The Tau Ceti Diversion

by Chris McMahon

  Here he was, trapped in an alien cesspit with a woman who hated him. He had nothing more to look forward to than death at the hands of vengeful aliens, while Janzen — that self-serving incompetent — was free on the surface busily destroying any chance they had to survive.

  Mara gasped softly and opened her eyes. She raised her hand to touch the cloth. “Cool. Nice,” she muttered dreamily. For the briefest of moments, she accepted his tenderness and his heart melted.

  When her eyes fully focused on him her brow creased and she batted his hand away. Karic felt a dark gulf open up between them.

  “Mara. Are you alright? Can you hear me?”

  She nodded. “Water.”

  Karic lifted the bowl to her lips.

  “I feel like I have been beaten. What …?”

  Karic was relieved she had regained consciousness without any sign of brain damage. “Just rest now.”

  Mara pushed herself into a sitting position.

  “No. Lie down and rest,” said Karic, reaching to stop her.

  She ignored him, pushing herself back against the rough earth wall. She had little strength, and with his help, took small mouthfuls of water.

  Mara brushed her dark hair back from her face. “Janzen? Andrai? What happened?”

  Karic sat back and sighed. “They escaped. But these aliens now have two of our XR32s. Janzen and Andrai could have had me out of here before they even knew I was gone if Janzen hadn’t started shooting at everything in sight.”

  He looked at Mara, wondering how she would react to the news that Janzen had tried to kill him. Would she even believe him? Worse. Would she take Janzen’s side? Accuse him of being paranoid?

  He had left her in charge of the lander and the small crew. It had all seemed simple enough, but then, nothing was simple where Janzen was concerned. He had to restrain himself from interrogating Mara. He was furious with her. How did Janzen get his hands on an XR32 and end up here trying to kill him?

  And where the hell was the lander?

  He looked over at her, burning with questions. But this was not the right time. She had almost died, and was still weak and disoriented.

  Mara looked up through the thick wooden struts of the cage. The bowl started to shake in her hands, and Karic took it off her, placing it carefully on the rough floor.

  “Maybe I will lie down.” Mara slid back into a lying position. Her eyelids fluttered as she struggled to stay awake. “It’s my fault. I should have left for the damn lander straight away …” Her words were slurred.

  “Just rest, Mara.”

  A light misting rain started to fall and Mara fell into a fitful sleep. Karic watched as her breathing grew deeper, slower. At least she was alright. So far no one had been killed. All they had to do was get out of here.

  The hours crawled by.

  Karic’s mind gnawed over the events, going in circles. There was nothing he could do. Not until he was free.

  A small black cocoon hung from one of the struts of the cage. The tiny capsule began to rock violently, finally splitting to reveal a splash of color within. Karic watched in silent wonder as the butterfly gradually drew itself out from the confines of the chrysalis to stand upside-down on the thick bough. Its wings were large and oddly shaped, swept with intricate designs and vibrant with delicate hues of violet and blue. The butterfly slowly moved its wings in the clear light, while outside the sounds of the jungle filled the air.

  Mara stirred, and the butterfly started, flying awkwardly up through the cage. Then it was gone.

  Mara looked at Karic then sat up. She looked stronger.

  “Why isn’t it dark yet?” she muttered. “Oh … there is no dark.”

  Karic smiled in sympathy. He had gone through the same thought process scores of times. He offered her more water, which she drank greedily.

  “Are you ready to talk?”

  She glared at him, then took a deep breath. “Yes.”

  “Where’s the lander?”

  “Safe. We have set up a base camp in the shadowed areas behind the lake ridge. Everything protected by the barrier shield.”

  “The pod?”

  “It was badly damaged by the energy weapon. Ibri is still there trying to get it up and running.”

  “How did you know about the energy weapon?” asked Karic, settling himself as comfortably as he could against the rudely fashioned walls of the pit.

  “The pod’s camera was still recording when they took you.”

  “Ahh.” Karic watched Mara in silence. He could not put this off any longer.

  “Mara … What the hell happened? How did Janzen get control?”

  Mara pressed her fingers into her brow. When she spoke, her voice was tight with tension.

  “Communications were difficult. We had to split up. Andrai and Janzen went to set up the base camp.” She looked at Karic, meeting his eyes defiantly. “I left Andrai in charge. He had strict orders not to do anything until Ibri and I returned with the pod. But when I got to base camp Janzen had left a message log saying the aerial probe had found your location and they were going to get you.

  “Arghh! I don’t know how he did it, but he managed to get to Andrai somehow. I thought he would have taken a tougher line with Janzen.”

  Hot accusations leapt to his tongue, driven by his pain and frustration, but he clenched his jaw and remained silent.

  Mara shook her head. “I should have left for the base camp sooner. I should have left Janzen with Ibri and gone with the lander myself. But damn it! I didn’t want to leave Janzen with Ibri. You know how much influence he has over him.”

  Karic felt the pressure build in his head. So much should have happened. He should have anticipated Janzen. “Mara, you cannot control what’s been and gone. Focus on the here and now.” It cost him to say that.

  She grimaced and sat back against the wall of the pit without a comment. She looked defeated.

  They could not give up now. Now more than ever they needed to be positive.

  “Look, Mara. Ever since you failed to find the black hole in this system you have been blaming yourself for everything that has happened. You have done your best. More than most. If you had not warned Andrai and Janzen at that precise moment, they would have both been dead. The power of that weapon is … immense.”

  Mara smiled cynically. “If only they had waited. Christ! I was hoping they would observe the camp for at least an hour before they attempted a rescue. Damn those combands! They are frigging useless on the surface.”

  “We didn’t expect to be going more than a few hundred meters from the lander, Mara. But you’re right. It’s not what they are designed for.”

  Mara chewed her lower lip. “So, how’re we gettin’ outta here?”

  “I hate to say it, but the only thing we can do is wait for Janzen and Andrai. I have tried lifting these bars, but the cover must weigh hundreds of kilos.”

  Mara nodded, leaning forward to take some of the water from the bowl and splash it over her face.

  A shadow fell over them.

  Karic looked up. It was Utar, the shaman. So was this it? Had they come for them at last?

  Mara clasped her hands together in her lap to stop them shaking.

  Karic met Utar’s gaze with defiance.

  The garments of skin and leaves were gone, but he was unmistakable. His eyes were huge and golden, glowing with rage and power. He stared at each of them in turn, the message clear: they were now under his power, and their fate had been sealed — they were to die.

  Utar turned and left.

  It will not be long now.

  “Can you stand?” asked Karic. “Step up onto my shoulders. I want to know what is going on out there.”

  Karic squatted down and Mara climbed unsteadily onto his shoulders, careful to avoid the burn on his arm. His muscles quivered as he took the weight. He stood and her head was thrust through a space in the heavy frame above. This way she could get a view of the whole camp. She gripped the bars and shook,
testing their strength.

  “Forget it, Mara. We have no hope of escaping the pit without a tool or a weapon.” It had been constructed to hold the aliens, and they were big and strong. Each joint was set with a resin that set like stone.

  “What can you see?”

  Mara turned her attention to the camp. “The shaman has just entered a small hut on the edge of the village.”

  “Can you see anything else?”

  “There is another of those crystal formations in the distance. Less than a kilometer away. This one is not as large as the range near the lake. It’s a single structure.

  “The camp had been cleaned up. All the huts have been repaired and cleaned, the charred debris removed. The remains of the native who got hit with the first rocket is gone, but … hmmm. That’s strange.”

  “What?”

  “Let me down.”

  Karic knelt and she sprang free, laying back against the wall of the pit with relief. “Everything has been cleaned up. Everything except the body of the fallen alien.”

  “They have left it?”

  Mara nodded. “They aren’t going anywhere near it. They seem spooked by it. Like it’s diseased or something.”

  “Has it begun to rot?”

  “It’s discolored, and bloated. I think so.”

  “What do you think about those crystal formations?” asked Karic.

  Mara took a breath of the heavy air. “There is no way they could be naturally formed. They must cover the whole of the dark side in a regular pattern. Each one emits exactly the same spectrum of light, like a characteristic signature. The readings I took on the lander confirm it.”

  “You think they were constructed?” asked Karic, astounded.

  “Yes. I think the whole dark side has been engineered to support life.”

  “But the resources and technology required to do that … These beings are primitive.”

  Mara looked up through the bars above. “Another race must have existed here once. A powerful one.” She shivered.

  Karic stood and tested his strength against the bars, as he had uncountable times. He looked wistfully at the broad sky above. Finally, he returned to sit near Mara.

  “A race that existed once — or still does,” he said.

  “Then what are these aliens?” she said, rising to her feet to peer up through the bars. “Apart from the color markings they are almost identical. Most are playful, almost innocent. And I haven’t seen any little ones.”

  “Of course! That’s what is so strange about this village. It’s been nagging at me ever since I was brought here. No progeny. There don’t seem to be any sexes either, and no obvious pairing.”

  Mara’s eyes brightened and she grabbed Karic’s arm.

  “That’s it, Karic. There is no death here. The way they move around that body, it’s like they have never seen this before.”

  “Never seen—”

  “Karic, they don’t die.”

  ***

  Utar stood before a small brazier. Within it were hot coals, fanned and nurtured to the exact heat he required. Fire was one of the essential components required for the Elixir and the Ritual of Life. Imbirri cooking fires burned at a low heat. Natural retardants in the vegetation used for fuel and the high moisture content kept the temperature down. There were only one or two kinds of bark and a few particular nuts from the forest that would sustain the sort of fire he needed, and the nature of these materials — and the design of the stone-built fire pit with its ingenious bellows of wood and woven plant-fiber sealed with resin — were as carefully guarded a secret as the Elixir’s formulation itself.

  Time passed without leaving a visible mark on the Imbirri planet Cru, yet each of them knew when the power of the Elixir began to lose its hold on them; their bodies cried out for it. The destruction and terror that had been visited on them lately had increased the rate at which it was consumed, hastening their need.

  Utar continued the preparations, allowing himself to become absorbed in the ritual. He was attended by Otla and Munch, his most trusted acolytes. Otla’s memory was astounding, better even than Utar’s own, while Munch’s quick mind and capacity for creative insight were equally impressive. Otla worked the bellows with practiced, rhythmic movements, singing softly to himself to keep time. The green’s grief over the death of Green Patch had faded to a mournful sadness that darkened his song with painful nuances, yet Utar did not have the heart to end his only expression of anguish. Munch was silent as he passed Utar each of the ingredients of the ancient formula in turn, the luminescent patterns rippling across the purple’s eyes showing he was lost in thought, his mind meandering through some unknown mental territory.

  Utar and the Awakener had been the first. For years beyond counting, they had wandered together, sharing the fountain of awareness, drinking in the joy of life. They had aged during this time, changing and growing as were all the Imbirri during the Dawn. In time they came to discover fire and marveled over its properties, heating upon it all manner of leaves, fruits, roots, nuts, barks and saps garnered from the forest around them. Experimenting, always experimenting, much as the younger Imbirri did now on their outside hearths.

  It had happened by accident. A freak combination of ingredients, a precise order, the exact heat. The Elixir was born: giving them changeless life. For the Elixir prevented the horrific Changes, preserving the Imbirri in their beatific perfection.

  As he dropped a precise measure of the final ingredient into the mixture, Otla ceased his aeration of the red-hot heating bed, and his sung melody faded away. The fluid churned and bubbled with evolved gases, then dramatically changed from a grayish green to a clear yellow. There was a poignant silence as they shared the moment of inexplicable transformation.

  Utar sat silently before the bowl, waiting for the heat of the coals to fade, breathing deeply of the aroma he knew so well. At last, he grasped the bowl and held it high in silent reverence. Otla and Munch bowed forward, heads touching the soft woven mat on the floor of the enclosure. He lowered the bowl, staring sadly into the golden solution there, for Utar knew their doom was upon them. The humans had yet to visit a fraction of the destruction they would bring; and beyond this lay an ending of the life the Imbirri had known.

  With determination, Utar raised the bowl to his lips and drank deeply. This was the pure concentrate. A thousand times more powerful than the diluted potion that would be given to the rest.

  It had many properties and triggered many changes in them, but it was also a strong narcotic. He carefully replaced the bowl and waited for the drug to take effect. Despite the grim promise of his prior visions, he refused to give in to these beings without a fight. Those humans within his grasp would die now and those who would come after would also pay for their crimes. Perhaps … perhaps there was some way to avoid the future these human invaders would bring to Cru.

  Utar fell back onto the floor of his hut, the drug within the Elixir now taking full effect. His soul hummed like a vibrating string in the currents of the spirit-wind as he embraced the Farsleep. His mind expanded and the familiar paths spread out before him. The potentials of all life and matter on Cru and nearby space extended into a vast matrix of causality and chance, where probability, will and consciousness collided. There was no single future, only the many, the myriad likely and unlikely. Yet sometimes this vast array of possibilities coalesced into a single future.

  As always, it was the path of the Imbirri that he watched. Despite the elation of his state, he could see that the terrible events he had foreseen if the humans came to Cru were upon them. Every Imbirri future was the same. Destruction. Ending. Not a single one of them would escape. Utar kept despair from his heart as he sped along the spirit-path of his people. It grew darker, like the night of the void, until it unraveled and was lost within a nebulous cloud of black. Nothing: nothing remained.

  Utar paused, suspended in non-space, aghast, yet determined to see it all. He sped further along the path of his people, fighti
ng through the dark cloud of the unknown. The thick, sticky substance of it clung to him, blinding him. He pushed on, plumbing the depths of his power to extend the breadth of his vision. At last the cloud was gone and what he saw beyond stunned him more than anything he had ever encountered. For an eternity he lingered, drinking in the vision, at last knowing new hope for his people. Then he sped back toward his body.

  Never would he have guessed …

  Utar rose to see his acolytes beside him, waiting in silence. The enclosure was dark and the coals spent. The effects of the Elixir were still strong. His vision swirled and shifted, his mind surging, but he forced himself to focus. He had to be here. In the Now.

  “Attend me.” The notes of his voice echoed strangely in his ears, making multiple harmonies that extended into the far distance like a chorus of singers with his own voice. He ignored the effect.

  Otla and Munch rose and helped him to his unsteady feet. With the swift movements of long practice, they hid the fire pit and all the tools and ingredients associated with the Elixir’s preparation. With everything cleared away, they cast back the walls of the enclosure. Then they began to prepare for the procession, a ritual that recounted in symbolic form the discovery of the Elixir and its deliverance to the Awakener.

  Utar was steadier now, his powerful mind focused fully on the moment. He stopped his acolytes with a signal. “Listen to me.” His voice was raw, redolent with deep, husky tones, yet resounded with the power of his vision. A voice of prophecy.

  “Soon I will die.”

  Otla and Munch both froze, and their eyes grew dark with fear. Utar laid a hand on each of them to reassure them, touching them deeply with emotion. “Do not fear for me.”

  Utar stood back, determined. “This is what must be done with my body.”