“Short time will bring your answer. Now, I will answer that of your friend. Your question as to how we manipulated your bodies and other things—it is by way of our minds.”
“Wait,” Lisa said. “Like telekinesis?”
The Quatro’s onyx eyes met her. “The word is not one known to the translator device.”
“You, uh…you can move things with your thoughts?”
“Not with thoughts. This poses difficulty in terms of explaining with the human words available, but I will make a try. We Quatro—I know that is your word for us, and ours is not translatable into your words, so we will say Quatro—we Quatro have developed brains that channel and focus the energies of our bodies. This ability works in proportion to how colder the surroundings are. In warmth, the ability is very weak, but here in this coldness of underground, it is powerful indeed. We use it to attract, push, or otherwise control anything containing metal. Our ability to move you comes from the metal in the suits you wear.”
Andy cursed. “It’s been the pressure suits the whole time,” he spat. “If we’d taken those off, we could have taken them.”
“I highly doubt that, boy,” Tessa said. “Especially considering we would have frozen to death without the suits’ heating systems. It might be time for you to shut your mouth. This is the first communication between humans and Quatro in history, and you aren’t improving it.”
Seeming to take the hint, Andy shut up.
Facing the hulking alien once again, Tessa said, “I think I can give you the words you need to explain your ability. It sounds like your brains contain fullerenes—organic superconductors, which you use to generate the strong magnetic fields needed to manipulate metals as you describe. For a long time, evolutionary biologists have speculated whether nature could produce such a structure, and now it seems we know. If I’m right, it would make sense that the ability weakens with warmth. Typically, superconductors only work at extremely low temperatures, and to function even at the temperature of this ship, the fullerenes evolution has given you must be very advanced indeed.”
Surprising Lisa, Andy spoke again: “How in Sol do you know all that?”
The white-haired woman shot him an annoyed look. “Your implant gives you access to almost every book ever written by humans, including plenty written by more advanced species, like the Tumbra and Kaithe. I suggest you take advantage of that sometime.” She studied the Quatro again, eyebrows twitching upward. “Now, about answering my question. You said you need our help. Why?”
“We have observed your people since your arrival on this world.” For the first time, Lisa noticed how still the alien stood as it spoke. All the Quatro did, actually: other than the occasional flick of an ear or—more disconcertingly—a lick of the lips, they barely moved at all.
The Quatro continued: “At first, we assumed you were just an additional tool of the…” Pausing, the alien swung its head toward Lisa. “What is a word for one who interferes?”
Blinking, Lisa gave it a moment’s thought. “Uh, how about ‘meddler?’”
“Then we will now call them the Meddlers. It is the Meddlers that stole the capability of flight from my drift’s ship.”
“Your drift?” Lisa asked.
“Wait a second,” Andy said, in a tone that suggested he was having some sort of epiphany. “Are you even from this star system?”
“Our first home is far away from here,” the alien said. “Many, many stars away. We came here to establish a second home, and at first, this system seemed like the perfect one for that. Like you, we took advantage of the moving devices that carry valuable metals and other materials to holding containers.”
“You mean the Gatherers?” Lisa said.
“It does seem likely we are talking of the same thing. Yes. Gatherers. We did not question their existence, also like you, except to worry about whether their makers would return at some time. But we thought that the makers must have these Gatherers in systems elsewhere. We even thought about the chance that the makers might have fallen a long time ago, leaving their devices to continue working.”
The dark-eyed Quatro turned to exchange looks with another, who had orange eyes. That Quatro raised its paw slightly. Lisa wasn’t sure what the exchange signified, but the midnight-eyed Quatro continued its explanation.
“At some time, we noticed something about the deep reservoirs where the Gatherers deposited their materials. We noticed they would soon be filled up. Not all of them—many of the reservoirs did not fill, because we were taking the materials for our own use instead, as we have seen you do. But the ones that had been left alone were close to full.
“It was when they filled that the Meddlers came. They loosed great machines on us, which strode the surface of this planet, as well as that of the other planet in this system hospitable to living. Those great machines prevented us from gathering resources at the levels of before. Worse, they attacked our ships, destroying most. This one crashed to the planet, its moving ability destroyed, though its armor kept it mostly intact. Our drift was driven underground, and over time, we went quietly onto the surface at night and dragged our ship below the surface, piece by piece, to reassemble it here, so that we could have a living place.”
“How have you survived?” Lisa asked. “How did you…how do you eat?”
“We had sufficient food to last until we reassembled our ship’s lab. After that, we synthesized what we needed.”
Lisa nodded slowly. Synthesized meat. I see. Well, that’s a relief. “There are walking machines like the ones you describe on Eresos—that’s what we call the system’s habitable planet. We named those machines Amblers. But no one has ever seen an Ambler on Alex. This planet, I mean.”
“The machines you call Amblers disappeared very soon before your arrival. We thought you to be another agent of the Meddlers, and so we chose to hide ourselves from you. The Meddlers diminished our drift greatly—we have no more than the forty-two Quatro you see before you—and so we have exercised extreme caution over the last two decades. But when we realized that you three had entered danger on the planet’s surface, we made a decision to bring you here, where you could safely breathe. We could also learn whether you are truly of the Meddlers, and we have decided to base our future actions on the idea that you are not.”
“That is all very informative,” Tessa cut in, “but you still haven’t told us why you need our help.”
“That is simple,” the Quatro said. “The Meddlers came when the reservoirs filled, and they will be filled again in fewer than two orbits. That is when the Meddlers will return, and you can expect to lose your ability to fly through the stars when it happens. We are scared of that day, and we believe that you should be scared also.”
Chapter 41
Collectivist
The conversation with the Quatro inside their vessel’s audience chamber had only gotten more interesting after they’d mentioned the Meddlers, who seemed likely to be the creators of the Gatherers and Amblers.
“We’re not really in a position to help anyone,” Lisa had said. “In fact, we were on our way to seek help ourselves—from Habitat 1, one of the four permanent human settlements on this planet. We come from Habitat 2, where a criminal element called Daybreak has taken control. We aim to take it back.”
“Then we will both improve our respective situations,” said Rug, which was the name the midnight-eyed Quatro leader had chosen for herself. “We will do so by helping each other. If we help you retake your home, then perhaps you can help us reach our starship.”
“Wait,” Lisa said. “Starship?”
“Yes. Even though we Quatro took full advantage of the resources collected by the Gatherers, just as you have, we also took caution. Knowing the creators would likely return some day, we concealed a ship in the outer comet belt, as a contingency. If you can help us reach it, then we all can escape.”
“What if we don’t want to escape the Steele System?” Andy said. “What if we decide we kind of like this
place, after all?”
Rug looked at Andy for a prolonged period of quiet. “You will want to leave, when the Meddlers come. You will want to leave very quickly.”
After a brief huddle, Lisa, Tessa, and Andy had decided that the deal the Quatro had proposed was much better than they were likely to get. Much better than suffocating on the surface of Alex, certainly.
“And we don’t have to leave Steele,” Lisa said. “As long as we help them reach their ship, we’ll have kept up our end of the bargain. In return, we get Habitat 2 back.”
“How exactly are we going to help them reach the Outer Ring, Lisa?” Andy said. “Do you have that part figured out yet?”
“No,” Lisa said, a little sullenly. “But I will. We have to figure it out, don’t we? This is our only option, now, and to be honest we’re lucky to have it.”
That had decided it. Two days of hasty preparations later, the Quatro vessel’s airlock opened, letting them out into the dark tunnel once more.
So began a very interesting journey.
For one, the Quatro refused to travel by day.
It was summer on Alex, and near the equator as they were, the temperature got as high as twenty degrees Celsius during the day. That level of warmth turned the fullerenes inside the Quatro brain from superconductors into fridge magnets.
Well, not exactly that bad. But near enough.
The Quatro assured Andy that they would be able to fix the beetle’s wheels once they reached it. They were used to repairing things that broke down—it had been the only way they’d survived all these years. Once the beetle was fixed, together the humans and Quatro would press on toward Habitat 2.
Lisa spent the journey mostly exhausted, since Tessa had decided to renew their training program, driving her even harder than before.
She began to incorporate more lucid simulations, and now that Lisa’s implant was properly calibrated to reflect her actual abilities, they were much more challenging and generally more intense.
Even so, after months of Tessa’s tutelage, she found herself way better equipped to grapple with whatever Tessa sent at her, whether it was a whole platoon of Ixa or an Ambler that had malfunctioned and gone on a rampage.
The older woman had totally eradicated the Quatro from the simulations.
“Doesn’t seem right, anymore,” Tessa said, and that was all she had to say on the subject.
It’s all she needs to say.
The Quatro leader spent a lot of time walking alongside Lisa, talking to her over a wide channel, teaching her about their culture as well as giving her a crash course in the nature of the aliens’ powers.
“Incredibly collectivist” was the word Tessa used to describe Quatro social organization, after listening to the leader speak to Lisa enough.
According to the white-haired ex-soldier, “collectivist” meant that individuals of a society placed the interests of the group—“drift,” in this case, Lisa supposed—before even their own needs.
“The polar opposite of the society we’ve set up in the Steele System, basically,” Tessa said. “No wonder our two species don’t get along.”
Lisa had to admit that the Quatro were quite different. Part of her wanted to respect the fact that theirs was a totally alien culture and had no doubt taken the shape it had for a reason.
But on the other hand, she found them extremely odd. The Quatro were so “collectivist” that they didn’t even have names, to begin with!
Once the Quatro realized that having a name was important for communicating with humans, they each chose one for themselves, an exercise they seemed to view as an amusing game.
“What do you call the object that covers a floor?” asked the black-eyed Quatro.
“Uh, carpet?” Lisa said. “A rug?”
The Quatro paused, seeming to consider Lisa’s offering.
“Rug,” she said. “I will be Rug.”
The other Quatro chose similar names, after everyday objects. “Table.” “Faucet.” “Lamp.”
Other than being hilarious, the names also made sense, in a way. They reflected how the Quatro saw themselves: as unremarkable entities that sought to be useful to those around them.
“They’re totally selfless,” Tessa said. “Some people would call that admirable. Although, most of those people live in the Milky Way.”
Even though Lisa thought of Rug as the Quatro “leader,” she wasn’t, not really. The Quatro had no leaders. They each mulled endlessly over what was best for the drift, what the drift needed, and then they spent the rest of their time trying to fill that need as best they knew how. No leader was required for that, apparently.
Lisa’s father had always taught her that selfishness was actually a virtue, which kept a society running smoothly. If everyone pursued their own rational self-interest, then the economy worked itself out, and everyone prospered. Everyone who deserved to, anyway.
In fact, people back in the Milky Way hadn’t properly valued selfishness, and that was a big part of why Darkstream had been forced to leave.
The Quatro don’t have a selfish bone in their bodies, and look how they ended up. Stranded underground on an inhospitable planet, barely kept alive by technology that constantly seemed to be breaking down.
Take the turtle-shaped Quatro vehicle that trundled along behind them as they crossed Alex, which Andy had taken to calling “the Dome.”
It broke down twice during the journey—once because it stalled out while trying to get up a particularly steep hill, and a second time because of a faulty engine part.
The aliens seemed used to occurrences like this, though, since they carried around a considerable store of spare parts, from which Lisa assumed they would attempt to fix the beetle.
The Dome also featured an oxygenated compartment that could hold two Quatro in tight quarters, should their pressure suits fail. The blue Quatro pressure suit was a thing of wonder, even Lisa had to admit. In addition to preventing the wearers from suffocating, it also supplied their bodies with nutrients on the move, kept them hydrated, and converted their waste into energy, which was efficient but also kind of gross.
Even so…
“You’re clearly doing something wrong, to have ended up stranded on Alex,” Lisa told Rug point-blank. “These Meddlers sound like real jerks, but they must have been stronger than you, and that’s probably because they look out for themselves instead of worrying about the needs of others so much.”
“Do you truly believe strength means ignoring the needs of others? If so, perhaps we should have left you and your friends to suffocate on the surface of Alex.” The Quatro translator was getting a lot better, as it collected more data on human language.
“Well, sure,” Lisa said. “But you needed us, or so you said. The Meddlers probably had no need of you.”
“They need us now.”
“They do? For what?”
“To show them mercy.”
Lisa shook her head. “I don’t understand. What do you mean?” Maybe the translator wasn’t working as well as she thought.
“For them to continue living, they will need us to show them great mercy. Because currently, we intend to kill them.”
That, Lisa hadn’t expected to hear from Rug. It sent her into a thoughtful silence, which the Quatro eventually interrupted. “Our first objective is to escape this system, before the Meddlers return. We cannot beat them with our current might. But we can return with more weapons, more ships, and when we do, we can look for clues that will help us track them to their home and make them pay for what they did to us.”
The next day, they found the beetle, which was already covered by an inch-thick layer of blue dust.
Without hesitation, the Quatro got to work.
Chapter 42
Red Company
The entire battalion rolled out from Ingress as dawn lit the land with shades of gray.
They’d received word of Quatro moving toward a nearby settlement, called New Gower, and luckily for the sett
lement, they had a long-standing contract with Darkstream.
While the entire strike force deployed to intercept the Quatro, nothing could travel faster than the mechs, which bounded over the terrain with virtually limitless energy.
That energy worried Gabe, who’d ordered his entire team out of their mechs after they’d finished helping with clean up after the Battle of Ingress. Before bed, he’d subjected them to two hours of hard PT.
The dream did simulate effort and exertion when controlling the mech, however that was balanced out by the mech’s immense power, so that you only felt as taxed as a being the size and strength of a MIMAS mech would feel.
Either way, those actions required nothing of your body, beyond what calories its basil metabolic rate burned through. That meant their bodies would wither away, if they let them.
And part of Gabe wanted to let them. Part of him never wanted to leave his mech, where he dreamed he was mighty, without peer—a dream that happened to be true.
When he looked in the eyes of his team, he saw that sentiment reflected in them, and that only made him even more adamant about making sure they spent ample time actually using their bodies to get some damned exercise.
Originally, he’d only planned to make them do ninety minutes. But after Henrietta took it upon herself to mutter, “Thought we were done with this after training,” Gabe heaped on another thirty.
“I told you I planned to maintain total authority,” Gabe barked, pacing up and down the line of them doing push ups. “Did you think that meant I’d hold your hand while reading you bedtime stories?”
He’d gotten no more complaints, and that satisfied him. So he dropped to the ground and joined them.
Now, the ground rushed past beneath his exquisitely engineered feet, which had better balance than his human ones. They were molded for peerless locomotion.
When the team encountered a copse of trees, instead of bothering to run around, they charged through. A tree of middling size reared up before Gabe, which would have forced him to choose another path, if he hadn’t been willing to barrel straight into it, splintering it into a shower of a thousand fragments.
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