Carmen took a swig out of her water bottle, while Justice signed and said, [We’re fine].
“You sure?” he pressed. The knowing look on his face indicated he’d been eavesdropping, and he leaned in conspiratorially.
Though Carmen was fairly adept at reading lips, she smiled when Justice started interpreting Steve. [I’m in here whenever I’m off duty, and lots of people have been asking questions like yours, you know? Captain Tan wants to play like everything is smooth sailing from here, but the crew knows different. Like you said, things don’t add up—and you’d know better than anyone.]
“So what do we do about it?” she asked. “The more I question Kali, the more they’re going to give me the runaround.”
Steve shrugged. [Don’t know there’s much we can do. Not without . . . ] He trailed off for a moment. [Doesn’t matter. I don’t have an answer for you, but I do know a great way to let off some steam.]
He pointed toward the bank of heavy bags. One was twirling on its chains, and as the far side rotated into view, Carmen noticed that someone had drawn on it. The punching bag now sported a bug-eyed, fang-mouthed creature. A Lùhng face for an eager fist.
She raised her eyebrows. “Captain Tan isn’t going to like that.”
[Who cares? We’re on Breath, and Captain Baglanova already saw it, didn’t say a word. People are upset, wound tight. They need something to point their anxiety at, and right now it’s the Lùhng. I don’t see anything wrong with that. They are our number one threat right now. They control everything we do, there’s no question. If you want to go punch a dragon in the mouth, it’s better to do it here than crack on an away mission, right?]
“I guess . . .” she said, unable to put a finger on why the caricature made her queasy. It was one thing to be angry with them, to question their sincerity and their motives. It was quite another to visit violence on an effigy.
[Go ahead,] Steve prompted. [Take a swing at it.]
Toweling off her face and neck, she slipped from the bike and wandered over. The white paint had been sloppily applied to the gray skin of the bag, but there was no mistaking the sketch for anything other than a Lùhng. She stopped its swinging, holding it still, peering into the glaring eyes.
Nauseated, she pivoted and left the gym.
Six Hundred and Four Days Since the Accident
Justice, like Carmen, might not have approved of Steve’s “stress relief” methods, but their conversation had been turning over and over in her mind in the days since.
The humans and the Lùhng couldn’t keep orbiting each other like this, of that she was certain. Something had to change, to give. Steve was absolutely correct in his assessment of the power dynamic: the aliens had all the control, the humans had none. If the convoy crew simply sat back and allowed things to progress as they were, would anything change? Would they ever get more than the scraps the Lùhng were willing to feed them?
She could feel the crew’s tension rising as she walked through the ships. It wasn’t the chaotic tension of the accident, or the bereaved depression that had followed. It was more . . . angry. It burned, like matchstick points—small, but painful. It was evident in every sudden glare and snap answer. People walked with it licking around their bodies like eager little flames. It wouldn’t take much to see the wisps of it turn into a blaze, consuming the crew like a wildfire.
Something had to give. They had to tip the scales of power away from the Lùhng, just a little bit, in order to put the fire out. Because if the anger grew, if it became a conflagration, there would be no dampening it, not smothering the heat before it ate through the command structure like kindling, and left Tan and Baglanova without an eager ear or a willing hand to put their orders into action.
But she had no more of a plan than Carmen or Steve.
Here she was, staring at a ticking time bomb, knowing it could go off any moment, and she had no idea how to defuse it.
On their next away mission, she felt distracted. There had to be something she could do, besides watch and wait.
But what?
The away team had chosen not to wear their EVA suits—it made moving between apertures easier, and the length of their visit wouldn’t be dictated by battery life or oxygen consumption. There were only three of them this time: Mac, Justice, and Carmen. They’d found Kali to be more open when their audience was small.
Today the Lùhng guided the humans to an aperture they’d never used before, and indicated they should enter first. Carmen pushed through immediately, but Justice, still distracted, hesitated.
Mac seemed to mistake her pause for fear. “Together?” he asked, holding out his hand.
Her first instinct was to scoff, but she bit it back. There was genuine openness in the offer, and marveling at herself, she said, “Yeah, all right.”
The suffocating sensation went by more quickly this time. Familiarity bred only slightly less panic, and having Mac by her side offered more of a comfort than was logical. Why was it that not having to face something alone—to investigate a scary sound, or feel around in the dark, or undergo a monotonous task—always made it more bearable?
The sudden directional change on the other side sent them both tumbling. What was up in the hall was down in this new space. Justice lost her grip on Mac.
The gravity was less here, and though everything lay in utter darkness, she could sense a vastness. Too vast. The air moved in uneven breezes, like the wind on a mountain top. And it was cold. The hairs on her arms prickled, and she groped for Mac, who had to be nearby. When she could not find him immediately, she attempted to crawl. The floor had an even springier quality to it than previous ones, more like a trampoline.
If she pushed too hard, she worried she might thrust herself off into oblivion.
The fact that she couldn’t see anything should have had her fearing for her own safety—anything could be hiding in the dark—but it was Carmen she thought of first. Without light, without their gear, there was no way to contact her.
“Mac?” she whispered, as though trying not to alert whatever was waiting in the shadows.
“Over here,” he said.
She stood on jellied knees, took baby steps toward his voice with her arms outstretched, afraid she might bump into something. “I don’t know where Carmen is,” he added.
Something clammy touched her shoulder and she jumped. If it hadn’t gripped her, she might have flown off the ground and into the void. “It’s me,” Mac whispered directly into her ear, a desperate hitch in his voice.
“Help me find Carmen,” she said, pulling him down to his knees. She began pounding her fist against the “floor” in a blatant SOS, hoping the kinetic ripples might alert Carmen to their position.
After a brief pause, there was an answering “fine” in Morse code. The ripples were faint—she wasn’t as close as Justice would have liked, and she wondered why Carmen hadn’t simply called out.
“I don’t like this,” Mac whispered.
“Oh, no?” Justice asked sarcastically.
“Shut up.”
“You shut up.”
Two bright spotlights flickered on from only centimeters above their heads, throwing their faces into sharp relief, highlighting how close they were to one another—noses nearly touching. Justice yanked her head back, but kept hold of him.
Elsewhere, two other spotlights appeared. One above Carmen, who was thankfully only meters away.
The other revealed Kali behind them, floating above the floor, perfectly content with the shift in gravity. [Come, and behold,] they signed, floating off into the distance.
The four spotlights traveled with them, keeping each figure in a halo of illumination, but all else in darkness. They traveled deep into the inky cavern, and Justice got turned around. Which way had they come in? There was no way she’d be able to find her way out again on her own.
Eventually, Kali paused. [Behold,] they signed again, each set of limbs echoing the first.
Then they raised their ar
ms upward.
Another lone light flickered into existence—a pinhole in the dark. Through the opening, something pushed, forcing its way into the room like an egg being laid.
Maybe that’s exactly what it is: an egg.
The emerging object had a distinctly ovoid shape, and its “shell” was thick-looking, yet translucent. Like Cinderella’s torso. A hazy amniotic fluid, light blue through the cobalt eye coating, swirled inside.
Was this some kind of birthing room? Was the big queen alien crouched above them like a colossal ant, slowly excreting her encased babies?
When the globe released from the “ceiling” it drifted gently downward, and was soon followed by another and another, each a different size. The spheres began to rain down like balloons dropping at a New Year’s Eve bash—their journey from the eyelet a gentle drift instead of a dramatic fall.
As they floated closer, the fluid inside shifted from hazy to clear, and seemed to be providing its own light. The first bubble—for that’s what they most closely resembled—didn’t encompasses a yolk or an alien fetus. Inside was a metallic contraption, roughly toaster-sized, piped through with tubes that were likely red, but looked purple through the film. It was boxy in shape, and appeared to have hinges and latches.
What on Earth—?
The next held an equilateral triangle made of wax or resin. At first, the structure appeared featureless, but as it bobbed close to Justice—never falling fully to the floor, but drifting on undetectable gusts—it swiveled to give her a good look at one flat side. Figures were etched into it—likely writing, accompanied by a few geometric symbols. A secondary light source flashed from within the triangle’s sides, revealing etchings on the back side of the resin, as well as within the resin, adding a whole new dimension to the surface inscriptions. Two-dimensional lettering made three dimensional.
And they kept on coming. Items of all sizes and all kinds floated about the room. Soap bubbles protecting unknowable wonders.
There were hundreds now, each its own spot of brightness in the vastness. The more bubbles the ceiling produced, the larger the room seemed to grow. Justice had yet to identify a single border.
When one bubble bumped into her spine unexpectedly, she whirled with a shout. Mac snickered at her until he saw what lay within.
“Ew—what the heck?”
The bubbles weren’t eggs, but there was something most definitely alive in this one. Or—scratch that—it had most definitely once been alive. Now it was preserved—the fluid in this sphere was slightly sallower in color. It could have been a plant, what with the multitude of fronds fanning up and out of the torso, but it seemed to have joints and a bone structure. Little bits of it had congealed and flaked away, parts of it looked sickly and bloated, just like a pickled two-headed fish in an old-timey science exhibit.
[What are all these?] Carmen asked.
There was something familiar about the setup. It was unscientific, scattered. None of the objects seemed to relate to one another. They were just things. Curiosities. Keepsakes? And the darkness, the spotlights—it was all very showy. Unnecessary, yet it set the mood. There was an artistry to it, like . . .
[Artifacts,] Kali answered, wandering off, poking at the bubbles, tossing them into the air like a child with a balloon.
[It’s a museum,] Justice said.
[We’re not additions, are we?] Mac asked, clearly a joke.
[You don’t show the fossils the Smithsonian before you wire them together, right?]
[Guess you never saw a zookeeper give a chimpanzee a tour of the zoo?] Mac countered.
Kali circled back, their arms filled with specimens. [Enjoy?] they asked. [Interesting?]
[Yes, very interesting,] Carmen replied quickly.
[This us,] Kali said, showing them what looked like a petri dish with a bit of brown substance in it. [This sample of successful permanent modifiers.]
Justice eyed the baseball-sized orb covetously. She could imagine Kali was waving it under her nose on purpose—a scrap of alien genetics she could look at, but not touch.
Kali held up another orb, then another. [This rock of home planet.] It was a smooth white pebble, river-tumbled and speckled through with crystals. [This word of Progentor.] This one contained what looked like a scrap of parchment, with a mechanical diagram drawn in ink.
Noting a basketball-sized bubble floating by, Kali snatched it from the air with two of their right hands, cradling it delicately. Inside was a small segmented piece of machinery, made of something coppery and something with the matte finish of lead. [For navigation,] they signed. [Very old.]
Justice saw an opening. [Has navigation ever made you sick? Travel—has travel modified you?] She was positive now that her yucca was incapable of reproducing on its own, and that their fly population was extinct. And poor McKayla and Samir were still childless. Several of Justice’s other friends had volunteered for infertility testing, and so far she’d found weaknesses in all of their sex cells that could prevent zygote formation.
She needed to know if this was a common SD side effect, or something unique to their circumstances.
[Our travel accident changed some crew,] Carmen signed, and Justice knew she was specifically referring to Vanhi. [Some of our people are sick. Need your assistance. Do you have a doctor or scientist who would visit our ill ones?]
[No. Contamination possible,] Kali signed.
Justice let out a frustrated sigh. [Not that kind of sick. Genetic sick. DNA sick—] Every finger-spelled letter was useless, but she did it anyway. [Will you come examine?]
[Sick people in immediate danger?]
She wanted to lie. Badly. But indicating yes might raise Kali’s hackles, might make them more fearful of cross-contamination. [No,] she signed.
Kali backed away from the humans, suddenly warier. [Must return you to decontamination.]
[Not contagious,] Justice said again, [Illness cannot harm you.]
[We are not sick,] Carmen tried, but it was no use. Kali was spooked.
Great, well done, Justice berated herself. Now they think we’re plague rats, and we’ll never get them back over to the convoy.
Hell, if they couldn’t convince Kali everything was fine, would the Lùhng refuse to let them board again?
[This way,] Kali demanded, and the humans obediently followed.
All except one.
[We—] Carmen began to protest, then shrieked in surprise. Her eyes were wide; she’d caught sight of something.
Her shout was so shrill and sudden in the near silence that Justice froze. Kali and Mac were just as startled. The Lùhng’s top hands went to small round orifices on the side of their head—they must have been ears, though Justice had often wondered if they were nostrils.
Carmen turned to her crewmates, gesturing emphatically, then signing [table] with a force.
Justice was sure her signing vocabulary was failing her. [Table?]
Kali bent over, Mac twirled in confusion, and Justice signed that she didn’t understand. Clearly unwilling to wait for her crewmates to catch on, Carmen took off, sprinting into the blackness, indicating they should hold their positions.
“Wait—Carmen!” Mac shouted ineffectually.
She continued to point while she ran, bouncing over the floor as though she could not contain whatever was driving her. She made exclamations as she went, and it was difficult for Justice to tell if these sounds were happy, sad, terrified, or all three at once.
Soon, Carmen was jumping. There was a huge bubble she was trying to reach, one that could have easily fit the three humans lying head to feet. Despite the fraction of Earth’s gravity in the room, she couldn’t launch herself high enough.
A chair-sized bubble floated close to her, and she took a chance. She threw herself on top of it without knowing if the display case would come crashing down under her weight. But it stayed aloft.
With a strange, guttural squawk, Kali raised their hands and went after her.
“Hey!” Mac
shouted, reaching for the ghost of his shock baton, at the same time chasing down their host.
Beside Justice, the small bubble containing the petri dish bobbed. It would be easy to conceal inside her unitard if she had the guts to grab it. It shimmered slightly, like its surface was winking at her.
Swiftly, she snatched the orb from the air. Its surface was cool, smooth, like glass. Quickly, she secreted it away, shoving it down the front of her unitard to settle between her legs, figuring that to be less noticeable than a third boob. Just as quickly, she straightened the garment again, and allowed herself a small smile at the personal irony. Never thought I’d be stuffing instead of tucking.
Kali was still making their strange noises, while Mac yanked at the hem of their robes like a small child. Carmen had now bounced from bubble to bubble high enough to lay her hands on the giant display.
Inside, Justice could now make out what had gotten her so excited.
It was a table. Just a table. Long, but relatively featureless. They’d seen table-esque structures in the quarantine room, so that in and of itself was not so shocking.
Anyone else might not have seen anything special about the table. Anyone on any other mission from any other time. Unless you were familiar with this table, there would be nothing to call out, to make a fuss over.
But Carmen knew this table. As did Justice, and anyone else who had ever spent time in Tan’s situation room.
It was a solid-stone long table. Sculpted by a master artisan. There were only twelve of them made, one each for the twelve “home” ships of the Planet United convoys.
This one was so dark green as to be nearly black, with flecks of something highly reflective dotted across it—very similar to theirs. A few of them had been white with different-colored mineral veins running through them.
Unlike the one in the situation room, this one had been snapped in half, and a leg broken clean away. The three main chunks hovered more or less in their proper relation to one another, implying the full table rather than making it.
How in all of creation had the aliens come by that?
Noumenon Infinity Page 38