Farlost: Arrival

by Mierau,John

  She sensed empathy in him, even trapped as he was, with limited air, no control over direction, with a trapped crew with him.

  She responded to the compassion in that alien voice.

  “There’s a, a fish on the Betty’s bridge. Blue-grey like a dolphin, with a split tail. What’s it’s name?”

  “Whish is a he. He is a Manta.”

  “That’s it!” Dina snapped her fingers. “Looks just like a manta ray. Someone human named him?”

  “Yep,” Whish chimed in with a pop and a high whistle on the open line. “That’s what we call ourselves. Human is easiest for most of the races.”

  “English!” Gruber snapped. “It’s the ‘english’ language, shark bait!”

  Dina grinned, enjoying the banter, but the emotion cooled quickly. She was on a rescue mission. Not her first. They didn’t always turn out pretty. She felt the iron form in her chest.

  She was going to make this one turn out pretty.

  “Uh, Doug? I hate to be morbid, but…how’s the air in there? I’m about thirty eight minutes out, and docking might take another fifteen. Are you all suited just in case the soup gets thin?”

  “We’ve got days of oxygen, Pilot Dina,” Doug replied. “It’s steering and stopping we need help with.”

  Dina frowned. “I though oxygen was — never mind, how are you for heat?”

  “The tram is old tech, but your scientists built her to last. We have backup systems to keep our joints from freezing for days yet. We’d need to dump the toilet tanks before tomorrow, and it smells like wet Tumbler in here-“

  Twin ‘snap’ sounds interrupted Doug, like wet towels targeting rears in a locker room. “Well, it does!” Doug barked with a laugh.

  Dina frowned harder, despite admiring Doug’s ability to keep his crew’s mind off their possible fate. Which was…what?

  Something wasn’t right. She’d volunteered for this mission because they needed to be retrieved before their life systems failed, because they couldn’t wait out there for The Betty and HHL-6 to pick them up.

  “Help me out here: what was the rush sending after you?”

  Silence for a moment. Hard silence, like someone on the Tram had pressed a mute switch. Then the background hiss returned.

  “Captain?” asked Doug. Asking what? Permission?

  Dina’s concern notched up to suspicion.

  What were their allies keeping from them?

  A squelch on the line, and another imperfect machine voice came on from The Betty before Doug could respond. “Ahoy, Haskam Lab 6. A critical thrust adjustment is required.”

  “Back in a sec, Pilot,” Captain Travis called, just as Beacham’s voice snapped: “What thrust adjustment! My systems—!”

  Before any acknowledgement was made, Nav Okoro called out for the Commander, her voice shrill and panicked.

  "Bogey inbound, Commander. It's that big one... it--" Rose’s voice dropped to a whisper. Dina craned her neck to hear. "It's following us."

  “Oh shit,” breathed Gruber. “Daisy’s not wrong. Your systems aren’t fast enough, you gotta listen!”

  Riding a wave of adrenaline, Dina tasked another monitor to archival footage and scrolled backwards in the timeline. Back to when she and Murray and Raj had been patching the power line outside Six and the new world had blinked into existence around them.

  She stared at the biggest of the wrecks, all silver and white and brilliant reflective surface.

  “Why is the ghost of Christmas Past on our tail?” screeched Beacham.

  “Betty!” cut in Commander Montagne. “Tell us what’s happening!”

  “It’s the gravity, isn’t it?” Beacham called out. “The Thorn’s pull is changing! Is that what’s making that ship float up?”

  Dina’s forehead wrinkled with confusion, but she kept silent.

  “We said new arrivals were a tasty morsel,” Captain Travis said, his voice muted. “We weren’t kidding. The Thorn is alive. Or aware. Or something. And it wants you.”

  Gruber cut in. “I’ve seen footage of this before. One time, long before we got here, an Arrival was under power, trying to escape. The Thorn smashed the ship with gravity. Looked like God’s hand smashed the ship flat.”

  His voice was sombre. Not frightened. Insistent. “We’re in this, Together. Do what Daisy says, if you want any of us to get out alive!”

  Nothing but static on the channel now. No answer from Six, only murmurs in the background.

  Suddenly, from her circuit to the tram, came a keening. From the one they called Newark.

  Dina cursed herself, hearing his pain. Just as she could hear the Betty and Six through their open channels, the tram could too.

  Dina looked down at a realtime view behind her. Even from this far away she could make out a white point of light. Only light magnification was needed before she could see the gleaming wreck, moving fast toward Six and the Betty.

  She slammed the padded arm of her chair. A living planet was reaching out to slap them down with gravity. A thousand year-dead ship was racing up to beat the Thorn to them… to do what?

  Her console buzzed. She focused on the blinking icon on her screen, a LIDAR sweep of the area ahead. She’d wanted advance notice of any debris in her path. Traveling as fast as she was, it was suicidal not to keep an eye out. She tapped it open.

  Her eyes widened.

  Not debris. Too big, whatever it was. Too far away to cause her or the tram any trouble, what had signalled it?

  The LIDAR alarm buzzed again. She tapped open the new information. An overlay of the same big thing…but closer now.

  Something big was racing toward them. Directly toward the tram, and the Toad.

  Who, or what was it?

  “Not good enough, Captain,” called Montagne, her voice barely in check. “We need each other to survive, but I need answers more than blind faith right now. Find a camera and sit yourself in front of it. It’s time we looked each other in the eye.”

  Dina started tapping a databurst, not trusting this new information to a party line. But the Commander had to know what was coming.

  Typing faster, cursing her trembling fingers, Dina couldn’t count how many kinds of trouble they were in.

  THE TROUBLEMAKERS

  34

  "Officer, I can't see your face!"

  Ron Taggart sighed, and let go of the spanner, careful not to lend it any spin. He leaned back, one hand on still on the pinched frame surrounding the airlock to the cellar, and looked up at the most powerful man he'd likely ever meet.

  Chairman Goss floated in the window. His expression was serious. Some might say intimidating, but not Taggart. He had faced down gang-bangers who wanted his milk money before he was twelve. That, and he could see someone's hands under the armpits of Goss's modded-for-zero-g business suit, holding the old man still in the airlock door's window.

  Goss held the airlock handset to his ears with boney hands. His nostrils flared beneath his thin beak of a nose.

  This was not a man used to being ignored.

  "You know you look stupid in that suit, right? I mean, come on: a tie in space?"

  The old man's eyes narrowed. Ron stared back, letting his annoyance play on his face. "You have to adjust your thinking, Chairman. Haskam's a long ways away right now."

  He found the wrench and held it up. "You want me to try and crank the pressure down on that airlock door and get you out, I'm gonna have to ask you to step away from the window and give that handset back to the duty officer."

  Ron watched the old man throw the handset at the window, and bark something. He floated backwards, like some sort of horror movie extra. Taggart couldn't help but chuckle.

  HOLD ON.

  He froze and listened. Where had that voice come from?

  He tapped the arm of his suit. "Say again, C&C?"

  Rose Okoro's voice came back. "This is C&C. What's your situation, Officer Taggart?"

  Not them, Ron thought.

  Behind the airlock gl
ass he heard whispers and his back stiffened. Not again, he thought.

  It didn't hurt, having freeze-frames of other people's mental states dumped into his noggin. It was weird as hell, but he'd got used to it fast.

  The more he focused on something external, like turning the wrench to reduce the pressure on the seals around Cellar Two's door, the more he could block it out.

  Now it was flaring up again and he could make out images, emotions, but not who they belonged to. Just like he could back in C&C, after the thing that had pretended to be his brother told him not to let the lights go out.

  "Disregard, C&C. I'm..." I'm just goin' crazy, he thought. Then he shook his head. No I'm not, he told himself, but I'm not sure what's happening ain't worse. "Continuing my attempt to decrease the pressure on the airlock door to Cellar Two by cranking back the frame leading into the connecting tank."

  He rapped his knuckles against the glass of his helmet. "Am suited in case of depressurization. Please direct additional muscle this way as soon as possible."

  C&C acknowledged and killed the line. Duty officer Green reappeared in the window, an apologetic look on his face. Ron didn't blame him for the old man bossing his way onto the comm line. Green worked for the man. Had kids, too.

  Ron's moms had other kids to take care of her if he didn't return, and plenty of cash from his older brother's disability pension to rely on if he did return unemployed.

  All of which added up to his not giving a damn about the silly old fart's attitude. Goss was scared, too, Ron knew. Or senile. No reason letting someone unhinged getting under your skin.

  Speaking of unhinged...

  He grinned, remembering the look on Villanueva's face when he'd talked to the man about his wife. The grin softened as he thought about the acting First Officer's actions since this clusterfuck had started. The man had stones he'd never shown before.

  And there was something about feeling his soul directly too. He was a good man.

  Ron knew.

  What he didn't know was how he knew, or what was going on, but the way Arnel Villanueva reacted to his words proved he wasn't nuts.

  So, it was what it was.

  He looked back at the open panel at the bottom of the airlock, and the series of bolts that he needed to turn to try and reduce the pressure that had jammed the airlock shut - likely when space rocks started swiss-cheesing HHL-6.

  Ron hadn't been able to budge them. He sighed and tightened his grip on the wrench. Yet.

  He pulled in on the line he'd snapped from his belt to the airlock and dragged himself back down to work.

  There was a click on his helmet speaker, then Green's voice again. "So...aliens."

  "Uh...huh!" Ron grunted as he put as much of his weight behind the wrench as he could without sending himself spiraling. He'd pay cash money for a magic gravity machine right about now.

  "This is pretty cool," Green mused.

  Ron looked up at him, panting, and grinned. Green wore 'this is pretty cool' on his face like a secret shame. It was wrapped up in grief for those they had lost and a well of terror Green worked hard to keep locked away.

  And it poured off him in waves that Ron was pretty sure he alone aboard 6 could see.

  "Yeah," Ron said with a grin. "Pretty damn cool, man."

  HOLD ON.

  Ron sucked in a breath. His whole body shuddered with...hope?

  "You alright, Taggart?"

  Ron ignored Green's concern and turned to look up at the ceiling at a skewed angle.

  It was there. Right there. And coming fast.

  What was? the rational part of Ron's brain screamed, wishing for an instruction manual to make more sense out of the shit-ton of crazy-pants psychic data pouring into his head from somewhere else.

  A sense of something intense. Something good.

  "It's coming!" he whispered.

  "What's coming?" Green asked, more concerned now. "Officer Taggart!"

  Ron stared at him and smiled, even as he unclipped his safety line and kicked off towards the other end of the tank, and to C&C.

  They had to know.

  "Got no idea, but it's comin'... Keep 'em calm in there, Richard. I think our odds just got a whole lot better!"

  35

  “Is it on? Can they see me?”

  Turning her attention away from the vibrations shaking through HHL-6 and through her spine, Lou turned toward the duty cabin, where the largest display in C&C was mounted.

  It was Captain Travis’ voice she heard, but he screen showed only a jumble of pixels of various colours.

  “No!” Beacham screamed at his screen. “We can't see you, for shit’s sake!” The physicist tugged at his hair. "I don't have a fucking clue to tweak this feed!"

  Lou felt her lips curl up. She was simultaneously sorry for the doctor and appreciating his failure. The man could stand to eat a little more humble pie.

  The rumble of Six's engines was everpresent, but it didn't concern her: it calmed her. The drive was boosting as smooth as it ever had, despite the hell the ship had been through.

  She needed that confidence to counter her excitement to make contact with the people on The Betty McKenna, or just 'The Betty' as she'd heard it described on the comms.

  And she was twitching to get some answers, just like Beacham was.

  A ship the size of Manhattan was rising from below, and something else was closing in from above. And she knew next to nothing about the crew of The Betty, who she was depending on to save their collective asses.

  She needed more information to make smart decisions. The safety of everything and everyone on Six depended on her getting things right!

  “I can make goddamn force fields," Beacham went on, "and goose us faster than light, sure, but I can’t decode alien compression streams until someone teaches me the language!” He pounded the screen of his monitor in frustration.

  “Relax, doc,” she said. “Give him a hand, Okoro.”

  “Yes, Commander.”

  She turned in time to see Beacham nod and to watch his assistant, Stan Renic, push off towards her Nav Officer’s station.

  “I’ll assist!” he called out, bright and chipper. He was grinning hugely. Watch out, Rose, Lou thought to herself.

  “Thought you were a genius, Beacham,” Gruber breathed, explosively close to whatever mic was catching the older engineer’s voice. “Ah, fair enough,” he relented. “Daisy, modulate this thing over UHF. You know how to point an antenna and change the channel, right?”

  “Yes, Mister Gruber,” Rose Okoro called out. “Tasking an array…scanning now.”

  The screen went black, then flashed to life. And roared to life.

  “Nav!” Lou screamed over the din. The static roared like a hundred waves all hitting the beach at once.

  The sound dropped to something bearable. Lou nodded her appreciation to Rose. Then the static disappeared completely.

  “Hello Haskam,” said a man’s voice.

  “Holy shit, look at that,” said another.

  She turned back to the screen, and stared.

  Two men stared out from the screen, obviously crouching around a camera pointed up at them. One had dark hair, an old scar on his face and a beaten and patched space suit. The other was older, with white hair tied in a pony tail and a long flowing beard.

  And in the air above, between the men and a massive glass window exposed to space, floated something grey and blue. Like a fish through water, the thing turned in a circle, keeping itself above the camera.

  It had eyes down the spine and radiating out on the wings to either side. It had a long tail, split in two. One of the ends was curled around what looked like a tablet. Massive gills rippled to either side of a mouth. Explosive pops and raspberries came from it.

  The old man looked up. “Pipe down, Whish!”

  The younger man smiled wistfully. “I can remember looking like that.” He raised a hand up over his head, waggling it toward the thing in the air. “You’ll get used to it.” />
  Lou was staring at an alien, and its two human crewmates.

  An alien.

  A flying alien.

  Her console vibrated and she stared down. Quarter-hour status reports, showing greens almost across the board.

  The moment of normalcy shook Lou out of her awe. When she looked back at the screen she felt her jaw set, with the weight of the questions she needed answers to.

  The jaw of the younger man, with the dark hair and scar, was set in much the same way. “There’s no easy way to say this, Commander Montagne, and we don’t have a lot of time. My name is Samuel Travis. I boarded the Betty McKenna in earth orbit, en route to the asteroid belt for an eighteen month contract, just over a hundred years ago.”

  Lou felt her eyes crinkle with the wonder of it. “You look good for a man in his second century, Captain.” She didn’t let herself redden after the words were out. He did look good.

  “You’re a sight for sore eyes too, Commander.”

  “Captain, no time for mating rituals,” the alien, Whish, said.

  Travis laughed.

  Lou coughed and continued. “Tell us what we need to know, Captain Travis.”

  Gruber waved a hand. “Some asshole got you to go faster than light, and you got shit out here.”

  “Listen!...” Beacham began, but obediently fell silent when Lou raised her hand.

  “We traveled faster than light to avoid a catastrophe. Looks like we survived, but that’s no surprise to you, is it? Obviously the big brains were wrong about ships exploding at light speed.”

  “I said so, didn’t I?” grumbled Beacham quietly.

  The captain continued, on screen. “We call the planetoid below a Thorn. There's more than a dozen of 'em., tied into whatever it is that brings ships here. Most of them get sucked down and broken up close to the surface of a Thorn. There’s—we call it the shatter zone: if you get stuck in the Thorn’s gravity, you’ll sink down there and—“

  “Get eaten,” Lou concluded.

  Travis shrugged. “More or less. If a Thorn’s alive, or a device, or the universe’s auto-immune response to organisms trying to break the speed of light is all still bar talk. The effect’s the same. Nobody's from this system, we all just...ended up here.”