Outward Borne

by R. J. Weinkam

  UnaDar sat by the door and talked with the boys for some time. He told them about himself and his ancestors, one of had been the captain of the Outward when it was launched. He did not embellish too much, he thought. Clovic and Heneric agreed go to the control deck with him. Elbert would stay and gather any supplies or tools that they might need. Before they started the decent, Clovic asked him why he was not wearing some protective clothing. “We have none, at least not here,” UnaDar answered. “No alien has been on this deck for two thousand years. Why should we? Do you have any idea how much maintenance it takes to keep an isolation suit in order? No, well it would be silly. I hope I do not suffer too much from not being silly,” he said.

  Clovic was unsure if he was serious or had made a joke. It did not seem likely, but UnaDar went on seemingly unconcerned about any risk to his health. He showed them his shop and a robot that was similar to the one on the Control Deck. They took all the gear and went into the lift to the Control level. There were a few people there. They were all in a panic. The entry was still open and the Gracks would have free access if they got there first. They must hurry.

  “Why did you leave it for last?” Clovic asked. “You should have blocked it off first and then done the other things.” But he was mistaken. It would do no good to prop a panel next to the conduit. The Gracks could just push it over. They needed to crash the panel and bot against the doors. Only the weight of the robot would keep it in place.

  They went to the old bot to see what needed doing. UnaDar quickly confirmed that the instruction box needed to be replaced, but the replacement module did not fit, wrong configuration. It might work, UnaDar said, but it would need to be hand-wired together. So the box was strapped onto the side of the bot, and the boys spent a considerable time connecting wires, one-by-one, between the machine and its new communications unit. It took longer than they wished to get it working and even so, it had to be controlled by hand.

  UnaDar hoped that there would still be time to make the changes that LemTer wanted, but he had done what he could. The boys could maneuver the bot to do whatever LemTer asked, so he sat down to rest and promptly fell asleep. Missed all the action, he did.

  The Gracks had been badly mulled in the fabrication yard. One fighter escaped without a significant wound and only three experienced fighters could still function well. All of the Gracks knew the desperate nature of their position, but for them to retreat to sit in their habitat and wait to be set upon was not an option. They were lifelong warriors and would not give up. Durack sent two of his youngest to the habitat to gather anyone who could possibly help. It would be their last fight. Two very young Gracks stepped forward and the injured, those that could still carry a weapon, rose from their sick beds. Hacnick’s skin was still painfully blistered, but he could now see through his still swollen eyes, even Spatic set aside his fears and took up a spear, but Kubac’s wound had festered and he was near death. In the end, Durack had ten fighters. Ten others too wounded to move, the very young, or pregnant, remained in the habitat with instructions to set up barricades after the band had left.

  Durack once again led his force into the conduit. Hacnick and Napolc, too injured for combat, were left there to guard the area. The remaining Gracks moved slowly toward the Outward Voyager control deck, perhaps for the last time.

  It was too soon. The way to the computer room was still wide open and the humans were scattered around looking at locations they may need to defend. More Gracks were coming than LemTer had thought possible. They were already moving through the conduit. He called to UnFel to give him the urgent warning. UnFel, surprised as he was, knew that disaster would follow if the Gracks got into the deck before the humans had assembled. He urged Clovic to hurry. The old bot was difficult to manage. It had bashed against a wall and the heavy panel had broken loose. The boys were trying to get it reattached when UnFel’s panicked call came through. They left off the repairs, and had sent the bot pushing and sliding the heavy wall unit down the wide entryway and smashed it against the conduit entry. It crushed the outer skin, wobbled, and held still. The flat panel did not completely block the rounded opening, but they hoped that it would be enough to slow the Gracks. Clovic and Heneric left the bot and hid behind the Propulsion Management Module to watch the Gracks, but the lights went out and they could see no more.

  Durack could touch the smooth panel through entry doors. He could judge its weight and solidity. It had not been there before. There was some room around the edges, but not enough to get through. He called forward those who carried axes and set them to hacking away the hard, ancient surface. It did not take long to make a hole large enough to squeeze through. Durack pulled the workers aside and squeezed into the ancient control deck. He looked into the darkness, his short spear ready and was surprised. No one was there to mount an attack. They had missed opportunity. He wondered why.

  The Control space was deserted. Sounds echoed through the open room. Torches were lit and the Gracks moved together into the wide passageways, trashing the few open rooms they came upon. They could hear the humans running, calling to one another in the distance.

  Godomir was moving his men through the lifts as quickly as they could go. He had no grand plan, no more than the Gracks had. They would form up in groups of ten to fifteen and stalk through the corridors until they came on the Gracks and then would try to surround them or at least attack from two sides.

  As the Gracks moved further into the dark spaces Yacork grew worried, felt that something was wrong. The place seemed to have no purpose, the layout made no sense, large courtyards that held nothing, hallways that turned then turned again and went on too long without leading to any useful rooms. Durack, alerted by Yacork’s tension, he called the Gracks together and motioned for silence.

  Yacork pressed its body against a wall. There were vibrations on the far side. The Gracks were standing outside of the communication room with its constant low hum of activity. Durack sent two youths around the side of the enclosure to find the entry. There was none. He pounded its fist against the thick wall, a dull thud of frustration. They had been fooled, led in circles. “Break it down,” Durack bellowed. Axes pounded against the hard surface chipping away at the barrier.

  Godomir cursed as he watched the Gracks regroup. He hurried his men through the openings toward the communications room. They would come at the Gracks from both sides, in this Durack was right. Godomir had the numbers to keep at the Gracks and wear them down. In the end he would win, but it was already an overly bloody business.

  The Gracks had moved away from the conduit, all but a few lookouts and they were inside. Clovic and Heneric snuck up to the bot and hooked the chains holding the wall panel. Godomir told him that it could be used to disrupt the Gracks, if he could get it free, but the heavy panel held the rig and they could not get it to back away.

  “Can’t you wiggle it away?” Heneric asked, but no, the restraining cable had become tangled with something on the conduit and that heavy slab was too massive to pry away. It was stuck fast against the conduit. Heneric climbed on the thing working to cut through the cable. Clovic had a boxy old container ready. At last the wires sprung free and the bot backed away. Clovic had it pick up the metal cabinet and trundled it toward the fighting. If they could get it turned the right way, it could crash into the Gracks, break them up. The old robot would not last a minute with its guts unprotected and the open communication circuit taped onto its side, but there was no time to do anything about that.

  Already another twenty-three of the People had fallen. Some gains had been made, but it was hard to judge. So many of the Gracks were injured even as the fight started. Finally, the bot came on. It was effective on the first pass, splitting off three Gracks that were soon beaten down, but that was it for the old dear. A side panel had been pulled off and a spear thrust into the circuitry. It was enough, however.

  Durack could no longer hold off the swarm of men. Only a few weakened and injured fighters were still standing. H
e pulled them together so that they were almost back-to-back then took up two axes and charged through the humans. Running and fighting as he went, meeting one group of reserves after another, he would never have made it to the conduit if it were not for the speed and surprise of the assault. Durack called for Hacnick and Napolc and together they fought their way back to the surviving Gracks. Durack carried Upoc and the others dragged injured bodies into the conduit, and back up to their habitat. Two more Gracks were killed during their retreat. They were hard pressed by the People, all of who were desperate to finish the weakened aliens. Only six fighters made it back. Magnaric and his fellows pursued them to the end.

  Magnaric’s men climbed past the Grack’s habitat into the decks above. They positioned themselves around the wide dark tube, to block any attempt the Gracks might make to reach the higher levels of the Filim module. Godomir and his surviving men struggled through the conduit, with its rough metal surfaces and slick oil-coated rungs, to barricade the Gracks into their complex. There would be no more fighting.

  Sixty-seven men and women died or were crippled in the Grack war. Many others succumbed to a wasting disease in the days and weeks following the battle. Several went blind from a severe irritation that corroded the surface of their corneas. Many years passed before the People fully recovered from their encounter with the Gracks and their prolonged exposure to the ObLaDa environment, but when they did, they were living in a different world.

  The ObLaDas had come to accept the People, not just an alien species to be studied, but as a society to whom they owed a debt, and as partners in the survival of the Outward Voyager. The ObLaDas built isolation suits to fit the humans and gave the People access to the rest of the ship. In the centuries that followed, the People would be employed throughout the Outward. They would help with its incessant repairs and, eventually, in rebuilding the Filim arm. The ObLaDas would provide them with whatever they could use. Life went on. No of the People ever knew what exactly happened to the Gracks after they were sealed into their habitat. Work on their new complex stopped. It was never used.

  Chapter 17 Kalekto

  MaxNi9 trudged toward his office, feeling sick, dragging along his foul mood from the just completed meeting. He felt good about what they had done, it was a tremendous achievement, but it was now having some unintended consequences that he would rather not endure.

  Rebuilding the Outward Voyager had been a lifetime job for MaxNi9 and for the seven generations of captains that preceded him. He, the ninth clone of the famous MaxNi MaxRo, had the honor of being the first to occupy the new Filim arm and its recently completed habitat module. The massive undertaking was essentially complete. The ancient arm had been cut loose and was undergoing robotic demolition and recycling, even that was almost complete.

  The long process of rebuilding the Outward Voyager and its many alien habitats had changed the ObLaDas as much as it changed the Outward. The crew shifted toward an all female gender mix and only recently began to swing back. Their long hiatus from star searching, filled instead by habitat building for the ObLaDas and all the resident species, gradually fostered a new more nurturing concept of the Voyager’s purpose. A new mission for a new ship, they were now saying.

  These frankly revolutionary ideas had become widely discussed and debated in recent months and MaxNi9 didn't like how the opposing positions had hardened. It was not the ObLaDa way. Today's argument started with that annoying YuLon Lim’s proposal to initiate a new planetary search and capture mission. It would require a change from the already plotted course and, to the more contentious point and hitting the philosophical hot button of the day, undertake the capture of another alien life form. Most of the Outward’s crew, other than YuLon and a couple of closed-mouthed supporters, had proposed a different course. The Outward Voyager should, now and henceforward, actively intervene and promote the development and survival of intelligent, technically progressing civilizations. They would end the detached capture-and-examination cycle that the ObLaDas had followed for so long and replace it with an active role in fostering advanced life within the galaxy.

  MaxNi9 closed the office door and slumped onto his cushion. He was going to support YuLon's proposal to launch a mission to planet Kalekto and he did not want to deal with any more talk on that subject until he had to. MaxNi9 himself was an ardent supporter of intervention. The long period that had been spent building new, sustainable habitats had cultivated his desire for a meaningful plan in which the Outward crew could participate in preserving their aliens lives and cultures. He wanted to begin helping species survive within the galaxy, simple as that. The Outward had demonstrated, time and again, how rare and fragile technologically advanced civilizations actually were. Now they should do something about it.

  But MaxNi9 was getting old, already fifty-five years as Captain. He did not have the energy that he once had and conflict was just not part of his plan. He was trying hard not to think about that evening's follow-on meeting when AlAnni tapped on his door and walked in. He wanted to bark at her about inappropriate behavior, but it would do no good with AlAnni. Anyway, her perpetually pleasant self launched into the latest information on Kalekto. New atmospheric data was coming in rapidly as the planet had recently emerged from the gas giant that had hidden her from Outward's view. Kalekto orbited an old mainline star that was far from a prime candidate. Stars that ancient rarely had planets with significant life forms, but now AlAnni was rattling on about halocarbons and high molecular weight hydrocarbons in the upper atmosphere, both indicators of advanced industrial activity. Old Kalekto was too good to pass up, abundant life seemed very probable, and even some hint of an advanced civilization had to be followed up. At least that was MaxNi9’s view, even if he had to rush a course change and launch to do it.

  He asked AlAnni to hold off on the news and sit down for a chat. MaxNi9 liked AlAnni, not in a particularly romantic way, but he was comfortable with her around, even in this messy room. He was content to sit back and let AlAnni talk on. Her high spirits were contagious and MaxNi9 would welcome that disease. He ignored his event monitor when the notice of tomorrow’s all-hands meeting showed up.

  MaxNi9 kept his interventionist views to himself, as he thought fit for his position. Nevertheless, he would support the Kalekto mission. He believed that finding new civilizations was as much a part of a proper interventionist role as helping to preserve already known species throughout the galaxy. Strident insistence on one side produced unwise resistance on the other, it was always such with politics, he thought, the worst of both sides. The ObLaDas had not found many truly advanced species, even thirty-seven hundred years into the Outward Voyager mission. The planet Kalekto was showing strong signs of an industrial civilization, even though no electromagnetic communications had yet been intercepted, and the ratios of synthetic atmospheric compounds were a bit odd. Still, they have not had so many good signs this distance from a planet in a long time.

  MaxNi9 announced his decision. There was some obvious dissent. It would have gotten contentious, but he didn't stop for questions; instead he turned the meeting over to Jon GeoMon to start the planning brief. The Outlook Voyager would launch a long-range probe as soon as it could be made ready. They would pursue a course change for a wide star-rounding trajectory, so they should all make ready for that. Jon would manage the Kalekto landing assembly, his first of course. The ObLaDas had not undertaken a planetary probe since the refurbishment program began centuries ago.

  The interventionists grew more determined and pressed hard to replace the Voyager’s old traditions with their new activist plans. To them, and MaxNi9 as well, the Voyager mission had amply demonstrated that technically advanced civilizations were extremely rare and those that did exist were often in a fragile state. Their precarious existence was too valuable to be allowed to die out, they claimed. Some type of intervention should be attempted and the Outward Voyager should commit itself to help these alien beings avoid the potential self-destruction of their species or
their civilization. To them, MaxNi9's support for the Kalekto project was a puzzling and disappointing surprise.

  Jon GeoMon developed the launch strategy for the Kalekto mission. The sequence would start in twenty-four weeks. An advance probe will accelerate ahead of the Voyager and is expected to provide two hundred and sixteen hours of orbit level survey data before the lander assembly would receive its final programs and be launched. This mission would require an excessive amount of work. All of the necessary equipment and operational procedures would need be recreated or built anew and put into place. None of the living ObLaDas had ever conducted a planetary probe, it had been that long, and the full cooperation of everyone was essential.

  Shortly after the advance probe entered orbit, it began sending clear evidence of large interconnected, but apparently deserted cities. High-altitude images of Kalekto’s surface showed several areas that had been laid out in irregular grids that were characteristic of deliberately planned communities. Three-dimensional images suggested that there were parts of some buildings still standing. Connecting roads led between the sites. The planet had apparently been home to a large population and an organized society, but none of the sites were currently occupied. The Kalektians must have had knowledge of basic mathematics to have lived in such well-planned communities, and may have achieved much in the way of technology, but somehow it had been lost it in recent generations.

  Even so, there was some intelligent life on Kalekto. Scattered light and heat signals were found during dark-side surveys. It almost certainly indicated the presence of the city-people survivors, although they now appeared to live in small, scattered settlements with a much-reduced population. Jon GeoMon and his team warmed to the mission. The opportunity to contact new beings created an excitement that superseded the political debates on the Voyager, at least temporarily.