by Ashe Barker
Llianna is quick to protest. “I am not ill, not really. I just felt strange, weak suddenly. I am all right now, I think.” She tries to sit up under her own steam and lets out a groan.
“Tell him.” Sylvan growls the command. “Tell him what happened. Or would you prefer it if I did?”
Tell me? Tell me what? I look from Sylvan to Llianna, utterly bewildered.
He regards her sternly, one eyebrow lifted in what may pass for encouragement. He seems angry, and somehow amused by all this. I’m just baffled.
Llianna turns to meet my eyes. “It was hebetic narcosis.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Hebetic narcosis,” she repeats.
I shake my head, no wiser.
“Not the full, deeply de-animated stasis I was in when you first discovered me, but the surface form of it. It is an evolutionary device to aid us in enduring sickness or injury, or even as in this case, intense emotional discomfort. Not all Fyorlians can achieve it, which is why I was the only one to survive the illness which killed my companions on the Renascient. It is I who should apologise to you, for not having alerted you to this possibility.”
I stare at her for a few moments, then shake my head again, trying to make sense of this. We had worked out that she was in a state of suspended animation when we found her; that much was obvious. She was in a coma of sorts, and from what she had been able to tell us after she recovered she had been out of it for forty-nine years.
This is unusual, but not unheard of among several species, including some on Earth. It is usually the result of the organism being able to produce a strong narcotic enzyme when stressed that causes the life signs to slow down temporarily or even to stop altogether. Apparently Fyorlians possess this talent, or some of them do.
“How do you feel now? Do you need Sylvan to perform the link again?”
“That won’t be necessary,” says Sylvan. “There are no continuing effects.”
Llianna seems to be in agreement. “I am fine, really.”
Sylvan clears his throat. “So, that was a neat little trick and clearly we need to rethink our strategy on discipline if you’re just going to retreat into a self-induced comatose state just because we speak firmly to you.”
Llianna opens her mouth to protest but Sylvan forestalls her. “No, let me finish. We were displeased, we told you off and insisted on having your assurance not to repeat the behaviour, but we were not so hard on you that your life was threatened and you knew that. So, is the hebetic narcosis something you can control? Can you shut down like that at will?”
Llianna shakes her head slowly. “No, it is instinctive, an involuntary response.”
“I thought so. And now that I’ve seen you do it I’ll recognise the signs more quickly next time so please do not be thinking you can rely on that to avoid a punishment. But the response I detected was an emotional rather than a physical one. You were upset, extremely distressed, I have no doubt of that, but the cause was internal rather than related to what we were saying to you. We’d already said there would be no spanking, so you had no cause to be afraid. Am I correct so far, Llianna?”
She stares at him as though unable to break his solemn, intense gaze. When no answer is forthcoming from her, Sylvan continues.
“I’ve been thinking, about the conversation we started to have a little while ago. You were trying to explain your reasons for disobeying us back there and I rather think there might be more to all of this than you’ve shared so far. Then, when Luca asked if you were ready to promise to do as we asked, you said no, that you couldn’t do that. Not that you wouldn’t. Can’t, not won’t. Am I right?”
I look to him in something akin to amazement. Sylvan is my closest friend, but I would never describe him as especially sensitive or intuitive. Like me, he avoids emotional situations like the plague as a rule, yet Llianna seems to have struck a nerve with him. He is right. That was what she said, and I missed it. Shit.
I take her chin in my hand and make her meet my eyes. “Llianna, why can’t you promise?”
“Please, I do not know…”
“Yes, you do. Tell us.”
“I do not have words. It is… complex.”
“Try,” I insist.
“Because… because it would not be the truth. A promise must be true, I think. Is that not correct?”
“Ideally,” agrees Sylvan. “Why would it not be true if you mean what you say?”
“I would not mean it. I would be lying because I know that in the same situation I would do exactly the same thing. I would disobey and leave the Zephyrean if that was what was required to help you. I could not promise you that I would do otherwise, knowing it to be untrue.”
“Your honesty could have earned you a spanking. We might have continued until you did tell us what we needed to hear.” Sylvan grasps her hair in his fist and turns her face toward his. “You would have given in, eventually.”
She meets his gaze, then turns back to me. Eventually she looks Sylvan in the eye again. “No, sir, I would not. I could not.”
“So you resorted to the hebetic narcosis as a way of ending an intolerable situation, extricating yourself from the dilemma?”
“I… yes, I suppose that is true. That is what happened. I could not give you the promise you demanded, because I cannot lose you. Either of you.”
He narrows his eyes and his mouth flattens in an irritated expression. “Can’t again, not won’t?”
“I cannot allow you to die, not if there is something I might do to prevent it. I cannot do that. I absolutely will not.”
“Does it bother you so much, then, the prospect of being left alone again?” I seek to reassure her. “It wouldn’t be for long.”
“I do not fear being alone, not anymore. I was alone for half a helio-cycle after the commander of the Renascient passed and I survived it. I do not require your computer to navigate the ship, I can do so myself. Or I would, if I had to. Surely by now you must know I am capable. Your computer will not accept my commands in any case. I could bypass him to locate a safe destination and input the correct coordinates to arrive there. I do not fear for myself.”
She’s right. Llianna could operate the Zephyrean alone if she had to, we both appreciate that. I meet Sylvan’s perplexed gaze. He shrugs.
I try again. “So, what’s it about then? Why are you digging your heels in over this?”
“I do not want you to die. It is simple. I do not want that, so I cannot let it happen.”
“We don’t want to die either, if that’s any comfort. But we also want to protect you—”
“Because you feel responsible for me?”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“You care for me. Is this what being responsible means? That you must keep me safe?”
“Yes, that too,” I agree.
“Then I am responsible for you also. It is the same.”
“No, Llianna, it isn’t,” I sigh. “You see, we…”
“It is the same.” Sylvan interrupts me. “It is the same, but we use different words. Our multilingual translator is only as good as the data we put in there, and we haven’t provided Llianna with the correct vocabulary to tell us how she feels.”
“How she feels?” I am at a loss.
“We love you too, honey.” His smile is warm now and he bends to kiss her on the mouth. “And we appreciate your concern for our welfare, just as you have to accept our desire to look after you.”
Love? Is that what this is all about? I release my grip on Llianna and flop back to lie prone across my bed. Fuck, of course it is. Of course it fucking is. What else?
* * *
“You are still angry with me.” Llianna makes the statement, her eyes sad. “I did not intend it, this loving you. I am pleased to have the correct word now, but I am sorry to have caused you difficulty. I am unable to change it, however, I think.”
I halt before the door to the transport chamber. Llianna and I are on our way over to the Renascient, me
to itemise and appraise the items of wreckage we have stored there, she to continue cataloguing the Fyorlian artefacts she wishes to deposit in a memorial vault once we reach civilisation again.
“I’m not angry.” That much is true, though I couldn’t actually tell her what I do think.
“Sylvan accepts what I say, and he loves me too. You do not, though I love you also.”
I open my mouth to respond but she continues, her features creased in a puzzled frown.
“Is this usual? Do human females usually love two males?”
“Not as a rule,” I mutter as I operate the locking mechanism to allow us entry to the transport chamber. “After you…”
The rest of the trip is completed in silence. On board the Renascient Llianna heads off to the deck where her laboratory is located, and I busy myself down in the cargo hold. The lumps of twisted metallic debris are piled up at one end, leaving a space for samples to be examined and analysed. I am engaged in that task when Llianna enters the bay.
“What have you discovered?” she enquires politely.
“Nothing special,” I reply. “All the metallic combinations and configurations are familiar enough, could have originated in any one of hundreds of known planets. Some traces of chemicals, possibly fuel, preservatives perhaps. Some chromatological signatures suggest paint or similar compounds. The usual stuff you’d expect from a bunch of downed spacecraft.”
“There is wreckage from more than one craft here?”
“Yeah, several. I’ve found at least eight distinct metallic compounds. No trace of explosives or flammable accelerants though so I doubt these ships were shot down.”
“That is good?”
I shrug. It’s of no concern to me how the wreckage came to be on that moon, just that it not be left there to contaminate the surface any more than necessary. Our job is to shovel it up, check for noxious or harmful substances, then dispose of the debris safely. Right now we’re headed for the huge recycling and liquefaction base on the edge of the Absolom Quadrant. There’s nothing here that could be refurbished for onward sale so we’ll just dump it all in the processing bins there to be split into the component molecules. Those can be reused in their pure form to create new compounds. Who knows? They might even end up in another space vessel and eventually some future generation of scrap merchants will do all of this again.
I sigh, done for now with such deep thoughts. I’m a fucking engineer, not a philosopher. And I need to make things right with Llianna. “I apologise.”
“You do? Why?”
“I wasn’t angry. I should have made that clear, not let you think…”
“I am relieved. I did not wish to displease you.”
As if. “I’m not displeased.”
“But neither are you happy. You are… troubled.”
I can’t argue with that. “Yes, but only because I care about you.”
“Care?” For a being with apparently so little grasp of human vocabulary, she has an unerring knack of pinpointing my evasive use of words. Time to man up.
“Love. I love you, okay. I love you, Sylvan loves you.”
Her smile is radiant. “And I love both of you. This is good, yes?”
“This is fucking awkward, that’s what this is.”
“I do not see…”
“We need to talk. Later, when Sylvan’s here as well.”
“But—”
“Later,” I bark, my tone sharper than I intended. I draw in a deep breath. “Please.”
She appears satisfied to drop the matter, for now. I continue with my sample analysis while Llianna wanders among the larger chunks of scrap. I watch her from the corner of my eye, struck as ever by her innate dainty grace as she picks her way carefully between the pieces of debris. Every so often she crouches down to examine a piece more carefully, running her fingers along the uneven surfaces.
“Be careful,” I call out. “There are a lot of sharp edges.”
She nods, and continues her inspection. I suppose it must be the archaeologist in her that finds this stuff irresistible. After a while she leaves and I assume she has tired of picking through junk. She has her own project to complete, after all. I’m surprised when she returns a short while later, this time carrying a large bag.
“What do you have there?” I ask.
“Tools.”
“What tools?” I abandon the sample I was working on to follow her across the bay. “What are you up to?”
“I just wanted to look at this particular piece in more detail. I need my photon viewer and my decryption codes.”
“What is there to decrypt?” Neither Sylvan nor I saw markings of any sort on anything we collected.
“Maybe nothing, but the photon viewer can get beneath the layers of encrustation caused by the moon’s atmospherics as well as anything else this thing might have encountered before colliding with the surface. Just routine, really. I am an archaeologist, after all.”
“I thought you specialised in Fyorlian remains. I doubt these are from Fyorli.”
“No, they are not. I have knowledge of many other civilisations, though. Do you object to my studying these pieces?”
“Of course not.” I slip an arm across her shoulders. “Have fun.”
We continue in companionable silence for the next couple of hours. As I concentrate on noting and recording the various elements contained within the fragments I analyse I notice that Llianna has not moved from the spot where I left her. Something there has her fascinated and although I sneak occasional glances I can see nothing to excite me. I leave her to it, and eventually complete my tasks for this session.
“Are you ready to head back?” I ask, removing my overalls.
She doesn’t answer. I amble over to where she crouches beside a large piece of debris, peering through her viewer at the crumpled surface a few centimetres from the end of her nose. It’s the hull of a craft, I’d guess, from the size and dome-like shape of the piece, though it is barely recognisable and the outer shell has been almost totally incinerated as it scorched through the moon’s atmosphere. I lower myself to my haunches beside her.
“What’s so interesting?”
“That,” she answers, handing me the viewer. “Just there.” She places her finger on the surface to indicate the spot. “What do you see?”
I peer through the viewer, but all I can make out is layer after layer of atmospheric patination. I can discern the various different phases, and it’s clear that the piece has been on the surface for only a relatively short time, suggesting it hurtled through space for at least a few hundred helio-cycles before crash landing. I look up and back at Llianna.
“I can’t see anything unusual.”
“No? Look again. This spot here, and along this line.” She traces an imaginary mark running vertically up the piece. “The first inner layer. Look carefully.”
I do, and at first I am no wiser. “Llianna…”
“Look hard, imagine you can see writing there. What can you see now?”
Writing? I screw up my eyes and try again.
Holy shit! “Does that say…?”
“I think so. You see it now?”
“Could it be…? Was that the name of this ship? And why is it in fucking English?”
“What do you think it says?”
“Leo. It says Leo,” I whisper.
“That is a name?”
“Yes, sometimes.”
“Is it a common name?”
I shake my head. “Not especially. It was the name of a zodiac sign in the ancient past, back when humans believed the stars foretold the future. Fuck, could this have come from Earth?”
“I do not know. How far is it from your world to the Zaxarian moon?”
“Too fucking far. This lump of shit is old, too old to have been capable of light-speed travel. Without that it would take tens of thousands of years to reach here. It would have had to be launched by the bloody dinosaurs.” Not especially accurate, but history is not my specialism a
nd in any case I daresay she gets my drift. “There must have been another civilisation which evolved the same language and alphabet, and was much closer to the Zaxar Quadrant.”
“Is that a probability?”
I meet her intense gaze. “No, not really.”
“I thought that it was not. What other explanation might there be? A black hole?”
“There isn’t one mapped that would discharge an object in this quadrant.”
“Then this find is evidence of a new one. We should call it in and have a marker laid to alert other craft.”
“We have no idea where it is, just that it might be here…”
“What about the scans? Do you still have the scans you made of the debris field before you and Sylvan landed on the moon?”
“Of course. Why?”
“I may be able to discern the trajectory of the impact from the way the wreckage was scattered. From there I can calculate back to isolate the probable direction from which the craft approached the moon.”
I expect my expression betrays my doubts. This is far-fetched to say the least.
“I am an archaeologist,” she retorts, indignation vibrating through her tone. “And I have spent my entire life studying such wrecks. I am an expert in my field and perfectly able to establish the likely parameters. My results will be robust, I would not offer them otherwise.”
I hold up my hands in surrender. “Okay, I’m sorry. Do you need to be back in your lab to do this?”
“Yes. I would like to commence now, but I realise that you are keen to leave…”
“You don’t need me to be your nursemaid, I’d only get in the way. Take all the time you want and signal CAID when you’re ready to transport back.”
“You trust me to be alone here?”
“Will you give me your word not to do anything dangerous?”
“I will,” she answers solemnly.
I laugh out loud. “Good enough for me.”
Chapter Fourteen
Llianna
I lose track of time as I input variables to add to the stream of data dancing across my screen. I could perhaps perform the calculations in my head, but this way leaves a record that others might find useful, if my theory is correct.