by Chris Reher
He knocked on the door to the guest cabin. “Toji?” he said. “Are you guys up?” He peered up at a camera on the ceiling. “Can you make any of that jabber out?” he asked Jex.
“None of it,” the AI replied. “The pitch and vibration they use has a different cadence now. They are both making the sound at once. It seems agitated.”
Nolan pursed his lips as he turned away from the door. “Maybe we shouldn’t disturb them,” he said.
“I am receiving new signals from the crew,” Jex said. “They have discovered some of the locals. There are hostilities.”
“What? Let’s see that.” Nolan turned away from the cabin door and hurried to the bridge. His eyes were immediately drawn to the wildly shifting, blurred recordings made by his crewmates’ cameras. Like their words, the images were garbled, but there was no mistaking the strain in their voices and the quick flashes that guided their lasers. The rapport from Azah’s projectile weapon cut through all other sounds. “What the hell is all this? They got attacked?”
“It appears that way.”
“You didn’t think to mention that?”
“I did mention it,” Jex said. “Nine seconds ago. Ryle is requesting assistance. They have veered west of their intended route.”
Nolan turned to race back into the corridor, his mind on his choice of weapons and protective gear, and did not realize that the door to the exit chamber stood open until he entered the space. Both of the Kalons were in here, one of them with his hands on the manual controls of the floor hatch.
“Where are you going?” Nolan said, surprised to see them here. “Agent Ash asked you to stay on the Nefer.”
Toji turned to face him, his eyes wide in a strangely Human expression of bewilderment. Iko heaved on the lid to the lift and pushed it back into its brace, a task that normally required two people.
“I am not concerned with Agent Ash’s directives,” Iko said. “We are leaving.”
Nolan opened one of the weapon cabinets. “I don’t recommend it. The others ran into hostiles out there.” He chose a rifle, wondering if these two might be helpful in joining whatever battle seemed to be going on out there. But then, he had never seen a Kalon wielding a weapon and was pretty sure they weren’t even allowed access to them aboard Pendra Station.
“Hostiles?” Toji said.
“We can look after ourselves,” Iko said. “We did not come all this way to stay locked up on this vessel.”
“Jex, lock the lift,” Nolan said. He looked to Toji. “I’m serious. They are firing at something out there. You’ll just get yourselves in trouble.”
Toji raised his hands. “I… I don’t…”
Iko snarled something at him and crouched by the open hatch.
“What do you have there?” Nolan said when he saw a disk-shaped object in Iko’s hand. The markings on it looked familiar. He reached out to grasp the Kalon’s arm.
Iko rose to his full height with startling speed. His free hand gripped Nolan’s neck and then swung him against the metal ladder leading to a cargo hold above.
Bright lights exploded in front of Nolan’s eyes and then everything around him turned gray. Dimly, he felt someone’s hands reach out, as if to keep him from crashing to the floor. But then he did.
Chapter Nine
“To your left, Azah!” Ryle shouted. He bent to boost Laryn up and over the face of a stone ledge on their way back to the ship. Their attackers had retreated, mostly, and now threatened from a safer distance with loud clicks and high-pitched squeals. He winced when Jex’s signal bit into his ear, demanding instant attention. “Jex?”
Laryn crouched atop the rock, turning as she swept the area with her gun.
“Please return to the ship at once,” Jex said in a static crackle.
“Kinda busy, Jex.” Ryle jammed his boot into a cleft in the rock and heaved himself up to where Laryn waited. Azah, behind him, covered his ascend. There he rose to his full height to improve the signal from the Nefer.
“Nolan has suffered an injury and the Kalons have left the ship. I am tracking but their signal is fading.”
“What happened?”
“An altercation. I am detecting blood.”
“Is he all right?”
“I don’t know his measure of ‘all right’. One of the Kalons pushed him and he struck his head. He is unconscious.”
“That is not all right,” Ryle said. He turned to pull Azah up. “We’re almost there.”
“What’s going on?” Azah said.
“The Kalons went after Nolan. Why didn’t you stop them, Jex?” With less cover crowding them now, he set a relentless pace, moving as fast as possible while still scanning behind and to the sides for their pursuers.
“Nolan is in the way of the seal. I dare not try to close it. I disabled the lift but the Kalons leaped from the hatch. Please monitor your heart rate.”
“They jumped down?” Laryn said, tapping the emergency oxygen supply of her suit for a boost. A stitch in her side had become excruciating. “That’s a long drop to bare rock.”
“The Kalons are sturdier than we assume,” Jex said.
They finally reached the bare apron of rock where the Nefer awaited them and raced toward her. “Drop the lift, Jex,” Ryle gasped.
“Maybe it’s time to get that ladder system you’ve been wanting, Ryle,” Azah said, already grasping the platform’s railing in her haste to get aboard. “Not the first time we’ve been in a hurry.”
Laryn was in no mood to ponder why this crew would have a regular need to make a fast getaway. She saw Nolan’s coverall-clad leg protrude from the opening above their heads, looking lifeless. “Is he bleeding, Jex?”
“Yes. Heavily.”
The lift stopped short of the hatch opening to allow Ryle to push Nolan’s leg out of the way. He heaved himself aboard before the platform had settled into place.
“Nolie,” he called, scrambling to the interior door to grab for the emergency kit hanging there. “Time for breakfast. Wake up now.”
Laryn knelt beside Nolan to peer at the wound. “Quite the knock on the head,” she said and reached into the kit that Ryle had opened for her to retrieve some sterile padding. She hoped that his head was as solid as his body appeared to be. Even in the short time she’d been aboard the Nefer, she had grown fond of the youthful engineer whose face, unlike Ryle’s, was an open catalog of his emotions, and whose gentleness mocked the severity of Azah’s attitudes. Her worry for him surprised her.
Nolan groaned when she pressed the bandage to his wound.
Azah, standing nearby, exhaled audibly. “Sounds like he’s coming around.”
“Nolan?” Laryn’s eyes were on the scanner in her hand.
“Breakfast,” he mumbled. The eyes he now opened were not quite looking in the same direction.
Ryle picked up the gun Nolan had dropped and returned it to its storage before shrugging out of his EV suit. “Let’s get Nolan to the lab. Can you patch him up, Laryn?”
She nodded and opened the interior door while Azah and Ryle lifted the engineer to carry him into the ship. Between her knowledge of medical techniques and Jex’s database, this injury would soon be little more than a headache for Nolan. “We’ll want extra decon. Who knows what’s floating around out there that’s now in that wound. I don’t think this planet is as harmless as it first appears.”
“You think?” Azah hissed.
“Jex, can you tell where the Kalons went?” Ryle said after depositing Nolan on the narrow bench in the ship’s lab. He turned to the monitors above the science station.
“North, toward the hills,” Jex said, showing the range of extinct volcanos bordering the valley. “Vegetation is dense there.”
“And full of those creatures,” Azah said. “I hope those two get chewed up slowly.”
“What happened here, Jex?” Ryle said. “Why did they want to leave?”
“They did not say. Their communication seemed agitated, if I apply Human qualities to thei
r speech. I still have not been able to interpret their language. I suspect it’s not only a set of audible vocalizations but also subvocals that may well border on telepathy, combined with gestures and perhaps chemical signals. For instance—”
“Jex!” Azah snapped. “Let’s concentrate on Nolan and the scans outside, shall we?”
“I am capable of concentrating on all of these tasks.”
Ryle put his hand on her arm. “Nolie’s all right,” he said. “Look, Laryn’s already on the job.”
“Could use a little quiet here,” Laryn said, focused on removing some of Nolan’s red strands of hair from around the ragged wound. She reached up to the dispenser above the bench to withdraw a thick gel Jex had mixed for her. “And Jex is right. Finding out what these people are saying to each other is a fine idea.” She opened a decon packet and handed it to Azah. “You have a scrape on your chin. Give that a soak.”
Nolan looked up at her. “Am I still pretty, doc?” he rasped.
“Barely a scratch,” she said. “You won’t even have much of a scar to brag about.”
“Damn.” He looked past her at Ryle. “I tried to keep them here but the big Kalon insisted they leave. I told them you were attacked outside. They didn’t even bother with suits. It all happened so fast. That Kalon is damn strong. Sorry, I should have locked the hatch as soon as Jex found them in there.”
“Not your fault,” Ryle said, watching Laryn tape the wound.
“They disobeyed Pendra orders,” Laryn said. “That’s as worrisome as them having a go at Nolan. They are absolutely bound by our rules if they want to be on the station. This behavior will get them banned for sure.”
“It’s not like I’m going to let them back aboard, except maybe in shackles, anyway,” Ryle said. “And we’re a little short on shackles. Leave them to the creatures.”
“I don’t think Toji had any part of this,” Nolan said, reaching for Ryle’s arm although Laryn gestured for him to hold still. “He seemed pretty confused. And sort of hissed when Iko grabbed me. I don’t remember much after that.”
“What difference does it make?” Azah snapped.
“We’re kind of responsible for them,” Laryn said. “We brought them here and now they’re running around loose out there. Who knows why they’re here? What if they mean to harm the people in that camp?”
“They went north,” Azah said. “The camp is west.”
“The box!” Nolan said.
“Huh?”
“Iko had a container. It looked like something medical. Like something that belongs to us. Humans, I mean.”
“Did you record any of that, Jex?” Ryle said.
The display switched to an overhead view of the exit chamber to let them watch the exchange between Nolan and the Kalons. Jex paused the recording and focused the display on the round object in Iko’s hand. It was blurred and indistinct, and partially covered by his fingers, but they all recognized the Pendra Consortium logo.
“What is that?” Azah said.
“It’s a container for sensitive equipment,” Laryn said. “Sterile and padded. It’s used by everyone. The clinic, Cog, engineering, astrobio.”
“Could be anything, then,” Azah said.
“Whatever it is, it belongs to us and I don’t want to see Iko with it,” Ryle said. “Let’s see if we can pick up their tracks. They can’t be far yet.”
Azah turned to the door. “We’re taking the big guns this time.” She looked back when Laryn rose from Nolan’s bedside. “Where are you going?”
Laryn met the woman’s fierce scowl without flinching. “Nolan is fine,” she said evenly. “Jex will monitor him but all he needs is some rest. I can run as long as you can and you saw me use a gun just as well. I’ll thank you to stop treating me like baggage and at least consider the fact that I can make myself useful around here. I don’t need coddling.”
Azah’s black eyes narrowed and some tense moments passed in silence as all waited for Laryn to back off. When that didn’t happen she shifted her glare to Ryle. “It’ll be on your head if you lose the mediary as well, Captain.” The gaze she raked along the length of Laryn’s body underscored her disapproval. “You need decent clothes. Tactical. Come this way.”
Ryle grinned when she left the lab and tipped a wink at Nolan. “Nice work, Agent,” he said although Laryn wasn’t sure if he meant her work on Nolan or on Azah.
“She’s just doing her job,” Laryn said, aiming for diplomacy. She looked down at the high-quality body suit she so often adorned with wraps and shawls and wondered if her bravado just now wasn’t sadly misplaced. Although she had faith in her marksmanship, she wasn’t about to outperform Azah in any serious contest. She hoped that was something she’d not have to prove any time soon. “I don’t suppose looking after Pendra mediaries is what she signed up for.”
She followed Azah into the main corridor and then to the woman’s cabin. She had not been inside this room before and found it as plain and practical as she expected.
“It’s not much, but it’s home,” Azah said when Laryn looked around the cabin. “I guess your quarters on Pendra are a palace compared to this, Princess.”
“It’s very small,” Laryn said. “And very messy.” She watched Azah open a sliding door to a neat closet. Unlike her own storage brimming with gauzy fabrics and brilliant colors, this revealed tan and gray and black clothes, neatly folded into the space.
Azah pulled items from the shelves and handed them to Laryn. “You’re a bit small for these, but it’s better than what you have. Get geared up.” Azah gripped the hem of her loose shirt and pulled it over her head.
Laryn averted her eyes but the woman didn’t seem shy about baring her skin or the fact that there was little space in this cabin to put distance between them. Having grown up with two brothers, this was altogether too much intimacy for her.
“Why did you say tactical?” She sat on the edge of the narrow bed to pull a pair of tough trousers over her knees. The threads embedded on the inside of the lightweight fabric pointed to nanofiber construction. “This is armor?”
Azah wriggled into her own suit and smoothed it over her thighs. “Seems wise after what we’ve seen so far of this place. I’m also thinking that crawling around caves isn’t going to be good for your pretty clothes, Princess.”
“Why do you keep calling me that?” Laryn said, forcing herself to sound more interested than irritated. Clearly, Azah had not gotten past her resentment of this latest of Pendra’s snoops aboard the Nefer, but her barely concealed contempt was becoming tiresome. She probably would have preferred for Laryn to stay in her cabin for the duration of the expedition.
Azah had bent to tie off her trousers and step into her boots but now looked up as if surprised by the question. “It’s nothing special. I call all mediaries that. And most of the station’s admin. Doesn’t seem like any of them know a day’s work, but they take more of their share aboard the station. Fancy cabins and pretty clothes, like yours, and getting paid too much for not doing much of anything.”
Laryn bit back a retort to Azah’s accusations. The woman was a rich man’s daughter who had chosen a simple life. Laryn came from hardship and poverty who had earned her privilege. Augmented or not, she had spent years in study and research to rank among the scientists hired for space explorations. Having been shuffled into the Office of the Intermediary to await her deep-space post had been a frustrating blow to her ambitions. But maybe, she thought, Azah was right to mock her. The delay had not kept her from taking full advantage of her privileges. Had it also made her as soft as Azah assumed?
She tilted her head toward a raised shelf near the woman’s bunk. A mirror hung behind a neatly sorted tray of the colors Azah liked to brush into her closely-cropped hair. Tucked into its frame was a picture of a woman, printed on paper and slightly wrinkled. “Is that your mom?” she said.
Azah, still looking like she was waiting for Laryn to protest her harsh words, frowned and looked toward the mirror. �
��No.”
Laryn raised her hand toward the picture, almost feeling the instant tension exuding from Azah. She did not take the paper, but traced a gentle finger along the woman’s cheek. Dark, like Azah, she seemed a little older, but her hair was a jumble of twisted curls and her warm smile seemed to mock Azah’s severe features. “A sister, maybe,” Laryn said softly. “Or a lover. She is beautiful.”
“A friend,” Azah said after a moment.
Laryn’s eyes remained on the image. “I had some pictures,” she said. She twisted her wrist to indicate a data storage bracelet there. “Of my mother. And my brothers. Terry and Sam. They’re gone now.”
A silence spun out between them before Azah spoke. “The pictures?”
Laryn nodded. “And my brothers. We lost our home, our town, to the squatters that fled the exclusion zone. After we lost Terry, we went north for a while and grubbed off the land. That wasn’t any safer, but there was food, most of the time. We joined with others like us and decided to return home, to take back what was ours. But they sent me away. Bought me a place in the Pendra program so at least one of us got out. I was just seventeen or so when I left for the clinic in Hawaii. I don’t know what happened to the others.”
She looked up and met Azah’s eyes in the mirror before returning her gaze to the image of the smiling woman. “Before all that I’d walked into a plasma trap near some barricades by the EZ. I wasn’t hurt but it wiped my data unit. I’d give up my fancy cabin and my pretty clothes if I could have even just one of those pictures back.”
“Must have been rough,” Azah said without any of the usual edges in her voice. “I’m sorry.” She handed Laryn a vest also made of armored cloth. “I thought you handled that gun a little too well.”
“I was never a princess. I just had enough of dirt and blood and being hungry. So when I got the chance to live a little easier, I took it. That’s all.” She extended her words like a hand to Azah. “I wish I had your fortitude, but I don’t. I’m still just trying to survive while others decide my fate for me.”