Border Patrol

by Rod Galindo

  "Uh, yes," he replied, "understood. We'll settle in."

  "Good. Ensure your crew understands."

  Bouchard looked around the command cabin, then clicked on the intercom. "Did everyone catch that? Treads, Mags? X-Ray, M&M?"

  "Got it, pet," called his wife. "Mag-Lev and I have already activated our magnetic boots and are just hanging out on top of what's left of accelerator number three."

  "Good. Everyone else?"

  "M&M, wilco!" said Melodi. "I needed a break anyway."

  "Roger, Mel."

  "This is X-Ray. Holding position."

  "Roger, Ray." Don looked behind him. Scalia was giving him the thumbs up. "Okay." Lastly, he turned to Pearls. Her eyes were closed and she seemed to be praying. "Adrienne? Are we five-by-five?"

  A couple of seconds later, she turned her head his way and opened her large, brown eyes. They were wet.

  "Hey, listen. All you have to do is just sit back and relax. This sounds like merely one of their procedures. Then I think they'll fix us up and we'll be on our way."

  She took a deep breath. "Then why is my gut telling me to flee?" she whispered.

  Don stared at her, but said nothing. He had learned long ago to trust feminine intuition. A foreboding fell upon him, but as Commander, he had to remain strong for the crew. He suppressed his new found fear and called out. "Ma'am, we're ready!" Then in a softer voice, "I don't know exactly what our friend has in store, but—"

  The next instant, the cabin glowed purple. Don saw a wide beam slice through the ceiling, stretching from the left wall to the right, but not cutting or being destructive in any way. It seemed like intense radiation, the violet light somehow going through solid objects. It "washed" downward with not even the slightest sound. It was the brightest light Don had ever seen, brighter than the noon-day sun in the Arizona sky. And it was much hotter than that Arizona sun, too. Was his skin starting to burn?

  Pearls yelped. "Ow! My necklace! It's burning my skin!"

  "Try not to move, Adrienne!" Don called to her. "The woman said not to move!"

  "But it hurts… so bad…" she muttered.

  "Just hold on another few seconds, Adrienne!" Bouchard gritted his teeth and felt his insides cooking. He heard a groan from behind him. Scalia was in pain as well.

  Pearls screamed. "My legs! They're on fire!"

  Her words were an instant reminder of the accident. After her experimental supersonic plane had crashed in the high desert of Nevada, U.S. Air Force doctors had done a superb job of repairing her mangled lower half. Since the age of twenty-one, Adrienne had sported synthetic legs. Even in a bathing suit, it was nearly impossible to tell where the flesh stopped and the synthetic flesh began. Don was almost jealous of the abilities she gained; it was impossible to keep up with her in a foot race. Why, she could reach speeds of—

  SEVEN

  Don Bouchard stirred, as if from a long sleep. But had he been asleep? Sounds entered his mind, but none sounded familiar. Sparks flashed in the darkness, but he could focus on none of them. He tried to open his eyes, but wasn't sure he had succeeded. The world around him was dark, but not totally black. He opened his mouth to take a breath, as if for the first time. What was that taste? He'd never tasted that before. A smell entered his nostrils. What the hell is that? Everything seemed… odd. Not necessarily foreign. Just different.

  He tried to move.

  "Relax," said a female voice. It wasn't familiar. Or was it?

  He then heard gurgling noises. Clicking. He had definitely heard those noises before. Only they sounded a bit different, too.

  "Try not to move," a woman said, "your body isn't ready."

  He recognized the voice now. It simply wasn't amplified electronically. Don's mouth moved, but only groans came out.

  "Shhh. You are safe now. As long as I stay smarter than the Royal Military, you and your crew will be safe. Which shouldn't be too terribly hard."

  Bouchard tried to relax. He opened his eyes again, and saw a bright light now. Everything was blurry. "My… My eyes…" He gurgled the words in the back of his throat.

  "Close them. They are not ready just yet."

  A thought struck him. "My crew!" He coughed and sputtered fluid into his mouth.

  "Please! You may rupture the delicate tissue before it's cured! It's only been two Earth days. I need to let the process continue for just one more. I will check on you again soon. Sleep, my friend."

  A bright blue light flooded his vision, and Don Bouchard lost consciousness.

  EIGHT

  Don and Pearls meandered down a dark hallway that looked more like it had been tunneled out of granite than built in an alien spacedock. Nooks and crannies of all shapes and sizes glowed from a light source he couldn't see. Or possibly not understand.

  "I don't get it, are we prisoners?" Adrienne asked. The whites of her large eyes gleamed brightly, in stark contrast with her dark skin, which nearly blended with the walls in the dim light. "Will we be able to continue our mission? Will we even be allowed to return to the Explorer?"

  Don halted and stared straight ahead. "All very good questions."

  Adrienne stopped too, and crossed her arms. "I just wish we could see the others. They're in one of these caves," Pearls said, eyeballing one of the many round, sealed doors around her, "I just don't know which."

  "They'd better be," Don spat.

  "Snine-yl-curix—or whatever her name is—said they were here. You don't trust her? She did save us from getting blown out of the sky."

  "I'll feel a lot better when I see them for myself."

  She breathed deeply. "I hope Larry is okay. I know how he gets when he's apart from me for too long. I just want to let him know I'm here, that I'm alive and safe. He worries so."

  Don dropped his arms and spun on his heel. "That's it. I'm getting answers. Now." He stomped down the tunnel, towards one of the only rooms to which he had access: the bridge of the small, alien science vessel.

  "Wait. Darko, wait! I don't think this is the best way to—"

  He tuned her out, his thoughts falling upon Brea, fearing she may also be wondering where he was. And if he was still alive.

  The dimly lit tunnels of the small alien ship were novel for the first twenty-four hours after he and Pearls were able to stand on their own two feet, but now Bouchard had seen all there was to see. Or rather, everything the aliens would allow him to see, which wasn't much. He and Adrienne were told they could wander the ship alone, but they were warned not to touch anything except the food and drink dispensers, and the toilets—if they could be called that.

  The "woman" who had spoken English to them over the loudspeakers of Explorer Two called herself "§9ylÎx." She had to type it on a display for Don to comprehend the name, and he murdered the pronunciation every time he tried to say it. But her name wasn't important. The fact she promised answers, however, was. It is past time for those answers, and I'm not going to let her blow me off again! Don's resolve surprised even him.

  "Donnie, please, let's just wait a little longer," Pearls whispered as she rushed to catch up.

  The tunnel before them opened automatically at their approach, more like the mouth of a living beast than merely a door, and Bouchard burst onto the alien bridge, piping mad, and not for the first time. The corners were black, but the ceiling glowed from stem to stern with holographic displays. He saw Earth in one of those displays, serene and peaceful. He hoped that was a current view, and not a recording of some kind.

  In the center stood a large, round, brightly illuminated console. §9ylÎx sat on one side of it, her many appendages dancing slowly and deliberately over glowing bulbs and shiny tendrils. Her shipmate, another insect-like creature who she called "ß7ylÎx", sat next to her. Don had rarely seen them apart. The two were basically the same; their wings had the same multi-hued iridescence, their thoraxes were the same size, their tracheae and mal… malphi…something—whatever those front tubules were called, Don couldn't remember—appeared identical. He c
ould only tell them apart because one could speak English, and the other could not.

  Three other seats grew out of the granite-colored flooring on the other side of the console, which Bouchard assumed was the command station for the entire vessel. There were no other 'stations' in the room, and no windows to be found anywhere.

  "Hello, Commander!" §9ylÎx said in a peppy voice, sounding genuinely happy to see him. But then, she sounded like that every time she saw him. "Did you enjoy your dinner?"

  Adrienne plopped down on what may or may not have been a bench that circumnavigated the roughly roundish room, and put her head in her hands.

  Don knew what she was thinking. She was certain he was going to screw things up with his impatience. We'll see. He pointed to one of the many massive holographic screens above him. "§9ylÎx, if I'm reading that right—and frankly I don't know how I am reading it at all—the last ship left the area hours ago, and is now several light years away at this point. May we finally get some answers?"

  §9ylÎx looked up with three of her eight black eyes. One of these found Pearls, and locked on her lithe form. "You sound angry, Commander."

  "Well… that's because I am!"

  B7yl^x raised one antenna and clicked twice.

  "Yes, you're right, he has been very patient," §9ylÎx agreed. She made what sounded like a sigh, then spun her chair around and faced Bouchard, all eyes trained upon him. "Commander, you are correct, all the ships have gone, and it is safe to speak freely now. Again, I want to apologize for being so rude when I first contacted you. I had to take a hard stance in front of the military, or they would have brushed me aside and destroyed you in the blink of an eye. And I am sorry I've had to keep you 'in the dark' as you say, these last twenty-five hours. It was merely a precaution. With that said, what are your questions?"

  Don calmed down almost instantly. "Thank you." He turned to Adrienne and smiled.

  Pearls looked up. The expression on her face said, "That actually worked?"

  "Okay," Bouchard said. "First, while you've reassured me again and again that my crew is fine and in fact here on this ship somewhere, I haven't seen hide nor hair of them. You told me it's been three days since the 'incident', since what I call First Contact. Three days! I want to see them, especially my wife. Second, tell me, just how did we get here? Do you have some sort of teleportation technology? Because I don't remember ever leaving our ship. Three, how is it that you can speak English as well as we can, and no other alien we've met or talked to can? Who are you, exactly? What are you?"

  Clicking and gurgling noises came from ß7ylÎx.

  §9ylÎx turned two eyes to her companion. "You're probably right. I hope their hearts can handle the stress of the revelation."

  Clicking.

  Don swallowed. Hard.

  The gray insectoid leaned toward him. "Commander, I'm sorry to inform you that Time has erased your history. The natural oscillations of your star that causes periodic ice ages and global warming—on all planets, not just yours—plus eon after eon of devastating wars that you've waged against yourselves and other alien species, has taken its toll." Three eyes turned towards ß7ylÎx. "It's a wonder any humans have survived at all. I've been monitoring their planet for how long?"

  Two clicks and a blop.

  "That's right, over sixty »¥coys now. As far as they know, their civilization is the first to invent electricity! They think they're the first humans to ever venture into space!"

  The alien spoke as if Don and Pearls weren't there, but he felt as though her words were strictly for their sake.

  The other shook her head.

  A brief silence followed. Adrienne must have either missed the cue that they were being lectured, or didn't care. "Ma'am? What is a 'coy'-whatever?" she asked.

  "A »¥coy?" §9ylÎx corrected. "That is almost exactly two hundred and eleven of your Earth years."

  Don's eyes fluttered. "And you've been studying our world for… how many of those?"

  "Coming up on sixty-two."

  "So… you're saying, you've been watching us for twelve thousand years?"

  "In Earth years, yes." The woman replied. "Actually, it's closer to thirteen thousand."

  Adrienne's jaw was slack when Don turned to see if she had heard the same thing he heard. "How long do you live, anyway?" she exclaimed.

  "If we're lucky, a hundred or so »¥coys. The record is a hundred and forty-seven, since we started keeping accurate records."

  "Wait," Bouchard said, "you people live twenty to thirty thousand years?"

  "Not all. Some of us aren't so lucky in this life."

  "But," said Adrienne, "you yourself have been studying our world since… since basically the birth of our civilization?"

  "You mean the birth of the current civilization on Earth, yes," §9ylÎx corrected. "That's when my official study began. I was assigned M_42¤—or the Sol system as you call it—when it was clear your planet was coming out of another Ice Age. The previous custodian of M_42¤3ØÝ=× had planned to return to study you. That was prior to your planet acquiring the =× identifier, indicating that it was off-limits to all but authorized personnel." She performed what sounded like "tsk-tsk-tsk." "Like I said, some of us aren't so lucky in this life."

  B9yl^x fluttered, creaked, chirped and clicked.

  "Agreed." Eight eyes darted back and forth between Don and Pearls. "You Earthlings always end up being Enemy Number One! Why is that? Why does your kind always have to fear and destroy what you don't understand? K3ui^p, the former custodian of Earth, was an ancient, wise, peaceful soul. Not to mention our friend. We mourned her for a full Mji1»¥coy"

  "Humans killed her?"

  "In what you would call 'cold blood', at their first meeting. We have a different saying, by the way, as none of us are endothermic. I'm sure at least one of you already surmised this."

  Don swallowed again. I hope they're not going to hold us responsible for something our ancestors did millennia ago!

  "Our Council deliberated for a long time," §9ylÎx continued. "Too long for most. The order finally came. Our Border Patrol, augmented by the Royal Guard, wiped out your Armada. And your colonies, too, the ones that had fared so well, even though Earth was an icy wasteland for so many thousands of years and couldn't support them. They were successful, but they were parasites on hundreds of worlds in the galaxy. I felt nothing. Not sadness. Not joy. Not regret. Only that justice was served."

  "You committed genocide?" Pearls screamed.

  "That would be of the highest immorality!" the woman said. "Of course we didn't commit genocide. You are living proof of that!"

  "A holocaust, then."

  §9ylÎx seemed to consider the word.

  Her companion chirped a few times.

  "Ah yes, I remember now," said §9ylÎx, "the near genocide of their second world war. I suppose you could say this was similar. But for a much different reason. We did what we did for the safety, and frankly, the continuing existence, of the population of the galaxy. Humans are violent. Destructive. Greedy. Unreasonable. Unconscionable."

  "Their armada," Don said. "Those ships weren't ours. Those people weren't us."

  "They were just like you."

  "Not like me. Not like her," he said, motioning to Pearls, who sat on her hands and stared straight ahead at nothing. "Not like any of my crew."

  The aliens turned and looked at one another. §9ylÎx nodded. "No. Not like you," she agreed. "You and your crew, Commander, are the first human explorers any of us have ever met who appear reasonable. You're also the first to venture out here in a fragile, unarmed tin can instead of a warship ready to eliminate anything and everything it happens to find."

  Don chewed his lip, and looked back at Adrienne. He wondered if she was thinking what he was. That the aliens obviously hadn't found their nuclear missiles.

  Not yet, anyway.

  "It's fortunate for all involved, really," §9ylÎx went on, "that most of your population now tends to remain on Earth or on the
moons of the outer planets, and not venture into the great expanse. It's understandable, especially since Edene^a was reduced to a desert wasteland—you now call it 'Mars'—there isn't another lush, green, watery world for dozens of light years in any direction. Each time this is discovered, word reaches the ears of everyone on your planet, and lucky for the rest of the galaxy, most humans stay put. Lucky for the rest of us, you fleshy types don't fare too well on any of the other systems nearby—even with proper technology. And then, as happens every now and again, Earth's ice ages wipe the slate clean, or nearly so. They finally bring a pause to the human need to expand and conquer. If not an end. But it is close enough."

  Bouchard noticed Pearls had began to rock back and forth, her brow low, her eyes glossed over. "Did you destroy Mars?"

  §9ylÎx's eyes all seemed to widen at once. "My kind would never decimate an entire planet's ecosystem, even to rid the universe of a scourge like Humanity! We may wipe out the parasite itself, but never all the life on its surface. No, Mars was like that many, many »¥coys ago. Not even the oldest in our society remembers a green Mars. But our history reports it was once a paradise. What you call 'Mother Nature' brought an end to that world on its own."

  "I see," said Don. "I had to ask."

  "Here is something you'll find interesting, Commander. Before the armistice of 6542 K.S.E.—that's your own King Solomon's Era, a little over ten thousand Earth years ago—humans used to live two to five »¥coys. Noah, the most famous of your Generals, lived nearly five, if I remember correctly."

  Five coy-things? Don thought. A thousand years!? "Are you telling me it's true? The ancient texts? The Holy Bible says Noah lived about 950 years, if I remember correctly. But I always assumed those 'years' were actually 'new moons', and an interpretation just got mixed up at some point. For instance, you get a normal human lifespan of 73 years if you divide 950 by thirteen, thirteen being the number of new moons in any given year. That made sense to me. But there's nothing in the Bible about him being a General. Not that I remember, anyway." He looked at Adrienne.