"Looks like they're welcoming us aboard," said Zack. "I wonder if we'll need our spacesuits?"
As if his question had been anticipated, they received a communication from the Hordean ship.
"Please to come aboard," came the message. "We have ascertained the atmosphere within our ship will provide sufficient quantities of oxygen to sustain your species and contains no constituents toxic to you. Atmospheric suits will not be required."
Zack looked at his companions.
"Time to head down to the airlock," said Gertrude.
By prior arrangement, Gertrude and Zack, Representative and Guardian, would be making first contact while Ariane remained on the Capri.
"I guess it would best if we didn't take any weapons?" said Zack.
"We are on a diplomatic mission," replied Gertrude.
"Okay," said Zack. "But I'm supposed to be your guardian, at least let me go in first."
"Alright, if you insist, lead the way."
Chapter 12. Rendezvous with Jakob.
Amalgamated Scoutship, Deep Space, New Belgrade Star System, October 6, 2676.
In the outer reaches of the New Belgrade star system, Symantia's scoutship phased smoothly out of hyperdrive back into normal space. Minutes later, Sergei got on the com set, which Symantia had temporarily converted into human configuration, and attempted to contact his old and trusted friend, Jakob Luken. He did so by posting a message on the orbital station's electronic message board using a code system he and Jakob had developed years earlier.
{Snow Queen? Request cargo transport for Bad Wolf.}
An hour later, the scoutship phased into sublight and Sergei wasn't able to send or receive messages until their return to normal space in the inner system. When the ship shifted out of sublight several hours later, Sergei found a coded message waiting for him.
Snow Queen: {Can do, Bad Wolf. You have damage?}
Sergei replied, using the same code, to establish meeting coordinates.
Bad Wolf: {Fluctuating sublight module. Meet at usual bar?}
The reply was almost immediate.
Snow Queen: {Will do, Wolf. 0800 tomorrow?}
Bad Wolf: {Roger, Snow Queen. Say hello to Ivan for me.}
Sergei had caught "Snow Queen" at a good time. Based on Jakob's reply, only about three hours would be required for him to get to the meeting zone. Sergei had picked a meeting place they'd used before, a spot in space that placed an asteroid between them and any prying eyes on New Belgrade.
Symantia's scoutship had been a great deal further from the meeting zone than "Snow Queen," but with her vastly superior acceleration capabilities in normal space, the sleek little ship was able to arrive at the agreed upon rendezvous within the appointed time.
"I have a contact," said Symantia, "... it appears to be a small freighter of some kind...Her transponder identifies her as Odessa."
"That's Jakob's ship," said Sergei. "How long until rendezvous?"
"It will be about ten minutes."
Sergei mentally went over his plans again, wondering if his old friend would be willing to go along with them. He hoped to have Jakob transport Won and him to the New Belgrade Orbital Station during Odessa's normal cargo run. He also hoped he could talk Jakob into allowing them to use the ship as a base of operations. If all that could be worked out, he and Won would be able to begin their investigations almost immediately. Given how bad the situation had been on Sergei's former ship, and the fact he knew of at least five other Soviet ships carrying "Ambassadors," he was justifiably apprehensive about what they might find once they got started. For the near term, they'd have no choice but to play it by ear.
Symantia, in the meantime, would be departing to perform unspecified Regional Guardian duties elsewhere in the Quadrant.
Sergei's operative plan was to begin their investigations by discretely contacting some of his other old friends and contacts, people he felt he could trust, and ask them what they knew or suspected about what was going on. Assuming some, and possibly many, of the Political Officers and other members of the Party Elite were colluding with the Custodians, he and Won were going to be in dangerous territory, and they would need to proceed with utmost care.
If the situation was bad enough, and he suspected it was, he wasn't quite sure what to do next. Could they go directly to some of the non-political officers of the Soviet military, inform them of the situation and have them handle it? Or would it better to identify a group of trusted people and have them form and operate a resistance movement to buy time while he and Won rallied enough support from elsewhere in the Soviet sphere to wrest control from the traitors? Either way, time was of the essence.
During the journey to New Belgrade, Sergei and Won Ling-tsu discovered their skills and personalities were quite compatible. Won was intelligent, slow to anger and possessed a somewhat dry sense of humor. The sparring sessions they'd had almost daily during the journey hadn't hurt the relationship at all. Sergei could also take some comfort in knowing he could rely on Won in a fight, if things came to that.
As Symantia's scoutship moved closer to the agreed on rendezvous point, Sergei was nagged by some justifiable apprehension and found himself praying his old connections were still valid.
He headed for his quarters to grab his gear.
***
Odessa had been waiting in the agreed upon rendezvous zone for just over a half hour, and Jakob Luken, who was a slightly built man with greying blond hair and sharp features, was beginning to wonder if his friend Sergei would be making the meeting. Perhaps something had gone wrong. There were no ships anywhere near enough to get to the meeting zone within the allotted time frame. He was just about to give the order to abandon the meeting and continue with his own business when, to his astonishment, a sleek, black ship of unknown design suddenly winked into existence less than a kilometer away.
"Snow Queen? This is Bad Wolf." Jakob recognized the voice of Sergei Popov. "This ship is equipped with a docking conduit. If you maintain course and speed, we can maneuver next to you and transfer over. Will this be alright?"
"Um, Roger, Bad Wolf," replied a shocked Lukin, "I'll get down to the airlock right away. What kind of ship is that?"
"All in good time, Snow Queen. We have much to discuss."
Captain Lukin made his way down to the front airlock area of his ship and waited for the signal indicating it was safe to open the airlock doors. Meantime, the flat black, multi-faceted, almond-shaped ship eased to within five meters of Odessa and extended, not a docking tube, but a force field of some kind performing the same function. Upon receiving the proper signal, Lukin activated the outer door of the airlock. He could hear several people entering and noticed the air pressure in the airlock had not dropped at all. His instincts dictated he close the outer door anyway before opening the inner one. As soon as the inner door was open, Lukin was treated to an enthusiastic embrace from his old friend Sergei.
"Jakob, you old liaka!" said Sergei. "It appears you have managed to somehow stay out of trouble."
"It is good to see you too, Sergei," replied Luken. "It has been too long." He turned to Won, "Who is this you have with you?"
Jakob Lukin, I'd like you to meet Won Ling-tsu, premier of the Jovian Hedgemony."
"I have not heard of this 'Jovian Hedgemony,'" said Luken.
"I'm not surprised," replied Won, "it's in the Sol System." Luken's eyes widened slightly at the news, but he said no more about the subject, confident he would be enlightened in due time. Won and Jakob shook hands.
Sergei continued, "And this... is Symantia L'Proxa."
Won stepped to his right, revealing the other...being in the airlock.
"What the...?" exclaimed Lukin, in open astonishment, as his gaze fell upon the little foxlike alien.
"It's okay, Jakob," said Sergei, "Symantia is a Lycan, and she is our friend."
"I am pleased to meet you Captain Lukin," said a female voice from a medallion around the creature's neck.
"Um...me
too," Luken managed to stammer out.
"I know this is a lot to swallow," said Sergei, "but I can explain. As you might have already guessed, change is in the air. Our lives are about to get a lot more interesting."
Lukin, still partially in shock, numbly guided the small group into the mess area of Odessa, one of the largest areas on the cramped little ship, and everyone took seats around a small table. Luken's ship had a small crew, and all were occupied with their duties, meaning they had not encountered any crewmen on their way through the ship and thus didn't have to go into the time-consuming trouble of explaining Symantia to everyone else. Besides, the fewer people who knew about her, the easier it would be to keep her existence secret, for the time being at least.
"We've had a remarkable experience," Sergei began. He then went on to describe the events leading to the current meeting and the importance of what he and Won Ling-tsu must do next. Lukin's eyes grew wide as Sergei related the fantastic story. He ended up by describing the power struggle between the Amalgamation and the Custodians and then showed Jakob the video from Murmansk.
Luken remained silent for a long moment after the video ended. Finally, he shook his head, "If this were coming from anyone but you, Sergei, I would think it was a very bad joke." He looked over at Symantia and back to Sergei. "It doesn't hurt that you somehow managed to bring a totally different alien with you. As fantastic as it sounds, it seems I have no choice but to believe you." He turned to Symantia again, "So you are the regional Guardian for this Amalgamation?"
"I am," she replied, "but I am mostly here to observe. I can provide limited information but am not otherwise allowed to interfere with any of your business. I've stretched the boundaries of the rules by transporting Won and Sergei to this system, but it was necessary."
"I see," said Luken.
"The USDP is in serious trouble, Jakob," said Sergei. "We're pretty sure there are traitors within the political arm of the military who are colluding with these Custodian creatures. Other government agencies may be...infected as well."
"How many?"
"We don't know yet," replied Sergei. "We think --we hope -- the traitors only make up a small group right now; but from what we've been able to determine so far, they're placed strategically in positions where they can do a great deal of harm in a very short time. It goes without saying we must tread very carefully."
"What do you propose to do?" asked Luken.
"I know people in the military and maybe even a few in the government I can trust," came the reply. "But first I have to figure out how to approach them without attracting too much attention. I started with you because I know you to be utterly trustworthy. We cannot fail, the future of all Mankind is at stake!"
Luken took a deep breath and let it out with a sigh. "If what you say is true - - and I see no reason to doubt your story, as fantastic as it is - - then it would seem our course is clear. Count me in."
"Thank you, old friend," said an obviously relieved Sergei.
"It appears as though you have things pretty well in hand here," said Symantia. "As I told you earlier, there is only so much I'm allowed to do without violating the rules. If you will excuse me, I have pressing business elsewhere."
Jakob, Sergei and Won escorted her back to Odessa's airlock. Just before she left for her own ship, she handed Sergei a small device. "This is an Omnicast signaling module. I can return for you if you activate it, but I will not be able to respond immediately. It may take a day or two for me to get back here."
"I think we can live with that," said Sergei. "So this is goodbye?"
"For now," replied the little Lycan. "It was a pleasure meeting you Captain Luken."
"Um...Likewise," replied Luken.
With that she stepped through the airlock and went down the docking tube back into her ship. A minute later, the docking conduit dissolved and the sleek Guardian ship pulled away to a safe distance. Seconds later, the ship became invisible to any of the human-developed sensors on Odessa as Symantia activated the stealth field.
"Unbelievable!" said Jakob.
"Yeah," replied Sergei, "I know."
Chapter 13. Plant-animal Interactions.
Capri, Deep Space, Unexplored Star System X97610, October 6, 2676.
Zack and Gertrude left Capri's airlock and boarded the Hordean ship through the temporary docking tube. Judging from the structure of the ribbed supports and the somewhat random network of veins in the walls, the tube almost had to be some kind of organic structure. As they left Capri and entered the tube, they became weightless. The warm, humid and cloyingly heavy atmosphere emanating from the Hordean craft assailed their nostrils with a moist, earthy scent not unlike freshly-turned soil.
Waiting for them at the end of the tube, just inside the alien ship, were two Hordea. During their orientation back on Deimos, all of the Humans on the team were exposed to numerous holograms and videos depicting what the species looked like, but just like their meeting with Symantia, that meager experience had been woefully inadequate to prepare them for the actual first encounter.
The central body structure of a Hordean individual was a slender cylinder, much like the trunk of a tree, some one and a half meters tall and perhaps a third of a meter in diameter. To further solidify the similarity to a tree trunk, the body was sheathed in an olive-drab coating having the texture and consistency of smooth tree bark.
The tough-looking, bark-like portion of the "trunk" faded into a much lighter colored band making up the upper fourth of the body. Within this lighter band, roughly the color of freshly-sawed pine, was a horizontal row of dark red ovals, spaced at about three-centimeter intervals, encircling the trunk. The ovals were each around two centimeters wide and five centimeters tall. To Zack, it almost looked like a ring of polished rubies had been embedded into the lighter band of tissue. Symantia's orientation materials had informed them these oval structures were photoreceptors, analogous to human eyes.
Each of the individual "eyes" consisted of multiple facets, hundreds of them, giving the photoreceptors an appearance similar to the compound eyes of the insects of Old Earth. If these structures were indeed eyes, Zack realized that Hordea were endowed with 360 degree vision! With the body a continuous cylinder from bottom to top, the arrangement of the eyes made perfect sense.
Flaring out around the bottom end of each Hordean was a disc-shaped "foot" about a half-meter in diameter. The sole of the foot, the portion that came into contact with the deck, consisted of a mass of amber-colored tendrils, hundreds of them, each about ten centimeters long and a half centimeter in diameter. Zack couldn't help but think of them as "roots," though the briefing materials had informed him the structures were capable of doing much more.
At the upper end of the Hordean body, above the eye band, the trunk blossomed out into a tassel of curved, spiky, grass-colored, leaf-like structures, some of which drooped outwards to form a halo over a meter in diameter. Zack couldn't help but be reminded of an Old-Earth plant grown on Haven called a "pineapple," except the "foliage" of the Hordea -- if that's what the structures were -- was considerably denser.
Encircling their bodies, in the dark area of the trunk just below the eye band, was a collar of ropy, dark green tendrils or tentacles, at least twenty of them. The tendrils were about two centimeters wide at the base and tapered to a blunt terminal end less than half a centimeter wide. Most of them were a half-meter in length although six of them, spaced at equal intervals around the trunk, were larger at the base and nearly twice as long. Again, the orientation materials had informed the Humans that all of the tentacles were used to hold and manipulate objects, use tools or operate machinery. The larger ones, which had enhanced tactile and sensory capabilities, were used for fine work.
The momentous occasion was marked with a simple exchange of greetings.
"Welcome to our humble spacecraft, Human friends," said the taller of the two Hordea, through an Amalgamated translation device just like the ones that Symantia had given the Humans.
>
"Greetings to the Hordea from the Human race," replied Gertrude. "I am Gertrude Tvedt and this is Zachary Lynton. Let this occasion be the beginning of a peaceful and prosperous relationship."
"Our species does not use names for individual units in quite the same way as yours does," said the taller of the two Hordea. "To render our interactions more familiar to you, we have chosen human names derived from your science of 'botany.' I will be known to you as 'Salix' and you may call my companion 'Quercia.' We have been informed Humans have a greeting ritual involving the touching of your manipulator appendages called a 'handshake.' Our species has a similar ritual wherein we intertwine our manipulator tentacles. Would you honor us by exchanging greetings in this fashion?"
"It would be our pleasure," said Gertrude. She reached out her hand and Salix wrapped a long manipulator tentacle around it. The two of them didn't exactly shake hands but simply sustained the contact for a few seconds. Zack exchanged greetings with Quercia in similar fashion. He had expected the appendage to be cold and ropy from its appearance. Instead it was warm and muscular.
"It is a pleasure to meet you," said Gertrude.
"And for us to meet you as well," replied Salix. "There is much to discuss. If you would please to follow us, we can all be made comfortable."
"We will follow," replied Gertrude.
As Zack was wondering how the Hordea maneuvered under weightless conditions, the one called "Quercia" used three of its longer "manipulator" tendrils to grasp onto a railing lining the side of the corridor and running longitudinally off into the distance. The railing was some five centimeters in diameter and an equal distance out from the wall. By alternately grasping and releasing the railing with its long tentacles, the Hordean was able to rapidly "spin" itself down the corridor. Its companion performed the same maneuver using an identical railing on the opposite side of the corridor.
The corridor itself was circular in cross section and the walls showed a pattern of ribs and veins similar to that of the entry tube. In the diffuse yellowish light, Zack was struck with an almost overwhelming sense of greenness.
The Archeon Codex: Guardians of the Galactic Sentinel Book 2 Page 8