by Dan Worth
‘To more good luck in the future,’ he declared and took sip.
‘I’ll go along with that,’ replied Chen and did likewise then she sat down on the couch and took a sip of her drink. The wine was good, dark and fruity. ‘Where did you get this?’ she asked.
‘Oh, when we stopped at Alexandria Station in Altair on the way out here, it’s from a vineyard in the system. I’ve been saving it for a special occasion. This is as good as any.’ He sat down next to her. ‘Hmm, is this Mozart you’re playing?’ he said.
‘Very good, it is. You’re quite the cultured man, Alvaro. I’ve noticed this about you, though sometimes you hide it well. Your ability to sing colourful ditties in spaceport bars for example.’
Ramirez gave an embarrassed laugh. ‘Not the one that goes “There was a young lady from Venus?”’ he said and winced.
‘No, no it was more imaginative than that.’
‘Oh God…’
‘You know I really enjoyed the other night. Maybe I should do things like that more often, let the crew see the human side of me. I’ve always been afraid eroding my authority if they saw me letting my hair down a bit.
‘It doesn’t hurt to a have a couple of drinks once in a while, just as long as you stay more sober than them they won’t notice.’
‘Maybe you’re right. It does get a bit lonely being the captain sometimes. Perhaps I should get out more.’ She sighed. ‘It’s just, Alvaro, I was wondering.’ she looked at him oddly.
‘What?’
‘Do you worry about the prospect of war? With the K’Soth I mean.’
‘Yes. Yes I do actually… a great deal in fact. I’m pretty sure it’ll happen eventually. Sorry if that’s not much of a comfort.’
‘That’s a little fatalistic isn’t it? I mean I’m all for being prepared, I’m the captain of this ship, I’m responsible for hundreds of people, I have to be… but after last time?’
If only I could tell her that I know what is to come, thought Ramirez. ‘Guess I’m a pessimist about some things,’ he said. ‘Maybe I read too much into history?’
‘Well I’d never have thought that about you Alvaro. I thought I was the gloomy one.’
‘You should meet my father, every day he thinks it’s the end of the world.’ Ramirez laughed. ‘He practically had a nervous breakdown when I joined the Navy. He was convinced I’d walk out of an open airlock or get eaten by some monster on an alien world or something. Maybe I get it from him a little. You don’t worry then?’
‘Part of me does,’ she replied. ‘The responsibility of commanding a ship in battle is quite an awesome one, aside from the risk of death or injury. I’m more bothered about the people under my command, if I make a mistake at a crucial moment it’ll be them that suffer as well as me. That’s why I’m glad I have such a good bridge crew, especially my First Officer,’ she patted his arm affectionately. ‘But part of me relishes the prospect you know? My grandfather fought in the war, he was a marine aboard the Tokugawa. I gather that he saw some of the worst of the fighting both in space and on planet surfaces. He helped to liberate Klondike after the atrocities.’ She said and noted Ramirez’s grimace.
‘He… never talked about it much, but when I was a child we’d hear him screaming at night sometimes in his sleep. The nightmares would come and he’d be reliving it all again. He suffered terrible depression too. He was on all sorts of sedatives and things but none of them really worked and well, eventually he killed himself. He couldn’t live with what he’d seen. That he’d been spared when so many others hadn’t made it. Post traumatic guilt.’
‘Christ, I’m sorry Michelle. I shouldn’t have brought it up.’
‘No that’s alright. I don’t mind discussing it. It was all a very long time ago. But part of me would love to pay back the K’Soth for what they did to him and our family and doubtless many more,’ she said, staring at the black depths of her wine glass, before taking another mouthful. ‘I just hope it doesn’t cloud my judgement if the time comes.’
‘Well your judgement was spot on today if I might say so.’
‘Thank you. Though I did have good counsel as ever,’ she chuckled. ‘Did you see the look on that Vendiri’s face? I bet today I was his worst nightmare come to life!’ She drained her glass and shot Ramirez a wicked smile.
‘It was like watching a cat play with a mouse. You’re downright predatory when you want to be.’
‘I am indeed, and I have to be. Refill please, and that’s an order by the way.’
Ramirez reached for the bottle and chuckled.
Second
Banished to the wilderness at the end of creation, we struggled on in the encroaching darkness. One by one the distant lights began to dim until we were truly alone in the endless night. Thousands of years since our arrival, we had still not found a way out of this desolation. In an effort to preserve ourselves we used all of our technological prowess and genius to survive, huddling our settlements around the embers of dead stars and the all consuming singularities that now populated the heavens, harvesting what energy we could in order to stay alive.
But our biological bodies were ill suited to survive in such a hostile place. As the centuries passed the deadly sea of radiation that saturated this domain of shadows began to take its toll. Despite our best efforts and precautions we found our bodies turning against us. Lesions and tumours became ever more common, our offspring were hideously deformed or stillborn. Our gene pool was being steadily corrupted and polluted, our race was dying. Despite our vigil, there was no sign of the portal re-opening. We would get no chance to repent, or to revenge ourselves unless we could eke out our existence until a solution could be found.
A decision was taken. If our bodies could not survive here then we would have to do without them. Only machines could survive here, so machines we became. We transferred our minds into bodies of metal and circuitry and we were born anew. Freed from the constraints of a biological existence, truly we became the Gods we had once aspired to emulate. Our minds were now freed from the pedestrian speed limits that had imprisoned them and we could share our thoughts freely as one greater whole. We were immortal, all powerful. Now our intellectual and technological accomplishments would know no bounds and when we returned home, those who had acted as judge, jury and executioner would feel our divine wrath. For us, that day could not come soon enough.
Chapter 6
Katherine slept soundly for several hours in the spacious room she had been assigned on the second floor of the ambassadorial residence. She had arrived in the early hours of the morning Mean Time and after her travels she welcomed the comfort of the large double bed. Thankfully, all the rooms had thick shutters and curtains so that those unaccustomed to the lack of a day-night cycle could actually get some sleep.
The mansion’s architect had been inspired by the colonial residences from the Imperial age of Earth’s history and the attempt to recreate the style extended to the interior decoration. Thankfully, the resemblance was merely cosmetic and the building contained all the modern luxuries most Commonwealth citizens would expect. However, upon awaking Katherine could have sworn she was in middle of Raj era India. The walls were a mixture of wood panelling and white plasters, floors were tiled and scattered with richly patterned rugs whilst most of the furniture was carved from local wood and was unusually ornate. In addition there were a good many ornamental native plants standing in large porcelain vases to give the interior some colour and decorative shutters on the exteriors of the windows.
Katherine rose groggily from the depths of sleep and squinted blearily at her watch. It was 9:30 in the morning Mean Time. Not that it made a whit of difference here, as the sunlight outside beat down as relentlessly as ever. Nevertheless, it was time to get up. She showered and dressed in what she thought appropriate clothing for the climate, loose fitting trousers and a t-shirt, and she was lacing up her boots when there a timid knock at the door.
‘Katherine?’ It was Rekkid. ‘Katherine, are you
awake yet?’
‘Yes, come on in I’m dressed,’ she replied, tying off the laces of her left boot.
He entered the room and shut the heavy door behind him.
‘I just came by to give you these,’ he said and handed her a plastic tub of white capsules. She studied the label on the container.
‘What on earth?’
‘Due to our remote location and our small numbers it isn’t practical to import off-world foodstuffs, and we’ll be off into the desert too. Obviously we can’t digest alien life forms unaided, so the residence’s doctor has asked me to give you these, they’ve got genetically engineered gut flora and Arkari made nano-machines in them.’
‘Sounds great,’ she responded with little enthusiasm. ‘How often do we have to take them?’
‘Oh, one every five days. Now you know what I have to put up with living on Earth.’
‘Hmm, that’s true. So what’s the local food like then, are we eating bugs for lunch?’
‘No, no it all seems to be mostly vegetable based or sea creatures. There’s not much grazing land in proportion to the population, so meat’s expensive. Also, most of the cities are clustered around the northern ocean and it provides a plentiful supply of foodstuffs’
‘Oh well, I like fish.’
‘Yeah, that’s what I thought,’ said Rekkid thoughtfully and grimaced. ‘Anyway, when you’ve had something to eat I thought you might like to go for a walk into the town. I had a wander down there yesterday and I did find somewhere that serves reasonably edible food by the river. We could have lunch there perhaps?’
‘Okay. What is there to eat for breakfast anyway?’
‘Well I had a half of this purple fruit thing yesterday. That wasn’t too bad I suppose, and Steven keeps eating the local bread with some red fruit preserve on it, though I’ve no idea what that’s made from. Anyway, if you wander down to the kitchen I’m sure you’ll find something, no-one minds too much if you help yourself. There are some locals employed as cooks and whatnot but they don’t come in until later. The kitchen’s down in the basement, just follow the main stairs all the way down, you can’t miss it.’
‘Right, well if you come and find me in say, half an hour?’
‘Alright, enjoy.’
‘Oh no doubt I will,’ she said wryly to Rekkid as he retreated from the room. She wondered what he was up to, and when was he going to tell her where had he been all this time?
Katherine took one of the fat white pills and swallowed it with a glass of water from the sink, and then she made her way down the grand central staircase to the kitchen to find something to eat.
Rekkid had been right, it was easy to find and thankfully it had fully modern fittings. She had been expected piles of pots and pans and joints of meat swinging on hooks from the ceiling in keeping with the rest of the house.
The kitchen was deserted and Katherine began poking around in the various cupboards and refrigerators. She was faced with a mountain of unrecognisable alien foodstuffs labelled in a language she couldn’t read. Her father the cook would have loved this she thought, he’d have tasted half of this stuff by now, however she just wanted something simple and vaguely familiar. She wondered if there was any of the bread Rekkid had mentioned. That would be a start.
After a bit more searching she found two flat, greyish loaves of something that approximated bread. Now she needed something to go with it, and something to drink, though water would suffice. It seemed hopeless, she didn’t have a clue what any of this stuff was. Katherine swore under her breath.
‘Having trouble getting used to the local food?’
She jumped. Steven was stood right behind her and she hadn’t even known that he was there. His face wore a slightly embarrassed expression
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,’ he said apologetically.
‘That’s quite alright. I could use a hand here actually. What the hell is all this stuff?’
‘It’s what there is to eat around here I’m afraid. I see you found the bread.’
‘Yeah, at least I think it is. I take it it’s not made from wheat.’
‘No, they dry these big seedpods then grind them up to make flour. They’re full of things that look a bit like beans. It does taste a lot like bread though. You’ll want something to put on it then?’
‘Yes, Rekkid said he saw you eating some stuff that looks like red jam. I thought I’d try that.’
‘That was my strawberry jam. My old mum still makes it back home, she sent me a load of it a month or two back, I have stash of it in my quarters.’
‘I would love some strawberry jam Steven,’ she gave him a pleading look, he raised an eyebrow. ‘Pretty please? Go on…’
‘Well… alright,’ he grinned and reached into one of the cupboards, producing a sticky looking jar from behind a pile of tins. ‘Just don’t go telling everyone I hand out free samples. I’ll have none of it left.’
Katherine grabbed a knife, split one of the small loaves lengthways and began spreading jam on it. ‘I promise I’ll keep this secret. I owe you one,’ she said, took a bite and made appreciative noises. ‘I think I owe you more than one actually, or your mum anyway,’ she said through a mouthful of bread and jam. ‘Now, what is there to drink around here?’
‘I suppose you’ll be wanting to raid my stash of coffee beans now will you, Doctor?’ he replied conspiratorially.
‘Well, now that you mention it…’
‘I’ll make us both one, you wait upstairs.’
Rekkid came downstairs and found Katherine sitting on the veranda eating jam and bread and sipping freshly made coffee. She waved at him.
‘Ah hello Katherine, I see you and Steven are getting acquainted,’ he said.
‘Rekkid, I believe I have found the most useful person on this planet,’ said Katherine. ‘He has jam and coffee and God knows what else hidden in this house. The man deserves a medal.’
‘Oh it’s alright for some isn’t it?’ said Rekkid with a smile. ‘I had one of those blue things, Uana fruits, for my breakfast this morning. It tasted like metal polish.’
‘Well I laid off the metal polish some time ago Professor,’ said Steven. ‘So I think I’ll steer well clear of those.’
‘Do. My mouth feels well and truly buffed and shined. Katherine, are you ready for our jaunt into town, when you’ve quite finished covering yourself in jam?’
‘Yes, hang on a second Rekkid,’ said Katherine through a mouthful of food and wiped a sticky red blob from her trousers before finishing the last of her coffee. ‘Thanks for the breakfast, Steven. I’ll catch up with you later. Rekkid’s promised to show me the sights of Erais.’
She helped Steven to clear away the breakfast things and then bade him farewell, following Rekkid down the gravel drive to the gate. The sunlight was hot and unrelenting, though a cool breeze blew off the sea and made the temperature more pleasant. Katherine gestured at the carefully laid out gardens of alien plant life.
‘I wonder who did all this?’ she said.
‘The flowers? Oh the Ambassador has some of the locals in his employ as gardeners, they created all this. Nice isn’t it? Steven was saying the old guy had few books on Inigo Jones translated for them, though they didn’t take the hint and copy his style. Still this is all rather pleasant.’
‘Where is the Ambassador anyway? I haven’t met him yet and I’m staying in his residence.’
‘Oh, he’ll be up later; he gets up at all sorts of odd times. Not that it makes much of a difference here, but he’s a bit, well, eccentric I suppose. Nice chap though, if a little odd.’
‘How so?’
‘Hard to describe, no doubt you’ll see later. We’re having a meal with him tonight. It’s sort of a welcome dinner for us all. He said there’d be a few surprise guests too.’
‘Hmm, I suppose I’d better get the creases out of at least one set of clothes then. By the way, what’s in the bag?’ she said, pointing at the satchel Rekkid had slung over his shoulde
r.
‘Ahh, wait and see,’ he replied cryptically and winked.
They followed the road as it curved down from the headland and onto the end of the quay. The sea front was busy with well-to-do Dendratha, smartly dressed in their brightly coloured robes and it was alive with alien sights, smells and sounds. The waves slapped gently against the sea wall as the boats moored out in the bay bobbed gently on the slight swell.
Katherine took a closer look at the inhabitants of Maranos and noted that they moved with surprising speed. On inspection she noticed that the single foot was in fact composed of numerous smaller feet like those found on caterpillars and that the Dendratha propelled themselves along in a similar rolling fashion. She tried not to stare, although she realised that she and particularly Rekkid were attracting some attention themselves. This had not gone unnoticed by the Arkari. Katherine noticed him looking speculatively at the boats bobbing in the shallow harbour.
‘We need more privacy I think,’ he said. ‘Let’s see if we can hire some sort of vessel.’
‘Do you have any local money?’
He flourished a card with a Commonwealth logo on it.
‘Yes, the ambassador gave me this yesterday. I can show it to shopkeepers or whoever and everything gets charged to the residence, then your government picks up the tab. Though it might not be recognised out of town.’
The two of them wandered along the promenade until they came to a small pier jutting out into the water. A number of flat bottomed rowing boats were moored to it. After a brief negotiation that involved Rekkid pointing at the boats, the water and the card they managed to hire one of the tiny vessels. It was built for Dendratha physiology and thus proved awkward to row. Nevertheless Katherine managed to propel the boat out to a sufficient distance to satisfy Rekkid’s paranoia. She headed for a buoy and Rekkid tied the boat to it. The craft rocked in the gentle waves.