by S. H. Jucha
Initially, the Dischnya guards were confused by their prisoners’ refusal to eat, but Simlan and Hessan listened intently to Willem’s entreaties, finally bringing a display of the soma’s raw foods. They watched Willem nibble each item, except for the skinned animals, which he left untouched. Much to the guards’ surprise, Willem could crunch and split wild grains in his teeth, spitting the pieces into his discard bowl after rummaging them around in his mouth.
Finally, Willem pushed a multitude of items forward and indicated the prisoners would eat these foods.
Unsure of how to prepare the limited food selection, Pussiro ordered a small cookstove brought into the Harakens’ front room, along with cooking pots and utensils. He had no choice but to give the prisoners blades with which to prepare the hard tubers, but Simlan and Hessan were careful to hand out and retrieve the knives before and after each period of food preparation.
Then there was the odd eating ritual of the prisoners, at least from the Dischnya’s point of view. The prisoners faced one another in a circle, taking a few bites from a bowl and passing them to the individual next to them. Round the circle the bowls would go until they were empty.
What the Dischnya didn’t know was that Willem was attempting to disguise his unique nature. He sat with his back to the guards and went through the motions of eating, but the nearly flat spoon never touched his mouth. It was the other Harakens, who cleaned out Willem’s bowl for him.
Xavier worked to choke down his portion to keep his heavy New Terran body fueled. He tried pretending the odd-tasting mixture was a favorite Haraken dish, but he was never able to convince himself. More than once, he thought he was going to heave his partially consumed meal into the circle’s middle.
On the other hand, Teague exhibited the appetite of a growing young man, often eyeing the others’ bowls for remains when they were set down. Ginny’s bowl always contained a leftover bite or two, and she felt a warming in her belly when Teague snatched it up and smiled at her.
After the meal, female Dischnya whisked away the cooking pot, utensils, and bowls to be cleaned and later returned. Then school was back in session.
The Harakens had been moved twice from their original storeroom. The first time was to please Nyslara, who wanted to show her alien captives better treatment in the hope that some sort of relationship could be established before the situation deteriorated. The second time was to find the largest classroom Pussiro could supply.
By Nyslara’s order, Simlan and Hessan were in charge of the captives’ comfort and education. Several of Nyslara’s advisors, nest elders, were added to the mix to support the two warriors. But Nyslara defined everyone’s roles succinctly when she said, pointing first at Simlan and Hessan and then at her advisors, “These two lead, and the rest of you follow. Am I understood?”
Simlan and Hessan’s elevated statuses didn’t go to their heads. Instead, they were extremely nervous, directing the advisors the first day to take seats on bessach along one wall and observe. But the warriors’ confidence returned when they resumed their discussion with the aliens. The advisors hissed in amazement at Willem’s perfect pronunciation of the Dischnya language, and the aliens’ ability to learn quicker than mewlings, even faster than cubs.
Soon the advisor count grew, as the first group began participating in what became a bidirectional educational process, with the Harakens and Dischnya alternating the roles of teachers and students. During this time, on Pussiro’s orders, was when the school was relocated to a large, bare room. At the end of lessons, the captives were returned to their comfortable, well-decorated rooms to rest and sleep, while soma cleaned the marked floors and walls of the classroom and prepared the space for the morrow’s lessons.
One day, while Simlan and Hessan led the group back to their rooms after the day’s lessons, Willem’s calendar app pinged. He’d marked the date when he thought Captain Azasdau would have sent an emergency comm, once it was obvious the natives didn’t intend to release their captives. Allowing for the comm’s transmission time, rescue preparations, and the return trip, Willem calculated that Haraken ships might make orbit as early as tomorrow.
If anyone were to examine Willem’s calculations, they would see that he only allowed a single day from receipt of the message to the launch of a rescue vessel. Regardless of the president’s response, the Rêveur will break orbit with all speed, Willem thought, a wry smile forming on his face.
Willem considered the rescue’s timing couldn’t have been more opportune. His grasp of the Dischnya language and culture was sufficient for him to act as translator and negotiator. Now, if I could only anticipate what Alex Racine might do once he arrives. But, I would have more success contemplating the origin of the universe, Willem thought.
Hessan glanced at Willem, when the SADE chuckled. It was an odd noise to the Dischnya’s warriors, who made no equivalent sound.
* * *
For many days after the mission shuttle was pinned, the scientists and techs were kept busy with the analyses of their samples, while Orly, Bethany, and Smitty were bored to tears. Guard duty fell to them, and they kept a continual watch on the rear hatch, which was cracked open a few degrees. But, when nothing happened after the first few days, their intense wariness turned to mind-numbing tedium.
Once the second traveler took up station above them, there were no more assaults on their ship or even visible movements from the natives. Occasionally, Lieutenant Soucis ordered Verlan to lower her traveler until implant contact could be made with the netted ship, since there was no more energy left in the mission shuttle’s power cells to accommodate comm calls.
Marie kept those aboard the pinned traveler up to date on the various plans to free them, none of which came to fruition. Time was slowly running out for the crew trapped in the mission shuttle. The food from the dispensers, packaged in haste into specimen collection containers when the net was first thrown over them, was consumed. The dried, emergency rations in the expedition packs were gone too, and now the people were sharing the last of the water.
Orly’s greatest lament was that there was no energy available to open the plex-crystal doors and lower the hatch so that the survey team could surrender. Not the best time to discover a design flaw, Orly lamented, that we don’t have a means of manually operating our doors and ramp. He compared their predicament to unfortunate miners, who were trapped underground, and despite everyone’s best efforts, help wouldn’t arrive in time to save them.
Several times, the Harakens aboard the grounded vessel received comm signals that Lieutenant Soucis was testing the aliens’ resolve, and they were preparing to land. Although the crew aboard the pinned traveler couldn’t hear the descent of their sister ship, they could hear the barks of the slug-throwing weapons and the whines of projectiles bouncing off the traveler’s shell. The natives remained at their posts.
After the third attempt to land, Verlan reported to Marie that he couldn’t recommend a fourth. “Lieutenant, those strikes from the alien slugs are chipping away at our shell,” Verlan said. “They’re creating so many small cracks that they’re compromising the hull’s integrity, which is reducing our charging rate. If we keep taking hits, Lieutenant, our charge rate will fall below threshold, which will mean we’ll reach a point where we’ll have to decide between staying on station and making for orbit. If we choose to stay on station, then eventually we’ll be forced to land to charge our power cells sufficiently to make orbit.
“And, if we land,” Marie supplied, “the natives will ping their slugs off our shell until we can’t ever lift, or they’ll net us like our friends down there.”
* * *
There was a third group of stranded Harakens — Bobs A Lot, Sand Flipper, Swift Claws, and Whistles Keenly. While the Swei Swee weren’t prisoners or in danger of starving to death, they did feel abandoned. Their society was one of community. To be separated from the intimacy of the hive, or, in this case, the crew, which substituted for the hive, was tantamount to incarcera
tion in an emotional prison.
Watching from the shallows, their eyestalks peeking above the breaking waves, the four Swei Swee saw their life-long friend and Little Singer, along with the others, forcibly led away by strangers.
Hours later, after dusk descended, the foursome crawled stealthily ashore ready to flee back into the waters at the first sign of danger. A dark night, one without a moon to add its light, enabled the Swei Swee to fade into the background. They crept slowly across the sand, intending to make for the mission’s shuttle.
It took them hours to work their way up the embankment and across the grassy plain. Their six walking legs enabled them to move noiselessly, while eyestalks searched the ground in the dim starlight for proper placement before the next legs were moved.
Bobs A Lot was the first to spot one of the natives’ lookouts. He froze and signaled the others.
Swift Claws’ four eyestalks swiveled around him, searching for what Bobs A Lot saw. With a lurch of his double hearts, the Swei Swee realized he was straddling a lookout post. The optics of a viewer extended outward between his second and third legs. Had he been a half-meter to the left, he would have been discovered.
The safety of the ship was still hundreds of meters away. The Swei Swee studied the ground with their keen eyesight, wondering whether they could cover the distance safely. Unfortunately, while they waited motionless, they caught the subtle movements of many natives’ viewers, as the lookouts scanned the night.
When the foursome gained the embankment’s edge, they spun around and raced down a cut in the hill to the beach. Then they scurried along the shore, seeking a place to shelter. They spotted a small cave, which had been carved out by the sea. It was a snug fit for the foursome and wasn’t the most comfortable place to spend the night, but it offered them a place of refuge for now.
In the morning, the Swei Swee fished the shallows for small catches to maintain their strength. They found the taste of the ocean’s prey to be tolerable but not exciting. More and more, the flavors of their faux fish that they consumed aboard ship appealed to them, which was due in large part to the efforts of Alex, who constantly suggested recipe changes to the scientists who managed food stock production. He attempted to guide the scientists toward a means of capturing the flavors of the Haraken sea creatures. With twenty years of experience at greeting ceremonies, Alex was well acquainted with the tastes of fresh-caught, raw fish.
After the Swei Swee’s morning meal, they floated just offshore and discussed their options. Two hours later, they were absolutely nowhere with regard to creating a plan that might conceivably save them. It was obvious they couldn’t reach the traveler without the ground-dwelling hunters intercepting them.
The idea was proposed that they did possess weapons, their claws, and, if they closed on the natives, they might fight their way to the shuttle. But Swift Claws’ proposal was shot down. First, killing a few native creatures might endanger the captives, if they were still alive. Second, having observed the net over the shuttle, it was thought that the ship wasn’t the best destination. But Bobs A Lot had perhaps the most fundamental objection. He warbled that based on the number of hideouts they had spotted the tactic would most likely lead to their deaths.
“We must wait to be rescued,” Sand Flipper warbled in lament.
“Yes, the Star Hunter First will come for us,” Bobs A Lot replied. The fact that Alex was no longer admiral or president mattered not one whit to the Swei Swee. He was and would always be the Star Hunter First, who led the People to freedom.
“Then we must return to our mission’s purpose,” Swift Claws whistled.
“Agreed,” Whistles Keenly replied. “We have questions about these dark travelers that require answers.”
These four Swei Swee had never seen dark travelers. However, since their time as younglings, riding the matrons’ backs, the adults sang tales of them, and Mutter, their Singer, sang of the People’s time in captivity, of the slavers, the Nua’ll, and of the great battle fought to free the People.
As night fell on the Swei Swee’s third day since their separation from the crew, they slipped out of the cave, deciding to explore the ship that Willem’s team chose to investigate. They swam in the shallows until they could crawl quickly from the waters into the lee of the half-buried fighter.
No visible entry into the traveler was found, but that was expected. The matrons would have opened the hull at ground level when the ship landed, or so the songs said, but the ship was now buried in sand to its midline.
Sand Flipper wasted no time digging a trench along one side of the fighter, the one nearest the waters. Great mounds of sand flew behind him, and the other Swei Swee spread out to keep watch, while their companion searched for the entry. Unfortunately, fortune was not with Sand Flipper. By dawn, he’d failed to find the opening. Celus’ light brightened the sky, and the Swei Swee retreated to the safety of their cave.
That first night at the dark traveler established the Swei Swee’s routine — dig at night, retreat at dawn to the cave, sleep half the day, fish in the afternoon until dusk, and then make their way back to the ship. They split the night into two shifts, alternating a single digger, while the others kept sentry duty.
It took the Swei Swee nine days to find the entrance. First, it was deep below the surface near the front of the ship, an unexpected location, and second, it was on the side away from the shore, which confused the Swei Swee even more. If the craft had been abandoned in all haste, then the side nearer the waters would have been the logical choice for the exit.
In Swift Claws’ excitement at finding the entrance, he nearly blew a shrill whistle but stopped at the last moment. Reverting to his implant, he sent,
As the Swei Swee hurried back to the cave, Sand Flipper warbled, “How will we see inside the ship at night?”
“We could use a shiny or bright material to reflect light into the interior during the day,” Whistles Keenly suggested.
“Because of the ship’s position and the entry site so far down in our trench, Celus would need to be directly overhead,” Bobs A Lot reasoned.
“Too dangerous,” Swift Claws whistled. “The hunters would spot our efforts.”
Suddenly Sand Flipper skidded to a halt. “Maybe we don’t need to bounce light into the interior. If the ship landed soon after exiting the master ship, the power crystals might contain some charge. The People would have shut down power before exiting, and there would be nothing to drain the cells.”
Swift Claws whistled a note of derision. “Even if the traveler contained power, we’ve never operated one of the ancient versions. How would we even know the difference between powering the lights and firing the beam?”
During the remaining trip to the cave, the Swei Swee argued Sand Flipper’s idea among them. Over Swift Claw’s objections, the other three chose to change the next day’s cycle. Before Celus climbed high in the sky, they fished briefly and then swam to the traveler.
Bobs A Lot was the first to crawl through the dark traveler’s entrance. His carapace brushed the opening’s upper edge, and a portion of the ship’s hull crumbled. His eyestalks swung to the rear, as f
ine pieces of shell rained over his back.
When the Swei Swee hives were first captured, they decided to build the dark traveler shells in an artificial manner and designed them to breakdown if, for some reason, they were no longer the ones flying the ships. It was the ultimate act of revenge against their masters, the Nua’ll.
The foursome crawled into the ship’s interior, feeling their way to the bridge panel. They waited for their eyes to adjust to the faint light entering by way of the matrons’ hole. Eventually, the Swei Swee could make out the controls on the bridge panels.
The others ignored Swift Claws’ sarcasm while they examined the various items on the board. Bobs A Lot noticed a small icon, covered in dust, next to a panel button. He blew on it, scattering dust, and sets of eyestalks craned his way to observe what he’d found.
That brought Swift Claws crowding forward and soon all the Swei Swee were blowing their breaths across the panel and trying to decipher the glyphs next to each control.
They continued to observe the glyph until Swift Claws became impatient and sent,
Whistles Keenly’s eyestalks separated. One pair turned toward Sand Flipper, and the other pair twisted in the opposite direction to regard Bobs A Lot.
Immediately, a bank of lights embedded on the upper median ridges of both sides of the ship and running down its entire length lit up. Having acclimated to a dim interior, the lights were blinding. Eyestalks were yanked into carapaces and nictitating membranes were slammed shut. Slowly, stalks emerged, and eyes adjusted.