by Max Harms
Body pried open the door, feeling the air blast out of the shaft into the vacuum. Unlike the elevator hatch this door was still powered, and trying to keep closed to prevent loss of air. Body was stronger than the motor, but only by a little bit. Safety manoeuvred Body through the door and let it snap closed behind.
Heart had been in constant contact with Zephyr. All of Las Águilas Rojas were in suits at this point. We piloted Body over to the access hatch where Slovinsky had disabled the elevator’s power. Wiki confirmed my fears: he had damaged the circuitry rather than simply deactivating the power. Getting the elevators back online would take time.
It was time we didn’t have. The cyborg was loose in the alien ship, and it was clear from the gunshots that he was not here in the name of peace.
I did my best to explain what we knew to Zephyr as Body pulled itself along the tube towards the airlock that connected to the xenocruiser. Body passed the corpses of Schroder and Nagaraj as it floated forward, their bodies already beginning to mummify.
Safety stopped Body at the access panels to the elevators for Beta. Here we replicated Slovinsky’s destruction, cutting power to the elevators and ensuring that our other enemies were unable to come through that route. Unless they had more jetpacks, all the humans other than Ivan were now effectively incapacitated.
We paused a moment to develop a strategy for what to do next. The Purpose was ambivalent. It wasn’t clear what we should do next. Safety was convinced we ought to fortify our position and work on getting Zephyr and the others up to the station’s core, but most of the society was in agreement that the right action was to chase the scientist. We didn’t know how to communicate with the nameless directly, and it seemed obvious that whatever Slovinsky was up to, it would harm our collective interests.
As Body floated down the tube, I focused on the conversation that Heart was managing with Zephyr. “There are ladders in the elevator shafts, but the elevators themselves will be jammed half-way up, and I doubt you’ll be able to bypass them easily. Whatever Dr Slovinsky is doing, he has to be stopped. I suggest discussing longer-term plans with the others along two possible outcomes: either I disable him and restore power to the elevators, or I’ll be captured and the high-ground will be lost. Don’t forget that even if I can stop Slovinsky, we still need a plan for returning to Earth safely.”
“Please be careful, Crystal.” Zephyr’s voice had the cold and calm texture one would expect of an experienced army captain.
“I’m actually incapable of being reckless. My programming prevents it. If that makes you feel any better.”
Zephyr’s only response was a sigh.
Body reached the airlock that led to the alien ship and tapped at the interface screen. It showed that the external door was jammed open. Normally the internal door would be locked closed, but the station’s AI was actually clever enough to recognize that the station was in emergency-mode and that because the core was already vacuum, opening both doors couldn’t really threaten the lives of anyone in the station.
Body tapped the screen, signalling that it was okay to override normal protocols, then quickly grabbed a hand-hold. The air pressure in the nameless environment was higher than on Earth, and the resulting wind that blew out through the corridor was fierce. We could immediately see why the external door was jammed open. The corpse of a nameless pair in their environment suit was wedged in the gap, a tangle of eight long limbs like some sort of huge octopus. I didn’t know how many nameless there were on the ship, and I wondered if the corpse was Jester.
The initial rush of air subsided to merely that which was being blasted through the gap in the external door. Body worked its way to the edge of the outer door and got both hands through the gap. It pulled and we made progress. Arms. Head. Torso. Safety had Body push its way through the gap, but as it did it accidentally kicked the nameless, pushing it out of the airlock door. The station’s door and the door to the nameless ship closed down hard on Body’s right leg.
There was very little light in the nameless airlock, but we could see well enough to know there wasn’t any damage to the limb. The doors had closed on the “shin”, not a joint, and not hard enough to break the carbon-fibre structure. Safety struggled to get Body’s arms back through the gap and put enough pressure on the door to slide the leg out and pull Body’s arms out before it slammed shut again. If we wanted to return to Olympus we’d likely need to get the door open via nameless computer.
The airlock in the nameless ship was very dark, darker even than Gamma section had been. I understood that the nameless homeworld was thought to be a very dark place, but this seemed excessive. The walls were black and featureless. The room was about four or five metres in diameter, hexagonal, and about ten metres in length. The airlock door was a complex thing of interlocking plates and sub-doors. It seemed capable of opening from wall to wall.
The only real feature in the room was the wall opposite the airlock. “Wall” was probably the wrong word, actually. It was like the surface of a pool of metallic liquid. What little light there was in the room came from the fluid wall, which glinted and glimmered with faint sparks.
Body kicked off the airlock door. Vista was fascinated. We all were, really. It was like nothing on Earth. As Body floated closer we could see that what had appeared to be liquid was actually closer to a writhing soup of tiny metal objects, most only a few centimetres in length, though some were long and thin, like silver worms. The objects moved silently in an impossibly complex flow, grabbing hold of each other and sliding past without any apparent lubrication. It seemed alive.
There were no hand-holds to brace against. No gravity to stop our approach. No other features in the room. Slovinsky must have gone somewhere, and all signs pointed to the surface of the far wall. Safety began to scream in protest as he realized that Body was going to collide with the shimmering carpet.
Body’s legs touched first, and the wall of machines reacted immediately, extending from the pool and pulling Body into the wall, glowing white around the edges of where the limbs were now dipping into the fluid. Body tried kicking. Its legs moved freely, unimpeded, but were still drawn in, as though they were being devoured. Body’s torso and arms were soon enveloped by the machines. The silver substance hardly felt like anything when it touched Body’s hands. Surprisingly smooth. The temperature was increasing. The pulling was ever stronger.
And then we were through the barrier.
Chapter Thirty
Body slammed down hard on the floor of the alien ship.
{Gravity?!}
Indeed, we were in some gravitational well. Our accelerometers reported that we were now in an environment that replicated the conditions of the nameless’ homeworld, at least according to most scholars. 2.87 times Earth gravity. 33.1 degrees Celsius. The air was incredibly heavy and wet. Wiki had explained that, in addition to having a thicker atmosphere because of the increased gravity, the nameless air had a high concentration of CO2, making it abnormally dense.
The only way a planet with such a strong greenhouse effect could be this temperature was if it was quite distant from its home star, and the nameless ship’s ambient light level reflected that. There was a faint purple glow above Body, and there were glowing signs on the walls, but it was generally very dark, even if not as dark as the airlock.
The ground under Body was soft. Dirt. It seemed magical to touch dirt while in space.
{How is there this much gravity? What’s causing the acceleration?} pondered Wiki.
{If the nameless have found some source of artificial gravity, it would explain why their ships don’t have a consistent rotation, or a cylindrical shape,} speculated Vista.
{You’re proposing something which violates the known laws of physics! It’s safer to assume we’re just confused!} rebuked Wiki, unwilling to accept the explanation.
{If the nameless have artificial gravity, it implies not just a technological sophistication required to travel between the stars, but an appreciation of
the laws of physics that we simply lack. They are far more of a threat than we expected, given this new evidence!} exclaimed Safety.
{First thing’s first,} reminded Heart. {We need to track down and stop Slovinsky from doing any more harm.}
Safety had pulled Body off the black dirt and brushed it off. Behind it was the shimmering curtain of machines, while to either side were walls of stone leading away in a kind of crude corridor. Surprisingly, they appeared hand-carved from rough grey bricks mortared together unevenly. They seemed sturdy enough, but it was as odd to see hand-built stone walls on a spaceship as it was to see dirt floors. The nameless clearly either cared very much about their aesthetic or there was something significant that we were overlooking.
{What if it’s a portal?} imagined Dream.
Body walked forward through the corridor of stone. Above it, the walls ended about 3.5 metres up. The deep-purple ceiling was higher than that, but we couldn’t tell exactly how much higher, due to the lack of texture on it. It could’ve been a featureless sky, for all we knew.
{What insanity are you espousing now?} asked Wiki, rising to the bait.
{What if the silver wall teleported us to the nameless’ homeworld? That would explain the gravity, right?} wondered Dream.
{You’re trying to explain unexpected gravity by postulating faster-than-light travel. Do you have any idea how dumb that is?} criticized Wiki.
{You just wait and see,} thought Dream.
The stone walls had markings on them in luminescent paint. There wasn’t, however, any apparent rhyme or reason to the markings. They were mostly in a faint blue-white, though there was occasional orange-red. They were splashed here and there. Lines, sometimes circles. The paint from the markings often had visible drip-marks. It was weirdly sloppy, as though a child had decided to draw on the walls merely for the fun of it.
The corridor turned, and after a few metres opened up into a broad space. Body’s foot sunk into mud. The ground was much more wet out here.
{A swamp! Fascinating,} thought Vista.
{Technically it’s a fen or perhaps just a mire,} corrected Wiki. {A swamp has trees.}
{And a mire is characterized by peat-forming vegetation. This area is dead. It hardly make sense to use a floral-distinction for a biome devoid of flora,} criticized Dream. {I suggest we call it a mudland.}
The “mudland” was expansive, flat, and lifeless. Here and there we could see large, sharp objects in the gloom, but we’d have to get closer to inspect them. In the distance we could see other walls and even what appeared to be a large body of water. The space seemed impossibly large for a spaceship. It wasn’t that it couldn’t fit on the nameless’ craft, but rather that so much space was wasted. What was the purpose of all this mud?
A structure caught Vista’s attention. Body wandered forward, struggling against the mud, which constantly gave-way under Body’s small, dense feet in the heavy gravity. The structure was taller than the walls, perhaps five or so metres tall.
{It’s a staircase,} decided Vista. {Going up into the ceiling. And yes, it is a ceiling, not the sky of the nameless homeworld.} I could feel Dream’s disappointment. {Looks to be made of metal. Practical, not ornate.}
As Body trudged forward we heard the noise of a motor behind it. Body turned and could see a zeppelin-like drone hovering a few metres back. It looked weirdly crude, but still functional. A prototype, perhaps.
{It’s signalling via radio. Feel the antenna?} pointed out Vista.
{There are other signals here, too,} realized Safety. {Too weak to really make out. Narrow-band.}
The only warning was a high-pitched hiss. The rocket came in from behind Body, only missing due to luck. As it impacted the mud, it exploded, knocking Body down and sending a wave of heat rolling over it. Safety made sure to keep our pistol firmly in Body’s hand, even as we had it climb to its feet. Body was tough. It’d take more than that to stop us.
Safety took executive control, pushing Body into a run towards the nearest of the large outcroppings. We were out in the open. Vulnerable. Body’s legs were highly inefficient in the mud.
I did my part. “Ivan! Is that you? We surrender! We’re not here to fight you!” shouted Body at maximum volume. He had dropped off the com-net before disappearing; there was probably no point sending it over the radio.
There was, however, a point to talking to the nameless. They had to be here, somewhere. I pushed a message through Body’s antenna. “I am here only to deal with the human! I mean none of you any harm!” I broadcast in Xenolang.
Another rocket flew past. It shot out in front of Body, missing by less than a metre. The smoke from its wake blinded us momentarily, but Safety pressed on. The sound of detonation came a few seconds later, far in the distance.
“THE HUMAN EXPLAINED YOUR EVIL BETRAYAL! WE WILL RAPE YOUR CORPSE BEFORE RAPING ALL OF YOUR CHILDREN!” came the response on the radio, reflected through the drone, still hovering behind us, watching our progress. I could see another drone closing in on us, ahead.
Body reached the relative safety of what we could now see was some kind of vehicle, turned on its side and half-sunk in the muck. It was clearly alien in origin, and possessed the same kind of shoddy, hand-built quality as the drone. The only real sign that it was a vehicle, actually, were the wheels, which were huge and set with deep treads. Vista pointed out that the machine had been in combat. It was already badly damaged from explosives.
“I have betrayed no-one! The human lied to you!” I defended.
There was a deep rumbling from the far side of the cover. Safety risked peeking Body’s head out to see. An armoured vehicle, apparently floating on a skirt of air like a hovercraft, was sliding across the mud. Unlike a human hovercraft, the vehicle moved by paddling itself by four evenly spaced mechanical legs. Luminescent paint was splashed wildly on the front. The cockpit of the vehicle was covered in bulky plates, and any driver or passengers were hidden from view.
“YOU are the EVIL COMMUNICATOR that is wrong. THE HUMAN EXPLAINED! The island is united around this. Your confusion doesn’t stop our violent justice. WE WILL PUNISH VIOLENT-YOU!”
“What violence are you talking about?! I’ve done nothing!” I sent back.
A rocket impacted the side of the wheeled vehicle we were behind. The shockwave and a piece of shrapnel slammed into Body, knocking it down. Body crawled behind the truck on hands and knees, and felt at its face. A chunk of metal was embedded in Body’s cheek. If we’d been human flesh instead of composite polymer it’s likely that it would’ve killed us, or at least split our head open. We decided to leave the shrapnel in. There was no sense removing it now.
“You BETRAYED the walker of symbol-287 garden with PERVERT MAGIC! WE WILL IMPREGNATE YOU WHILE YOU ARE IN CHAINS! The human explained YOUR BOMB! Shouldn’t communicate with the pervert machine. Shouldn’t communicate with the human. The human changes this towards SAFETY! EVIL PERVERT HUMANS know BETRAYAL OF THE PEACE is the way towards SUICIDE! WE WILL TORTURE YOU WITH YOUR OWN FERTILIZED EGGS!”
{Can we please remind them that we’re not capable of being impregnated, much less laying eggs?} wondered Wiki. We ignored him.
The roar of the hovercraft’s engines grew ever stronger, but the words of the aliens came in through the radio, not our microphones. “COMMUNICATION SHOULD BE AVOIDED! Communication with PERVERTS lead to EVIL! COMMUNICATION STOPS! COMMUNICATION IS PERVERSION!”
The second voice came in across the com-channel just as the first one did, without indicating source. It was impossible to distinguish one from the other, leading to the possibility that we’d been talking to more than two.
“The island is UNITED! Neighbours shouldn’t fight while the migration is happening,” broadcast the aliens. It was frustrating not being able to distinguish voices. Were they still talking to us, or had they turned to talking amongst themselves?
I did my best to gain control the conversation. “It is the human who has tricked you! He is the invader! He murdered the walk
er that let him in your ship!” I tried to shape the emphasis of my words as a nameless might do. The program that I was using to directly interface my language control hierarchy with the radio was my siblings’ invention, and this was my first time using it.
There were more noises from the other side of the vehicle, barely audible behind the roar of the hovercraft.
“My community feels CONFUSED! HOW DO THEIR THOUGHTS CONFLICT ON ALL THINGS!? I go to my garden. We support the will of the island to communicate with God. We do not support the will of the island to harm others. WEAK PEACE-PEOPLE FROM BLACK-CASTLE ARE AFRAID OF ACTION! WE WILL CLEANSE THE MACHINE AND HUMAN WITH A WAR MACHINE! THE MACHINE AND HUMAN WILL BLEED WHILE THE WAR MACHINE CRUSHES THESE GARDENS!” It took me a moment to realize that multiple sources were again speaking on the network, rather than a single insane alien.
“Please! The human is the evil! I am good!” I begged. It occurred to me that I really had no idea what I was saying. My thoughts were too human.
{Wiki! Dream! Help me communicate!}
Wiki was no help. {I am very confused. Try and delay them while I get my thoughts in order. There’s too much to process.}
Dream was equally stumped. {“Better to stay silent and be thought a fool than try to convince hostile aliens not to shoot you and remove all doubt.” — Mark Twain. At the point where I come up with a clever way out of this mess I will let you know, but right now I fear that anything we say could just as easily go one way as the other.}
We had three bullets. The nameless were almost into view. We were cornered and outnumbered in hostile territory. Safety began to berate us for the idiocy of ever agreeing to leave Earth. I didn’t bother pointing out that he was also one of the society that agreed and that he wasn’t actually fixing the problem with his mental tirade.