes that you would spread the word of peace across the land or else this entire world will die.”
Her story sounded too fantastic, too unreal. No one was ever chosen by the heavens. No one ever even spoke of the myths of heaven that had once circulated our world thousands of years ago. “Are you talking about the God of Heaven?”
“Yes.”
“No one speaks of those myths anymore. Most of our history has been destroyed and condemned as lies.”
“He is aware, but that bears little on the truth.”
“Can you prove to me that this God really exists?” I asked.
“I thought I already had. You would not be breathing now if it were not for His existence.”
That was debatable given my recollection of the truth.
“If I can’t see for myself then I can’t believe,” I said hesitantly.
“You already believed. You told me so.”
“I meant I believed in what you showed me, not in some higher power.”
“What I showed you was a higher power,” she stated, clearly hurt by my doubt.
What had changed? I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I felt betrayed. I felt condemned to something that I was powerless to control and I needed, no craved that control.
“Are you going to prove this God’s existence or not?”
“If I show you then you will die, it is as simple as that.”
With every ounce of my will I wanted to cry out that she was toying with me, or it was toying with me. “Then let me die.”
“You don’t mean this.” She placed her hand on my shoulder. Her touch was cold at first but then it began to burn.
“I do,” I said as I grasped her wrist and pulled her hand away from me. I made eye contact with her one last time before the violet canopy dissolved, allowing the radiation and fire to fall onto my skin and scorch what was left of me. I strained to keep my eyes open, the pain welling up deep inside my damned soul. I knew that the end was coming, but I did not welcome it, instead it was regret that etched its name into my heart.
I should have believed, I should have had faith in what Coralene had to say, but I was faithless. I knew too much pain to want to know the truth. Ignorance was bliss, and far less painful.
My lungs burned as I breathed in the ashy ozone that had befallen this world. Predestination was not a choice. It was the cold truth that coursed over a world hell-bent on destruction, for there is no turning back—we would have all died whether I believed or not. It wasn’t a self-edifying truth that I finally realized the harsh reality of our peril. It was self-depraving acceptance. I was to die without knowing love, to end my time without knowing the essence of faith. I was to go about eternity as the ash beneath the feet of the victor.
My own shallow hell. My own shallow choice.
In those last moments of life, as I looked up at the shiftless form that was my Coralene, I noticed the imperfections scrawling across her skin. They began as small fractures that seeped a blinding light from the cuts that spread across her body. It reminded me of a marble form straining from the stress fractures that occurred over time. I was no longer breathing, but I could still see her fall to pieces like a paper doll caught in a flame.
Her body fell away as my belief faded into the ash that now smothered my body.
An empty form of faithless woes, caught in the tumult of the end. Should I have believed, and basked in the shelter of a predetermined fate, or was I right to have shunned the concept all together? How do you come to terms with the end? How do you reconcile the vile, and the wretched, amongst a shadowed concept of its opposite, veiled by your peripheral vision, hidden in the deepest parts of your soul that cries out for what it does not have?
How do you live with the consequences of either?
“Time of death, 17:35,” Dr. Trive said to the nurse standing beside him.
I tried to blink my eyes but I could not. The triage room was filled with light that was much darker in contrast to the light above me. I looked up, then down, before I realized that I could see each perspective simultaneously. The nurse, Coralene, laid a gentle hand upon the forehead of what had been my body, torn to pieces by the Daliqian rebels, all for information that would have led to a peaceful resolution to the wars.
I felt a pain in what I had known to be my heart, yet it no longer existed. I no longer existed. My soul had been torn from my body and I had not yet passed over. According to the myths that surrounded death it was only a matter of time before my body breathed its last. I felt Coralene place tokens over my closed eyes, payment for the transfer to the other side. I felt it without having the sense of touch. I smelled the scene around me without having the sense of smell. I had no way of explaining it, but I just had a sense of being, of knowing.
Coralene pressed her beautiful lips upon my body’s own lips and kissed a final goodbye. She had been my nurse, but even more than that, she had been my wife. Now I was gone, the war had taken me away from her. She had told me at our wedding that she did not care about the fact that we were not of the same race that love was deeper than that. Love was a thing that dwelt and breathed deep in another’s soul. She had been my soul match.
The tears fell from her eyes, and her body gave a gentle quiver as the sobs welled deep inside of her. She placed delicate fingers along the ring that I had given her on our wedding day—it held much meaning to her. It was the only symbol of faith that I had ever shown her. A faith that I had not shared, but she had shared with me. She was right, she was always right, I thought to myself. I longed to kiss her goodbye as I felt the weight of the world around me fall away and I began to drift up and away.
My perception was changing yet again, but I kept sight of my Coralene.
All the way to the end.
The End
SHARPIES AND DULLARDS
E. Rose Sabin
Letta refused to be intimidated by Colonel Briley’s withering glare. She was not under his command and would not act as though she were.
As though he’d read her mind, the colonel said, “You may be here on the planet Kendall in a civilian capacity, Miss Bain, but this is a military installation, and I’m in charge of it. Kendall has the rare earths we need for the manufacture of our weaponry, communications, and surveillance equipment. The Sharpies are willing to mine and trade that ore for last century weapons, and I have full authority to negotiate that trade. Your role as exobiologist is to study the life forms of this planet—”
“And to protect them,” she interrupted recklessly. “That includes the Sahaparais.” She refused to use the nickname “Sharpies,” bestowed on the planet’s sentient race by the survey team because it was as close as the team could come to pronouncing the name the humanoid natives called themselves. It had stuck even after the xenolinguists learned enough of the Sahaparaian language to communicate with the people. “The Mother Ship sent me to—”
“The Mother Ship has other worlds to oversee, two of them with colonies much more in need of close supervision than this outpost. They are six months away from us even by the fastest scoutship. The Oversight Council expects me to make executive decisions.” He picked up his compad and spoke into it. “Sergeant Marsdon, I need to see you in my office. Immediately.”
“Colonel, I know all that,” Letta persisted, determined to succeed at this, her first land assignment off the Mother Ship, her home from birth. “But the weapons you’re planning to give the Sahaparais, old and outmoded as they are to us, represent a huge technical advance to them. I have no choice but to transmit a formal protest to the Council.”
“They’ll ignore it. Those rare earths are needed too desperately. The whole reason for this outpost, Miss Bain, is to procure them.”
Letta scowled. “I was under the impression that it was to evaluate the planet for possible colonization.”
“You’re wrong. This planet is not considered suitable for colonization. We are charged with developing trade. Ever since you arrived, you’ve been stirring up trouble, complicating that mission. The Sharpies don’t need further study. I’m reassigning you.”
A knock on the office door made the colonel look up and smile. “That must be Sergeant Marsdon.” Rising, he called out, “Come in, Sergeant.”
And to Letta he said, “Sergeant Marsdon will transport you to your new assignment, studying the Dullards. I’m sending Hash along with you.”
The Terrans had bestowed the Dullard nickname on creatures occupying a large land area about three hours from the Terran outpost by crawler. Letta despised the term, but no one had been able to determine what if anything the creatures called themselves. Now Letta was consigned to Dullard territory with a single native to serve as her assistant, a Sahaparai male everyone called Hash.
The colonel sent her off with the barest minimum of equipment needed for a prolonged stay. Hash set up the tents: one that would be Letta’s home for the next weeks or months, and a second to hold their supplies of food, water, and other necessities, and also provide Hash a sleeping place.
She finished unpacking her personal belongings and joined Hash in the supply tent, where he was busy arranging the supplies. “Hash, where are the Dullards? I don’t see any around.”
“Don’t know, Missybain.”
He’d been told to call her Missy Bain, but he clearly believed it to be a single name— understandable, since his people used only a single name. She considered telling him to call her Letta, but that would only confuse him.
“This is supposed to be their territory,” she said. “Do they have homes? Places they build to live in?”
He shook his head, which she’d learned was the equivalent of a shrug. “They spend much time in lake,” he offered.
That was interesting in light of the apparent aridity of the area. “Where is the lake?”
“Not far.” He gestured vaguely in a direction that looked to be more strewn with rocks than was the area of their camp.
No time to go exploring until morning. She needed to set up her terminal and make certain she could contact base camp. And she needed a meal. They’d hustled her away without letting her eat lunch first.
Despite the rough ride over rocky terrain that had jolted and shaken everything in the crawler, riders and equipment alike, her terminal seemed to be in working order. She reported Hash’s statement that the Dullards were in the lake and asked what the survey crew knew about a lake in Dullard territory. The message seemed to go through with no problem, but no answer came back. If it had reached anyone at base camp, no one was in a hurry to respond.
She went to the supply tent, and asked, “Hash, what’s for supper?” At his blank look she added, “Food?” and mimed eating.
“Ah, Hash fix now,” he said and bustled about, lighting the campstove and placing a large pot of water on the stove. He emptied tubes of something into the pot, stirred the result with a large spoon, and a savory aroma soon filled the tent.
He served them each a bowl of thick, steaming meat and vegetable soup with lots of rice. Hash didn’t use a spoon; he slurped right from the bowl. Letta hunted through the supplies, found a spoon, returned with it, by which time the soup had cooled enough for eating. Hash had already emptied his bowl.
Ke
ndall’s days were short. By the time they finished eating and cleaned the bowls and utensils, night had fallen. Letta retired to her tent, checked for messages, found none, and spent some time studying the section of the survey report about the Dullard territory. A map showed a large lake—no doubt the one Hash had referred to. It also pinpointed the locations of several hot springs, including one either very near or actually in the lake. So the Dullard territory contained something of interest. She’d study the geological reports more thoroughly later. The day had been tiring. She turned off her terminal and got ready for bed.
Bright sunlight streaming through the transparent panel at the top of the tent awakened her. She rose, dressed, and emerged from the tent to face what looked like the entire Dullard community standing in complete silence before the tents. Bipedal and very roughly humanoid in shape, they reminded Letta of photos of the Earth creatures known as manatees, if those creatures had legs instead of flippers and could walk upright. Like manatees, the Dullards had flipperlike arms, a broad head that flowed into the stocky body with no discernible neck, and a leathery gray skin.
Having no way to communicate with the silent sentinels, she hurried to the supply tent and called Hash.
“Yes, Missybain?” He stepped from the tent and stared at the assembly of Dullards, seeming as startled and disquieted as she was by the sight.
“Do you have any idea what they want?” she asked. “I just woke up and found them like this when I came out of my tent.”
“No, Missybain. They strange people.”
People. Did he use the term deliberately, or did he simply know no word such as creatures or animals? Why was the team so certain that the Dullards were merely animals? They hadn’t studied them enough to determine their level of intelligence. The colonel hadn’t sent her here to take on that project, but she’d use her time here to evaluate their sapience.
She stepped closer to the gathering’s front line, held out her hands, palms up, and said, “Good morning. My name is Letta Bain, and my companion is Hash. We mean you no harm. We’re here to become friends and to learn about you.”
They wouldn’t understand any of that, of course, but she hoped that her calm, conciliatory tone would reassure them. Perhaps it had. One stepped forward out of the group to stand directly in front of her. At the same time, the rest of the group turned to face the opposite direction, their backs to her and Hash.
The one who stood in front of her made waving motions with its flipper arms, turning as it did so. Continuing to make the motions, the creature moved after the rest.
“Looks like they want us to follow them,” Letta said. “I think we should.”
“Maybe not safe,” Hash objected.
“Do you know any word of their language, Hash?”
“They not talk.”
She frowned. Surely they made sounds, even if they had no language. Animals use sounds to communicate danger, to call one another, even to express pleasure. The Dullards must do that much, but since Hash couldn’t provide any help, she’d have to learn all she could through careful observation.
She followed the Dullard mob but kept a safe distance. Hash followed too, though not closely. The Dullard who’d signaled to her turned, saw her following, waved one flipper arm in an apparent gesture of approval, and turned back to join its fellows.
Several of the Dullards carried children, small replicas of themselves. She thought those were probably females, but she couldn’t be certain. After all, in some cultures the males cared for the young.
As she stumbled over the rocky ground that the Dullards crossed with no apparent difficulty, she couldn’t help thinking how apt the term Dullard was, applied to these beings. What must their existence be like? Their land was unsuitable for farming or even for the natural growth of trees or shrubs whose fruit could be harvested. What did the Dullards eat? Where did they live? She saw no structures of any kind, but perhaps there were caves beyond the lake.
Letta stumbled but caught herself before she fell. The near fall made her aware that the land had begun to slope downward. As they continued to move forward, the slope steepened. She watched her steps carefully; gaze focused more on the ground than the wall of Dullards ahead of her.
Startled by the sound of splashes, she looked up. The Dullard ranks were thinning. She could see a patch of water through gaps in the line. The gaps widened as more and more of the group plunged into the lake. In moments, only a single Dullard stood on the banks of the large body of water, its distant shore lost in mist.
The Dullard, evidently the one who had motioned her to follow, again waved her forward. She took a couple of steps toward it and stopped. Might it mean to pull her into the lake?
Again the flipper arm motioned. When she didn’t react, the Dullard turned toward the lake and waded into the water. Not more than a meter from the shoreline, the Dullard sank into the water and was lost to Letta’s sight.
She stepped close and peered into the water. The vast group of Dullards had vanished into the depths of the lake. Colored a dull gray, the water lacked clarity. She bent down, thrust her hand into the water, and found it pleasantly warm despite the chill air.
“What are they doing?” she turned to ask Hash, who’d hung back a bit—apparently afraid to venture closer.
“Eat, maybe, “ he replied.
That made sense. There could be fish or crustaceans in the water. And the lake was large. But large enough to support the huge number of Dullards that had entered it? If they went there to eat and did so daily, it would surely not take long to diminish the food supply to the vanishing point.
“Are there other lakes in Dullard territory?” she asked.
“Many small ones. This only big one.”
“What do they eat?”
At that moment a Dullard surfaced. Its flippers held an armload of some kind of green waterweed. The Dullard came up out of the water, approached Letta, and dropped the green mat at her feet. It backed off to the brink of the lake and watched her.
Was it offering her food? Again she decided that some response was required. “Thank you,” she said. “You’re very kind.” She felt a bit foolish about speaking as though she’d be understood.
The Dullard continued to stand and watch. It must be waiting for her to do something more. She bent down and gathered up the stuff it had brought. She handed some to Hash but retained most of it herself. “Thank you,” she said again.
Apparently her action satisfied the Dullard. It waved a flipper and returned to the lake.
She turned to Hash. “Think it’s okay to return to our tents now? Or will it insult them?”
“Not know, Missybain. What do with this?” He held out the mat of weeds.
“Let’s take it back with us so I can get a closer look at it. Is this what the Dullards eat?”
“Guess so.”
“I wonder whether we’d find it edible,” she mused, more to herself than to Hash. “On Earth, seaweeds have valuable nutrients.” She wished she’d been allowed to bring testing equipment. The colonel had been unreasonably parsimonious with the equipment he permitted her to take. How did he expect her to carry out valuable research with so little to work with?
The answer was obvious. He didn’t care about research. He was just getting rid of a thorn in his side. His only concern was the weapons trade. But why were Hash’s people so eager to get weapons? She pondered that question all the way back to the tents. The Sahaparais had no enemies. They hunted small game, but there were no large predators they needed a defense against. The planet’s fauna seemed to be almost entirely on the small side. Surely the Dullards were no threat to them.
Evolutionary biologists had pored over the survey team’s reports and concluded that Hash’s people had evolved from an apelike forebear, a now extinct sideline from that which also produced the small primates that inhabited the forests. Until the Terrans had come, the Sahaparais hunted with spears and blowguns, weapons that seemed adequate for their needs. What
would they do with the weapons that would shortly be provided?
As she reached her tent and sank down onto her cot, a horrible thought made her shudder. Could the natives’ intended prey be the Dullards? Like most of the Terran team members, the natives seemed to regard the Dullards as mere animals. They’d be a more abundant source of meat than the small forest animals. Were the weapons intended for the slow-moving, peaceable Dullards? Letta headed out to question Hash.
He wasn’t in the supply tent. Probably went to the latrine. She entered the tent to wait for him. Looking around, she saw that he had done a fine job of organizing the supplies, with boxes stacked neatly, labels outward, easy to read.
Except—Hash knew ShipSpeak, but had he learned to read it? Some of the labels bore pictures of the contents, but many of them did not. Yet as she studied the arrangement, she could only conclude that Hash knew the contents of all the boxes, not just the ones with pictures. She’d have to ask him how he did it.
She turned to the far side of the tent, where he’d made a space for his bedroll and his few personal belongings. A packing box served him for a table. It held a camplight and a blinking compad signaling a message coming in. For Hash? When she’d received no response to her posts? Maybe the message was meant for her and was sent to Hash by mistake. By someone who would not expect Hash to have a compad.
She shouldn’t invade Hash’s private space, but she had to see what the message was. She pressed the button to bring up the transmission. It was brief: Shipment in. Be ready.
She stared at the small screen, trying to make sense of the four-word message. Ready for what? Shipment of what?
A dimming of the light that streamed in through the open tent flap made her look up. Hash stood in the entrance, looking at her, and by his expression he was not pleased to see her holding his compad.
“Hash, what does this mean?” she asked, handing him the compad. “Can you read it?”
For a long moment he stared at the screen. Then he lifted his gaze to meet her stern look. “Shipment come. Food. They bring here.”
“No, Hash. That can’t refer to food. We won’t need more supplies for some time. Tell me the truth.”
“Food,” he insisted, not meeting her gaze. “Not know more.”
He was hiding something from her. “Hash, tell me who that message is from.”
“Don’t know, Missybain.”
“Then hand me the compad and let me check.”
“Colonel say compad for me. You have terminal.”
“I’m not going to keep it,” she said, holding out her hand. “I only want to check it. Then I’ll give it back to you.”
He took a step backward.
She’d be very foolish to antagonize Hash, her only ally here among the Dullards. She’d have to find a way to get the compad from him, but now wasn’t the time. “All right. I won’t look at it. Why don’t you fix us some food?”
“I fix.” He turned, clutching the compad tightly. She waited to see whether he’d put it down somewhere, but he must have hidden it in his clothing when his back was turned to her. When he carried the large kettle to the camp stove using both hands, the compad was nowhere in sight.
The shipment in the first part of the brief message had to refer to the weapons the colonel and his men had arranged to give to Hash’s people in exchange for the right to mine the rare earths. The second part worried her. Hash was sent to assist her in her work, but the injunction to be ready meant he was really here for another reason, a reason she needed to discover. And quickly.
She went back to her tent and tried again to raise someone at base camp from her terminal. No answer. Finally, she wrote a report stating her objections to the weapons being supplied to the natives and her suspicion that the Dullards were an intelligent species. She sent it to the Indigenous Rights Commission back on the Mother Ship and waited. No response came.
The terminal assured her that all messages went through. She didn’t believe it. If they were going through, someone would reply. Possibly the equipment had been damaged by the rough treatment on the ride here, but the terminal should be aware of any accidental damage and should have reported it. It must have been sabotaged in a way that made the terminal report the messages as going through, even though they did not.
Wanting to see how Hash was coming with their meal, she peered into the pot he was stirring. “Dinner ready soon?”
“Ready now, Missybain.”
He’d fixed a stew, but instead of reconstituted dried vegetables and pseudo-meat, she saw what looked suspiciously like the greens the Dullard had presented them with.
“What is this?” she asked. “Did you use those weeds from the lake?”
“Is good. Taste.”
“Hash, we don’t know that those weeds are safe to eat. Even if they’re safe for you, they may not be safe for me. And I don’t have a test kit. I’m sorry to put you to extra work, but I can’t take a chance. It does smell good. I’d like to try it, but I don’t dare.”
“Is okay, Missybain. I fix you something quick.”
“Thanks, Hash. I appreciate it.”
He fetched a smaller pot, a container of water, and two tubes, one of dried vegetables and the other some sort of dried meat. Nothing as appetizing-looking or smelling as good as the mixture Hash had concocted with the lake weeds. She found it difficult to resist the temptation to taste his stew, but if she became ill she’d have no access to a medical technician.
After finishing her meal, she left Hash to clean up and retired to her tent. There she activated her terminal, saw a notification that no messages had arrived for her and recorded the day’s activities, including Hash’s use of the lake weeds to prepare the meal and her refusal to sample his preparation. She dutifully sent the message to base camp but had little hope that it went through.
She needed access to Hash’s compad.
After a fitful sleep, she arose at first light, dressed quickly, and slipped out of the tent. As they had the day before, the Dullards had assembled before the tents and stood in complete silence. As before, one stepped out ahead of the others and at that apparent signal, the rest all turned and moved away en masse. Whether this was the same one that had beckoned her the previous day she could not tell, but again a beckoning wave of the flippers invited her to accompany the troop.
She stepped forward, prepared to follow. A hand clamped around her arm. She hadn’t seen Hash leave the supply tent, but apparently he’d stepped quietly behind her and was holding her back.
“No go today, Missybain.”
“Let go of my arm, Hash. I’m going.” She tried to wrench free of his grasp, but he held tight.
“Better not to go today.”
His warning gave her a cold chill. Be ready, the message had said.
“We’re going.” She accompanied the assertion with a backwards kick that connected with his leg. He loosened his hold enough to allow her to break free. She ran toward the Dullard, who turned and followed the rest. She caught up with it, and, hearing Hash’s steps pounding behind her, she pushed ahead of it.
As though some leader had given a command, the mass of creatures in front of her parted, allowing her to pass through into their midst. The one who had encouraged her to accompany them followed her through the open path in the crowd. The Dullards moved in unison to close the gap behind them.
They must have received some message, some command, yet she’d heard no sound from any of them. Could they possibly communicate telepathically?
She glanced behind her, saw no sign of Hash. He may have been trying to keep her out of danger, but she no longer trusted him, and she was determined to see what would happen.
They reached the lake. The Dullards splashed into the water, leaving a single member on the lakeshore with her, undoubtedly the one who had encouraged her to accompany them. She expected it to enter the water and again return with a gift of greens, but the Dullard remained beside her.
“I wish I knew how to com
municate with you,” she said. “I’d like to thank you for your kindness. There’s so much I’d like to ask you if I only could. And I need to warn you that you may be in great danger. My companion’s people, the Sahaparais, are getting powerful weapons. They may mean to attack your people.”
She sighed. Could the creature standing beside her have understood? It patted her arm with its flipper as though it knew she was upset. Then it took a couple of steps forward and dived into the lake.
Letta stood gazing out over the water, so lost in thought that she jumped when Hash came up behind her, put his hand on her arm, and said, “Better you go back to tent now, Missybain.”
She whirled around. “Why, Hash? What’s going to happen?”
“Don’t know. Better you come.” He looked genuinely distressed. “Please.” He tugged at her arm.
“I’m not going anywhere.” She readied herself to fight back if he tried to force her to leave.
Then she heard it—a loud tramping noise, as of a crowd marching toward the lake. In the distance a cloud of dust resolved itself into ranks of Sahaparais. She froze. The Dullards would come out of the lake when they finished feeding, and facing them would be an army of Sahaparais training their newly acquired rifles on them. Weapons that the Dullards would have no understanding of, would not realize what they could do. They’d be helpless.
She turned on Hash. “You knew! You knew this was coming. You knew what your people were planning.”
He said only, “Too late now, Missybain. Maybe if you run fast.”
She slapped him hard and turned to face the armed Sahaparais. Their rifles, relics of an earlier century but far advanced over anything the Sahaparais had known previously, had undoubtedly been restored to good working order. She even saw some Sahaparais holding rifles with attachments she feared were grenade launchers.
“Go back,” she shouted at the advancing troops, running toward them with rash disregard for her safety. They laughed, and several in the front row aimed their rifles at her.
Shoved violently from behind, she toppled onto the rocky ground, and Hash’s weight landed on top of her. “Stay down,” he said as she struggled to rise.
He was trying to save her, and probably endangering himself as he did so. She stopped struggling. Sounds of splashes came from the lake, but she couldn’t turn to see what was happening. With Hash pressing her down flat, she couldn’t see what the Sahaparais were doing, but she pictured them waiting as the Dullards surfaced and climbed out of the lake, then taking aim and firing as they gathered on the shore.
Shots rang out. Bullets struck the ground near her, kicking up pebbles and dust. She closed her eyes, but could not close her ears to sounds that must be coming from the Dullards, high-pitched trills and low grunts—of pain? Thuds signaled the fall of Dullards. Splashes. A loud wail could only have come from a Dullard child. More shots. More splashes. Yells from the Sahaparais. Cries of triumph.
Then silence. The Sahaparaian troops must be waiting for the Dullards who’d made it back to the lake to surface. An occasional shot rang out, followed by a splash, confirming her guess.
“Can you let me up just a little?” she asked Hash. “I’ll stay low, but I want to see what’s happened.”
He eased off her to lie in the dirt beside her. She raised her head and looked around. Dullard corpses lay strewn about the lakeshore. She couldn’t spot a single living Dullard.
A Sahaparai noticed her looking around and aimed his rifle at her. She’d been foolish to call attention to herself. She flattened herself back against the hard ground and tensed, waiting for the shot.
The ground shook. A tremendous roar deafened her, and a blast of heat passed over her. Droplets of steaming water blistered the exposed skin on her arms. Screams rang out, blending with the hiss of hot water landing on the cooler ground.
Finally an eerie, sustained silence gave her the courage to raise her head and look around.
The Sahaparaian troops lay in agonized poses, their skin turned crimson, their weapons fallen into the pools of water that lay around them, steam rising from those pools along with the strong odor of sulfur.
Movement beside her reminded her that one Sahaparai still lived. Hash was struggling slowly to his feet. Blood streamed down one arm. A bullet must have hit him. Like Letta, he had blisters where boiling droplets had hit his flesh. He stood upright and gazed blankly at the corpses of his fellow Sahaparais littering the ground only a couple of meters away.
Letta rose to her feet. The blisters hurt, but otherwise she was unharmed. Hash swayed, and she steadied him with a hand on his arm. He flinched but did not speak or look at her.
Letta heard the Dullards before she saw them. They came from the lake, rising slowly and shuffling onto the shore with gentle splashes. She watched as they walked among their dead and injured. One bent, picked up a child, and cradled it against its chest. Letta couldn’t tell whether the child was dead or alive. Was the one holding it its mother or father? It walked slowly back into the water and submerged with the child clasped in its flippers.
Other Dullards carried or pulled their fallen comrades into the lake until the shore was bare of their injured and dead.
A single Dullard came up from the lake and approached Letta. It held a small clump of greens. How could it be thinking of food at this time?
The Dullard extended a flipper, slid it beneath Letta’s blistered arm, and plastered the weeds over the blisters. Almost immediately the burning ceased. The Dullard patted Letta’s shoulder and returned to the lake. All the while, Hash stood as in a daze, seeming oblivious to the Dullards’ activities.
“Hash, do you have your compad with you?” She had to shake him and repeat the question several times before he blinked and turned his head to meet her gaze. “I need to call base camp. You need a medic.”
He did not respond.
Another splash and again the Dullard came out of the lake laden with greens—a larger clump this time. Again it thrust the clump of greens at Letta, and she let go of Hash to take it. The Dullard pointed its flipper at the greens and then at Hash’s arm. It pointed again at the greens, at Letta, and at Hash’s arm. The message was clear. She was to use the greens on Hash’s arm. The Dullard would not place them there itself as it had with Letta. Hash was an enemy. The Dullard would provide the material for aiding him but would not touch him itself.
“Your compad, Hash. I want it now. Then I’ll apply these greens to your arms. They seem to have healing qualities.”
He reached beneath his jacket, wincing when the stiff material rubbed against his blisters. From a pocket on its underside he withdrew the compad. “I call,” he said.
“No. I’ll call. You put these weeds on your injuries.” She thrust the weeds at him and grabbed the compad out of his hand, knowing she would not have been able to do that if he had not been weakened by his wounds, and stunned by the numbers of his people who lay dead around him.
She pinged base camp and waited for an answer. A harried voice came through the speaker. “Hash? What’s happened?” She recognized Sergeant Marsdon’s voice. “Sharpies are straggling in with bad burns.”
“It’s Letta Bain. I need to speak to Colonel Briley right away. Hash has been shot and needs a medic. And I firmly believe the Dullards are a sentient race. That makes the supply of weapons to the Sahaparais doubly illegal. It means our rights here are restricted. I’ll make a full report later, but the colonel needs to know that right now.”
“The colonel’s already on his way to your camp. You can tell him when he gets there. Better be careful, though. He’s furious. Means to see for himself what went wrong.”
Letta broke the connection and turned to Hash. “We must get back to the tents. The colonel’s on his way here.”
Hash’s arm was still bleeding badly. He pressed more of the greens against the wound as they walked. Their pace was slow. Hash stumbled several times, and she had to lend him support as they passed through the roughest part of the tr
ek.
When they reached the tents, she bade Hash lie down while she hunted for the medkit. The lake weeds had mostly staunched the flow of blood, and they seemed to have medicinal properties, but she’d feel better when she got his wound treated with antibiotic spray and healskin.
After she had done all she could for him and ordered him to stay in bed, she retired to her tent, turned on her terminal, and linked the compad to it. Her full report of the Sahaparaian attack and the Dullard counterattack included her belief that the boiling water that spewed from the lake had not been a fortunately timed coincidence. Dullards had somehow engineered the eruption of hot water. How they did so would require study by geologists, hydrologists, and other experts. All she could say was that the Dullards knew how to defend themselves against the Sahaparais, a knowledge that revealed the Dullards as reasoning, planning beings. The deadly plume of water had stopped as suddenly as it had issued forth. Had it slowly dissipated, she and Hash would have been showered with boiling water as it receded. But it had cut off while the heavy flow still arched above them, pouring down on the dying Sahaparaian troops. The Dullards (a term that now more than ever seemed wholly inappropriate) must have caused the water to cease flowing as suddenly as they had caused it to begin.
She transferred her complete account and recommendations, along with a request for materials to conduct a thorough study of the Dullards, to Hash’s compad, and sent it off to the Mother Ship.
Hearing the distant rumble of the crawler, she slipped the compad into her jacket pocket and walked outside to await Colonel Briley’s arrival.
When the crawler halted outside the tent, the colonel leaped out and confronted her. “What happened here?” he yelled into her face. “Why are Sharpies straggling back with first degree burns? Where are the rest of them?”
“Well, Colonel, it seems the Dullards aren’t at all dull,” she said, giving him a sweet smile. “They somehow unleashed a focused stream of boiling water onto the Sahaparais. I tried to send you a report, but my terminal doesn’t seem to be transmitting.”
“That’s nonsense.” He glared at her while his driver sat stony-faced.
“Go to the lake and see for yourself,” Letta said. “You’ll discover what happened to the Sahaparais who didn’t return.”
“I will go there.” He signaled to Hash, who had stepped out of the supply tent. “Hash, come with me.”
“Hash needs medical treatment,” Letta said. “He’s in no condition to accompany you.”
“Since when do you make the decisions?”
“Since you assigned him to assist me here. Hash got shot protecting me from his own people. He needs to stay here until the medics come.” She turned to Hash. “Go in and lie down.”
“Yes, Missybain,” Hash said, Relief evident in his voice. He turned and disappeared into the tent.
“We’ll discuss this later, Bain.” With that threat, the colonel climbed into the crawler and nodded to the driver, who turned the vehicle toward the lake.
Letta watched it until it passed over a rise and was no longer visible. A short time later the ground shook, and from her tent doorway she saw in the distance the huge plume of water and steam arc toward the sky and slowly descend toward the ground beyond the lake.
Hash came out of the tent and stared toward the eruption. They watched it in silence.
“Well, Hash,” Letta said, as the plume subsided. “We’re even. You saved my life a while ago, and I may have just saved yours.”
What would happen next was out of her hands. Whether or not Colonel Briley had survived, his scheme had been thwarted. It remained to be seen whether she would be allowed to continue to study the Dullards as she’d requested in her report or would be sent back to the Mother Ship in disgrace. She’d commended Hash for his bravery and suggested he be appointed a liaison between the Terrans and the Sahaparais. All the rest was up to the Oversight Council on the Mother Ship.
The End
THE BAD SEED
Erin McDowell
Celestial Date: 2568.12 A.E.
Voidskipper Phoenix – Candidate planet Alpha Calantari
Commander Alton Ramses Mission Log:
Phoenix AI reports estimated arrival at Alpha Calantari in ten hours; this will be the fourth world we have visited in the twelve years since leaving Earth.
…Three worlds that ultimately proved incompatible for colonization. Three worlds that failed to save the human race. The experts told us that it could take decades to find a suitable planet, if not longer; I struggle to remain optimistic, but some days it just feels…impossible.
I continue to recuperate from injuries sustained while escaping from the Maltaran Hive World four days ago. Another six hours in the regen pod should have me back to full health before arrival at the next destination.
A World of Worlds Page 11