by M. ORENDA
Rhoades looks up at them, looking like he’s been hit in the gut, surrounded by the first massacre he’s ever seen. “First Sergeant?”
“Time to go maim and kill.”
The kid takes a moment. “Now? We aren’t waiting for reinforcements?”
“You are the reinforcements.”
Rhoades flits his gaze between them, still uncertain.
“Nut up, private. This is the fun part,” Wyatt snaps, gesturing to the deep hole in front of them. “Happy hunting.”
ONE
BIOSTAT STATION
VAULT LEVEL
MARS DATE: DAY 25, MONTH 12/24, YEAR 2225
An end. A beginning. Niri floats, suspended in the bright glow of sound, the song of the formless, the sightless, the deaf… These are the shimmering beings of the Arupyadhatu, of infinite consciousness. Separate, but one, a voice that slips from all directions, on her skin, and under it, inside her. Here are sensations, tones too ancient to be human.
She drags air into her lungs, feeling a foreign warmth coiling through her, searching. One. You are one.
And the life slowly pulls out of her, a million ghosts set free, the murmur of a dozen languages. It’s the song of Earth, its sky muted by a yellow haze, its ghettos flooded with mothers and children. They are the helpless ones, the weak, the afraid. It is a world overrun by scavengers, partitioned by warlords, laid waste by monsters of ego, and by the old religions of blood and darkness, servitude and murder.
The worst of us.
The War of Last Nations, glittering cities gone dark, integrated economies, law and order, everything buckled under the strain of cyberattacks and physical destruction. It was quick, and ruthless, and took less than thirty years to move across the globe. Remove the fragile structures of civilization, and human nature does the rest.
Earth was destroyed because the wrong people wielded the wrong power, destroyed the truth, stirred hatred, and set cultures against another in a way that became unstoppable.
The death of us.
Earthbound civilization was a sparkling moment on a blue planet, the elaborate dance of empires, and the music of singular voices, dreamers who took flight into starry skies, warm creatures propelled through the blackness of space.
It seeded the great Empire of Mars, generations born on a different world.
The flood of it passes through her, along with images she doesn’t understand, symbols memorized at the temple, designs, and maps. It flows into the luminous consciousness, absorbed into its soft mesh of color.
The Devas listen, their divine quiet interrupted. It is understood. It is recognized. This is the beginning. You are one.
It doesn’t sound like a question, but it is.
The Devas are waiting.
She must choose.
Her human body, or the colony.
Detach. You are one.
There is no risk, and the world of light beckons, it’s history forming just out of reach, vast and unexpected. There are stories here, memories that should not exist. There is knowledge that is specific, not formless, not without sensation or sight, or experience.
It was not always the way it is now.
Niri understands some of it, but not all of it.
The colony has a history too.
She hesitates, surrounded by their light, and humbled by what is offered. One. I am one. I can go where others cannot. I can understand what they do not. I can join. I can live. I can perceive, but there is no return. Not for me.
Detach.
It should be easy, but it’s not.
In the haze of dreams, it seems as though she is turning her face from the glow, and looking back, trying to see the man behind her. He is there, isn’t he? Somewhere? Logan… the one who won’t let go.
He is human. He is the best of them, determined to heal, to protect, to honor his brothers and his purpose. Flawed, arrogant, but lost whenever he looks at her, gazing across the immeasurable distance between them.
Warrior.
The Devas understand this too. Colonel Voss, they understand. The Asura, they understand. It is all recognizable. It is expected. Nothing will be forfeited. It will all be shared.
You are one.
Their colors change, slowly, peacefully.
Niri feels the hesitation slip away, surrendering to pure awe.
Detach.
Logan watches Dr. Williams fumble through the computer monitoring screens, recognizing that the woman has no idea what she’s doing, or why she’s doing it.
Is the patient unresponsive because she’s been exposed to an alien life form? Yes? Outstanding. Let’s take her pulse again. Let’s check her temperature. Let’s sit here, in contamination suits, and stare at her like idiots, hoping the shit we’ve done won’t blow up in our faces.
“She’s stable,” Williams says like it’s news. “There’s nothing dangerous indicated here.”
“You can’t wake her up.”
“She’s obviously processing something. We may need to wait.”
“Processing something?” Logan repeats. “That’s a diagnosis?”
Dr. Williams glares at him. “Good enough for a medic.”
Right. Logan drops his gaze to Niri, her body lying flat on the exam table in the exterior cave module, its padded surface flanked by two med scanners and a half-dozen computers.
She hasn’t moved, hasn’t made a sound. Clear water---or whatever it is--- drips from the white fabric of her med gown, glossing the dark curve of her neck, casting a faint blue-green shimmer along her skin. Her face is turned to the side, rapid eye movement flashing under closed lids, her thick black lashes trembling with it, gripped by something torturous and frenetic.
It looks like a seizure to him, but the med computers say otherwise. Heavy REM, unnatural EEG, desperate activity measured in cold screens… in data that produces no answers.
What does it think about? Why do you think you’re here, sport?
Logan grimaces, lifting his gaze to the windows and reading a quieter response in the cave, its glow changing slowly, thoughtful, deliberate… a snake consuming a mouse.
He looks at Williams. “You have to stop this.”
And he can tell, even before she pretends to think about it, that she has no intention of stopping anything.
Williams keeps her attention on Niri, and purses her lips. There’s a tinge of regret, perhaps, something that vanishes almost immediately. “We don’t know what that would do to her. None of the others had this reaction. None of the others were so compatible. For all we know, BIO227 is communicating with her right now. We can’t interrupt that.”
“Why not? Why are you doing this?”
It comes out as an accusation, because it is. They’re asking him to do the impossible. Duty is one thing. But now the wires are crossed. Protect Niri. Protect the undefined interests of the NRM. There’s no way to protect one without turning on the other.
Dr. Williams grimaces, like she knows it’s past the point of bullshit, and maybe it’s not in her best interest to pretend otherwise. She meets his gaze, apologetic. “It’s already too late for that.”
“What?”
“From a cell perspective, she’s more BIO227 than human. She’s more them than us. If the colony has accepted her, it may interpret her removal as a threat, which could be lethal for her. It has control now.”
“Over everything?”
“We have to let the process work.”
“For how long?”
Williams frowns, and lets out a frustrated breath. “It’s complicated. There’s a protocol that was given to her through the meditative hypnosis, by those who trained her.”
“The monks?”
“It’s a psychological construct, a method for communicating our interests. Right now, she should be delivering a message in images. She is transferring knowledge regarding our biology, Earth’s history, culture, language, some of the questions we have, some of the technology we are attempting to perfect. This is an importa
nt message. We have to wait for the colony to respond.”
“Respond,” he says, the word flat. “How?”
“If we’re right, the colony will communicate with Niri.”
“Communicate what? You’re talking to something that lives in a cave.”
“It might be more complicated than that. It’s adapted, it’s---”
“She’s something foreign in its space. It could just as easily determine her presence is the real threat. It could kill her just for that.”
Williams glances out at the cave. “You still don’t understand. You’re not listening. She’s more them than us. You think she’s human. You’ve attached to her as if she’s human, but she’s not.”
“How much time have you spent with her?”
“Don’t be childish.”
Logan ignores the woman, reaching down to take hold of Niri’s hand. He lifts it in his, though he can’t feel anything through the gloves. He can’t touch her in the way he needs to, assess her in the way he’s used to---though part of him knows that it’s just his superstition as a medic, the idea that human touch has a power all its own.
He leans down, speaking softly. “Niri, we’re here, okay? I’m here.”
It’s stupid. It sounds stupid, not the way he normally says it. He’s used to treating men in the field, and civilians when they reach out, and it’s all the same. It’s trauma he understands, tissue torn, shot through, or burned, bones broken, sickness that dehydrates and drains strength. Tell them it’s going to be okay. Tell them they’re doing well. Tell them that you’ve got them. The reality can be different, but the tone of voice doesn’t change.
What can I tell this woman?
“You’re…” He takes a breath. “You’re human. You feel that. I know you feel that. I’ve seen it when you look at me. And if that’s what it takes, okay, fine. I’ll admit to that. You were looking at me, and I was looking at you too. I knew exactly what it meant. I wasn’t going anywhere. I’m still not going anywhere, so come back to me.”
“You can’t say that,” Williams hisses.
He shakes his head, never taking his eyes off the woman on the table. “I’m right here, Niri. I’m waiting right here.”
“You don’t know what you’re doing.”
Logan glares up at Williams. “And you do? What if that thing out there isn’t what you expect?”
“Look, I know it doesn’t make sense to you---”
“Why should it make sense to anyone?”
“But it’s is a necessary step forward.”
“Into what? You raise your test subjects in a warzone. They’re always female, always Earthbounders. You program them with a message, and you toss them to that thing. Why? How is this a step forward?”
“You want answers I can’t give you.”
“You think it’s only me? You’re never going to have to answer for this?”
“Shhh,” Niri’s voice is nothing more than breath, so soft he almost misses it. He looks down, and she’s staring at him, her eyes large, and dark, unblinking. “Do not be afraid.”
His heart sinks. It’s not her. He can tell it’s not.
Logan releases her hand, takes a step back from the table. Where is she? What did you do to her? He wants to ask, but there’s no asking it anything. The words die in his throat.
The thing pushes up from the table and rises to her feet to stand before him. There’s no hesitation in her, no awkwardness, no confusion to reveal how alien she is, and yet, she is completely foreign, expressionless. She’s no longer the woman who cast smiling glances over her shoulder at him, not the one confessed her fears, or the one who looked up at him with such naked admiration. You are the best of them.
He stares at her, helpless.
Dr. Williams edges around the table, trying to slip in front of it and introduce herself. “We welcome you. I am Dr. Williams, and it is my honor to be the first to extend the friendship of the human race. We wish to understand you. We wish to collaborate on the matters of this planet, and in planning the future of our two species.”
The thing looks at her, and there is recognition. Her face changes, no longer slack, but a close facsimile of natural human expression. “We are Devas. We understand your message. We also wish to collaborate.”
Williams releases an amazed breath, raises her hand to touch her visor in a gesture of surprise. But, of course, it’s not so much surprise as it is triumph. This is it. This is what they were all hoping for. This is the big moment. This is history being made, being silently watched from the control room, recorded in holo for posterity. This is the moment that changes everything.
First contact.
Mission successful.
Only he feels sick. He backs away, needing to be out of the room, out of the suit, some place where he doesn’t have to look at her.
“Logan,” she---it---says.
He shuts his eyes, as if he can just forget he heard it.
“You are the best of them.”
“What?”
“Niri is us,” It says. “We are her.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Her memories are ours.”
He releases a pained breath.
It takes a step toward him. “We know you are the best of them.”
What the?
“Him?” Williams says as if her miracle moment has just turned to shit. “He’s just a medic. He’s---with the deepest respect---not one of our important citizens. We have assembled great scientists, and great leaders, for you to meet.”
“We will meet them,” it says. “But we remember him. And he remembers us. He is important.”
Logan looks at it, and sees Niri, because he can’t stop seeing her, even though she’s no longer there. “Important to you? What are you?”
Now Williams is horrified. “Logan, perhaps you should---”
“No. Whatever it is… no.”
“Niri is us,” it says calmly, gesturing to the play of light outside the airlock. “We will show you. This message is for you alone.”
He shakes his head, teeth bared, wanting none of it.
“Corporal,” Williams interjects. “Devas would like you to accompany her into the cave system.” She lays it down so that there’s no question. This is not a request. This is an order. Only he doesn’t take orders from her.
He doesn’t move.
Williams pushes around behind him and opens the airlock with a swift punch of codes to the keypad. She turns, her expression tight with anger. She’s determined that this fragile moment of destiny is not going to get ruined by a slack-jawed medic. “Corporal,” she stresses it again so that he knows it’s his absolute duty to follow the thing into the caves. “You were warned this would be difficult. Do you want to understand about Niri now, or not?”
No. He frowns. Yes.
He curses against his suit’s plastic visor and follows ‘Devas’ into the cavern. He trails behind her as she crosses back into her glistening world. It’s light welcomes him with flushes of aqua and blue, messages he doesn’t understand, songs only she can hear.
She waits.
The airlock closes behind them, and he can sense Williams watching over his shoulder, her visor most likely pressed up against the door seal.
Devas doesn’t seem to notice. Her eyes are on her colony. A faint smile plays on her lips. “Human sight.”
The cavern drops into blackness again.
His heart kicks, and he’s staring, like an idiot, at nothing, hearing his own desperate breathing inside his hood. It occurs to him that maybe this is an attack. Who wouldn’t think so? Maybe she’s moved. Maybe she’s coming closer. What do you want? You bring me out here… to what?
A sprinkling of light appears along the arch of rock above them, thickening to form a dense band of glitter then diffusing from the center. The colony forms a watercolor in billions of glinting cells, until a Milky-Way-esque image hovers over the rock.
It’s some version of a clear Martian night, not
the right colors, not the right clarity, but recognizable. It’s something they clearly took from Niri, from her memories. The image floats, too bright, too welcoming, dreamlike in the way that only Niri would have seen it.
Devas is standing in the exact spot he remembers, small within her sprawling celestial halo. Her face is upturned, her hair shining in a wet braid, her dark skin absorbing the color of liquescent stars.
“Why are you doing this?” he asks, lost.
“Niri chose to be us, to be one,” she answers, distracted, as if discerning his voice through a chorus of others. “She chose to be a light for your world, and ours. Niri is us, and you are important. You are trusted.”
“Trusted?”
“Humans are now in a position to destroy us.”
Logan watches her for a moment, supposing that’s true.
She looks back at him, and for a second, her expression is pure Niri, pained by the idea of anger or cruelty. She’s too vulnerable, too human to be anything else. “They will try to destroy us. They will seek us out, like they sought us on Earth and on the ship that brought us here, and when we hid in the old settlement---”
“Niri, these are Niri’s memories, her life---”
“You fought for us.”
“Not for you.”
“She is us,” Devas insists.
“I don’t believe that.”
“How can we show you?” she asks, stepping down from the rock and slowly crossing the distance between them. “You need to see her when you look at us? You need her to say ‘I am here’?”
He presses his lips together, refusing to move even as she stops before him, way too close, gazing up so that it feels like there’s no space between them. It’s wrong, completely false, but there’s something there, some sliver of the admiration he’s seen in her before. She’s girlish, naïve, so distinctly Niri, and he can’t look away, can’t pretend he’s not seeing it.
She smiles, and it’s beautiful, hopelessly so. “I am going to change everything for the better. Soon, there will be no more destruction. Humans, in all of their worlds, will thrive. I will thrive. This is the beginning.”
“The beginning of what?”
“The way it is supposed to be. The way it is meant to happen. This is the next step, offered when it is right, when it is needed.”