The Stars Down Under

by Sandra McDonald

  “Can we just wake him?” Jodenny asked.

  “They’ve tried,” Farber said.

  Jodenny tried, too. His breathing didn’t change, his eyes kept moving, his hands remained warm and relaxed in hers, and he kept sleeping.

  Ruiz said, “Let’s see how the next few hours unfold. As for you, Commander, we patched up your broken arm with the bone knitter and it’s as good as new. You’re clear to be discharged, unless you have any medical complaints.”

  Farber said, “I think she’s still a little woozy.”

  “I am not,” Jodenny retorted, too sharply. Her vision went blurry on the edges. “Not much, anyway.”

  Ruiz suggested she stay under observation for a bit longer. She was happy to do so if it kept her close to Myell. After Ruiz left, Lieutenant Sweeney came knocking at the hatch.

  “Sorry to disturb you,” he said, his gaze frank and curious. “So this is your husband? When you told me you were married, Ellen, I didn’t quite believe it.”

  Relegated back to her own bed, Jodenny pulled the blanket up higher. “Traveling incognito wasn’t my idea, Lieutenant.”

  “I presented Captain Balandra with a copy of our sealed orders,” Farber said. “None of that is at issue, though she was irritated at being deceived. The real problem is the Bunyip ships still in orbit around Earth.”

  “They’re called Roon,” Jodenny said.

  Farber’s gaze narrowed. “So Commander Nam says. How, exactly, was that ascertained? Did you talk to them?”

  Sweeney turned to the security tech. “You can go and wait outside. I’ll call if I need you.”

  The tech left, an unhappy look on his face.

  “I didn’t talk to them,” Jodenny said. “They haven’t done anything while I was away?”

  Sweeney asked, “How long do you think you were away?”

  Jodenny squinted at the overhead as she calculated. “Six hours, maybe.”

  “The ship’s scanners registered a power surge in your cabin.” Sweeney folded his arms and rocked back on the heels of his boots. “An emergency team was sent. Thirty seconds later, before they arrived, another power surge registered. They opened your hatch and found you, Chief Myell, Commander Nam, and Ensign Collins all lying on the deck. Nam and Collins are up and about now. You two, not so much.”

  Jodenny glanced at Farber. “I was only gone for thirty seconds?”

  “So it would seem,” Farber said. “Where did you go?”

  “More importantly, can we use that transportation technology to stop the aliens?” Sweeney said.

  Jodenny gave Farber a raised eyebrow.

  “We told them about the tokens,” Farber said. “The captain and her officers. Considering the situation, I thought security clearances were a moot point.”

  Myell made a faint noise of distress. Jodenny put her hand on his forehead. His skin was warm, too warm, and his eyes were still moving quickly.

  “You want us to shut up?” She squeezed his hand, but he didn’t squeeze back.

  Sweeney said, “Captain wants to know if those so-called tokens can be used to evacuate civilians to Earth, or transport people between ships.”

  Farber cleared her throat. “Commander Nam thinks your husband can control them.”

  Jodenny smoothed Myell’s hair back from his temples. “I don’t know if that’s true.”

  “You’ll have to tell her yourself,” Sweeney said. “She wants to talk to you. Down here or up in her conference room, makes no difference. As soon as possible. Before the aliens start attacking.”

  Jodenny kissed Myell’s forehead. His skin tasted like the soap they’d used to clean him up and was soft to her touch.

  “Get me a uniform,” she said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  “Can these so-called tokens be used to board the alien ship?” Captain Balandra asked from the head of the table.

  The furrows in Balandra’s forehead indicated that she probably had a headache. Jodenny empathized. She herself was grateful for the sturdiness of the conference-room chairs. Her legs were still wobbly from the walk up from the infirmary. The conference room was standing-room only, crowded with Balandra’s senior staff.

  “Why would we want to, ma’am?” Farber asked. “We don’t know anything about the conditions inside those ships. Just because the Roon can roam freely in climates conducive to us doesn’t mean vice versa. We don’t have any way of communicating with them, so even if we boarded, we couldn’t negotiate.”

  Balandra said, “We wouldn’t be there to negotiate, Agent Farber.”

  Toledo, sitting at the far end of the table, said, “Even if Chief Myell could somehow summon a token, we don’t know anything about their shielding technology. We already know their interstellar capabilities outmatch ours. Their science might be centuries ahead.”

  Balandra said, “You two aren’t holding back any intelligence information, are you?”

  Both Farber and Toledo looked offended. “No, ma’am,” Toledo said, and Farber said, “We’ve told you everything we know about previous Roon contacts. We know nothing about their civilization, their capabilities, their goals.”

  It annoyed Jodenny to no end that Farber and Toledo had known there were aliens out there, known Myell might be facing them, known Jodenny had seen one on the Yangtze, and had said nothing. She supposed it was a grudge she could settle later, if they all survived.

  Balandra leaned back in her chair and gazed pointedly at the wallvid, with its relay of Earth and the Roon ships. “We’re not at war. Yet. But if it comes to it, I’d like be able to beam over there, or whatever you want to call it, in one of those tokens. Carrying whatever kind of bombs we can rig up.”

  Jodenny put one hand on the smooth brown surface of the tabletop. “Ma’am, with all due respect, this is all conjecture. We don’t know what exactly happened to Chief Myell on that station. We don’t know if he has some special way of controlling the network, if that alien passed on special information.” Her voice faltered, but she persisted. “We don’t even know if he’s going to wake up.”

  Nam was sitting beside her. His burns had been healed up, and he had showered and dressed in a new uniform. He said, “For all we know, those ships are just the advance scouts for a larger fleet. The important thing to do is let Fortune know what’s happening and give them time to ramp up defenses. An automated probe will take months to get through. Only a ship our size can make it back with any speed. We need to head back to Fortune.”

  One of Balandra’s officers asked, “Abandon Earth to its fate, sir?”

  “Save the Seven Sisters,” Nam replied. “We’re a lone cargo ship with few weapons. We have no hope against the Roon. Earth itself has no hope. Nothing with a navigational computer can launch from Earth. Team Space doesn’t have much to throw at them, and did I mention we’re up against a species that crossed a galaxy to get here? Fortune needs to be warned.”

  Toledo said, “They used interstellar propulsion to get here. We’ve seen them in the Wondjina network, so they know about the transportation capabilities of the Spheres. But they might not know anything about the Alcheringas and the Seven Sisters. If we loop back, we’d lead them right to the drop point.”

  “They’ve surely picked us up on their sensors by now,” Nam said. “All they have to do is trace our course back.”

  “We don’t know what they’ve noticed,” Balandra said. “We don’t know what Chief Myell can do. We don’t have much in the way of weapons. A commando team might not be able to destroy one of their ships. But maybe we can cause enough damage to give them second thoughts.”

  “Or retreat,” someone added.

  “They’re not going to retreat,” Nam said. “They came all this way for something.”

  The argument continued, voices swirling angrily around Jodenny’s head, but she was thinking about the vision that the Great Egret had shown her. Roon marching across the countryside, turning over stones. Over and over. Looking for something. For what?

&
nbsp; Balandra said, “The Admiralty has ordered us to resume full speed on course for Earth. If nothing else, we’re to gather intel on the Roon carriers that might be useful later.”

  The officers were too disciplined to erupt in protest, but several drew in sharp breaths or shifted unhappily on their feet.

  Nam said, “We’re a passenger ship with no defense capabilities.”

  “I know, Commander.” Balandra rose from her seat. “I know. We’ll be at Earth in twenty-two hours.”

  When Jodenny returned to the infirmary, Putty Romero and Hanne Tingley were sitting hand in hand on Jodenny’s bed and talking to Myell despite his unresponsiveness.

  “—And you should have seen her, Chief, she was like a real lawyer,” Tingley was saying when Jodenny stepped in. “Hi, Commander. Hope you don’t mind.”

  “The doctor said friendly voices might help,” Romero added.

  Jodenny touched Myell’s right hand. He didn’t even twitch. At least his eyes had stopped moving. “Has he done anything?”

  “Said a few words,” Romero reported. “Talking in his sleep.”

  Tingley added, “Something about crocodiles. And steering a helm, whatever that means.”

  The young couple didn’t stay long. Hullabaloo and Baylou came by a short time later, but Jodenny didn’t let them into the room. She thought Myell would be annoyed by people staring at him like he was on display.

  “Anything we can get for you?” Hullabaloo asked.

  Jodenny shook her head.

  She spent most of the afternoon sitting at Myell’s bedside. He didn’t stir when she rubbed his breastbone with her knuckles. Didn’t respond when she kissed him.

  “Always stubborn,” she said, tracing his jaw with the tip of her finger. “Ridiculously stubborn. You tell Garanwa to take his helm and shove it up his scrawny dead alien ass, all right? First we go on our honeymoon. Then you can think about saving the universe.”

  By the time Nam dropped by, Jodenny’s back ached from sitting in place and her stomach was cramping from emptiness. Nam had a cup of steaming coffee in his hand. The smell made her perk up.

  “Get your own,” Nam said. “I’ll stay with him.”

  She hesitated. Someday, maybe, she’d forgive him for dragging Myell off at Bainbridge, orders or not. But she didn’t think he’d earned it yet. Myell hadn’t seemed to hold a grudge, though. According to what Farber and Collins had told her, the two of them and Anna Gayle had survived trekking across the wilderness on one planet. They’d even been held captive at the hands of Aboriginal villagers. Jodenny didn’t trust Nam to put Myell’s welfare above that of Team Space, but surely he couldn’t wreak too much havoc while she went to get some food.

  “I’ll be right back,” she said, and kissed Myell’s forehead.

  The galley was mostly empty when Jodenny arrived. Meals on the Kamchatka had been reduced to basics again, mostly soup and sandwiches and a few desserts. She picked out a spinach wrap and a large cup of coffee. At the cashier station she realized she had lost her PIC again. Ensign Sadiqi came to her rescue.

  “Is it true, Commander?” Sadiqi asked. “You’ve met the aliens?”

  “Is that what the rumor mill is putting out?”

  Sadiqi nodded unhappily. “And that they mean to destroy us.”

  “They mean something, Ensign. I don’t know what.”

  They mean to destroy us, she thought as she ate at a corner table. That didn’t sound right. They mean to enslave us. They mean to march over the width and breadth of the Earth. She gulped at the coffee, glad for the hot bitterness. They mean to just visit, that’s all, say a friendly intergalactic hello.

  She pushed aside her food, her appetite forgotten, and headed back to the infirmary.

  “Ellen!” a voice called out, just as she reached the nearest downladder.

  Jodenny paused to let Louise Sharp catch up to her. Louise’s magenta hair was disheveled, and dark circles of exhaustion rimmed her eyes.

  “You look terrible,” Jodenny said.

  “Thank you, Commander,” Louise snapped. “Scott, is it? Your real name?”

  “I was traveling under orders—”

  Louise waved her hand. “Doesn’t matter. I’ve been reading cards for the last twelve hours. Cards about you, your so-called husband, those aliens—”

  “He is my husband—”

  “Not the point.” Louise pulled her tarot cards from her pocket, shuffled them for a moment, and then extended the deck. “Pick up the first one.”

  Jodenny sighed. “I really don’t have time—”

  “Try,” Louise ordered.

  She turned the card over. A stern-looking sea captain stood at the bow of a sailing ship as it entered a tropical bay.

  Louise let out a sharp breath. “Captain James Cook and the ship Endeavour. First landing of the British in Australia, way back when. The year seventeen hundred and seventy. You know the story?”

  Jodenny shrugged impatiently.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Louise said. “Now, watch.”

  Another shuffle of the deck, the first card upturned again. James Cook.

  “Coincidence,” Jodenny said.

  Louise mixed the cards again. Offered the deck. Jodenny touched the top card, hesitated, then flipped it. Cook and his ship and paradise, about to be spoiled.

  “It doesn’t mean anything,” Jodenny protested.

  “All night long. Captain Damned Bloody Cook. You know what happened to the Aboriginals after the British came? They were destroyed. Their culture, their way of life, their history—”

  “Put the cards away and get some sleep, Louise.”

  Jodenny climbed upladder to B-deck, pushing away thoughts of Cook and conquest, images of Roon marching across the world. When she stepped into Myell’s room she saw him sitting up in bed with Nam in the chair beside him. Myell was poking at a bowl of peaches with a grimace on his face.

  “You’re awake,” Jodenny said, stupidly, because of course he was, and nothing could henceforth go wrong, and relief made her light-headed.

  But then he lifted his head and gazed at her as if she were a stranger. No trace of recognition, no flicker at all of familiarity.

  Her heart clenched.

  “He’s a little confused,” Nam said, sounding remarkably casual. “Isn’t that right?”

  Myell’s focus slid to Nam, then back to the bowl of peaches. “B-b-bad,” he complained.

  Jodenny stepped forward carefully. “What’s bad?”

  He poked at the fruit clumsily with a fork. His movements were off, uncoordinated. She didn’t remember Dr. Ruiz saying anything about motor-control damage. She peered into the bowl and saw thick syrup accompanying the peaches.

  “Do you want something else?” she asked. Her voice sounded like it was a long way away and belonged to someone else, someone calm and detached.

  Myell dropped the fork, tried to recover it from his lap, and accidentally knocked the entire tray over. Nam caught it deftly, but not before the peaches went slithering to the deck in a plop of liquid. Myell covered his eyes with one clumsy arm and made a shamed noise.

  “No problem,” Nam said.

  Jodenny looked away.

  Dr. Ruiz soon arrived to begin a battery of tests and scans. Myell didn’t recognize either Jodenny or Nam, as it turned out. He couldn’t say his own name. He had a vague idea of the date, but it was off by several weeks. His answers to Ruiz’s questions were stilted, sometimes stuttered. He said he wasn’t in pain, but the deep line between his eyebrows told Jodenny otherwise.

  “You don’t have a headache?” she asked, trying to smooth the line.

  “N-n-no.” He shied away from her touch.

  That stung. Jodenny withdrew her hand and sat on it. Myell gave her a quick, bashful look and tensed as Dr. Ruiz put a gib in his hands.

  “Can you read that first line for me, Chief?”

  He stared at the letters.

  “A few words?” Ruiz prompted.

  My
ell thrust the gib back at him.

  No reading ability. Poor hand-and-eye coordination. Stuttering. They got him to his feet but the effort clearly exhausted him, and he managed only a few shuffling steps before his strength ran out. Jodenny told herself that it was all temporary. Fleeting inconveniences. She didn’t believe he’d been struck by actual lightning, not once and certainly not twice. Something like lightning; something that damn alien controlled.

  Once back in bed, Myell lay panting from exertion with his face scrunched up. She wanted to touch him but, mindful of his earlier protest, held back.

  “I think some rest is in order,” Ruiz said. “Eat and drink. We’ll do more tests in the morning.”

  Farber came by, her face set in a stony mask, and called Nam out. Neither came back. Jodenny concentrated on getting Myell to eat some soup. Myell was petulant. He swallowed some of it, then closed his teeth against the spoon she wielded. He wouldn’t meet her gaze, and kept glancing anxiously at the hatch as if waiting for Nam to return.

  “Fine,” she said in exasperation. “Don’t eat. Waste away. It’s not going to get you out of doing the dishes after I eat. You’re still going to do half the housework, mister.”

  He slid her a sideways glance, then looked to the hatch again.

  “See this?” Jodenny wagged her finger and wedding ring. “You’re still mine.”

  Another sideways glance, as if she were becoming more interesting by the moment. But then he started trembling, his arms and legs jerking. His eyes rolled upward. Jodenny yanked the soup out of the way and hit an alarm. A med tech hurried in, followed by Dr. Ruiz.

  “He’s seizing,” Ruiz told Jodenny. “Not entirely unexpected.”

  It was unexpected to her. Jodenny backed away while Ruiz and the tech did their work. She couldn’t watch too closely. For a brief, panicky moment she feared that this was what their life together would be, from now until death. Him in a bed, unable or unwilling to communicate, suffering seizures and bedsores and who knew what else, while she took care of him and died her own quiet death for years on end.

  Assuming the Roon didn’t kill them all first, of course.