The Hidden World

by Melinda Snodgrass

Tracy glared at the alien then bowed. “As Your Highness commands.”

  Everyone crowded onto the bridge. Luis and the Isanjo assisted Tracy as he plotted a course and input the coordinates. He stretched his back and glanced over his shoulder at her. “It’s going to take a few hours. No sense all of you hanging around up here.”

  But no one moved.

  “Since Dalea and I seem to be very superfluous why don’t we bring some beverages?” Mercedes suggested. “I’m taking orders.”

  “Dios, this is so surreal,” Luis muttered.

  “Coffee,” Tracy said laconically.

  “Do you take anything in that?” Mercedes asked.

  “Black.”

  “You’re easy.”

  Emboldened by his captain’s lead Luis asked for coffee with cream and two sugars, the aliens opted for teas, and Jax, had one of his mineralized waters.

  Down in the galley the Hajin pulled down a tray and cups and urged Mercedes to sit down. “You’re not fully recovered yet, my lady. Don’t task your body with more than it can stand right now. I think you’re going to need your strength.” She opened a bottle of apple juice, filled a glass, and took a sip.

  “You suspect something,” Mercedes said.

  “I think I’ve been a nurse and worked in hospitals and—” She broke off abruptly, took another sip, and then resumed. “I’ve seen enough people die that I know funeral music when I hear it,” the alien replied softly.

  Mercedes shivered.

  * * *

  They had landed at the small spaceport to the north of the city twice before. Tracy brought them in and Mercedes could tell from the rigid set of his shoulders that he was prepared to pull them out at the first hint of trouble. She doubted they would be able to avoid trouble since this deep in a gravity well, pulling out a ship the size of the Selkie would be virtually impossible.

  She studied the field, noting the slender rocket waiting at its gantry. Fuel hoses were still attached to the sides, and a payload rested atop the forty-foot rocket. Wheeled vehicles were neatly parked at the partially buried ground control building. There was no sign of people as the six big rockets fired and lowered the Selkie onto a scorched landing pad. Tracy shut down the engines, leaned back, and released a pent-up breath.

  “Well, let’s see what awaits us,” he said. “Jax, I’m going to leave you and Graarack aboard. We’ll stay in constant communication. If we go silent or anything else happens that gets you the least bit worried, get the hell out of here.”

  “Yes, sir,” the Flute said.

  “We’re not going to just abandon you,” the spider said at the same time.

  “Damn it, Graarack, that’s an order.”

  “And you’re not the highest ranking person presently in attendance.” Her beak clicked shut firmly.

  Mercedes choked back a chuckle at Tracy’s expression. “It is customary to always defer to the captain of a ship in a potentially dangerous situation, and while you have a very egalitarian structure I think it best if you heed his order.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Dalea, bring your medical kit. It might be needed,” Tracy said. The Hajin nodded and hurried off.

  Down on the cargo level they waited while the gangplank whined open. Tracy checked his pistol, and Mercedes noted that Baca was also armed. Dalea carried a large holdall, and Jahan wore a belt with an array of tools slung from it. They walked across the landing field toward the building. The only sounds were their footfalls and a wind blowing off the mesas to the east. On the horizon magnificent thunderheads were forming and the almost metallic smell in the air held the promise of rain to come. Based on her energy level Mercedes suspected a higher level of oxygen in the planet’s atmosphere.

  They reached the building. Tracy knocked on the big double doors. There was no response. He tried the handle and the doors swung smoothly open. Tracy set his ScoopRing to record and they moved through the building. All the lights were off, computers shut down, security cameras turned off and the memories wiped. There would be no record of what had happened here. No record of the Selkie’s previous visits or this arrival. Even the trash cans were empty. There were no people anywhere.

  “Did they all just leave?” Baca asked.

  “Assuming they detected the arrival of the League ships, that would only give them a couple of days to arrange an evacuation, and while it wasn’t a large colony there were a hundred thousand people,” Jahan said.

  “And unless they were hiding them elsewhere on the planet we never saw ships that could affect an exodus of that size,” Tracy said. “I know they cannibalized their long-view ship to set up the colony.”

  “We detected no launches during our approach,” Mercedes offered.

  “Okay, let’s head to Edogowa,” Tracy said.

  Outside they found keys in all the vehicles. They picked one large enough to comfortably carry the five of them and began the drive to the city. The storm clouds were growing, a mad artist’s palette of gray, blue, red, gold, pink, and lavender. Bands of rain like sweeping tendrils of blue-gray hair fell from the clouds. Dust bloomed on the tops of the mesas where the drops fell.

  The chaparral gave way to neatly tended fields. Ripening pumpkins, corn tossing their tasseled heads, wheat bowing before the wind, and rudimentary farm equipment standing fallow in the fields. “Damn it, we were right on all our picks of cargo. They would have creamed over what we’ve brought.” Jax’s voice fluting mournfully over their radios. He was apparently monitoring Tracy’s ring. In pastures cattle, sheep, and horses grazed while windmills spun, pulling water into the troughs. A sow and her piglets rooted along the side of the road.

  The electric car didn’t have a lot of speed so it took nearly two hours to reach the city. The storm was intensifying. Now lightning leaped between the clouds and the distant rumble of thunder echoed down the empty streets. The outskirts of the city had a few four- and five-story office buildings, restaurants, and shops. All deserted. They bypassed them heading for the neighborhoods. The utilitarian buildings gave way to small wooden houses with shoji screens on the windows and graceful upturned corners on the tile roofs. There were vehicles parked in the driveways. Perfectly groomed flowerbeds and rock gardens with neatly raked and patterned gravel in various colors surrounded the homes. They heard dogs barking and a calico cat slunk across the street in front of the car.

  Tracy allowed the truck to roll to a stop. Without speaking they all climbed out and stood in the middle of the empty street. Silence apart from the thunder and the wind. Mercedes shivered. Tracy’s arm started to lift as if to drop comfortingly around her shoulders, but it was quickly jerked back and clamped firmly against his side.

  “Did they know—” she began, then tried again. “Are they aware of League policy regarding Hidden Worlds?”

  Tracy stared at her. Was that guilt she saw in his eyes? He nodded.

  She strode off toward the nearest house.

  “What are you doing?” Baca called.

  “Going in.” She stopped and looked back at Tracy. “This is Masada.”

  * * *

  Masada. The word echoed through his head and chilled his soul. Tracy had studied it in their military history class at the High Ground. It wasn’t possible. No one in this day and age would do that. He numbly followed Mercedes. She tried the door. It was unlocked. From behind him Tracy heard Luis mutter, “Trusting kind of place, ain’t it?”

  “They want us to come in. To see,” Mercedes said. Her voice was flat, emotionless. Tracy wondered how long that would last if they found what they both expected to find beyond that door.

  The living room was beautiful in a spare elegant way. The wooden floors were covered with tatami mats. A simple flower arrangement sat on a low table, but the flowers were beginning to wilt and shatter, leaving red petals on the black lacquer like spots of blood. There was the faint scent of incense and a more prominent one that Tracy hadn’t smelled for nearly two decades. The sweetish sickening odor of rotting fle
sh.

  Luis covered his mouth. “Ugh, what is that?”

  Clearly the boy’s time in O-Trell had been less violent than Tracy’s. He glanced at Mercedes. There was a gray tinge beneath her rich cocoa skin and her pupils had dilated. She clearly recognized the stink of death.

  The family was in the bedroom. The mother and children were on the bed, the children in her arms, her limp hands across their eyes. She had a neat hole in the center of her forehead. The children appeared to have been poisoned judging by the foam that had dried on their lips. The father was slumped in a chair, chin resting on his chest. Blood formed a bib on the front of his shirt. The pistol had fallen from his hand.

  Mercedes was stone-faced. Luis ran from the room. Dalea closed the family’s eyes and murmured a prayer. Jahan pressed herself briefly against Tracy’s side. They left.

  Outside Luis had finished retching into a flowerbed and was wiping his mouth. “You want to go back to the ship?” Tracy asked quietly.

  The younger man gave a defiant head shake. “No, it just took me by surprise. You were prepared. How?”

  “Masada.”

  “What the fuck is Masada?”

  “A fortress on top of a rock cliff in the country that used to be known as Israel. The Jews were under the rule of the Roman Empire. There was a rebellion against the occupation and the rebels took the fortress. They held Masada for three years before succumbing to the military might of the Roman legions. Rather than accept their eventual enslavement the entire populace—men, women, and children—chose suicide over surrender.” At eighteen Tracy had found Eleazar ben Yair to be an admirable figure. Now at forty-four and after what he had seen in that room he no longer found it admirable.

  “Shit. That’s grotesque.”

  “Or an act of incredible heroism and bravery,” Jahan said.

  Tracy sighed. “People have been arguing the morality of it for decades. And now they can add Kusatsu-Shirane to the debate.”

  “You can’t know that,” Mercedes snapped. “It’s possible not everyone was so stupid!”

  But seven houses later Mercedes’ hope was gone, and the collapse Tracy had been expecting occurred. A sob burst from her and she turned toward him. Tracy opened his arms and she buried her face against his chest. She was crying so hard that within moments the front of his shirt was wet. It reminded him of the blood staining that first father’s chest and he struggled to contain his shudder. He closed his arms tightly around her, trying to fence her off from the horror. He jerked his head toward the door and his crew withdrew. Their eyes held horror and sorrow, but no guilt. None of them were responsible. Not so for Mercedes.

  “Why?” she cried. “We’re not monsters. They would have had a good life. Especially the children. Instead they destroyed them? Why would they do this?”

  “Because the life you… we offered wasn’t the life they wanted,” Tracy said softly. “And this was the last choice they could make for themselves.”

  “It’s insane and horrible,” she cried. “I would have given anything for a child and they throw them away like garbage! These Hidden World people are lunatics. If this is where their beliefs lead them then we’re right to force them to assimilate.”

  Or maybe you could just leave them alone, was what Tracy wanted to say. But this was not the time. She was too gutted, too raw to have that discussion. Instead he said softly, “Let’s go. There’s nothing here.”

  “Ghosts,” she whispered. “They’ll always be here. So many ghosts. My soldiers, these people, the children. They’ll always be with me.”

  18

  THE WAYFARER’S CHOICE

  Tracy had escorted Mercedes to his cabin where she had made it clear she wanted to be alone. He didn’t argue. He felt the same. He went in search of solitude—not an easy task on a relatively small ship. He tried the cargo deck only to find Jax standing in front of the farm equipment running figures on his tap-pad. Nervous whistling emerged from the sound valves that lined the sides of his body. Each valve emitted a different discordant sound indicating his distress. The sound added to Tracy’s headache.

  After a mental sigh, Tracy sat down at the weight machine that, like the nearby treadmill and stationary bike, were bolted to the floor, and asked the question. “So, how bad is it?”

  “Bad. There aren’t a lot of heavily agricultural worlds. Maybe we can unload this stuff on Wasua but Komatsu got an exclusive there for the first ten years. We’d have to sell as used. We’ll take a bath. The other option is to go back to our supplier and see if he’ll take the equipment back. We’d have to pay a restocking fee, so again we lose. Add to that we promised lacquer boxes and those netsuke things to that antique dealer on Kronos.” The alien turned to Tracy. “It’s possible the shipment is in one of the warehouses here. We could look for it—”

  “I’m not robbing from the dead,” Tracy said.

  “The dead won’t miss them.”

  “That’s it? That’s your reaction to the death of a hundred thousand people? That we couldn’t conclude the sale?”

  The seven ocular organs on the Tiponi’s head swiveled to look at Tracy. “What was it one of your ancient dictators said? One death is a tragedy; a million is a statistic. And bluntly they weren’t my kind and it’s not a choice I can condone.”

  And that’s why we call them aliens, Tracy thought. “We’ll figure something out,” he said lamely.

  “We better hope the princess is appropriately grateful for her rescue and will be correspondingly generous. Also, I need to scrub the computers in flight control. Make sure there is no mention of us. Sooner or later the League will find their way here. We don’t want them to find us too.”

  “Don’t worry. The colonists already did that.”

  “Nice of them. I’m still going to check.”

  Tracy left and headed to the galley, deciding that maybe getting shitfaced was an appropriate response to death and pending bankruptcy. He walked in on a philosophical debate.

  “It’s a Japanese culture,” Luis was saying. “I was reading up on it. Seppuku is a tradition. It’s honorable.”

  “It might be honorable if one person chooses to commit suicide. It’s grotesque if you murder your children,” Jahan said heatedly. “I’ve had three kits. I could no more harm them than fly through space without a ship.”

  “But could you have given them away to invaders and strangers?” Dalea asked. “Knowing you would never see them again?”

  “Yes. Because I’d know they lived and would have a future.”

  “Isn’t it more noble to resist? Force the enemy to see what they are? Look at the effect it’s had on the Infanta,” Graarack suggested.

  “I am not going to educate assholes with the bodies of my children,” Jahan replied.

  “What do you think, Captain?” Dalea asked.

  “I think I wish we’d never gotten the tip about this place. I wish we’d never come here,” he said as he pulled down a bottle of whisky.

  “Okay that’s a weasel. Answer the question,” Jahan said. “Is it a righteous choice to die rather than submit or better to survive, persevere, and maybe find a way to gut the bastards later?”

  “I don’t know the answer. It’s League policy. I’m a League citizen. I was an officer.” He tipped liquor into a glass. “I believed that assimilation was the best course. Humanity needed to be united. It was bickering nations that tore apart old Earth. Nobody could agree on anything so nothing got done, even in the face of a climate catastrophe.” He sat down and took a sip. The liquor coursed down his throat and into his belly but failed to warm the ice that seemed to fill his chest. “But we’ve done things that make me wonder if we actually are… the good guys.” He drained the whisky in a long gulp. “I better check on her. Tell her we’re going to lift soon.”

  “And go where?” Jahan asked.

  “That’s one of the things I’m going to ask her.”

  He was surprised to find the door to the cabin closed and without thinking he ju
st opened it and walked in. Mercedes knelt in front of the small shrine. Her hair was out of its braid and hung like a curtain of waving dark brown velvet shot with silver down her back. She was wearing a shirt that he recognized as Dalea’s and a pair of pants that belonged to Luis.

  “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death, amen.” She was using his rosary, but of course she would have to. Hers had been reduced to dust and atoms along with everything else aboard the San Medel y Celedon.

  He froze in embarrassment at the inappropriateness of his behavior, but he and his crew had a counterintuitive view of privacy. Despite living in close confines inside a tin can they all tended toward a state of constant togetherness, like a group hug. Doors were almost always open and they walked in and out of each other’s cabins. When they weren’t on duty they played games that involved lots of people or read aloud to the assembled crew. Maybe it was because space was so vast, so empty, and so cold that everyone wanted the comfort of contact with other living beings.

  But now it had led him into a social blunder. “I’m sorry, Highness.”

  She gave him a brief nod, and indicated the bunk with a glance while her lips continued to move. Tracy knew he should leave, but she seemed to want him to stay, so he sat down on the edge of his bunk, closed his eyes, and offered up his own prayer for the crews of the lost ships, the people on Kusatsu-Shirane, and for himself and his crew that they could somehow come safely out of this precarious and complicated situation.

  The prayer was just the barest flutter of sound in the room. “To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve; to thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears. Turn then, most gracious advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us…”

  Closing his eyes and sitting down after so many hours of unrelieved tension and no rest—and alcohol probably accounted for it—the prayer drifted into a half-sleep and memories that were half-dreams: a kiss on an observation deck, her hand resting in his, becoming his father’s limp hand as he lay in a hospital bed, the pound and hiss of waves on a beach and a girl standing on the sand…