Chapter 6
“‘Intercept’ may be an inaccurate translation,” said the Ambassador.
Pheno looked through the portal on the escape pod hatch in Gallia’s ship. Ti had sealed herself in the pod and refused to respond to his apologies; though Pheno still thought he had done nothing wrong, he recognized apologies sometimes bore little relation to fault. For nearly a full rotation, she seemed to do nothing but float around curled in a ball. The only evidence of action being the discarded empty ration containers suspended around her.
“What do you mean?” asked Pheno, keeping his eyes on Ti. She had emerged from her catatonic state to operate her device at a frenetic pace.
“Only a fragment of the exoplanet that destroyed Ertryd will strike Trelia. The piece is big enough to cause a mass extinction, but will only minimally affect Trelia’s orbit. After a few hundred thousand cycles or so, you gas breathers will be able to inhabit the world again. Tiny Noolak, unfortunately, will be pulled out of orbit by Ertryd’s passing and left to freeze outside the habitable zone of its system.” The Ambassador’s translator spoke without emotion. “Those were the latest projections before you abducted me.”
“You knew all this?” Pheno stared at Gallia.
She shrugged and looked away.
“Anything else we need to know about our situation?” asked Pheno.
Ambassador Amonin rippled. “Many unknowns remain, like those things your friend mentioned, the schism, the gravity wave, and others like the Ertryd Belt. I detest loose strands; they’re distasteful. Ertryds never left proteins denatured.”
Pheno looked at Eddientis. “What’s the Ertryd Belt?”
Eddientis raised his tentacles. “I am tasting confusion.”
Ambassador Amonin gazed out of a portal in silence.
“Well?” asked Pheno turning to the Ambassador.
“Yes, I am, thank you,” said the Ambassador.
Pheno stifled a scream and an urge to kick the Ambassador. “What is the Ertryd Belt?”
“A band of artificial asteroids placed by the Ertryds half way between Trelia and Ertryd and extending to the edge of sparse space. Quite unusual. The Counsel thought Ertryd placed the asteroids in preparation for an invasion; the Fleet patrolled them for a while, but they’re empty.”
“Empty? So the asteroids are habitable?” asked Pheno.
The Ambassadors eyes swiveled to look at Pheno. “Not by you. Only Ertryds. They flooded the interiors with their deadly cyanide water.”
“I am swimming in ocean again?” asked Eddientis.
“Not exactly. Think of the asteroids like space stations—hollow and filled with the cyanide solution that sustains you. Quite impressive engineering. Each contains a natural spaceport formed—not carved—from rock. We believe your kind created them using a combination of fission, fusion, and dark matter technologies; but because we cannot replicate the feat, their construction is a guess. We don’t know why Ertryd built them or placed them in their locations or how they operated them. The asteroids appear barren and abandoned, an aborted attempt at something.
“That’s one of the reasons why the Counsel seeks the remaining one percent of Ertryds. We want answers, and, most importantly, dark matter technology,” said the Ambassador. “While we’ve found no traces of dark matter technology, larger remnants of the Ertryd population have armed themselves, which hinders conversations and validates conspiracy theories.”
“Do you have coordinates for all the asteroids in the belt?”
Pheno whirled around at the sound of Ti’s voice. “Ti! You’re out. I swear I didn’t know about Trelia’s danger. Honest, I told you everything I knew at the time.” The urge to embrace Ti rushed back, but her hard stare held him in check.
She waved him off.
“I can transfer them to you. No one has solved the location riddle yet, but I’m skeptical of claims that their distribution is random.” The Ambassador scanned the debris field again. “I’ve been looking for those manufactured asteroids in the debris field, but have yet to find one . . . of course, that means nothing with the amount of rubble out there.”
They stood for a while in silence watching the soundless collisions of rock in the debris field. Pheno wondered why they were here.
“When will you make your ransom demand?” asked the Ambassador.
The question startled Pheno. “Um . . .” He looked at Eddientis and Ti, but their blank expressions put the question back to him. “Yeah, uh, we’re not going to ransom you; that would be bad.”
“Then please release me,” said the Ambassador
“I should be released first,” said Gallia. “The Ambassador is a more valuable hostage.”
“She is correct about that. Amo must have detached security details to search for me, and perhaps called upon the Galactic Fleet. I doubt a sigma player warrants such attention. Ask yourself whether you prefer to be hunted or merely listed on a fugitive registry.”
Gallia opened and closed her mouth twice before settling on a cross-armed scowl.
“Well . . . we didn’t want any hostages.” Pheno shrugged. “You boarded during our escape, so . . .”
“We have an extra spaceship,” said Eddientis.
“With weapons.” Ti smiled slightly.
“Hey, that’s my ship!” said Gallia.
Ti quirked an eyebrow and glanced sideways at Gallia.
Pheno clapped his hands. “That’s settled then; you’re both free to go in the Ambassador’s ship.”
“What? I demand—”
“Off you go.” Ti shoved Gallia into one of the spherical passenger restraints and slammed the lid closed.
“Farewell, Ambassador, safe travels,” said Pheno.
“Grow well, my young friend, and you to girl,” said Ambassador Amonin.
“Hmpf.” Ti turned and pulled herself to the hatch of Gallia’s ship.
“Eddientis, may we say farewell via proteins?” asked the Ambassador.
Eddientis extended a tentacle through its containment shield and touched the Ambassador gently with its tip. Pheno winced at the contact. The Amonin could, if it chose, steal a few dermal cells from the contact and incorporate Eddientis’s DNA into itself. They touched for a long moment before releasing without a word.
Pheno and Eddientis left the Ambassador as he took the pilot’s sphere. Gallia pounded on her sphere and screamed as Pheno closed the hatch.
Pheno watched the Ambassador’s ship recede from view. “They’ll alert the fleet or Gressa or whoever still cares about us.”
“The Ambassador being true, I tasted only loyalty,” said Eddientis.
“Gallia will squeal,” said Pheno.
“You prefer she float here?” asked Eddientis.
Pheno swiveled to look at his friend. “Good point. Still, their release endangers us.”
“Freeing prisoners tastes good,” said Eddientis.
Pheno shook his head. “I don’t know right from wrong anymore, Eddientis. I’m starting to believe they’re the same thing.” He watched the Ambassador’s ship ease away. Even at the current distance, destroying them with this ship’s laser would be—
“I think I’ve found something,” said Ti.
Pheno and Eddientis floated over to her.
“See this red circle? That’s Ertryd’s location before impact. These blue dots show the placement of Ertryd’s asteroids.” Ti waved at a swath of blue starting some distance from the planet and extending to the edge of dense space. “We know Ertryd moved here after the impact.” Ti illuminated another red circle near the beginning of, but off center from, the asteroid belt. “This is the path the planet will follow through the galaxy.” A dotted red line extended from Ertryd’s current location, through the asteroid belt, into sparse space. “Clearly, the Ertryds intended the asteroid placement to lie along the planet’s exit trajectory. I checked this by overlaying my pre-impact forecast models on the Ertryd Belt. They match almost perfectly. The Ertryds couldn’t predict the exact trajec
tory of their planet after impact, so they laid asteroids along all the potential paths. These asteroids weren’t part of a plan to invade another world in order to escape the collision; the Ertryds placed them to do something AFTER the impact.”
“But the Ambassador indicated they were abandoned,” said Pheno.
“And when was the last time you think anyone looked?” asked Ti.
Pheno shrugged. “I dunno, probably before the collision.”
“Exactly, no one cares now because everything’s all over,” said Ti.
“So, what . . . we should?” asked Pheno.
“Eddientis?” asked Ti.
“I’m being pressing big green button,” said Eddientis.
Their ship broke orbit and headed for the location of the first Ertryd asteroid along the planet’s path, which lay a few weeks out. Pheno watched their departure in the stream from the rear camera. He couldn’t be sure; but he thought the debris collisions might be declining, or maybe the crashes appeared less frequent because of their distance. Regardless, some of the larger fragments now dazzled with magnificent lava eruptions when they fell into the planet.
“Wow . . . it’s . . . ginormous,” said Pheno.
Ti nodded. “That is definitely a big rock.”
The tips of Eddientis’s tentacles twitched as the ship circled the asteroid, a journey that would take hours. A third of the way around, they rounded an outcropping and approached the space port.
“Cool!” said Ti.
That’s an understatement, thought Pheno. The ambassador’s description of the space port being formed rather than cut or built hadn’t impressed him. Such a plain description failed to capture the engineering prowess, the dominion over the physical, the artistry required to create this union of nature and artifice, for the spaceport didn’t extend into or separate itself from the rock, it was the rock. The crags, pits, and jagged edges of the asteroid surface covered the port as well, but each took on a purpose, served a function: a viewport here, airlocks there and there, a cavernous hanger, and, on the starboard side, a lazily tilted, yet nevertheless menacing, weapon.
“Dark as in Kumaru Abyss.” Eddientis had frozen when the spaceport hove into view.
Pheno had missed that obvious detail in his admiration of the creation. The asteroid had no heartbeat.
“That’s weird,” said Ti. “There’s no spin or speed. This thing may be the only object completely motionless in space.”
“Huh,” said Pheno.
Eddientis showed no recognition of Ti’s observation. The Ertryd focused on maneuvering their ship to an airlock. Pheno and Ti spoke no more and donned space suits to enter what could be an Ertryd tomb, a final, failed attempt to survive Armageddon.
They stood behind Eddientis at the airlock’s hatch. This was the right thing to do, thought Pheno. These were its people. They built this.
Chapter 7
Eddientis pressed a tentacle to the door’s control. To Pheno’s surprise the hatch opened immediately with a smooth, well-functioning movement. A pace into the airlock, they faced a shimmering containment field identical to the bubble Eddientis had lived in the entire time Pheno had known the Ertryd. The three of them stared at the field and the death-black void behind it.
“Lights on.” Ti turned on her helmet lamps then pushed Eddientis in.
When Eddientis entered the field, the walls, ceilings, and floor of the airlock glowed a soft blue-green. No light shown upon them—instead the whole structure luminesced.
“Eddientis, your containment shield!” said Pheno.
Eddientis’s spherical shield had vanished. The Ertryd flexed its tentacles and jetted about the airlock. “Taste the liquid! So fresh, so pure!”
“I’ll pass,” said Pheno. “A couple of swallows and I’m dead.”
“Bet I can outdrink ya,” said Ti.
“Whatever.” Pheno pushed past Ti to examine the walls’ glow. The surfaces appeared to be spontaneously glowing. “Eddientis, swim over here.”
In an instant, Eddientis floated beside Pheno. His friend moved freaky fast in a hydrosphere—much faster than Pheno could defend against, if Eddientis became . . . what, not his friend? The wall glowed brighter.
“Now swim to the far side,” said Pheno.
The wall dimmed.
“Huh,” said Ti.
Eddientis bounced from wall to ceiling to floor to wall, setting off a series of light flashes that put the Ertryd’s parkour in stop-motion.
“Eddientis!” Pheno tried to catch his friend on a pass but missed. “Stop—look the station obviously responds to your presence, but that means either we’ll find no Ertryds beyond this airlock—”
“Or they’re all dead,” said Ti.
Eddientis stopped moving. “You two being killers of buzz.”
“Sorry, but we’ve got to move on,” said Pheno. “Can you turn on your containment field in case the hydrosphere is polluted by, uh . . .”
“Rotting corpses,” said Ti.
“Something like that.” Pheno glared at Ti who countered him with a pseudo blank stare and shoulder shrug.
Eddientis moved to the hatch entering the station. “The shield automatically activates in the presence of contaminants.” The hatch opened and Eddientis jetted through.
Pheno and Ti swam after Eddientis, but struggled to reach anything approaching the Ertryd’s speed. As the bubble of light surrounding Eddientis faded down the corridor leading from the airlock, Pheno slowed. Ti had fallen behind; he waited for her to catch up. “Are you seriously that out of shape?”
“No, you idiot, Trelia lacks large concentrations of surface water. My species evolved to climb, not swim.”
Pheno froze and said, “Oh.” He thought this the best response for someone who discovers they’ve stepped on a land mine.
“Why? Do I look out of shape?” asked Ti.
“No, not at all, you look great.”
“You look at my body?”
“Ummm, can we go? Eddientis’s really far ahead. I can’t see any more light,” said Pheno.
They moved forward in silence until they reached a six-way junction in the corridor. Looking down each route as far as their headlamps penetrated revealed nothing but more corridors.
“Any ideas?” asked Pheno.
Ti touched his shoulder. “It’s OK.”
“What?”
“You can look at me,” she said.
He looked at her. “Huh?”
“I don’t mind if you look at me,” said Ti.
“Uh . . . ok? Can we focus on the problem at hand?”
“Sure, let’s go this way.” Ti wiggled into the middle branch with an awkward swimming motion.
“How do you know that’s the right way?” asked Pheno.
She turned toward him. “Where are we going?”
“I dunno,” he said.
“Exactly,” Ti moved on, “every direction leads to someplace we don’t know.”
Pheno thought for a moment. “Fair enough.” He swam after her.
They passed through a spherical room with cargo-handling equipment, except there was no cargo to handle so the equipment remained neatly stored in machine bays. Nothing looked used.
“We must be near the docking bay. Let’s take the passages that lead into the asteroid from here,” said Pheno. “Is there a way to track where we are relative to our ship?”
“Yup, I turned on a beacon before we boarded the asteroid,” said Ti. “Still, I wish Eddientis had stayed with us.”
Pheno said nothing. They moved left and down, or at least what seemed like down in zero gravity. They passed through more rooms designed to serve mundane aspects of life. He noted the rooms for both their unused state and their disorienting three-dimensional design. Ertryds constructed spherical rooms without discernable ceilings or floors. All of the sphere’s interior surface served a function so anyway it was turned it faced right-side up. Logically, Pheno understood that aquatic lifeforms, while possessing a sense of up and d
own, moved without the grounded perspective of land dwellers, but the zero-g effect of three-dimensional living made him dizzy. Fighting the urge to hurl, left few brain cycles to process alien living. Ertryds slept in tethers, not beds. Pheno’s best guess for a room filled with suspended balls each sprouting a dozen or more hoses and nozzles—the dining room. Food sprayed from nozzles presumably into Ertryd mouths. Why would sea creatures use plates? They’d need a cage to keep their meal from floating away, but then how do you eat caged food? What about juices and crumbs and other leavings of a good meal? Did meals cloud the dining room water or was leaking food considered rude?
Pheno thought he had known Eddientis on Gressa, but now Pheno questioned all his impressions about the awkward, reserved Ertryd. Perhaps you cannot truly know someone until you see how they live. For sure, Ertryds lived publicly. Every chamber they encountered clearly served many individuals. No private bedrooms or toilets or anything. I mean how do you get laid without everybody knowing or . . . staring?
Gressa must have seemed flat and lonely to Eddientis. A private dorm room probably felt like a punishment to an Ertryd. Pheno suspected Eddientis had tolerated terrestrial life as a temporary hardship for a sociology degree until the destruction of its planet pricked that fantasy.
“Whoa.” Ti stopped and Pheno, lost in thought about the particulars of Ertryd life, bumped into her.
Oblivious to Pheno’s clumsiness, Ti floated slowly into a cavern filled with . . . with stuff. Larger pieces of equipment floated in the middle of the space, held in place by cables anchored to the wall. So many different devices filled the void that Pheno couldn’t see more than a few lengths into the space. Along the entire surface of the cavern, cages, tethers, and clamps held odd things. Many of the devices looked like tools, but none Pheno had used. For starters, the grips were wrong—spiraling handles instead of palm grips—and most appeared to work with either liquids or energy, no hammers or chisels or levers to force nature to your will with basic physics. Each piece also looked alive—though it wasn’t—something about the design of these things reminded Pheno of living organisms. This appeared to be a complete inventory of Ertryd technology . . . or nearly everything. A number of spaces were empty; the fasteners floating outward, reaching for something gone forever. A few items floated freely around the chamber, but those appeared to be the discards of someone’s search.
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