Within moments he could see the entire city. Still ignoring Flavoi’s clumsy attempts to steer, he glided down the cliff, settling gently on the frozen ground. A few seconds later Flavoi crash-landed next to him. “The landing is a little rougher without a ship, eh, Flavoi?” he teased. Flavoi only sniffed as he stood up and pretended to brush off the dust.
Tresar examined the glacier’s foot. It appeared that the city was here before the glacier, since the glacier was pushing a huge pile of building wreckage as it progressed down the valley. Tresar looked around the city, trying to determine the most likely place to start an investigation. He tried to picture how the buildings might have appeared when they were whole.
“Most of these buildings were made of glass.” Flavoi gestured at the giant metal skeletons surrounded by piles of broken glass, then pointed to a building with metal walls. “Why is that one different?”
Tresar looked at him in surprise. He hadn’t expected his friend to be so observant. “That’s a good question. Why don’t we go check?”
They made their way through the rubble, sometimes hovering to get over the larger obstacles. Here and there were the remains of people who had died horribly, bones jutting out of the debris at the most unlikely places, some with bits of frozen flesh still attached. Tresar grimaced with distaste as Flavoi examined one such body, lifting a bone and inspecting it before dropping it back onto the ground. Tresar didn’t like death; to see it was a reminder that they all would experience it one day. He noticed something interesting about the corpses, though. Tresar nudged Flavoi, whose immunity to the carnage around him was probably due to the years he spent in the Bitowan wars.
“Flavoi, don’t these bones look similar to ours?”
Flavoi looked up from his inspection of what appeared to be a table. “Similar? No. They look exactly like ours.” He turned back to the table, running his hand over its damaged surface. “And they have wood, so they must have had trees. I don’t know what happened here, but it must have happened swiftly to freeze the entire planet. Maybe their sun shrunk.”
“No, that couldn’t have happened. That star is still in its mid-life stage. Besides, the planets closest to it would have been destroyed if something like that had happened.”
Flavoi snorted. This was the irritating part of having an intelligent friend. He hoped he wasn’t headed for a lecture on the life cycle of stars. He breathed a sigh of relief as they finally reached the metal building. Now Tresar wouldn’t have time to educate him. “Well, here we are. Which of these many openings would you like to make our entrance?” he asked.
Tresar glanced at the numerous punctures in the metal walls. “I guess one is as good as another. Let’s go in here.” He led the way through the nearest hole and into a large room. Sunlight streamed through the tears in the walls and ceiling. “Interesting. Before whatever occurred here happened, these walls were windowless. I wonder what they were trying to keep out.”
“Or what they were trying to keep in,” Flavoi intoned.
Tresar grinned at his friend’s dire posturing. “Why don’t we go find out? After you, sir.” He gestured for Flavoi to take the lead. Flavoi swept past him with his nose in the air, toward the only door in the room. He stopped play-acting when the door opened into darkness.
“Now what?” he asked in exasperation. Tresar only smiled and whipped out two light sticks from somewhere on his suit. Flavoi gave him an odd look and frisked himself. “I didn’t know these things had pockets.” Tresar laughed and handed him a light.
They spiraled their way down a long sloping hallway to another door with red lettering on it and no handle. Flavoi looked at Tresar. “Can you read alien?”
Tresar shook his head and put his shoulder to the door. It tore off its frame and fell into the room with a groan and shower of rust. Inside the ceiling had caved in, supplying enough light for the men to see twenty pods set into both sides of the narrow room along the entire length of the walls. An intact skeleton rested at the foot of the last pod on the right. Its sternum showed damage that was probably the cause of death.
Tresar inspected the closest pod. It was made of mostly metal, but the entire front was clear and he could see through it to the form inside. He wiped off some of the dust with his gloved hand and peered inside the pod into the open eyes of a man who was very definitely like them. He gasped and took a quick step back.
Flavoi looked at him in surprise. “What is it?” Tresar just pointed. Flavoi looked at the man in the pod and shrugged. “Yup. It’s a man.”
Tresar stared at him. “He looks just like us!”
“Why does that shock you? Did you expect all aliens to look alien? It’s a big universe. Maybe we share ancestors who managed to populate more than one galaxy. You of all people should concede that.” Flavoi tried not to look too smug for outthinking his friend.
Tresar managed a small smile. “I guess you’re right. I just wasn’t expecting it, that’s all.” He pulled an instrument out of another hidden pocket and scanned the alien. Flavoi furrowed his brow in consternation and began frisking himself again.
“Hmmm, that’s odd. This man has an anti-immunity virus in his body.”
Flavoi looked up from his searching. “Why didn’t they just cure him, then? It’s a simple tonic to make.”
“Maybe they didn’t know how. Or didn’t have the proper plant.”
Flavoi grinned eagerly. “Can we wake him?”
“Not here. If he’s as like us as he looks, he’ll die in this atmosphere. No sense opening his pod or curing him if he dies from exposure to the air. Let’s see if we can take the pod back to the ship.”
They examined the back of the pod where it connected to the wall with a myriad of hoses and wiring. Flavoi shook his head in confusion. “This is your area of expertise. Let me have your scanner. I’ll check the other aliens.” Tresar handed it to him and went back to examining the maze of ducts set into the wall. Flavoi went from pod to pod, humming to himself as he worked.
After an hour of scrutinizing the alien technology, Tresar watched as Flavoi approached him, grinning from ear to ear. Tresar sat back with a sigh.
“I don’t know what you’re so happy about. I have bad news. Unless we take this entire room back intact, we won’t be able to open any of these pods. They’re all connected and designed to be opened from that console there.” Tresar pointed to a control console at the front of the room. “What did you find out?”
Flavoi continued grinning as he gave his report. “All of the pods are set vertically along the wall. All of them contain men with one disease or another; some we can cure, some we can’t.” He paused dramatically. “Except one.”
Tresar looked at him in astonishment. “What do you mean, except one?”
Flavoi felt like laughing. He helped Tresar to his feet and explained. “Except one that’s not connected to the wall. It’s horizontal and fully self-contained. Except one that does not contain a man with a disease. In fact, she’s perfectly healthy.”
“She?!?” Tresar was surprised, since Flavoi had said all of the units he inspected contained men.
Flavoi continued, ignoring Tresar’s outburst. “The unit is simpler than these ones. I think it might be a prototype. Though why they would test it on a healthy person is beyond me. And why they wouldn’t wake her up after the test was a success is a mystery, too.” Flavoi looked at Tresar and smiled. “So, my genius friend. Do you have any inventions that will help us get an extremely heavy pod up a cliff and back to the ship?”
“That sounds a lot like sarcasm,” Tresar replied as he headed for the door, “but as a matter of fact, I do have something along those lines.” He looked back at Flavoi. “Are you coming?”
Flavoi jogged to catch up. He clapped Tresar on the back, saying with mock seriousness, “I should’ve known not to underestimate you.”
They headed back to the ship, hovering up the ice cliff, and this time Flavoi was able to control his air packs reasonably well. Once inside, Tr
esar led the way to what Flavoi affectionately called the ‘toy room.’ Inside a large bay were hundreds of inventions and gadgets of all shapes and sizes scattered and piled in no particular order. It looked like the nursery room of some spoilt child. Flavoi glanced around the room. “Did you bring everything from your manor?”
“I had to,” Tresar snorted. “Do you think I’d leave anything for those little snoops to take back to their companies or sell to the military?” Tresar waded into the mess and pulled a long, flat cart out of a pile by its handles. It looked completely normal to Flavoi until he noticed it didn’t have wheels. It was suspended in the air about a foot off the ground.
Flavoi gave a low whistle. “How did you get it to gravitate? It looks like it weighs about two hundred kilos!”
Tresar shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly. “Magnets.” He held up his hand when Flavoi opened his mouth to ask the next obvious question. “That’s all I’m going to say. Don’t ask for specifics. I don’t have a patent on this yet. Give me a hand with it, will you?”
They took what Tresar called his gravitator to the air lock. Flavoi paused at the door. “How are we going to get it down the cliff?”
“Down the cliff isn’t the problem. We just drop it. It falls fairly slowly and always stops a foot above any tangible surface. Getting it up the cliff is the problem, since it can’t gravitate more than a foot off the ground. We’ll have to fly down, hover, and lift it out.” Tresar pushed the gravitator out the door. “Let’s get going. I want to be done before dark. It probably gets a lot colder out here.”
By the time they returned to the metal building, the distant sun was low on the horizon. Flavoi led the way down the hallway, holding the light sticks so that Tresar could maneuver the gravitator into the room. Then he led Tresar to the back of the room where an alcove with a bulky pod was located. Tresar fiddled with the keys on the gravitator’s handle and it slowly settled to the ground. The men looked at the pod, and then at each other. Flavoi looked back at the pod and started laughing.
Tresar grimaced at him. “Why are you laughing?” Flavoi leaned on the gravitator and kept laughing hysterically. “This isn’t funny, Flavoi. How are we going to get that thing on the gravitator?” Now Flavoi was doubled over with mirth and hiccupping. Tresar snorted. “Serves you right. We have a problem here, and daylight is fading fast. Now stop laughing and give me a hand with it.”
Both men grunted as they lifted the end of the heavy pod up to the gravitator’s edge. It took several minutes of straining to get the end of the pod onto the edge of the gravitator, and another ten minutes of pushing to get the rest of it on. By the time they got the pod situated, they were breathing heavily and sweating profusely. Tresar tapped a few keys and the gravitator rose. He turned to Flavoi. “Let’s get back to the ship. I want to take a shower.” They headed up the corridor, pushing the laden gravitator in front of them. They exited the building just as the sun set. As daylight faded, Flavoi went to get the ship while Tresar maneuvered the gravitator into position for pick-up.
The sky was dark by the time Flavoi showed up, hovering above the debris-filled street. The loading ramp lowered with a groan of disuse and hit the ground with a thud. Tresar shoved the gravitator up the ramp and into the cargo bay. Once he was inside, he called Flavoi on the comm to close the ramp and take them into orbit around the planet. Flavoi’s voice filled his ears with a petulant whine.
“Why can’t we park on the ground? This planet is dead, there’s no danger here.”
Tresar sighed. “I’d rather not stay on a planet I know next to nothing about. At least I know the dangers in space. Take us up, Flavoi.”
Flavoi was silent as he raised the ship and took off into the sky. Tresar made his way to the shower room. His stomach growled loudly as he walked down the corridor. Not surprising, since he hadn’t eaten all day. He took a quick, warm shower and then toweled briskly dry before throwing on a loose, comfortable shirt-and-pants ensemble. That was the nice thing about having your own ship. You could wear whatever you wanted. As he was leaving the shower room, he bumped into Flavoi, who looked as if he had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Tresar eyed him suspiciously.
“Flavoi, have we achieved orbit yet?”
Flavoi snorted. “Of course. I just wanted to take a shower before I eat, and I’m not in the mood for a sonic shower. I want to feel some water on my skin.” He looked pointedly at Tresar’s damp hair.
Tresar smiled. Saving water was important, but in light of the fact that they could take advantage of the opportunity to get more from the planet below, it was only fair to give Flavoi the same consideration. He nodded at Flavoi and headed to the refectory for a good meal. If Flavoi wasn’t feeling guilty about wanting to stay on the planet, then what was bothering him? Tresar decided to worry about it after he had eaten.
Flavoi went into the shower room. As he stood under the hot water, he felt his muscles relax. It had been a long journey, but now that it had paid off, he didn’t dread the trip home as much as before. Especially now that they had an alien for entertainment. He toweled himself off and put on the clean outfit he had brought with him. Then he exited the shower room, looking carefully down the hall toward the refectory to ensure that Tresar wouldn’t see him go into the cargo bay.
Once inside, he went over to the cryogenic pod and looked inside. The woman’s skin showed some color. He checked the dials. Everything looked fine.
He stared at the alien, still amazed at how Yalsan she looked. She was quite attractive as well. He found her short, brown hair odd, since Yalsan women wore theirs long, but it did look good framing her oval face. Her chest rose and fell as she began to breathe. He wondered what color her eyes would be when she finally opened them. They fluttered, opening for a moment and staring up at him. He sucked in his breath. They were the color of the alien sea on the planet below. Then they closed, and she appeared to be sleeping.
Flavoi took one last look at the alien before leaving the cargo bay. The defrostation sequence was close to completion, and he wanted to get some food in his stomach before the alien awoke. He also had to tell Tresar what he’d done. He grimaced, knowing Tresar wouldn’t be happy. But if he had waited for Tresar to wake her, he’d be waiting for weeks. Tresar would’ve examined and reexamined the pod, researched cryonics, and run numerous tests before even considering beginning defrostation. And Flavoi didn’t have the patience to wait that long. As he raced down the corridor, he felt his excitement grow. He couldn’t wait to meet the alien.
When Flavoi arrived at the refectory, still looking somewhat guilty but less anxious, Tresar had finished his meal and was working his way through seconds. Flavoi sat across from him, devouring a large helping of meat before even looking at his vegetables. Once he slowed down, he looked at Tresar, and between mouthfuls, told him what he’d done.
“I took the liberty of starting the sequence to defrost our little friend while you were in the shower. I figured by the time we finished eating, she’d be fully thawed.”
Tresar looked at him in disbelief. “Do you mean to tell me that you left the pod unattended while it defrosted? What if something goes wrong? That thing is ancient!” He pushed back his chair and stood up. “If anything’s happened to her because of your negligence . . .” he left the threat unfinished.
Flavoi didn’t even slow his eating. “Relax, Tresar. I just checked on the pod and the sequence is going fine. She’s still a little blue around the gills, but her stats are good.”
“Flavoi, starting the sequence was reckless,” Tresar said. “We should have examined the pod thoroughly before even thinking about defrosting it. You don’t use unknown technology without determining the dangers. What were you thinking?” He stared at Flavoi in exasperation, unable to comprehend why Flavoi never thought before he acted.
“All the examination in the world isn’t going to change the fact that if the pod wasn’t fully functional, we wouldn’t be able to defrost her anyway. It wouldn’t matter when
the sequence was initiated; if it’s going to work, it’ll work; if it’s not, it won’t.” Flavoi felt comfortable with his logic in this situation. After all, his decision-making skills had kept him alive through several wars and two peace negotiations. He wasn’t about to start second-guessing himself now just because Tresar approached situations differently.
Tresar counted to ten and breathed out slowly. “Nevertheless, I’m going to go monitor the rest of the thawing process, as the whole process should have been monitored in the first place.” He stormed out of the refectory and headed to the cargo bay to check on the pod.
Flavoi gulped down the rest of his meal and followed Tresar as quickly as he could. By the time he entered the cargo room, Tresar was standing over the open pod with a strange look on his face. Flavoi walked over to the pod and stood next to Tresar. Flavoi’s jaw dropped at the sight of the empty pod, and he stupidly stated the obvious. “She’s gone!”
Tresar was counting slowly again. “Flavoi, I’m not going to get mad. Just find her. Find her before she gets into trouble.”
Flavoi felt guilty for not waiting to thaw the alien and scared that Tresar was really mad at him. He started his search in the nooks and crannies of the corridor, trying to think of where he would hide if he were an alien on a strange ship.
Tresar thought about how Flavoi clashed with military life, and he could see why. He had never met such an insubordinate and reckless person in his entire life. And that was saying a lot, considering how most pilots were. He was thinking of taking away Flavoi’s access to the cargo room and a few other rooms when he heard a shuffling noise behind a pile of food cartons.
CHAPTER 7
Karina felt as if she were drowning in a freezing lake. She could see a bright light above her and struggled toward it. Her limbs wouldn’t respond to her attempts to reach the surface. They felt cold and leaden. Her memory came crashing back as a man leaned over her and checked some dials on the thin ledge that jutted out from the cryogenic pod. She felt overcome by a familiar sense of depression and powerlessness.
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