Noah claimed a military station and dock was located on the edge of downtown, six kilometers to the west. Apparently the brass took shuttles from the sprawling base outside of town for business in the city and used the facility for meetings with local suppliers and contractors. According to him the shuttle bay was at ground level and protected by the mid-rise building, so there was a small possibility it hadn’t been destroyed.
None of the ships at the station—assuming there were any—would have sLume drives. With only an impulse engine to propel them they were certain to die of starvation long before reaching another colony. But they stood a better chance in space than here on the ground.
An ominous red glow bloomed at the edge of the next intersection, and Noah shoved her into an alcove created by a service door. Seconds later what could only be a ship emerged around the corner.
She recognized it as one of the many insectile-shaped ships shown in Alex’s images, one of the hundreds of thousands of strange vessels which had docked into the superdreadnoughts. It hovered several meters above the ground, its odd metallic tentacles writhing like feelers ahead of it as it moved.
Out of nowhere a man bolted from a storefront and took off running down the street. The ship accelerated toward him. When it was fifteen meters behind the man a crimson laser shot out of the core of its tentacles and….
Noah’s hand covered her mouth as if anticipating the gasp of horror which bubbled forth as the man burst into flames. He must have been dead on impact, so hot and intense was the beam, but it took four seconds for the flaming corpse to collapse in the street.
Her earlier suspicion had proved gruesomely accurate. All these bodies had, in fact, been burnt alive.
The man likely saved their lives. The ship continued on and disappeared around the next corner.
What possible goal could be accomplished by murdering people one at a time, by coldly hunting down individuals and exterminating them? It didn’t make sense.
A plume of flames, bright copper against the darkening sky, flared in the distance. It seemed the destruction of Messium was not yet complete.
Noah’s lips were at her ear. In any other circumstances it would have given her a thrill. “We need to go. Stay close to the buildings and don’t talk. Anything moves and we hide.”
She squeezed his hand in assent and followed him out of the alcove.
Kennedy’s mind numbed to everything except moving forward and avoiding detection.
It was slow going. At times the sidewalk became completely impassable and they had no choice but to risk the exposure of the wide street. Still they often found themselves crawling over or through piles of debris. They were forced to detour half a kilometer out of the way to skirt an entire neighborhood which had been transformed into a smoldering crater. Twice they were driven into hiding, not daring to move as roving ships passed by on their hunt for anything daring to live.
The darkness was their salvation, in more ways than one. It hid their presence, but she knew it also dulled the worst carnage in shadow and grays. You couldn’t see the blood in the dark, after all.
They were less than a kilometer from the station when they came upon their first survivors.
“Hey!” It was a weak, raspy shout from the blown-out restaurant ahead. She grabbed Noah by the hand and ducked inside.
“Shhh! Keep it down!”
They located the source of the voices in the kitchen at the back of the restaurant: a woman, perhaps forty or fifty years old, a middle-aged man, two teenage girls and a boy no more than six.
The boy gaped at them, eyes wide in wonder. “Are you the aliens?”
Kennedy crouched to his level. “No, sir. We’re people just like you. What’s your name?”
His throat worked awkwardly. “Jonas.”
“Hi, Jonas. I’m Kennedy, and this is Noah.”
“This is my mom, B-Braelyn.”
Kennedy shifted to the woman. “I can’t tell you how good it is to meet you. I was beginning to think there was no one else left alive.”
Braelyn nodded weakly. “Us, too. There used to be more people here, but they left. I don’t…I don’t know if any of them made it.”
“Kennedy, over here.”
So he did remember her name. She patted Jonas on the head and gingerly crawled to her feet. Her cut was mostly healed, but the grueling hike had taken its toll.
She found Noah beside the older man and one of the girls, standing around an object in the corner. In the dark she saw Noah’s eyes glimmer with interest.
“Check this out. They’ve got a piece of one of the alien ships.”
“Seriously?” She dropped to her knees to inspect it.
“One of ours must have shot it down. Didn’t see it happen but we came upon the wreckage on a scouting run yesterday.”
She nodded at the older man but kept her focus on the wreckage. It was a portion of one of the tentacles from the roving ships and measured about four meters. One end was jagged where it had been shorn off the main body of the ship. The metal it was constructed of felt cool in her hands, and smooth save for a series of grooves running along one side.
“Noah, grab the light out of my bag.”
A few seconds later he was kneeling beside her. “Be careful.”
“It’s a tiny light, promise.” The penlight included its own nearly inexhaustible power source, thankfully. It hadn’t served much use thus far because the spread was too small. Now, though…. She pointed it inside the open end of the tentacle and flicked it on.
The interior appeared to be mostly empty space. A dozen fine crystalline fibers ran the length of the arm.
She exhaled, not realizing she had been holding her breath. Part of her had expected to find…she didn’t know what. Gooey, pulsing flesh or something? But she discerned no trace of organic material.
She squinted up at Noah. “We need to take this with us. If we can begin to understand their structure, we can fight them.”
“I’m not disagreeing, but we can’t exactly lug four meters of—” he hefted a length of the tentacle in his hand “—radically heavy metal down the street.”
“We don’t have to take the whole thing I guess. Bring my bag over here.”
“Are you telling me you have a metamat blade in your bag, too?”
She winked at him; in the gravity of their situation it felt absurdly decadent. “Damn right I do.”
He shook his head and stood, but quickly returned with her bag in tow. “You are an intriguing woman, Blondie.”
“I know.” She dug around in the bag until she found the blade, then set about slicing off two chunks thirty centimeters in length.
“If you two are done flirting, care to tell us your plan? Where are you headed?”
She didn’t look up, concentrating on not damaging the pieces she was removing. “There’s a military shuttle bay a kilometer from here. We all need to get off this planet.”
“Excuse us a moment.” Noah grasped her by the arm and hauled her up and across the room and into the storage closet at the rear of the kitchen.
“We can’t take these people with us. We will never reach the station.”
She glared at him in the darkness, but lowered her voice to the same hushed level as his. “You want to leave them here to die?”
“I want to live!” He cringed at how high is voice had risen and pulled her deeper into the closet. “Of course I don’t want to leave them. But you are absolutely correct—we need to get this alien scrap to people who can use it. Doing so may save untold lives. But if that little boy cries one single time on the trip, we are all dead, and the intel never makes it off-world.”
“Oh, don’t give me that ‘greater good’ crap. You’re looking out for your own ass and nothing else.”
Instead of sending a barbed retort back at her he sank against the wall. All the energy seemed to abandon him with the fall of his shoulders. “It is what I’m good at.”
“You saved me, even though it could h
ave gotten you killed.”
“Well, yeah, but you’re cute. The benefits outweighed the risk.”
“And you were able to tell this by my bloody arm sticking out from under a tonne of debris?”
“Yep.” At her skeptical stare he gave an exaggerated shrug. “What?”
She continued staring at him until he broke. “Fine. We’ll take them with us. But if we die I am going to be very irritated with you.”
A weary laugh fell from her lips as her chin dropped to her chest. “Fair enough.”
They exited the storage closet to find one of the teenage girls waiting on them—the one who had been by the salvaged alien hardware. She was tall and gangly with a delicate heart-shaped face, but her eyes shone, lit by fierce determination.
“Wherever you’re headed, I’m going with you. I won’t cower in this hole and wait to die.”
“What’s your name?”
“Raina. My sister’s Silvie.”
Kennedy nodded. “Good for you, Raina. You bet you can come. Everyone’s coming.”
45
PORTAL PRIME
UNCHARTED SPACE
* * *
“YOU’RE THE ONE WHO INVADED my mind.”
It was the only way.
“No, it wasn’t.” Alex did try to keep her tone at least neutral. Despite its sylphic, practically angelic appearance she wasn’t fooled in the slightest. If this alien wanted to kill her and Caleb, she was certain it possessed the capability to do so. How it might do so was another question but one near the end of a long list. “You could have simply greeted us at my ship as you’ve done here.”
You miscomprehend. It was the only way to know.
“To know whether I was worthy, or something to that effect. I don’t miscomprehend. There were still better ways.”
We offended you.
“You held me captive. Made me a prisoner in my own mind. Invaded my most private memories, with no justification or explanation. Yes, you offended me. But we passed all your tests. We found your planet and we found your refuge and we found you. Now we’re here, and it’s time for explanations.”
Your companion was not being tested. He has, nevertheless, proved most…tenacious.
Caleb chuckled; she suspected he was flattered. “I’ve been called worse.”
We are aware.
They followed the alien down a long, winding path which would eventually convey them to the shore of the lake. “Yes, you’ve been watching us. For aeons, you said. How long is that? Give me a round number.”
Since the beginning.
“Beginning of what?”
The beginning of you.
“The beginning of humans, you mean.”
The beginning, yes.
“No.” She glanced at Caleb, but he merely offered a supportive nod before returning his attention to the alien to quietly scrutinize each centimeter of the most unusual entity. “You evaded the question. The beginning of what?”
Later, perhaps.
Well this conversation was just going to be a blast and a half…. They had traveled through a mysterious portal, barely eluded a hundred squid ships and been attacked by dragons—all to discover an alien floating around above a glowing lake and speaking in riddles.
She tried a different tack. “Do you have other portals at other points in the universe? Where you watch other species?”
You are the only sentient species in your universe.
She scowled at Mesme. If it was going to be pretentious, it was getting a diminutive nickname. “Impossible. There are over a septillion planets in the universe. Intelligent life will have arisen elsewhere.”
You are the only sentient species in your universe.
“Except for you.”
We are not from your universe.
“You’re telling me the portal sent us to another universe?”
Not precisely. This space is a transition point. A gateway between.
The astrophysical implications alone were enough to render her dizzy. “Okay, so a lobby then. Where is your universe?”
It is not your concern.
Oh, how wrong this alien was. But the statement had been conveyed with a sense of finality, and if she pushed too hard it might refuse to tell them anything. She softened her tone, again. “What is this place? This planet? Because except for a few pesky details, it seems to be a replica of Earth.”
This would be because it is a replica of Earth—of the world where humanity originated and on which it has spent all but the last microsecond of its existence confined. It exists so we might…relate. To provide context, and enable us to better understand.
“About that understanding. Why exactly is it you’ve recorded what I’d be willing to bet is every single event in human history?”
To observe. If deserving, to learn.
“What have you learned?”
Later, perhaps.
Ugh, they had no time for ‘later’…. “And any chance you could tell us why you sent a goddamn armada of monstrous ships to obliterate human civilization?”
We did not send the ships.
She stopped at the same time as Caleb. Mesme continued on another two steps before realizing it had left them behind. It placidly rejoined them and began walking forward once more. They didn’t follow.
Another two steps and it turned again. This time it considered them silently. Its gelatine, porous skin fluttered in faint ribbons of light, as if each molecule of its body was constantly in subtle motion.
“If not you, then who?”
It is complicated.
Caleb raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “We’re fairly smart. Why don’t you try us.”
They had now reached the lakeshore. The velvety grass blanketed the entire valley and stretched to the water’s edge. At the back of the lake, against the mountainside, a small pathway cut into the slope and trailed out of sight. In the glade beyond the lake, an open dome of latticed metal contrasted markedly with the otherwise unmarred landscape. She wanted to inquire what it was, but—
We—those of us who observe—did not send the ships.
“So there are others of your kind elsewhere who did?”
Mesme regarded her in what could be bewilderment. She didn’t doubt it recognized and possibly had even adopted humanesque gestures after observing them for so long, but its vague, ever-shifting features made it difficult to identify specific expressions, much less nuance. Hopefully Caleb was having better luck reading its body language.
Yes.
“Where are they? Why are they attacking us? How do we defeat them?”
Farther. Because you came too close. You already know how, you simply do not yet know that you know it.
Caleb subtly drew them to the right, so they would pass by the artificial structure sooner rather than later. She mouthed a silent thanks behind Mesme’s back. “We came too close—you mean because we were expanding toward the Metis Nebula? Is that really all there is to it? You didn’t want to be discovered?”
Your species advanced to a greater extent, and more swiftly, than we expected. Few have done so.
“What do you mean, ‘few have done so’? Did other sentient species exist in the past? Did you exterminate them, too?”
No.
“‘No’ to which question?”
It is not your concern.
“It is my concern. But it’s not my most important one.” Her head cocked to the side, and she tried yet another tack. “Answer me this—why dragons? You must realize how absurd it is to employ dragons.”
“Oh, I know why dragons.”
She and Mesme both stared at Caleb. He handed her the water bottle.
“The same reason those invading ships resemble something from the underworld of our old mythos. Fear is a powerful weapon. Often underestimated, but quite potent. The ships—and the dragons—are meant to create terror before they create death.”
The alien paused for a single step, but nonetheless noticeably so.
It is a
…not inaccurate summarization of the motivation.
“But we haven’t feared dragons in a millennium.”
Incorrect. At your core, humans have always feared dragons. They are the form your species gives to its nightmares, to its most base terrors. Even now, when you believe you have banished all the monsters, they remain frightening creatures, yes?
Caleb shrugged mildly. “They were certainly memorable. But fear doesn’t work on me like it does on other people. I see the strings, and I’m more interested in the motivation behind all your contrivances. This deliberate utilization of fear? It means you—or I suppose your friends—don’t intend to completely annihilate us. Some portion of our civilization will be left alive, else there would be no need for the fear.”
He is a clever one.
She laughed aloud. The alien seemed utterly vexed and confounded by Caleb—his perceptiveness, his intellect, his very presence—which she found simply delightful. He had vexed her nearly as much not so long ago, and it was a treat to see it transpire from the other side. She sipped on the water and enjoyed the interaction.
“So you aren’t so different from those who sent the armada. You fly around here like a peaceful little angel, but you’ll use fear as a weapon as easily as your comrades.”
Not as a weapon. As a shield. And a tool.
Caleb’s shoulders rose in limited acknowledgement of the point. She tossed the water packet back to him, then planted herself on the path in front of Mesme.
“Enough. Enough riddles and misdirections and flowery responses imparting no real information. I want to know where and why. I want to know how your ‘indistinguishable from magic’ technology works and how this entire planet is a black hole in space. I want to know why you watch us and how you do it. But far, far above all those questions, I need to know how we can defeat these invaders.
“You say we already know how but ‘don’t know we know.’ As I imagine you’re aware, we don’t have a lot of time. I’m assuming the time dilation here is because aeons is a hellaciously long time to spend gliding in circles above a lake. So how about we shortcut the whole path to wisdom routine and you just tell us.”
Aurora Rising: The Complete Collection Page 78