Note:
The ObLaDas did not decipher the Cathian language until well after the catastrophe occurred. They analyzed what and why it had happened from the available surveillance records and movements of individuals within the ship
- MDK
Zep, like all Cathians, had a low, wide, and very strong body. She had six stubby thick legs that extended directly beneath her lumpy body and massive feet that folded into fists when walking. This level of support was needed in the high gravity of Cathia, but their habitat on the Outward had a much lower force in which their stiff stout legs bounced them about and made their movements appear awkward in the extreme. Their heads were tapered snouts hanging forward from their broader mottled yellow-tan to red-brown bodies. Small eyes protruding from the sides of the head could look forwards and backwards, complementing their long supple necks. Like some other alien species, their cup-shaped feet were very flexible and could serve as hands to manage small delicate objects even without having defined fingers.
Cathia was a beautiful but difficult land, and those that lived there and survived were tough, hard beings. The climate was variable leading to periodic droughts and starvation, and storms came often during the cold season bringing the damp and diseases of the ocean’s coast. Survival at times required that they burrow into the ground and persist until the harsh times were over. The older Cathians developed dusty gray patches on the top of their heads and what might pass for shoulders or knees. Pok was particularly well padded, flexible, strong, and mean.
Zep, Pok and their friend Sut, had been members of a construction gang. They dug wells and built bridges and houses using stone and the available reeds and grasses, and generally tackled whatever projects they were told to do. Several others from their rugged gang ended up in the Outward, but their bosses had not. The captive Cathians were without direction, living in a foreign and unexplainable cage, discouraged and weakened. Yet, no one had stepped forward to organize or control her fellow captives.
Zep and her crewmates were workers, not rulers, but they were adept at problem solving and had been trained to take on the challenges of some substantial projects. They began to shake off the lethargy of their captivity by doing what they knew how to do. Pok had slunk around the place and it was clear that the Cathian habitat was larger than needed. It had many identical little rooms, far more than the small group needed, but lacked the open space they were used to. Zep, Pok and Sut began to pull down walls and ceiling panels to create a larger open area and collected lighting modules to brighten the room. It became the only space within the habitat where the Cathians could see one another clearly and communicate freely. Unfortunately, the construction had not destroyed the embedded ObLaDa surveillance cameras or microphones, but it was a start.
The small group’s despair changed to anger when bodies began to disappear. At first, no one understood what was happening. Two Cathians, Kit and Loft, were taken. They were apparently removed from their sleeping quarters during the night, but no one saw or heard a thing. They were just not there anymore. Pok was especially angered by the kidnappings; Loft was her friend. She wanted to learn how the abductions were being conducted and began to creep around the exterior walls of the habitat during the night, watching and waiting, but saw nothing. There were no further seizures during the nights that followed and the Cathians began to believe that they had regained some control over their lives. Then one morning, in full light, an access door slid open and two flat-topped service robots rolled into the habitat. They went directly to the room where young Bek was lying unconscious. She had probably been gassed in her sleep. One bot picked up her body and they both rolled back through the entryway. The operation occurred with hardly a sound and was complete in less than five minutes. Then, two days later, shortly before lights up, the entryway doors again slid open and Kit’s body was laid carefully on the floor just inside the habitat. She was barely conscious. No one knew at the time, but Kit was pregnant.
Anger and hostility boiled over. The Cathians started to retaliate, but it was little more than mindless destruction. Pacing back and forth, rubbing against the wall of Zep’s room, Pok held an angry and guilty posture, unnerved by what had happened. Zep sat slumped in the corner watching. Some young fools, too angry, too frustrated, had destroyed a maintenance robot and brought on more troubles.
Tot and Cit had cornered a harmless service bot and used clubs to bash its long arms when it tried to protect itself. Another bot came around to help, but it was equally defenseless and was smashed as well. The idiots ran around posturing as though it were some great victory. They had no idea that the flybots had come in. The things shot darts into their backs, and into others who were watching them. They were all lying about when the largest bot they had yet seen picked up Tot, Cit, and two others. Many remained on the floor, not taken.
Sut had just come from the bright room where many of the Cathians had gathered. Zim was telling her story. The fight took place near her room. She saw it all. Her sister Nib was leading the call for revenge.
Zep was convinced that would be the wrong way to proceed. She jumped up stomping her legs. They were living in a trap. The Hags have complete control. They could gas everyone in here or stop providing our food. They do not care about us and if we become a problem, they could just get rid of the problem. They must find some way to confront the monsters themselves, not just their robot machines. Somehow, they needed to get to the Hags. The Cathians had not yet seen one of the ObLaDas, who they called Hags, but they knew that those being controlled their lives in the same way the controlled to bots. It was as bad a name as the Cathians could bestow.
Patrols continued with dubious success to ambush bots that entered their space. They even seized the robots that came to fix things or deliver supplies. But Zep and her friends had begun to think of ways to escape from the habitat and retaliate against the Hags. It would be no easy task. There were no openings in the habitat. They had been looking ever since they first arrived.
Zep decided to approach Kit. She was the only one that had been outside of the habitat. She must know something. Zep was hopeful. Pok was not. She was even more dejected than before and doubted that Kit had any ideas. Kit had hardly talked to anyone since her abduction. Kit had said little about her ordeal, and once she was found to be pregnant, she refused to discuss what they had done to her. She was not pregnant from any normal course of events. The Hags had done something to her.
Note:
The ObLaDas’ findings from their Cathian experiments were not in the available records. Whatever the ObLaDas knew about the Cathian’s unusual biology was apparently lost during the ensuing events.
- MDK
Zep brought Kit into the bright room. She was determined to break through her reserve. Zep spoke of the continuing abductions and of the declining morale among their kin. She told of her intent to fight back, and how it was suicidal to carry on a fight from within the habitat, how vulnerable they were. She told of the need to confront the Hags themselves and force them to return to Cathia. She did not know how this could be accomplished, but that was why she was here. Zep told Kit that she would not ask about what had been done to her, but must know as much as possible about her capture and what she saw outside the habitat.
Kit only agreed to talk only because it might stop it from happening to someone else. Her first memory was of lying in a small, barred cage inside a much larger dark grey room that was filled with equipment. Other cages sat in a far corner behind some tables. Cabinets lined the walls, tools were scattered around or hung from the ceiling. Much of the place was arranged around two tables that stood in the center of the room. Just about everything was metal or some black material that she did not recognize.
Her cell had a bench type mat, some dried food and water, and two empty shelves. She was left alone for many hours and for a long time nothing happened. She was not bothered and received no instructions. Then a large door slid open with a hiss, on the far side it was. A service bo
t came in, one that looked like a rolling box with several arms. It was holding Bek’s body. She had not known that Bek had been captured. The bot slid Bek onto one of the tables and strapped her down. The table was too narrow, Bek’s hind legs hung over the side. It moved the equipment around the table and adjusted some lamps. The room was dim, but Kit could see her better in the extra light. The bot turned and left through the same door. Bek was too far away to see, but she must have been alive since she had been strapped down. She lay there for a long time and never moved.
Without any warning, a large-bodied thing came in and a great sharp irritating stink rolled across the room. It was completely covered in a shiny gold fabric. It had four legs and two arms, with a loose reflective helmet covering its head. It must have been a Hag. Kit confessed that she was afraid that it was coming for her and could not help wishing it onto Bek. It stopped and seemed to look into her cage, but Kit could not see its face. She kept wishing it would to go to Bek and it did. The thing turned and bent over Bek’s body. She could not tell what it was doing, but it worked intently, with quick movements, leaning ever closer, reaching for one instrument after another, and never turning to look away. Some of the instruments moved by themselves, while the thing bent closely in, then it suddenly stood upright, looking down, seemingly upset at Bek. Without doing much more, it moved away, back through the same sliding door. It had done something to Bek’s head. The lights were focused on her, there were tubes attached to her and raw flesh was showing. It was quiet then. Kit called to Bek to say how sorry she was for wishing the Hag would take her, but Bek did not answer.
A short time later the same service bot came in to take Bek away. It had a long scratch on its side. It put away some of the instruments, turned off lights and grabbed Bek by the arm to pull her onto its top. It was very rough, as if it did not care. Kit knew then that Bek was dead.
There was another Cathian in that room, but Kit could hardly see her from her cage. Loft stood still with a slack expression in the middle of a small cell, staring hour after hour, hardly moving. Her head was tilted and twisted to her right as if she was partially collapsed. Something was wrong with her. She moved, but slowly, fumbled her way around. Her body had no expression. Her self had been taken away.
There were dull hissing and whirring sounds from the equipment in that place, but there was more. Scratching clicking noises came from the other side of the wall. These were not machine noises, but moving and scratching sounds like some animal. Twice the Hag went through a small door and into that room. The noise got much louder and sounded angry when that happened. Kit was certain that there was something else alive in that room, but it was not one of us.
It came for Kit the next day. Two small bots, the ones with long arms, came into the room. Her cage was opened and a dank tube was pressed against her leg. She felt a vibration then a minute later she collapsed to the floor. She could not move her body, but she was still awake. Those bots put her on the table and strapped her down. She was conscious and worried. How far was this was going to go? Would she be helpless forever or would they just leave her there to die? She did not want to think about that again and refused to say any more.
Zep was horrified by Kit’s tale, but hopeful. If they could get to that room it might be possible to capture one of the Hags, but her hopes were dashed when Kit claimed the room was far away. How that could be was beyond imagining. Their habitat was already larger than anything she had ever seen. How could it be in a space that was much larger still?
The day after they put Kit on that table to do whatever they did, they came again. She was put to sleep somehow, but woke a little when they moved her. She was still weak and sore from the day before, but could see what was happening. One of the rolling table bots put a mask over her face that provided breathing air. Perhaps the air outside the laboratory was no good. It took her out of the room and down a ramp into some very large space; it was the empty insides of an unfinished building. It was too dark to see the ceiling, and it was cold. A large black pipe came down through the above and into the floor. It looked very old and had stains down the side. When the cart got near the tube, some doors opened into a much smaller space and it went in there. The doors closed with a hiss and the chamber started to accelerate upwards. It seemed to be moving very fast, it shook and there were scraping sounds as if it were passing things by. It was strange. Kit claimed that she began to feel very light, the straps across her body started to float around, the whole room stopped and seemed to turn around and it began to go down, then, after a while, everything became heavy again.
Kit was not very clear about what happened next, she might have fallen asleep, but she had the impression that she was taken a short way through a very dark area until she came to a large building that was standing inside another huge space. It was our habitat.
Zep was stunned. Where were they? Most believed that they had been lifted into the sky, because that is where the lander came from. Zep did not know, but she never imagined that there could be anything so immensely large. She never had a real plan to attack the Hags, but she had assumed they would be nearby. Now she would need to find them in a large unknown complicated place. How could she do that?
Zep went slowly to her room to think about what Kit had told her. All the Cathians had feared that the missing people were dead, but it was a shock to hear they had been killed by some experiment. What were the Hags after? When would it stop? Why had they impregnated Kit? Did they want the colony to survive, or were they all in some type of experiment that would end in death?
Sut and Pok came in. The robots that they had captured had been taken to bits and were being examined to see if they held anything of use. Zep was not interested. She told them what she had learned about the ship and how large it was. It was clear that Zep thought they would never be able to find the Hags or get to them.
Pok was sorely disappointed. She had come to hope that if they could capture one of the Hags they could gain some advantage. She sat down next to Zep with some resignation. Pok thought they should try to somehow lure the Hags into this habitat, but Sut was being silly and proposed that they ask the Hags to take them there. Sut had little faith in Zep’s ideas and was not so upset to see the thing go bust.
Looking up at her, Zep ignored the sarcasm and wondered how, how could we do that? There was something about Sut’s quip that stuck in Zep’s mind, but she had not quite sorted it out. The crewmates kept meeting and Zep kept probing the idea that Sut had unintentionally surfaced. Day by day, they worked through the problem until it became a plan. It was a plan that the three had to follow by themselves. The Cathians on the Outward were disorganized and still unwilling to follow anyone who had not held the old recognized authority.
Pok went to the bright room to begin their plan. She knew all of these people by now, but the change she saw in them was striking. People were beginning to shrink. Not just because of weight loss, but from stooped postures and downcast looks that made them appear to have retreated into themselves. It was clear to her that they could not suffer any more abductions. They could not remain in this place. They needed hope.
Everyone, at least for a while, was to move into the bright room and stay there during lights out. Surely the Hags would not enter into a mass of Cathians. It would be too dangerous for them. There was not much discussion. They were all afraid of being kidnapped, of course, but the thought of Kit and her induced pregnancy seemed to be their greatest fear. What invasions might be performed in that laboratory? It infected their minds more than the fear of death itself.
Zep and her mates did not tell Kit about their plan, but she knew there was something going on. When Zep asked her to make sure no one left the hall during the night, Kit agreed to do it. Pok, Sut, and Zep offered to stand watch and spread an alarm if any bots came through the portal. The Cathians were relieved to let them do it.
Chapter 8 Desperate Fear
Those Cathians were a bother from the start. The probe and its capti
ves had not closed on the Outward until well after the star rounding was complete. The anti-modules had been detached from the support flanges and their rotation was being ramped up. It was a precision operation, with the small craft gliding between the three-kilometer long arms as they spun past on each side of the hull. The counterbalancing modules looked like giant paddles poised to swat the tiny probe like a bug as it maneuvered toward the docking port.
These new aliens would be inserted into the space once occupied by the Gurmatians. The habitat, which occupied half of the seventh deck of the Filim module, had been divided into six floors, rather than the usual three. It made the ceilings low, but adequate. The Cathians were about the same height as the Gurmatians, but heavier. The simulated gravity would be less than they were accustomed to, even after rotation came up to full speed, but there was nothing to be done about that.
The Gurmatians had all died following an unfortunate accident. A construction bot malfunctioned in the service conduit, lost its grip, and dropped a filtration unit onto a cluster of gas transfer lines. Air entering the Gurmatian habitat became contaminated with exhaust from the Nivinwa complex. Even the slightest contact between alien species was likely to cause severe suffering if not death. That is well known. All of the alien habitats were tightly sealed and were entirely self-contained. Each of the fifteen decks within the Filim module was isolated from all others to prevent any such occurrence. Still the accident happened.
All known life forms within the galaxy are made up of replicating cell-like structures and the same sets of molecular components. The same laws of chemistry occur on all planets and so these biological similarities should be expected, even so, it was startling to discover that the same molecular families acted as building blocks for cells everywhere. Cell membranes were made of lipids, enzymes were proteins, genetic information was carried by nucleic acids or something close to them, and carbohydrates supplied the energy. It seems that only this very limited group of molecular types, out of all the chemically stable possibilities, were able to satisfy the very demanding requirements needed to construct a living, reproductive entity. These molecules not only served their needed purpose, but they were present in the stew of molecules that were lying around when life was coming about. It all came down to the primordial ooze. The Primaforms had worked this out through their long years of interplanetary communication, centuries spent exchanging information about distant planet biology and chemical composition. It was the critical fact that enabled the ObLaDas to sustain alien life forms within the Outward Voyager.
Outward Borne Page 6