Fluency

by Jennifer Foehner Wells

  The screen went blank for a moment then lit up again in a new location. This scene was very different—the contrast was stark. Bright light flooded the room from above. It was a surgical suite filled with gowned, masked men crowded around the center of the room. It was very quiet. The men spoke in low murmurs as they worked over someone.

  Then she heard an agonized moan.

  Jane involuntarily put the back of her hand to her mouth and tasted blood as the mechanical hand smashed her tender lips.

  One man smoked a cigarette nearby, watching the proceedings with intense absorption.

  The camera moved in. Men with oiled hair and horn-rimmed glasses glanced up and stepped aside. One of the Sectilius was naked on an operating table. It was the short, stocky male—his body corded with dense musculature.

  The camera moved in closer, revealing that his body was flayed and cut wide open from neck to groin. They were dissecting him. He was alive and awake and in agony.

  Jane could feel Walsh’s unarticulated emotions. They were very clear. He approved of this.

  Jane fell to her knees against the glass and retched. Ei’Brai stopped the flood of the memory and she thanked him for that kindness while she recovered her composure.

  If Ei’Brai had seen this in Walsh’s mind—from the beginning? That explained a few things.

  When she was able to stand again, she choked out, “I will not let them do that to you!”

  “How will you prevent it? They will be curious about the similarities and dissimilarities between my kind and homologous creatures on your world. I have seen, in your mind, that my form is not unfamiliar to you, yet my intellect, my abilities, are singular—you have encountered nothing that compares in your cumulative experience as a species. The precedent has been set. Surely you must see that this is the natural conclusion to any alien introduction to your culture. They will not be able to help themselves.” All his concentration was fixed on her every move, every thought. “You, however, are different. You know me as they cannot.”

  She shook her head slowly, perplexed. “Ei’Brai, I won’t let that happen.”

  “I’m gratified that your intent is unadulterated, but I’m less certain that this pledge is truly within your dominion. A brief appearance in your skies is in order, sending messages to your many governments with all the necessary information, in your own words, with your reassurances. This will more than fulfill that portion of the mission.

  “Eventually the Unified Sentient Races will dispatch another ambassadorial mission to your world, assuming the coalition still exists. A full diplomatic delegation will permit a more equal footing, with less risk to any single individual, such as myself. Certainly you can see that logic dictates that we must proceed immediately to Sectilius so that they may begin a full investigation into the mass murder of the Speroancora Community. We must discover the extent to which the fleet has been affected, or Sectilius itself, or whether this was an isolated event. Now that the ship’s binary systems recognize the presence of a Quasador Dux, there is nothing to keep us here. The time has come. We are much delayed.”

  “Nothing to keep us here?” she asked, incredulous. “What about the illness that killed your crew? Are Walsh and the others going to infect Earth with it? What about Compton? Is he contagious? I’m not just going to sit back and ignore all of that and let you zoom off into space!”

  “It is improbable they are infected. Far less likely that it will be capable of replication in any meaningful way. Contagion is highly unlikely.”

  “Improbable? Meaningful? Highly unlikely? You mean you don’t know? I can’t gamble with their lives that way. I will not gamble with Earth that way!”

  “Commander Mark Walsh chose not to step onto the diagnostic platform. That was his election and does not affect you. You have not been infected. Nor has Dr. Alan Bergen.”

  Again, certainty.

  Jane stood resolute before him. “I’ve trusted you. Now you must trust me. We should go back to Earth, bring our best scientists onboard. I’ll teach them Mensententia and we’ll deal with this thing, whatever it is. Then, we’ll talk about Sectilius. Decades have passed since the attack—a few more months will hardly matter in the greater scheme of things. I’m certain there will be volunteers for that kind of mission—people far better suited to the role of Quasador Dux than myself! I’ll be careful. I’ll be adamant with my government. I’ll be strong. I won’t let them bring anyone on board that I don’t trust.”

  “This is not a negotiation.” His voice had suddenly taken a different tone, resonated on a different frequency.

  She felt small stirrings of unease in her belly. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I possess the power of eternal night—the balance between dusk and dawn for your Dr. Alan Bergen.”

  Her heart fluttered in her chest. She felt weak.

  His finger was on the trigger. If she didn’t agree to his terms, he would end Alan’s life.

  Jane backed up a step and shook her head. Panic rioted through her. “You can’t be serious! Why would you resort to that? You’re insane!”

  He was extremely agitated. The sensation of barely leashed power that she’d felt from him early on pervaded her perception of him again now. His arms were whipping and swirling around him. He inhaled through his mantle, exhaled through his funnel more rapidly than seemed to be necessary, and this required intense countering efforts in order to maintain his place in the water opposite her. His mental touch was shielded, though. She had a hunch he might be bluffing, but she couldn’t be sure.

  He sounded contemptuous, his voice vibrating louder inside her head than it ever had before. “I am rational. You are allowing yourself to be motivated by fleeting emotional states, rather than by reason. Elimination of this individual would free you. I am needed elsewhere, immediately. You and I are bound to this mission. This supersedes your paltry desires for intimacy.”

  She stared at him, open-mouthed, outraged that he was so dismissive of Alan’s life. Her voice cut like a knife through the air, so angry that she had to speak out loud. “He is more to me than that and you know it.”

  Ei’Brai growled, “I have not waited this many solar cycles to meet my end desiccating and bleeding in your primitive surgeon’s theatre. I am far too valuable an individual to meet dusk in such a manner.”

  Jane’s voice, when she answered, also dropped to a lower register. “Alan is equally valuable to me, and to the people of my world. Be careful where you tread, Ei’Brai, or I may just let the asteroid give you this dusk you speak of.”

  But he was going on as if he hadn’t heard her, “In fact, one session with a Sectilius mind-master would relieve you of these insecurities, allow you to embrace your inner desires, fully transmute you into the commanding individual you are meant to be.”

  She was afraid to force his hand. “I’m fine how I am. Stop this charade. You’re bluffing.”

  “Am I?” Ei’Brai spluttered. Then a wall seemed to dissolve and a crashing torrent of experience broke through—she was gasping and choking inside the gel—except it wasn’t her. It was Alan.

  She fled to the controls that had freed her from the tank just hours before, looking for the command that would give Alan the air he needed, but Ei’Brai was concealing them from her, masking everything so it seemed like gibberish.

  She refused to give in to panic.

  Withdrawing from Ei’Brai in a rush, she came back fully back into herself and severed the link between them. She turned on a dime and strode back across the gangway, away from his light, ordering the helmet closed as she went. At the end she turned left in the darkness. Eleven swift paces along the outer catwalk, she stopped at a precise point and raised her arm, pointing at the vast wall to her right. The blast cannon would discharge with a mere flicker of thought.

  Her teeth ground together in defiance. She turned the helmet left with a servo-motor whir to face him across the gulf.

  “Your life support lies behind this wall, E
i’Brai. If you dare to hurt Alan, I will destroy that equipment and you will suffocate—not as quickly as Alan, but you will suffocate, nonetheless—while I watch.”

  “You may injure yourself in the process. You will be stranded here,” he said warily.

  “I don’t care,” she uttered with deadly certainty. She wasn’t bluffing. She’d do it. She’d kill him if he murdered Alan.

  She sensed an easing of Alan’s distress and allowed herself to take a long, relieved breath.

  She felt the need to press her advantage, to challenge him. He wanted her to lead, but then gave her ultimatums to force the issue? It sounded like an antagonistic maelstrom in the making, not a peaceful working relationship at all.

  Was she actually considering taking him up on his offer? Did she really have a choice?

  “Ask yourself, Ei’Brai—am I your enemy or your ally? Do you trust me as your Quasador Dux—or is this mutiny? Confirmed mutineers on this ship receive the death penalty, under Sectilius law.”

  She wasn’t precisely sure how she knew that, but she did know it and it was damn useful information.

  Ei’Brai’s gaze was unwavering. His limbs slowed. His voice was solemn. “Does this mean you accept the appointment to the rank of Quasador Dux, Dr. Jane Holloway?”

  There was gravitas in this moment. She knew it.

  Instinct told her that her life had been spent barreling toward this moment. She had agonized over every decision that she’d ever regretted. There was no time to agonize now. She had to take the upper hand somehow. She had to trust her gut. She barely hesitated. “I do.”

  As soon as those two words transmitted to him via thought, she realized what he’d been doing. In that moment a new channel opened between them and she experienced Ei’Brai on an entirely new level. The ship hummed through him—now through her as well. She could be aware of any part of it that she pleased at any given moment, through this connection with him. There were no walls between them anymore. She could see any part of his inner dialogue or memory that she might want. She could monitor any system or any individual.

  In that moment, all Ei’Brai felt was raw relief. His bravado was instantly supplanted by a release of anxiety and a flood of reassurance and calm. So much so that it affected even her. That was a small comfort as she quickly uncovered the series of machinations he’d used to bring her to this point. His deceptions, which he deemed a series of necessary tests, were laid at her feet. He begged her forgiveness for them.

  She looked across the dark gap at the glow of him. His limbs were drawn together to a point and he had maneuvered his body so that he faced slightly away from her, more laterally than vertically at the moment. It was a form of submission.

  She lowered her hand and intuitively used her new access to check on Alan. He slept peacefully. He hadn’t gone through any kind of trauma. That had been a ruse.

  She shook her head, utterly baffled. “You tricked me!”

  “A regrettable and heinous act of subterfuge. It will not happen again—it is not even possible now, as I’m certain you have ascertained. I am completely open to you, at your service.”

  She staggered back a step as she saw that the xenon leak that had precipitated the transformation of the nepatrox…

  Before, she had thought she had seen to the depths of him, that the leak had been a manipulation to make her trust him, to ensure that the delicate contact with a human would continue to develop. She had not seen anything; he had finessed his inadvertent revelation with another layer of coolly calculated misdirection. The gas leak had been a carefully concocted test, to see how she would handle herself under pressure, to see where her loyalties would lie, to evaluate her sense of fairness and her self-control—to see, in all, if she would measure up to his exacting standards. He wouldn’t serve just anyone, it seemed.

  “Calculated risks,” he hummed deferentially.

  The interlude with Alan had been another test—of her ability to accept cultural differences and not put her own ego first when feeling affronted.

  “I need to sit down.” She backed into the wall and slid down to the floor with a heavy clunk. Drawing her knees to her chest, she opened the helmet to rest her forehead on crossed arms.

  “You put people’s lives at risk.” It was an accusation. It was the part that rankled the most.

  He did not sound the least bit defensive. Instead, he resumed his patient, instructive air. “Normally, every potential leader among the Sectilius, myself included, is assessed in an academic setting under naturalistic, simulated conditions by accomplished proctors. This was not possible in your case. Therefore, I created a real-world scenario and endeavored to minimize risk, while keeping the overall goal of assessment within similar parameters, always with the goal to preserve life when possible. There is much at stake.”

  After a moment, she raised her head. He was still respectfully floating horizontally, eyes averted from her.

  “Stop that,” she said crossly.

  “As you wish.” He came to vertical and relaxed his limbs. He exuded tranquility. It was infuriating.

  “But why put anyone in danger at all? You’re certainly capable of creating any scenario you like, making it feel as real as… reality. Why do all of this?”

  “I regret I do not possess the imaginative traits needed to endeavor to plot such a scenario. I am but a practical individual. I utilized what I had to hand, so to speak. It was imperative that your experience be heuristic in nature. I believe I accomplished that admirably, did I not?”

  She drew her brows together. “But Compton really is infected then…”

  “With the latent squillae that infected the Speroancora Community, yes. I had presumed them all uncovered and eliminated by now, but—”

  “Clearly a few hid from your efforts,” she said dryly.

  She could see in his mind that over the decades he had ordered his own cadres of squillae to comb the ship, seeking and destroying the rogue squillae that had lain dormant, unnoticed under their noses, biding their time until something had triggered them, infecting everyone on board simultaneously. Only Ei’Brai had been spared, because his environment was encapsulated, kept separate from the rest of the ship, impervious to infiltration.

  “Agreed. They were programmed by a sophisticated and resourceful individual.”

  “Who?”

  “I regret that I cannot say, but I am eager to take revenge in whatever manner you see fit, should we discover the perpetrator’s identity and whereabouts.”

  She exhaled slowly, determined to come to terms with her new role as the Quasador Dux of the Speroancora. “Is there any hope for Compton?”

  “Unknown. The Sanalabreum has declared him clear several times, but then another is found replicating elsewhere within his anatomy.”

  “I see. They’re tenacious and not easy to detect. So, there is risk to Alan and myself and to Earth—if Walsh, Varma, or Gibbs are infected with even one of them.”

  “Regrettably, yes.”

  “How do we get rid of them, once and for all?”

  “That, Qua’dux Jane Holloway, I do not know.”

  24

  Bergen was paddling his ass off toward shore, building speed. He glanced back and could see the swell rising over his shoulder. He’d missed the last one. It broke sooner than he’d anticipated, but this one was his.

  Today, the wave trains weren’t tremendous, but a good solid five feet, shoulder high, and perfect glass. He was starting to tire; he’d been at it for a while, and he should be heading back into the lab to get started on his day, but it was hard to say no to just one more wave.

  Surfing was like a drug.

  He huffed at that thought and paddled harder. Almost there.

  Nope. Not a drug—it was like sex. You spent a lot of time working up to doing it, it was mind-blowingly awesome for a few moments, then it was over and you wanted to do it again. And again. Always good. Even if it wasn’t perfect. Still good.

  He felt the wave ca
tch his board and fought the urge to rush to his feet. He let the board match the momentum of the cresting wave, and pushed up slowly, keeping the board well-balanced as he got his feet under him and corrected his course.

  Such a rush. Nothing else like it. He knew intellectually that the energy pushing his board had been transmitted from wind to water, that the water molecules rotated in that energy, passing it on from molecule to molecule, forming the waves, moving relentlessly for thousands of miles before reaching shore, the energy slowly dissipating as it went.

  A different kind of energy surged in him. Everything was right and good in this moment: the warm sun, the fine spray of the water on his exposed skin, the sounds of breaking waves and the raucous calls of gulls—the amazing feeling of disbelief that he was actually doing it—flying, skimming the sea, walking on water.

  This was a pretty popular beach. Normally by now he’d be annoyed with the other people in the surf and on the beach, getting in his way when he’d caught the perfect wave, truncating the experience, spoiling it with buffoonery or ignorance. But today he was alone. It struck him as a rare pleasure. He didn’t dwell on his luck. He just savored it.

  He scanned ahead. The wave was starting to break up. Something moved in his peripheral vision and he turned slightly to see what it was. It was probably just a gull, but something told him it was larger.

  There it was again.

  The thrust from the wave destabilized. He lost his balance and plunged into the water. Just before he went under, he got a decent look at it. It was long and thin, like an arm or a tentacle. An octopus this close to shore would be unusual on this beach and he was pretty sure the local octopi were supposed to be small and reddish.

  He stayed under for a moment, orienting himself to catch a glimpse of the creature from beneath the surface. He bobbed as the sea churned around him, the tether from his forgotten board tugging on his leg. That leg ached, and for a moment he felt deja vu or like he needed to remember something important.