Straka turned. For a moment she felt surprised to find she was no longer repulsed by Markos’s physical form. The violently clashing reds, greens, and oranges of his translucent skin, his lack of Haber fur, all added up to a strange totality, some awesome beauty. Even the fluids detectable beneath the surface of Markos’s skin. Straka had been blind to it all until now.
“Straka?”
“Oh, sorry. No, nothing’s wrong. Everything’s right for a change. I was just enjoying it.”
“It’s good to see you indulging, but remember that everything is far from being right. We’re at war.”
“The war. I know. But I was talking about now, right here, inside my head. Being thankful for life.”
Markos nodded and flashed red. Straka noticed her own eyes tingle. “It’s almost sundown,” Markos said. “Gather up the crew with me and we’ll link up.”
“Link?”
“You’ll see.”
Straka tried to smile but had no idea as to what it looked like. She called out, and the crew slowly stopped what they were doing. They drifted over to where Markos and Straka stood and listened while Markos explained the techniques required for linking up.
“It’s the easiest way to learn about touch and change. It should also introduce you to the little power source we have inside.”
“Power source?” De Sola asked.
“It’s simpler to show you than to explain it. Here,” he said.
De Sola and the others reached forward and touched Markos’s proffered arm. It became incredibly hard, the skin inpenetrable. “I add mesons to the atoms of my outer skin. It increases my outer density,” Markos commented.
“I like that,” Jackson said.
Straka was about to say something, but she felt the need to be silent. The others had fallen silent too. It was time to link up. Straka had no idea how she knew that, yet she knew. An emotional change had occurred, one she could detect on an almost tangible level. A huge gaping void had opened inside as though someone she had once loved deeply had died. But that wasn’t quite it; there was no pain or grief there—just the void.
Someone touched her hand and she did as Markos instructed, grabbing hold, groping for Markos’s hand with her right. Her eyes were drawn to the sky, to the blob of shifting light on the horizon. Markos grabbed her right hand, and the link up was complete.
As she felt her skin dissolve, the barrier between her and the others dropped away. She understood the strange feeling for a split second—gates had swung open in her mind and soul, creating that void. And then she lost the grasp she had of the abstract concept as the physical reality overwhelmed her. The others were surging through her body, entering through her hands, buoying her, comforting her, giving her immense company within her singular body, sharing themselves on a soul-baring level far deeper, far richer than love. In a split second all distinctions between their personalities were gone as they blended into a whole, a gestalt that swept her away deep into Aurianta’s core, high into its insanely refractive sky.
The colors she stared at, created by the setting sun, said something, composed some inscrutable visible message. She was sure of that, and yet she couldn’t understand it. She could gather some of the emotional content as her body surged and fell with the rapid changes in the sky. She wanted to tell it she understood. All she was capable of doing was opening her mouth to thank the sun, the sky, the planet, and all the Habers for their existence, to be a part of such an awesome whole. It was more than she’d ever dreamed of accomplishing.
The words came out as a steady hum.
The feeling of belonging, of being truly accepted, was intense. And then the sun fell below the horizon, the colors faded in intensity from the sky, and it was over. She was Cathy Straka again.
But she was no longer human.
Some subtle change had been worked inside through the linkup. Now she belonged. She felt at peace with herself and the others. She was home.
“Come,” Markos said. “We’ll go back to the building. We should rest for a while and eat. Then we work. There’s a lot yet to learn.”
Part Three
AFTER THE CHANGE
19
He stood on the bridge, a place he thought he’d never see again. It felt strange being back on board—especially with Van Pelt dead, with the crew waiting to transfer from the Haber ship. Old memories drifted by, reminding him of who and what he’d once been.
His hand rested on the back of the command chair, surrounded on all sides by bulkheads lined with screens. Markos could remember too many watches when he’d sat at the west-quadrant control seat, staring at the screen before him, his psyche easily absorbed into the awesome view he faced, only to be snapped back by Van Pelt’s half-insane exclamations of how nothing made sense. Van Pelt had occupied this chair, had earned the privilege and the responsibility.
And Markos had taken that and everything else away from him with an uncontrolled burst from his newly found Haber eyes. It’s ironic, he thought. Van Pelt was always afraid of an alien threat, and look where his destruction came from.
Van Pelt’s essence lingered in the control center, permeated the screens, the chairs, the control panels mounted on the pedestals. Markos tried to ignore the strange feeling of someone looking over his shoulder.
He edged around to the small panel before the command chair and touched a sensor switch. The walls melted away as the screens came to life, and Markos realized he’d made his body hard without thinking. Surrounded by the unobstructed view of space, his mind had jumped back to when he’d been floating between the two ships.
He felt someone there, wheeled around to fight, and saw no one.
Calm down, cool out, he told himself. There’s no one there. Van Pelt is dead.
And yet he couldn’t shake the eerie feeling of someone watching, someone disapproving of his very presence on the bridge.
Too jumpy, he thought. Like waiting for the owner of the ship to wander in and catch me trying to steal it. I’ve got to calm down.
He edged around the control seat, eased into Van Pelt’s chair, and gazed at the screens. The Haber ship hung in space several hundred meters away off the port side, while Aurianta rotated slowly, majestically, beneath him. It would have been so simple to throw a few of the familiar switches, plot a course, and lay it into the navigational computer. A few switches are what separate me from getting the hell out of here, letting the whole mess resolve itself in its own natural way, or sticking around, waiting for the Terrans to transfer aboard, seeing this situation through to the end.
A small section of the Haber ship started changing color—the bay door must have been opening. That meant that Markatens had given them the ready signal and they would be starting the transfer procedure. If he was going to do something about taking the ship and going somewhere else, he would have to do it now.
Tiny specks of light appeared outside the bay, and Markos pressed one of the switches on the console. The view off the port side was magnified. He increased magnification until he could see the specks of light as forms, the crew making their way across the dangerous distance. Leave them? he thought. Before they’re too far away from the wedge?
They all liked Aurianta well enough. And they’ve been changed, so they could survive there. And the wedges were capable of f-t-l travel. I wouldn’t really be abandoning them.
The Habers don’t really need me. They just need someone. It could be Straka. Or Wilhelm.
But Markatens was on board. What would he do with him? Come on, son, we’re off to see the galaxy? Let me show you some of my favorite night spots? Let’s find some life-forms and get weird?
Not likely.
And he couldn’t very well throw him off the ship, point him toward the wedge, and hope he made it to safety.
He sighed, something very strange to do while in a body that had no physical excuse for sighing. He figured he’d better get down to the airlock and help on this end, in case any of Straka’s people had trouble with the
transfer. He switched off the screens, his window into space, and walked up the ramp to the door.
They sat around the rec lounge, an old, familiar place for the crew, oddly different for each of them in thousands of minute ways. Nothing looked the same, felt or sounded the same, yet they knew that nothing had changed but them.
They had all lived on board the ship for a long time, and a lot had happened there. Each cabin, each passageway held some reminder of the past. Markos remembered arguments over geltank time, over standing watches, over what they should do if and when they encountered an alien race.
“Everything looks so different,” Straka said.
“I’ll say,” Jackson said.
But no matter how much they each insisted things were different, that they were different, Markos knew better. Deep down inside, nothing of them had been changed. They were still the same people, still the same chauvinistic Terrans, the same opinionated, prejudiced beings. They were still the people who had sided with Van Pelt. The people who had chased him across the Galaxy.
“Just look at the bulkheads,” Wilhelm said. “You can see the structural defects there. And look—stress marks here,” he said, pointing to a ripple in the metal they would never have been able to see before.
Markatens stood by, trying to melt into a corner of the room, trying to make sense out of what everyone was talking about. He clutched the recorded crystals in his hands, waiting patiently for them to be needed. The crew had carried them across with them, though they hadn’t really known what they were.
“These chairs aren’t that comfortable anymore,” Martinez said.
“Did you see the swirl in this table?” De Sola asked, pointing to the top of the plastic table mounted in the deck. “Probably appears naturally from vacumolding.”
“You’ll get used to it this way,” Markos said, slightly amused at their discoveries. It was something he had gone through on Gandji, though for him it had been a painful experience, each difference spotted a revelation of horror.
“I doubt it,” McGowen said. “We must not be seeing the same things.”
“We are. I’ve just been seeing the differences longer, and I don’t notice them as differences. It’s just the way I see now. My mind’s adapted.”
“That figures,” Jackson said.
Everyone ignored him.
“I never thought I’d survive that trip,” Kominski said.
“I know what you mean,” Katawba said. “I’ve never felt more alone, more vulnerable.”
Martinez laughed. “What a high! Watching Aurianta below, huge and swollen, Alpha Indi a small disk—”
“I wasn’t worried,” Jackson said. “If he could make it, I knew I would,” he said, motioning toward Markos with his head.
“Well, what’s next?” Straka asked Markos.
Markos shrugged. “There’s a lot we have to do before we can leave. We should probably start with the crystals.” He held out his hand toward Markatens. Markatens handed over one of the crystals. “Put the others on the table,” Markos said.
“Does he have to come along?” Jackson asked.
“No,” Markos said. “And neither do you.”
That seemed to do the trick. Markos could read the colors that seeped from Jackson’s eyes, slight though they were, and knew he had dealt with him properly.
“One of problems is that all of our information is either dated or secondhand. We’ve never captured a Hydran, so all we know about them is here,” he said, holding out his hand, “and in those,” he said, pointing to the crystals on the table. “They’re about all we have. None of you have seen what’s inside them, but I want you to try to now.”
Markos described how to enter the crystals’ structures and what to look for inside. Straka was the first to pick up one of the crystals. The other crewmembers looked on as she gripped it in her hands. She had little trouble figuring out how to use it properly. Markos was pleasantly surprised at how quickly they were adjusting to their new capacities and capabilities. One by one the crew followed her example. All but Jackson.
“What’s the matter,” Markos asked him.
“What makes you think something’s the matter?”
“Well, you haven’t picked up one of them yet.”
“I will. Just tell me something,” Jackson said.
“What?”
“If you can change things so easily, why the hell don’t you change your voice? Have you got any idea what it sounds like?”
“My hearing hasn’t been altered that much.”
“That’s not what I asked. Why not change it?”
“Does it bother you that much?” Markos asked, his patience wearing thin.
“Yes.”
“Good. It bothers me too. That’s why I never changed it. It helps remind me of something I never want to forget. Now, pick up the crystal.”
Jackson’s eyes leaked a dark blue, the Haber way of saying no, and said, “Sure. Why not?”
He reached over and grabbed the nearest crystal. Markos was amused by Jackson’s inability to lie. Jackson’s innermost emotions would leak through his eyes until he learned how to control them better. Until that time Markos had a real window into Jackson’s mind.
Markos looked over the crew. Straka’s eyes were mirroring the colors she read within the crystal’s structure, flashing by at incredible speed. Like reading with her lips, Markos thought. He hoped they could understand the way the images were coded in those colors. It was a lot like asking a human to plug himself directly into a computer and understand its binary language without an interface, he thought. Only we Habers have a small advantage there.
Straka dropped the crystal as if it had suddenly been electrified and had shocked her. She looked over at Markos. Yellow tinged with blue seeped from her eyes—just enough of it for Markos to recognize her confusion and disbelief. “These are the creatures the Habers are at war with? These are the Hydrans?”
Markos nodded.
Straka took another crystal, placing the one she’d just finished to one side.
Wilhelm dropped his crystal. “My God,” he said. “Just like that. Burned them all. Nothing else. Just burned them away!”
“Just like Van Pelt did,” Markos said.
“What? Van Pelt? Get serious!”
“It’s true,” Markos said. “I was standing watch at the time. That was what made me run, seeing him do that.”
“I don’t believe you! He said you’d done it!”
“It’s true, Wilhelm. They were young Habers. Unarmed, totally incapable of understanding aggression.”
“I can’t believe it. I know Van Pelt was over the edge, but he wasn’t that far gone.”
“Then don’t believe it. It doesn’t matter anymore.”
Wilhelm picked up another crystal, the one Straka had placed aside. Straka was well into her second one. De Sola and Martinez were going through their crystals silently, without showing anything in their eyes. Markos was sure they were being moved by the experiences stored inside; they just weren’t the types to show it. Kominski seemed sane enough, capable of delving into the record of destruction in his crystal. Jackson placed his on the table and turned to face Markos.
“Is this your idea of a joke?” he demanded.
“What?” Markos asked.
“Fighting these things? How many of them are there?”
Markos shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Oh Christ.” Jackson shook his head. “You know, Markos, I never really liked you. You never gave me much reason to. But recruiting me to help fight these insects—”
“We’re not sure they’re insects.”
“They’re insects, all right. Can’t you even tell that? I refuse. I flatly refuse to fight them. It would be suicide. If we had an army, then I’d consider helping. But just the nine of us—”
“But you’ve only read one crystal.”
“One was more than enough.”
“Look at another, Jackson. You may see they’re n
ot all that powerful an enemy. There’s one crystal in particular—one with Triand fighting them on Theta Alnon. That one should show you more—”
“Forget it. I’ve seen enough,” Jackson said.
“Let him be, Markos,” Straka said. “If he doesn’t want to help, we’ll just leave him behind.”
Markos looked at Straka, a questioning yellow tinged with blue in his eyes.
“Just make sure you alter his physical structure so that he’ll be incapable of causing any trouble on Aurianta’s surface,” Straka said.
Jackson reached for another crystal. “All right. I got your message.”
Markos was starting to appreciate Straka’s presence. There was an art to handling Jackson, he realized, and confrontation was not part of the art.
Jackson was the same as he always had been. They’d never really gotten along. But then, no one ever really got along well with Jackson. He can mutter and mumble, complain and bitch, get into a fight now and then, but none of that matters, Markos thought. Just as long as he doesn’t make serious trouble. He was just what the Habers needed on their side: a true killer with a fine sense of survival. With Straka helping to keep him in line, there was a chance their mission could succeed.
McGowen, on the other hand, didn’t seem right. He’d been a lot more volatile, active, similar to Jackson in some ways. He used to supply Jackson with the sparring he needed. That could be why Jackson’s been lashing out at everyone, Markos thought. To try to find a new counterpart.
McGowen must have undergone some personality change when Alpha had touched him. Alpha had little firsthand knowledge of human anatomy and psychology. Markos remembered how heavy-handed the Habers had been when bringing him back to life on Gandji. They approached the human condition as if it were an integrated circuit in need of repair. Except that the Habers’ tools were hammers.
When they were finished with the crystals, he would take the time to discuss what they’d observed, making sure the similarities and differences from his own conclusions were noted. He would turn on the on-board computer and let it listen to the discussion. Maybe then, when it was over, the computer could draw a logical, consistent view of what the Hydrans were like, where they had truly come from, and what they were attacking.
The Eternal Enemy Page 19