Shift

by Chris Dolley

  There was a long pause. Louise watched her mother's face. It was blank, impossible to read. Was she communicating with the other colonists? Were they voting?

  Her mother spoke. "You realise that this will not change your situation. We are still contracted to deliver you to your new colony."

  "Of course, but now our new colony will have the information they need to take us home."

  The alien nodded. "We are agreed. This game has merit. We will extract all images concerning star configurations from your memories and begin as soon as that is concluded."

  They were split up. Nick was taken to the boundary while Louise remained at the island city—the colonists' insurance policy against flight. Not that Nick had anywhere to flee to. Unless the nearest boundary opened slap bang next to a planet he could recognise—Earth, Saturn or Jupiter—where would he go? Aim at the nearest point of light and hope it was the sun?

  The boundary layer flickered before him, hundreds and thousands of tiny shimmering stars. It was like a hazy, moonless, autumn night back on Earth. And it was wonderful.

  Even if he couldn't recognise any constellations, it felt good to have left the void, to know that the physical universe was out there waiting, and somewhere—up there, down there or over there—was Earth.

  "Sufficient data has been collected," said his invisible companion. "We shall now return."

  Nick returned in silence, riven between a desire to bombard the colonist with questions and the need to keep his thoughts to himself. How can you plot an escape when your mind could be read at any moment?

  And how could anyone who called himself a scientist ignore the vast repository of knowledge that the colonists had to possess?

  A dilemma, replete with sharp, pointy things.

  The colonists had to be centuries, if not millennia, ahead of Earth. Wasn't it his duty, his responsibility, to find out as much as he could from them? It was a once in several lifetimes opportunity, a chance to push the frontiers of human knowledge centuries into the future.

  And yet . . .

  He couldn't risk the prolonged contact. The longer he spent with the aliens inside his head the more likely they were to discover his intentions. Which meant he had to keep his head down and his distance. What good was knowledge if he couldn't get back to share it?

  "Well?" asked Louise on his return. "Did you find the boundary? Did you see Earth?"

  "We found the boundary but . . . we must be light years away. I couldn't even see Orion."

  He projected a question towards the colonists. "Is it okay if we fly around your colony and explore the sights?" he asked.

  "By all means," said a voice in his head. "You are our guests."

  Nick led Louise out of the city, not stopping until the gleaming towers covered less than a quarter of the sky.

  "Well?" asked Louise as soon as he stopped.

  "We've got to be careful what we think. They might even be monitoring us out here."

  "Did you see Earth?" she asked, no doubt thinking he'd been lying earlier to mislead the colonists.

  "No, Lou, we really are light years away."

  He looked to the horizon, wondering if he could even find the boundary again. It had been so dark he'd barely registered its existence until the colonist had told him they'd arrived. The result of being in deep space, he assumed. At least close to a star there was a wash of light.

  "How are we going to get back?" asked Louise. "Even if they give us the co-ordinates are they going to mean anything to us?"

  What did he know? He'd had an idea and run with it. He wasn't sure what he'd expected. That maybe the colonists would relent and show them the way home? Or they'd reach the nearest boundary and it would be Earth?

  "If nothing else it means that the new colonists will know where we come from," he said. "Maybe we can persuade them to take us back."

  "That's another thing I don't understand. How could they have known we were coming? It doesn't make any sense, does it?"

  "Maybe they weren't expecting us, maybe they're xenobiologists conducting a survey on a particular section of space and subcontracted out the specimen collection."

  "That's supposed to make me feel better? I'm a fish caught in a trawler's net waiting to see if I'll be thrown back in?"

  "It could be worse," he said. "Explorer/life science colony sounds a hell of a lot better than warfare/animal experimentation colony."

  A thought which triggered another. Had he put the Earth in danger? He'd been so desperate to persuade the colonists to locate the planet he hadn't considered the ramifications. He'd given an unknown species with untold powers the means to locate Earth.

  But they're friendly, he told himself. They'd gone out of the way to show that several times.

  "Friendly enough to sell us on like slaves," said Louise. Again he hadn't realised he'd been projecting his thoughts. Great, how the hell was he supposed to keep secrets from the colonists when he was leaking thoughts like a rusty sieve.

  "It's different customs, Lou," he said. "You can't expect them to think like us. But they're an intelligent species and sooner or later they'll realise we are too and help us."

  "As we would if the roles were reversed?"

  "Yes."

  He braced himself for another attack on the failings of the human race. Why was it that all animal lovers hated humans so much?

  "You really believe we would? If an alien landed on Earth you think the human race would patch them up and help them on their way again?"

  "I would like to think so, yes. Maybe not a few decades ago. But we're a more mature civilisation now, less paranoid."

  "God, you're so naive, Nick! The military would have that alien locked away, interrogated, tortured and its technology dissected before anyone else knew it had arrived. That's if they didn't kill it first."

  He sensed her anger but couldn't share it. They were billions of miles away from Earth arguing about . . . what? The iniquities of human prejudice?

  "Lou, the colonists are an ascended species. They're beyond all that. Look around you. Have you seen a single weapon? Their city is a work of art. There are no gun turrets or space cruisers . . ."

  "You don't need a gun to be a bully. You just have to be bigger and meaner. And as for being ascended, I judge as I find. They're not treating us as intelligent beings, they're treating us as animals to buy and sell."

  Nick didn't have time to disagree. A different voice dropped inside his head. "We have completed the calculations," it said.

  "You've found Earth?" asked Louise.

  "We have located the source of your memories, yes. It was a stimulating exercise."

  "Where is it then?" she asked. "Could you show us which direction from here?"

  Subtle, thought Nick, then immediately wished he hadn't. When would he ever learn how to master his thoughts? He threw up a wall, hoping there was such a thing, a thought-proof wall he could hide behind and plot in secret.

  "It would be of no use," said the alien, hopefully to Louise's question and not Nick's. "It is better that you do not know."

  "I don't understand," said Louise. "Why?"

  "Your destiny lies elsewhere. Better to forget the past. Your new hosts agree it is for the best."

  "You've spoken to them?"

  "We have communicated. They have more experience in dealing with other species."

  "They told you not to tell us, didn't they?"

  "A consensus was reached."

  "But no one asked us! How can you have consensus if the main party is excluded from the argument?"

  "You are not the main party. There is much you do not understand. It is better to leave important decisions to those with the knowledge."

  "We disagree."

  "That is as may be but why distress yourself over something that cannot be changed?"

  Nick saw it first, a growing speck on one of the many horizons. One of the advantages of his 360 degree, up down, all around, no-chance-of-being-crept-up-upon vision.

&nb
sp; "Lou," he said.

  "What?" she snapped.

  "I think our escort's arrived."

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The shape changed from speck to colossus. It was immense, hovering above them, a rippling, pulsing, jellyfish of a creature the size of a small ship—larger if you took the trailing fronds into account.

  Louise fled, not caring where, not thinking, everything trampled in a rush to be free from that thing sent to fetch them.

  She blurred into the void, using the creature as a point of reference and thinking away. Fast!

  Blackness surrounded her. The void, featureless and infinite. She kept going arrow straight, not daring to think or look or doubt. Faster, she urged, faster.

  A smudge of grey appeared behind her. She ignored it, thought herself into an arrowhead, sleek and smooth. Faster, she cried, speed of light and beyond.

  The smudge grew, sliding towards her, slow, inexorable, swallowing the void behind her.

  She veered to the right. The smudge followed. She dived, twisted, pulled left, pulled right. The smudge followed. She thought invisible, she thought silent, she thought teleport. Teleport me now, any place, any time. Just get me out!

  The smudge followed. It covered a third of the sky and was still closing.

  No!

  She accelerated again, thinking speed beyond comprehension, speed beyond imagination.

  The smudge followed, gaining all the time, beginning to flow around her, the void compressing into a shrinking jet black tunnel.

  No! There had to be a way, there had to!

  Desperation. She summoned the image of a distant galaxy, the farthest object her imagination could produce, held it in her mind and tried to drag herself towards it, tried to suck the light-years between them into nothingness, tried to pull herself out of space-time itself.

  Tried . . .

  . . .and failed.

  Pain exploded all around her. She felt like a sponge, picked up and squeezed dry. She couldn't move, she couldn't think, she couldn't cry out. All feelings of resistance broken and destroyed. The pain unbearable. Consciousness clouding. The dark returning.

  Louise drifted in and out of consciousness. Memories played on the edge of her perception, memories of flight and capture, pain and helplessness. Sometimes she thought she heard Nick's voice, sometimes she heard herself reply. But whether it was real, a dream or implanted, she neither knew nor cared. She was somewhere else. Disembodied and separate from all that was going on around her.

  Time passed. She woke, she slept. Remembering more and hurting less with each awakening. All around her were pale, translucent walls—most times creamy but occasionally suffused with rippling colour. Was she inside the creature? Had it swallowed her up?

  She tried to move. Nothing more than a stretch but the pain that hit her was excruciating. She felt squeezed. She could sense a hundred tiny fronds tightening around her. The pressure unbearable, her head about to explode . . .

  She slept, she dreamed then awoke with a start. Colours! Everywhere. The creamy walls had gone but she was still moving, carried along on a current through what looked like a canal or a street between banks of intense colour. Had they arrived? Was this the new colony? The structure—from the little she could see—wasn't as imposing as the island city. The banks—or buildings or whatever they were—were lower and flatter and didn't change shape. But the colour . . . she'd never seen colours so intense. They had texture and depth. Yellows that oozed, reds that burned, blues so rich they made her feel sick, a green she could smell, a black so deep and cloying she knew that any hand that strayed too close would come away coated black to the elbow.

  It was mesmerising. And confusing. Painful at times, as though her senses were being overloaded with information the human consciousness could barely process let alone comprehend. She felt blinded, dazzled and intoxicated.

  She moved, inadvertently, and pain ran through her like a high voltage cable. She froze and the pain stopped. Wherever her captor was, it wasn't far.

  "Nick?" She thought she saw him, a small blurred form bobbing along behind her. But either she was mistaken or he was asleep.

  Then she was falling, the current—something—sucking her down, sending her swirling towards a bright light at the base of the canal. She braced herself, tumbled through, into the light and beyond.

  Wait here, commanded a voice.

  Wait where? The light was so intense it blinded her. She felt like she'd been dipped—encapsulated—inside a small star. Everything around her was bleached by light.

  The interrogation started almost immediately. Just as before, she felt the wrench as her mind was pulled from her grasp and her memories flipped through—forwards, backwards, fast and slow. The same must have been happening to Nick—she caught occasional thoughts shouted across the ether. Lou? Are you there? Did you make it?

  Yes, she was here. And she was at home, at school, riding on a bus. She was in a thousand places all at once, her life tumbling past her like pictures on a revolving drum.

  What the hell did these people want? What more could they discover that they hadn't already sucked out of her brain?

  And when it was over—silence. No apologies, no explanation, no soothing endorphin rush. She was trapped inside a gleaming prison—pinned by an invisible force that robbed her of all movement.

  "Why don't you communicate with us?" she shouted. "We know you can."

  Her words screamed across the chamber, challenging a reply that never came.

  "It's no good, Lou," said Nick. "They're not listening."

  "Why not!" she snapped, struggling against the invisible force that held her vice-like in position. She thought break, she thought snap, she thought let me go!

  Frustration and anger. She felt so helpless! Her life had been one of order and self-sufficiency. She'd grown used to being in charge, never having her judgement challenged, and now this—tossed from one disaster to another, never knowing what was happening or how to make it stop.

  "Why don't they communicate?" she yelled. "Why are they repeating everything that's already been done before?"

  "Perhaps they don't trust the other colonists?"

  "But why? They're all the same species, aren't they?"

  "They are children!"

  The thought boomed into her consciousness, echoing and rattling into every corner of her mind. Much louder, much more insistent than anything she'd experienced at the island city.

  Louise shouted back. "What do you want with us?"

  "Information."

  "You've taken all the information we have! What more do you want?"

  Louise was straining to make out some shape or substance she could yell at. Everything around her shone in such uniform brilliance. The disembodied voice held no clue. It appeared to originate from inside her head.

  "We do not have all the information we require."

  "But we don't have anything more to give!" She spat the words out in frustration. Were they deaf as well as invisible?

  "Why don't you tell us what you're looking for," asked Nick. "Maybe we can help?"

  Silence. Typical, thought Louise, run away as soon as it's your turn to answer anything.

  "You still think they're an intelligent species, Nick?"

  "They'll come round."

  She bit her tongue. Given teeth she would have bitten a hell of a lot more. Why was he always defending the colonists? Couldn't he recognise them for what they were?

  Aaaarrrggghh! She internalised her anger, not trusting herself to project any thoughts. Her brain felt like a ransacked bedroom. So many memories pulled out of their drawers and tossed on the floor. She could see her smallholding, her animals and wondered how they were doing. Who was looking after them? Had the spring arrived? Was the grass beginning to grow? Or had spring passed into distant memory?

  And how long had they been gone? Days? Weeks? Months? Or only a few fleeting seconds. Time here was as indecipherable as their captors.

  And th
en her mind was sucked forward again, plucked out and sent reeling into the now familiar exercise of sifting and straining. What were they looking for now? She barely had room to kindle the thought there were so many hands inside her head, pushing and prodding. Surely they'd only just finished, had time flashed by so soon?

  Another voice, different this time—softer—washed over her as soon as the sifting stopped.

  "Are you really as ignorant as you appear?"

  Was this the merest flicker of a way out? Ignorance, their saviour? Too stupid to be of any use to the colonists? Nick grabbed the opportunity.

  "Thick as two short planks, us," he said. "Best to let us go, don't you think?"

  "You are strange creatures. Why do you insist we let you go when you do not even know where you are? You would not survive if we released you. You must know that to be true?"

  "Why don't you take us back home then?" asked Louise.

  A pause.

  "You want us to do that?"

  There was something strange about the way the colonist spoke. Surprise, almost. Which struck Nick as bizarre. Anyone reading their minds had to know how desperately they wanted to go home.

  "Of course," said Louise. "It's the only thing we do want. You must have found that out with all the scanning you've done on us."

  "But you want us to accompany you?"

  "We don't want you to come with us. If you can give us directions—fine, we'll go alone. But we thought it would be easier if you showed us the way."

  "So, you would prefer our company?"

  What was this? A colonist in search of friendship. A promise to swap cards at Christmas and keep in touch?

  "We would be honoured by your company," said Nick. "And it would be safer for us. Less chance of us getting lost again."

  "Safer for you, you say. But would it be safer for us?"

  This was becoming a very weird conversation.

  "I don't understand?" he said. "Why shouldn't it be safe for you?"

  "It could be a trap. Why should we believe you? A creature who feigns ignorance yet regards itself as intelligent, who has the ability of image communication yet refuses to use it, who is so frightened of truth it prefers to encrypt every thought before it can be communicated and, most damning of all, whose memories belong to a totally different organism. Why should we believe you?"