Makali could still see the giant being...it was removing another item from deep inside a chamber. Clearly the item had not been used in a while; the Sentry literally rubbed it against its chest and examined it.
Then it inserted it into the vest it wore. A middle hand touched various spots on the vest. Then the Sentry addressed them: “DSH,” it said. It was one syllable that seemed to contain two sounds, deh and sh.
The Sentry pointed to itself.
“I think that’s communication,” Makali said.
The Sentry pointed directly at Zack, who said, “Zack.” Then Dale, who said his name, then Valya, who did likewise.
Finally it pointed to Makali. She couldn’t speak. She knew what to say; she approved of the way the others had offered their names.
She just wanted to be sure. Don’t anthropomorphize!
“DSH,” the Sentry said, pointing to itself again.
“Help him out,” Dale said. “Its name is Dash; he wants yours.”
“Makali,” she said, drawing out the name. She hoped that was the right thing to do.
“The voice is coming from that unit on its chest,” Valya said. “I assume it’s a translator.”
Still focused on Makali, the Sentry—Dash—began speaking again, but it all sounded like grunts and whistles, with the exception of a sound that could have been the word help.
Oh. “It needs vocabulary,” Valya said. “I think the device records sounds and structure. I need to keep it speaking, then exchange sounds and words. We’ll build from there.” For the first time since Makali had met her, Valya seemed happy.
Over the next couple of hours, Valya Makarova worked her magic with Dash, carefully taking him through the Roman alphabet, then numbers, weights, measures, body parts, colors, directions, units of time—every word she could think of that would be useful in creating a vocabulary for Dash’s translator.
It didn’t take long for Dash, or its machine, to begin uttering brief phrases, offering its own story, bits of which registered with Makali, as she sat with her back against the nearest intact Beehive cell, either dozing from exhaustion or attempting to unlock Brahma’s black box recorder.
She wanted to give Valya and Dash closer attention but found it frustrating, like listening to a mother explaining something to a not-very-bright child.
Nevertheless, several facts registered.
Much like the fabled broken clock, Dale had been right at least once today. “It’s not a ‘he’ or a ‘she,’” Valya proclaimed. “It’s gender neutral. Sentries reproduce by fission.”
Dash was not in the cell by choice. It had lost some sort of power or political struggle and been unfairly locked away in the Beehive...the equivalent of solitary confinement. “I think it wants us to help with some sort of scheme,” Valya said.
“The hell with that,” Zack told her. “Ask it why its people don’t need the Beehive’s function.” Like Makali, he had tried to stay out of the mutual education process in order to allay confusion. But now he had found a reason to join the exchange.
“They come,” Dash said, in the first coherent answer Makali heard. “When they want, they come. I move.” And Dash pointed farther down the Beehive.
Dash also kept saying, “Don’t trust!” without being clear about the untrustworthy party, though Makali felt the Sentry was talking about other Sentries.
Or did it mean Zack, Makali, Dale, and Valya?
Eventually, if Makali closed her eyes, she was able to imagine that Valya was conversing with an immigrant who had a machine-based speaking voice.
One bit of intriguing information: Dash’s major enemy was its fission partner! “Disease hurt me,” Dash said.
“‘Disease’ as in ‘illness’?” Zack said.
“No, ‘Disease’ is another name,” Valya said. “Think of it as ‘DSZ.’” With a bit more back-and-forth, it turned out that their fission parent’s name was actually was more like XYZABCDIYTMIDS. New connates adopted the last two designators, and added a third.
“So they’ve got, like, literal blood brothers,” Dale said.
“Or connates,” Zack said. “If you wanted to use the correct biological term.”
“Yeah,” Dale said. “I need the correct terrestrial biological term for a fucking alien.”
He spoke loudly enough to draw Valya’s stern look. She spread her hands as if to say, You’re making my work difficult!
“Maybe Dash can add profanity to its human vocabulary,” Makali said.
All the while it was patiently answering and asking, Dash continued to perform its own inexplicable rituals. At one point it dipped its flask into the pool and filled it. It drank, then offered the flask to the humans, directly addressing Valya. “Drink,” it said.
Valya did not look well to begin with, but she grew even paler at the thought of putting her mouth on the alien container. In fact, Makali realized, none of the humans looked healthy. She was suffering from the queen of all headaches, likely from hunger....
Makali set aside her tool kit and the black box. She stepped up, took the flask, and drank.
It was water, though it had a briny taste. For a moment, she feared she had drunk seawater...and in another moment she concluded it didn’t make much difference; this was the only water available. If it was bad, they were dead.
Then Dash offered up a squirmy mass of flattened eel.
Makali had been raised in a restaurant. She had sampled a broad range of unlikely foods in her life on Earth, from haggis to eyeball of yak. How much worse could this be when it came to taste or texture? “I’ll try it,” she said.
“It could kill you,” Dale said.
“Worse yet,” Makali told him, “it could fill my belly but give me zero nutrition.” She wasn’t going to explain restriction enzymes and other digestive challenges; besides, Zack knew what she meant. “But I think we have to try. We’re going to need food. Besides, I am the exospecialist.”
Zack smiled. “You’ve talked yourself into it. What are you waiting for?”
She took the proffered food in her hand and transferred it to her mouth, forcing herself to chew (it was drier and tougher than she’d expected) and swallow.
She regretted it instantly. The Sentry food slid down her gullet like a horse pill without seeming to land in her stomach. It made her feel queasy.
“Texture, not so bad,” she said, hoping that by speaking she would be able to forgo vomiting. “Like one of those crunchy rolls you get at a high-end sushi place.”
“How about taste?” Zack said.
“Kind of overwhelmed by smell, unfortunately.” The Beehive smelled like a rain forest in the high heat of summer: moist, mixed, rotten.
Gulp, better now. The morsel had somehow worked its way to its intended destination. She forced a smile. Turning to Dash, she said, “It’s okay.” Then had to ask Valya if the Sentry understood okay.
Dash saved her the trouble. “Okay,” it said. Then it indicated that the other three should eat, too.
“Tell Dash we want to wait,” Zack said, glancing at Makali. “Just because it went down, don’t assume it will stay down.”
“I’m not.”
But now Dale Scott surprised her, stepping forward and saying, “Commander Stewart, with all due respect...we are beyond faint from hunger. I need something in my system, even if it’s rejected later.” He turned to Valya and Dash, spreading his hands. “Is there more?”
Once the four humans had drunk and eaten, Zack had begun to quiz Dash. “Why were your people so hostile when we arrived?” He recounted the death of Pogo Downey.
“I know nothing of hostile acts. When the People”—Makali wasn’t surprised that when Dash’s translator related the Sentry’s term for its race, it used that particular word—“were judged to be unsuitable candidates for the vessel’s needs, we were given a new task. Serving as guards.”
Zack said, “Who did the judging?”
“The Builders,” the Sentry said, through the translator.
“Which could easily mean ‘Architects,’” Dale said.
“I thought it said ‘vessel,’” Makali said. It was a struggle to keep the terms straight, especially since Keanu seemed to carry different classes of beings.
With further encouragement, Dash gave a halting, almost incoherent account of how the Sentries had landed on the NEO “seven times seven times seven” cycles ago, and found themselves enlisted in a war.
“Against the Architects?” Zack said.
“With.”
“Then, against whom? Who was the enemy?”
Here Dash got very agitated, so much so that Zack jumped back. The only sounds emerging from its translator were squeaks and squawks. “Valya,” Zack said. “Help.”
“I don’t know any more than you do.”
Makali stepped forward. “This enemy,” she said to Dash, “where is it? What planet?”
“Enemy controls many planets, many warships, many, many,” Dash said, and then abruptly rose to its full height. “You help me, yes? Yes,” it said, answering for them.
Then, in a process Makali wished she could have seen in slow motion, the Sentry seemed to collapse on itself, compressing its limbs and torso into a giant ball, which rolled into the pool.
And sank so that its top barely touched the surface.
Zack stared, openmouthed and wide-eyed. “Was it something I said?”
“If it’s like us,” Makali said, “I think the Sentry is just exhausted. Are any of you feeling headaches?”
“Is that the feeling where there’s a hatchet pounding on the center of your skull?” Dale said. “That headache? Hell, yes.”
They all were suffering, news that caused Makali to revise her diagnosis. “Zack, we’re all hungry, which might explain the symptoms, but—”
“It might also be low O2,” he said. He was shaking his head, as if chiding himself. “I should have remembered. The Sentries I saw in our habitat...it wasn’t so much that we defeated them. They weren’t equipped for our environment. I think they died because there was too much oxygen.”
“Well, shit,” Dale said. “If their habitat’s ideal O2 level is low, that’s not good for us.”
“Right. We’ve got to get out of here,” Zack said.
The situation wasn’t critical, merely urgent. The lack of oxygen—rendering them weaker, like climbers on Mt. Everest—would require them to rest more frequently, though true rest would be difficult to find.
Especially with Dale Scott still running his mouth. “Does this make sense to you?” Dale said. “To any of us?”
Zack was clearly tired now, almost dopey, but still about to lose patience. “What’s your problem?”
“First Dash says its big enemy is its connate”—he made a big show of using the term—“but now it’s this other enemy the Architects are at war with.” He laughed. “This reminds me of Earth! Interstellar civilization my ass. They’re like...fucking Somalia.”
“Why would you expect it to be any better than Earth?” Makali said.
“Didn’t they have to learn to get along in order to travel between the stars?”
“That’s always been an entirely human assumption,” Makali said. “Based on hope and zero information. Maybe they needed fear or war to make them travel between the stars.”
Zack laughed. “Worked for getting us to the Moon. No Sputnik, no fear of Soviet domination, no Apollo.”
“You mean, none of us would be here,” Dale said.
“Right.”
“If I ever get a time machine, I’m going to look up the guy who launched Sputnik and strangle him—”
“All right, everybody,” Makali said. “We have larger problems, such as this: Are we going to help Dash or not?”
“I don’t know why we should,” Dale said.
Zack looked at Dale. “This surprises me as much as it does you, but me, neither.”
It actually surprised Makali more than Dale. “I thought you were a huge proponent of brotherhood of intelligence and all that.”
Zack looked at the ground, but shook his head. “In theory, sure. But I’m not sure I trust these beings. And every moment we spend here, with Dash, is a diversion from the mission.”
“And what is that mission?” Makali said.
“Finding a way off the NEO.”
“Do you really think that’s possible? Not as a vague way of motivating us, but as a concrete goal. Because I don’t see how—”
“I’m convinced that if Keanu had the means to grab a couple of hundred humans and bring them here, it has the means to send them back. Yes. Though, realistically, the first goal should be getting control of the whole operation. Dash ought to be able to help with that....”
“But Dash is a prisoner. And his people aren’t flying this thing now. Why would we expect that to change because of us?”
“Hey, we’re the human race,” Dale said, sarcastically. “We rule, don’t we? We kick alien butt. We’re the meanest, smartest—”
Valya slapped Dale on the arm to shut him up. “Enough!” She turned to Zack and Makali, saying, quietly, “I think we should join forces with Dash.”
“In spite of my objections?” Zack said.
“Because our other options are poor,” she said, “and because I believe Dash can help us return to Earth.”
“He doesn’t have a vesicle,” Makali said.
“But he does,” Valya said, looking surprised.
“What do you mean?” Zack said. He jerked a thumb in the direction of the pool. “The Sentry prisoner has a vesicle?”
“Of course not,” she said. “But when we learned how we’d arrived here, he told me all about them: the way they’re ‘grown,’ the fact that there are usually three of them in storage...he said something about the Builders doing everything in threes, but I’m not sure that wasn’t a joke—”
Zack was on his feet. Makali said, “What are you planning to do? Dive in there and wake it?”
Zack hesitated, then grinned. “That would be pretty pointless, wouldn’t it?”
Dale spoke up again. “Yeah, some people really hate being awakened.”
Zack slumped with the rest of them. “So we wait,” he said, them smiled grimly. “Conserve oxygen, okay?”
ZHAO
“You’re quiet,” Rachel Stewart said.
Pav, Rachel, and Zhao had been following the wandering, uncertain lead of the being that called itself Yvonne Hall through a maze of structures. They were too blank, too solid, too lacking in architectural style to be called buildings. They were just big blocks towering over them.
“Is anyone talking?”
“No, but you’re the closest thing to a functioning adult we have...I was hoping.”
It had taken him several hours to learn to properly hear this girl’s voice. She continued to say things that were frivolous and inappropriate...until you realized that her tone was actually quite serious, and that she might even be voicing what everyone was thinking—and afraid to say aloud. He couldn’t decide whether it was immaturity or a supreme wisdom beyond her years.
Or, possibly, the voice of her father. Zhao’s research had suggested that Rachel was, in manner at least, clearly Zack Stewart’s child.
“Try her again.” He nodded at Yvonne’s back.
“No, thanks,” Rachel said. “I figure she’ll tell us what we need to know, when we need to know it.”
The resurrected woman—“Revenant,” as Rachel and Pav called her—had simply given them orders and marched off. She was a bit unsteady on her feet, and every few dozen meters she was forced to stop, retching or just trying to steady herself.
The young man, Pav, had tried to help. “Do you want to rest?” he’d asked her, only to be waved away. “We’ve given you the only water we’ve got—”
“You have to follow me,” Yvonne had said, her voice as raw as that of a lifelong smoker.
“Where?” Pav had demanded.
“Where they tell me!” she said, an answer that wa
s incomplete, thus unhelpful, and a little disturbing, especially when she said, “It’s like I’ve got a GPS in my head. Someone is telling me where to go, and it kind of hurts when we stop or go off course.”
That had been fifteen minutes ago. Zhao hoped that wherever they were headed, they were closer. He was about to collapse from lack of water, lack of food, and exhaustion.
As he trudged next to Rachel, he saw Pav stopping ahead of them. He turned carefully to his left, bent as if trying to see or hear.
Then quickly back to Rachel and Zhao. “Did you hear that?”
Zhao had heard nothing.
Then it didn’t matter, because the missing dog emerged from an “alley” and launched itself at Pav. “Cowboy!” Rachel shouted, running to join the scrum.
Yvonne Hall stopped and turned back. For a moment, Zhao feared some kind of biblical rebuke. But she blinked, shook her head, and, sounding for the first time like a normal human being, said, “Is that a dog?”
The dog seemed to think Yvonne was perfectly normal, because it trotted over to her. She bent for the ritual licking and patting as Rachel explained, “He’s a Revenant, like you.”
Which left Yvonne almost smiling. “Whatever you say.”
Zhao was emboldened, gesturing to the habitat around them. “Do you know what this place is?”
Yvonne raised her head from the canine interaction and looked at him for a long moment, the way one responded to a query about directions from a stranger on a street.
“They tell me it’s for ‘processing,’” she said.
“I wish you’d tell us who ‘they’ are,” Pav said.
“Whenever I...put that question in my own head, what comes up is ‘Builders.’”
“Architects?” Rachel said.
“Yeah.”
“My dad said that’s what happened when my mom came back. She was kind of channeling the Architects.”
“Let me tell you,” Yvonne said, “it isn’t easy. It’s like having...five earbuds and a bunch of direct neural inputs all going at the same time. It’s making me sick, for one thing, and I’m not really getting what I want to know, not in any coherent fashion.”
She blinked again, but this time there were tears. “I was really dead.”
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