He couldn’t hear her, she knew that, but still she spoke, if only for herself.
“Come on, Elvis, you ain’t nothing but a hound dog ... Come on, you’ve got to show me those blue suede shoes ... Love me tender, Elvis. Don’t ... be ... cruel ...”
She pushed her fingers up against his jugular, searching for his pulse. It was there, but it was weak and erratic.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I’m so sorry I got you into this. Oh, God, I’m so sorry.”
Was there anything she could do for him?
Sitting there on the side of the mattress, Bower heard a soft, steady drip. Somewhere, there was a water leak. It was just the distraction she needed. She could wet his lips. Even just a few drops of water in his mouth every minute or so would get absorbed by his body. It was pathetic, but she couldn’t admit that to herself. She had to get Elvis water. She had to do something, anything. In some ways, Elvis became a proxy for her own life. If she could keep him alive it gave her hope for herself.
Bower took several of the torn strips of cloth and followed the wall, listening for the drip. Rats scurried as she approached, or were they insects? And what about the alien? In her concern for Elvis, she’d forgotten about the terror waiting in the dark.
Bower stepped lightly, inching forward slowly with one hand running along the wall, as much for comfort as for guidance. Her heart was racing. Her ears pricked at the slightest sound. She’d never known such darkness.
Further along the floor, moonlight drifted through cracks in the various sealed windows, teasing her with the promise of light. Bower crept onward with one hand tracing the wall and the other out in front of her to avoid bumping into anything in the pitch black of night.
Suddenly, her outstretched hand touched something unearthly. Bower could feel the soft flesh of her palm resting against dozens of stiff spikes, sharp tips like needles. Her heart raced, her breathing stopped. Slowly, she pulled her hand away, only on breaking contact she had no idea where the alien was or what it was doing, and that terrified her even more. When she touched the spikes, the creature had been still. In the darkness, she could hear the alien moving, she only hoped it was moving away from her. Gingerly, she reached out again, feeling at the air. Nothing.
Why would it do that? Why would it block her path? Or was it as blind as she was in the darkness? What did it think of her approach? Did it think she was seeking it out? Her mind raced with the possibilities as fear welled up within.
“Water,” she said. It was irrational, that much was obvious, but Bower felt she had to declare her intentions, even if there was no hope of the creature understanding her. “I need water. We need water or we’ll die.”
There was silence.
“Water ... One hydrogen atom sharing electrons with two oxygen atoms, forming a simple molecule via a covalent bond.”
She wanted to explain what she needed in scientific terms, as best she could remember them from her high school chemistry classes, but none of this would make sense to an alien and she knew it. And yet, hearing words spoken in the darkness was soothing. By speaking she was making her presence known, she wasn’t sneaking around. She hoped the alien understood why she had spoken, even if it didn’t understand her words.
“We need water to survive.”
There had been no attack. Bower felt this was progress. She was communicating, even if it was one way and poorly understood. She figured the alien would hear that one word, water, repeated and at least understand that water was somehow important.
“Water, that’s all I want.”
Did aliens have ears? And what were ears except highly sensitive sensory measurements of waves oscillating in diffuse gases? Senses like hearing had to be fundamental, she figured. Every multi-cellular organism on Earth had touch as a sense. The evolutionary path from touch to hearing was well established, and some species, like bats, used sonics instead of sight. Would a creature from another world understand audible communication?
“Water is important for our biology.”
She could have kicked herself. Hell, most people on Earth didn’t understand biology, let alone an alien intelligence from another planet.
“We’re at least sixty percent water. All our chemistry takes place in water. Without water, we will die.”
Just keep saying water, she said to herself, try to get the message through. The creature had shown sensitivity to touch, hearing sound was simply touch sensitivity applied to vibrations in the air. Surely, it could hear something.
But what chance was there the alien would even register her speech as deliberate? Even on Earth, speech took multiple forms. Cuttlefish spoke with light, spiders spoke to each other through vibrations within a web, cats spoke more through pheromones, through chemical signatures in their urine, than they ever did with a growl or a snarl. And if humanity couldn’t converse with other species on Earth, what hope was there of talking to an alien? Even intelligent mammals, like apes and dolphins, were limited to the most rudimentary of human concepts.
“Water.”
She could hear water dripping nearby.
Moonlight drifted through the cracks. She could see the alien barely fifteen feet away, close enough to strike if it so chose. The alien had backed up, crossing into a thin stream of light breaking through the steel shutters. Its tentacles or fronds or whips or spikes or whatever they were waved in the soft breeze cutting through the stifling heat. The creature had positioned itself beside one of the steel panels covering the next window, drawing on whatever draft circulated within their dark tomb.
“All I want is the water. I’ll take some water and leave you alone in this dungeon. Do you understand. Water, and I leave.”
The creature remained where it was, its thin arms waving softly like wheat in the fields. If it had heard her it didn’t show. Bower felt like she was creeping up on a lion in the undergrowth.
As her fingers ran along the wall she felt a steel pipe running vertically. She followed it down to a dripping tap. Although she couldn’t make out the pipe in the dark she could tell it ran up from the ground to the floor above. There was probably another tap directly above this one on the upper floor.
Looking at the crack between the steel panel and the wooden window frame, Bower could see a large splinter of loose wood. It was no more than an inch or so wide but it was almost two feet in length. If she could pull that away she’d get a better look outside, not only that, she’d let in more light. What would the creature make of such an act? Would it feel threatened?
“Water,” she said, hoping to reinforce that she wanted nothing more, even with this act.
With her eyes on the alien fronds, Bower gripped the splinter and pulled gently on it, hoping it would give way easily. The shard of wood was still firmly attached at its base, but she was able to twist the splinter sideways, widening the gap.
Moonlight crept in through the thin crack.
The creature continued to watch her impassively, or was she imagining it watching her. Did the alien eye her with curiosity or malice? Did it recognize any such notion? Did it even have eyes? Somehow, the creature had seen them wielding the gun.
Water dripped with regular monotony from the tap into a puddle next to the drain. To her surprise, she could see insects swarming about the small pool of water on the floor. A trail of insects led back to the alien. For a moment, Bower lost her fear.
“Water,” she said. “You too need water.”
The alien didn’t respond.
Bower knelt down, looking at the insects swarming around the puddle. On one level, she felt repulsed, but what looked like cockroaches were clearly alien. The tiny creatures had segmented bodies with an exoskeleton much like an insect on Earth, and yet they appeared spherical, not just round in two dimensions. They seemed to be able to swivel beneath their shell segments, so there was no way of telling which way they were facing other than by the direction in which they traveled. That is, if facing in a certain direction held any meaning for t
hem.
The insects varied in size from that of a small bead or a pea to a marble, with the largest being no more than tiny black Ping-Pong balls with crab-like legs. There had to be more to them than that, but in the half-light, that was all Bower could distinguish, and there was no way she was going to touch one of them or pick them up for a closer look. They were gathering water somehow, moving in a living stream as they scuttled between the puddle and the alien creature.
Bower turned the rusty tap, allowing water to flow softly. She cupped her hands and drank deeply. The water was fresh, as fresh as could be expected in Africa. Bower soaked the makeshift bandages in the water. She went to turn off the tap but thought better of it. Perhaps the alien creature would understand this as a gesture of friendship. The insects seemed excited by the additional water flow, even though all it did was to run out of the puddle and into the drain.
Bower couldn’t turn her back on the creature. She wanted to know where it was, so she retraced her steps as she moved back along the wall. When she was no more than two shuttered windows away, a distance of perhaps twenty feet, the creature moved forward into the moonlight by the water tap.
“Water,” she said as a means of bidding the creature farewell. Finally, she turned away and headed back to Elvis.
Sitting there on the mattress, Bower cradled his head, squeezing the cloths one by one into his mouth. Some of the water dribbled out, but in a reflex reaction he seemed to swallow some of the water as well.
Bower was tired. She wanted to stay awake. She felt a sense of obligation to stay awake and look after Elvis even though she knew there was nothing she could do for him. Try as she may, sleep overtook her and she slumped on the mattress next to him.
Chapter 11: Morning
Morning broke with birds singing outside the factory.
For a moment, Bower forgot where she was. In the soft light, her eyes deceived her. The air within the ground floor had cooled overnight, providing a pleasant relief from the day before. Already, the heat was starting to build, but for now it was almost a summer’s day in England.
It was the smell that shocked her. Having been in Africa for almost two years, Bower was use to the rancid smell of overpopulated cities, but this smell was different, like the stench of rotten meat burning in a fire.
Beside her, she could hear the soft clatter of insects swarming over each other. She turned, horrified to see Elvis buried alive by a swarm of alien insects. They were crawling all over him, burying him, covering his arms and legs, running through his hair, over his face. Beyond them, the blood-red alien creature stood like a sentinel. Bower was repulsed by the thought they were devouring his body.
“No,” she yelled, scrambling to her feet.
Bower crouched, ready to jump at the creatures and pull him to safety, but there were thousands of them swamping him.
“Don’t eat him. Leave him. Let him go.”
Her movement startled the spiky alien looming over Elvis with its blade-like fronds. The alien flexed, seemingly doubling in size. Its tentacles, previously limp and waving like the branches of a tree, struck out like spears. This was the best view she’d had of the animal. Could it be called an animal? Perhaps not in the terrestrial sense of the word, but it was a living creature.
The spiky alien was on the other side of the mattress, directly opposite her, with Elvis lying beneath the beetles or bugs or whatever they were between them. The central mass of the creature, inside its outer barrier of scarlet tentacles and spikes, was awash with these insects. They swarmed around its body, moving in waves, pulsating like bees within a hive. She could see streams of these tiny creatures scurrying down the alien’s stiff, spiky legs and over towards Elvis.
“No,” she yelled again, losing her fear and stepping forward toward Elvis. “Get off him. Leave him alone.”
Bower began pulling handfuls of insects from his body, sweeping them away, trying to clear them from him. The insects became highly agitated. They hissed and snapped what seemed to be mandibles together, threatening to devour her.
She had to save him. She couldn’t let Elvis die, not like this. And yet, for all she knew, he was already dead.
Bower grabbed at his shoulders, trying to pull him away from the alien creature and the swarm of insects.
Hundreds of the tiny creatures began climbing up her arms, tearing at her trousers and scaling her legs, but she wouldn’t give up on Elvis, even if it meant the death of both of them. Bower staggered backwards as the insects climbed up to her face, forcing her to drop him as she fought desperately to brush them away.
The alien never moved, which surprised her. It seemed content to let these miniature assassins overpower her.
Insects clambered over the mattress.
“No,” she cried again. “Don’t you understand?”
She had Elvis by the collar and was dragging him across the mattress.
“Don’t you know? Life is too important. Life is too precious.”
Elvis was heavy. She couldn’t move him more than a few inches at a time. She was crying, sobbing.
“No. Please, leave him alone.”
The dark insect-like creatures clambered up her hair, crawling across her neck and face. She shook herself, swatting herself, knocking them from her.
With all the energy she could muster, Bower lifted Elvis, pushing off with her legs, using her thighs to drive away from the horde of insects covering the ground. She exposed his upper torso, while the sea of insects spread out around her, encircling her. And it was then she saw his arm.
Whereas before, his left arm had been severed above the elbow, the humerus bone now extended down to a bare joint, connecting to the ulna and radius bones of the forearm. The bones were wrapped in a transparent coating, a membrane of some sort. Blood pumped, lymph fluids surged in response to contracting muscles. Tendons, nerves and veins, they were all there in an anemic form, as though his was the arm of a malnourished child. The tourniquet was gone. The ragged, torn flesh from his upper arm had been knitted back into muscle and sinew. Although his bicep and triceps were thin, they had attached to tendons on the lower humerus.
“No. Please, leave him alone.”
Bower froze.
A chill ran through her.
These were her words, but she hadn’t spoken them.
“Don’t you understand? Life is too important. Life is too precious.”
Those words seemed to come from all around her. Even though she was looking at the large alien creature with its spikes and tentacles, the words repeated back at her came from no particular direction at all.
Bower released her grip on Elvis, allowing him to sink back into the swarm of alien beetles and bugs. As she did so, the creatures climbing over her dropped back to the floor and scurried away.
Stunned, she staggered backwards, tripping on the soft mattress but keeping her footing.
Bower watched as the alien creature emptied of the tiny bugs. To her surprise, there was no central mass. The scarlet spikes extended all the way to the center without forming any central bulge at all. With all the insects crawling over Elvis, the alien creature was stationary, completely still. It was then she realized what she was looking at: an empty frame, a shell. What she and everyone else had assumed was the alien was nothing more than a vehicle, a vessel. In the same way as humans used tanks, armored personnel carriers, helicopters and airplanes for transport and as weapons, the alien was using this organic contraption sitting stationary before her.
Alien or aliens? What she’d thought of as inconsequential worker bees gathering water had actually been at the heart of what she assumed was a single entity. This is what the spiky framework had wanted to protect when she held the gun. And now they were swarming over Elvis, repairing his arm.
As best she understood what she was seeing, these tiny insects were the alien intelligence. And as she watched she understood how vulnerable these creatures were in that moment, they’d committed themselves wholly to rebuilding his arm,
leaving their protective weaponry standing idly by.
Bower crouched down, watching carefully. The tiny creatures were consuming the mattress, the springs within the mattress and a nearby wooden crate. Somehow, they were gathering the material they needed or converting these raw materials into what they required for their task.
Bower was speechless. For this to work, they had to be operating at a microscopic level, applying some kind of nanotechnology that allowed them to cultivate cellular growth at a radical pace. She’d been asleep for probably six or seven hours, and the results of their efforts so far were spectacular.
Were they reading his DNA and fabricating his arm in the same way humans would build a car? Or were they accelerating natural processes in some way? They had to be stimulating some kind of pluripotent cells, like stem cells. But how did they control the growth? How were they directing the appropriate response for building arteries in one area, bone in another? Get those mixed up and the results could be fatal.
Bower could see the vague outline of Elvis lying beneath the swarm. Those creatures that sat over his right arm were unusually still, whereas most of the creatures were moving around rapidly, these remained stationary. They had to be using his bilateral symmetry to guide them. Somehow they were sensing the structure of his right arm and mimicking a mirror image on the left. Bower was intrigued. Most people had arms and hands of differing sizes, with the right normally bigger than the left. She wanted to check his new arm once it was fully formed to see if that still applied, or if his new left arm was an exact mirror of the right.
Hunger pangs gnawed at her stomach, but she ignored them.
In the soft light, she left the creatures to go about their work and went to the tap for a drink of water.
On her way, she crept up behind one of the crates near the central pile of mattresses. She sat there for a few minutes listening, hidden from sight beneath the open hole. There was no one on the upper floor. She could hear movement out on the street, but not upstairs.
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