The Celaran Solution (Parker Interstellar Travels Book 9)

by Michael McCloskey

  It’s a huge vine... temple. Maybe it’s been preserved as a historical site?

  Two attendants split up and entered two different tunnels while the other two flew up and over the entire structure. Inside, he saw square walls formed by vine stems and leaves. The plants were amazingly dense and flat, as if they had grown up against invisible force fields. He had an attendant push on a nearby leaf. It deformed as they attendant pressed against it. When the attendant retreated, it resumed its perfect shape.

  No invisible walls. Just disciplined vines.

  Magnus switched out to an external view. The temple grew almost 400 meters high, and the attendant had not identified any underlying frame other than the natural support spikes far below. Magnus knew the support spikes never grew anywhere near that tall. He sent the other two attendants into the mass of vines to search for hidden supports.

  The feed skipped. Magnus felt confused for a moment. Then the feed resumed, but the healthy vines were gone. The attendant feed showed a 360-degree view of the sickly red vines.

  What happened there?

  Magnus flipped through the other attendant feeds, and then their histories. They had all suddenly skipped. Magnus checked the tactical.

  The attendants he had sent to investigate were scattered across the continent. None of them remained at the vine temple.

  Instantaneous teleportation. I’d say we have something here.

  “Hrm. A mystery,” Magnus sent to Telisa.

  “What do you mean?” she asked on the channel.

  “There’s definitely something weird going on at that site,” he said.

  “Please tell me you have a lead on the cyborgs,” she said. “We haven’t found any operational spacecraft down there.”

  “This,” Magnus said. He sent the pointer to Telisa and Marcant.

  They studied the EM readings and the strange vine patterns for a moment. Marcant was the first to respond.

  “Why don’t we send attendants to check it out?” asked Marcant over the new channel.

  “I did. They got displaced,” Magnus said. “They pop back up kilometers away from there in an instant.”

  Telisa came into the room. He could tell he had piqued her interest.

  “We’ve seen that power signature before,” Telisa said.

  “How do you know? I didn’t find any hits on it.”

  “This Iridar doesn’t know about it,” Telisa said. “But our original one did!”

  Magnus looked over the readings.

  They do look familiar! The first Iridar... what does she mean? Oh!

  “The Trilisk facility on Thespera Narres!” Magnus exclaimed.

  “Yes.”

  “Not exactly what we were looking for,” Marcant said. “Intriguing though, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. I wonder if the Celarans were aware of it,” Telisa said. “Maybe part of the team, absent myself of course, should go there and check it out.”

  Magnus nodded. “There could be another AI there,” he said slowly.

  Telisa smiled. He had read her thoughts.

  “It could be critical. We could use it to oppose Shiny.”

  “How? Would we have a chance? And is it really our fight?” Marcant asked.

  “We can figure all that out later, but we have to balance out the power. It’s too dangerous. If Shiny decides he doesn’t need Terrans’ cooperation anymore, then he could do anything.”

  “He’s given us a long leash. Longer than the UNSF would have, the old one, I mean,” Magnus said.

  “He took you away from me,” Telisa said sharply.

  Magnus knew it was time to stop playing devil’s advocate. Telisa was not in the mood for brainstorming right now.

  “Okay, then. We’ll get a Trilisk AI and make sure that doesn’t happen again.”

  “Let us get back to you, Marcant,” Telisa said. He dropped from the channel.

  “You and I can talk about it some more... later,” Telisa said aloud. She approached the sleep web and removed her skinsuit. The structure rotated as Telisa entered the web and took a position above him. Magnus welcomed another pleasant diversion.

  Chapter 6

  Telisa lay alone in the sleep web by the time a link alert came in. She asked the Iridar to explain the alert. A series of panes opened in her PV.

  Another ship. Where?

  The Iridar believed they had been contacted, but Telisa could not find the evidence in her personal view. She missed Cilreth. Surely her old friend would have been able to explain what was going on in a matter of seconds.

  A channel request came through to Telisa. The metadata displayed a warning in red: “Caller is a duplicate of locally known link ID for Telisa Relachik.”

  Telisa had only a second to understand what that meant, then the other Telisa spoke.

  “Another me? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Though I didn’t expect to see any other Terrans out this far, much less myself.”

  “Where are you? Cloaked?” Telisa asked.

  The other PIT team members tried to connect to her. They must have realized something unusual was happening. For the moment, she sent nonverbal stand-by replies.

  “Yes. This is a Vovokan ship,” Telisa9 said.

  The ship finally showed up on the Terran Iridar’s sensors. The other PIT members redoubled their efforts to connect to Telisa.

  “Stay calm, I’m talking with them,” Telisa sent to the PIT channel.

  Regular life is hard enough; now I have to deal with this? She paused to force herself to take a different attitude. This is me. An ally, not an enemy, so relax. I need all the allies I can get.

  Telisa recalled the last time she had met a copy. “Have you been on Skyhold?” she asked.

  “What? No. Is that a test question? I don’t know the right answer.”

  A different one.

  “I was just curious if you’re the one I’ve met before. We’re here to find Celaran refugees,” Telisa said. “What’s your mission?”

  “I guess we’re off mission, actually,” Telisa9 said slowly. “We were investigating some Talosian ruins and came across a Vovokan robotic exploration vessel. It knew about aliens living here, so we came to investigate, but it looks like catastrophe has struck.”

  “I can tell you what happened,” Telisa said. “Let’s meet FTF, as disturbing as that might be.”

  “Yes, let’s meet.”

  Telisa considered the possibility that this was a trap. Whose trap could it be? A Trilisk? They would have to carefully check for signs of Trilisk activity. Shiny? If it was something Shiny had engineered, she did not need to worry about giving away mission details. They might not want to mention any thoughts about resisting him, though...

  “Who’s on your team exactly?” Telisa asked as she thought it through.

  “We have myself, Arakaki and Maxsym,” her counterpart said. “We lost the rest.”

  Telisa could hear the pain in her voice. Telisa added a video feed of herself to the channel and Telisa9 returned the gesture. She looked at herself. The other stared as if afraid to speak.

  When she hears about Magnus... by the Five. She’s already waiting for me to say...

  “Magnus is here,” Telisa blurted. She watched her twin’s face freeze to hide the reaction that could not be hidden. Telisa knew exactly what her other self felt. She had been without Magnus for a long time before, but he had been returned to her.

  “This is very sudden—” Telisa9 stammered.

  “We also have Siobhan, Caden and Marcant. We lost our Cilreth in a battle with the Destroyers,” Telisa said.

  Not to mention a lot of others we’ve lost.

  “Ours too... though it wasn’t Destroyers. It was horrible,” Telisa9 said. “I’ve never heard of Marcant.”

  “I guess he’s too recent. He never worked with the team during the time we had the Trilisk columns with us.”

  “Then maybe he’s never been duplicated at all,” Telisa9 finished.

  “So Shiny has sent out
other teams led by my copies,” Telisa said. She realized her blunder after she had spoken. She shook her head. “Oops, sorry, I’m a copy too, a Trilisk host body like you.”

  Telisa9’s mouth opened slightly and her face darkened.

  Something’s wrong.

  “I’m not,” Telisa9 said slowly. “I mean, a copy, yes, but I’m a normal Terran.”

  “How’s that possible?”

  “Shiny has learned how to copy us as ordinary Terrans. It doesn’t have to be a host body anymore. Besides, Magnus led our team... he was...” Telisa9 faltered.

  Telisa anxiously swallowed, waiting for her to continue. The dread was palpable.

  “Magnus was a host body. Shiny did that to cement his place as the leader. But we came too close to a living Trilisk... It was days before we even knew. He took out half the team.” A tear ran down Telisa9’s face.

  Telisa absorbed that. It was not easy, and she had not even lived through it.

  She was broken.

  That scared Telisa.

  “We have safeguards in place, early warning signals to alert us of Trilisk activity.”

  “So did we,” Telisa9 said. “But we were out on an expedition far from the ship. When the Trilisk took him, it must have learned about the detection. It was able to remotely sabotage the warnings.”

  By the Five.

  “I’m willing to share him with you,” Telisa said quickly. She did not have to say who she meant. “Shiny took him off the team for a while... I know what you’re going through. Well, kind of. I always had hope of getting him back.”

  Telisa9 did not say anything. Telisa knew it was because she could not refuse the offer, even though she also felt wrong about accepting it.

  “We’ll talk about it more in a few minutes. Come over to this ship?” Telisa asked.

  “Yes...”

  She’s thinking about what to say to Magnus. Or whether to avoid him altogether.

  “Just to calm some nerves, we’d probably better exchange attendants first and scan each other for signs of Trilisks.”

  “Go ahead and send one over when we connect,” Telisa9 said. “We won’t. I know now that given sufficient warning, Trilisks can easily avoid giving themselves away.”

  Of course. They are Trilisks, after all. Stupid of me to think we had a guaranteed way of detecting them.

  “It’s not that bad, I think,” Telisa9 said. She must have been able to read her own face. “I think they usually do show themselves. It’s only if they know we’ll be looking that they might suppress all the normal signals, if for some reason they find themselves at a disadvantage and want to hide.”

  Which they usually don’t.

  “Let me tell my team what’s going on,” Telisa said.

  “Of course. We’ll all be there soon,” Telisa9 sent, then disconnected.

  Chapter 7

  Magnus waited for Telisa’s report with great concern. The seconds seemed to stretch forever. There was another ship out there, and they had no idea where it was. That meant they could be destroyed at any second.

  “We have visitors. Very special visitors. Marcant, get our Trilisk countermeasures on a hair trigger,” Telisa ordered.

  She wants us on high alert. And that command just accomplished it most effectively.

  Siobhan was the first to ask.

  “Aliens? Trilisks?”

  “Another PIT team,” Telisa answered. “They’ve had exposure to Trilisks.”

  Oh. That. And they ran afoul of Trilisks.

  Magnus checked his weapons.

  Where did I leave that special gas grenade?

  Magnus searched through a wall trunk filled with gear. He did not find what he was looking for: a grenade that would dispense Maxsym’s deadly anti-Trilisk gas.

  Of course. Lost it on the other Iridar. I should have brought it with me everywhere.

  Magnus steeled himself. He knew the “original” Telisa was in a column somewhere, so if his current Telisa was ever taken over, he should not hesitate to kill her. Even with that in mind, he felt serious reservations.

  “If I do anything amiss or we detect any signs... you know what to do,” she sent to the team channel.

  The other ship uncloaked. The sensors told Magnus it was a Vovokan ship. It closed on the Iridar and prepared to connect to it. He walked over to the lock. When he met Caden there, Magnus opened a private channel to communicate to Caden silently.

  “Even if we get the all clear, stay wary,” Magnus told him. “I’ll lead them to the mess, you take the rear.”

  Caden nodded. He did not complain about the plan to treat PIT members as potential enemies; he had heard the warning about Trilisks the same as everyone else.

  The lock cycled open, exposing a Vovokan connector tube that joined the ships. Magnus heard footsteps approaching. He had his rifle ready to fire, though lowered.

  The first person through the docking tunnel was a large blond man: Maxsym. He did not appear to be carrying a weapon. Though Maxsym looked similar to Magnus in complexion and size, his skillset and demeanor were much more peaceful.

  “Clear,” Marcant said on the team channel.

  Magnus walked forward and offered Maxsym his hand. Maxsym shook it firmly, but the look on his face was not pleasant.

  “Magnus. Very good to see you... again,” Maxsym said tightly.

  “And you, Maxsym,” Magnus said sincerely.

  What’s wrong here?

  A short, athletic woman with black hair and distinctly Asian facial features walked out next. She slowly nodded toward Magnus. He dipped his head in return.

  Arakaki.

  “She’s clear, too,” Marcant transmitted. “Though she’s stressed out. On edge.”

  Well, she’s walking into strange ship filled with other PIT teammate copies... but it’s more than that, isn’t it? She’s upset like Maxsym.

  An attendant passed Magnus and headed into the tunnel.

  Magnus felt a little awkward standing beside these ghosts. He imagined it was worse for Caden, who had almost worshipped Arakaki. Another Arakaki.

  The real awkwardness began when Telisa9 walked out to join them all. Her beautiful green eyes glanced at Magnus and then darted away.

  Oh, wow. She looks rattled.

  “None of them are Trilisks,” Marcant said on his PIT team’s channel. “I’ve sent an attendant into the connector tube as well. So far, all clear.”

  “Welcome to the Iridar. Our Iridar, I mean. We can talk in the mess,” Magnus said. He did not want to turn his back on them, but he thought they might feel the same way. He fell in beside Maxsym and walked them toward the mess, letting Caden take the rear.

  Unless he’s distracted by Arakaki, of course... stay paranoid, stay alive.

  Maxsym’s eyes wandered, examining the interior of the ship.

  “Is this of real Terran make, or is the Vovokan getting better at making ships for us?” asked Maxsym.

  “Yes, it’s Terran-made, though Shiny’s been sharing some know-how with the Space Force. Weapons especially, to help against Destroyers.”

  “I’ll just pretend like I know what Destroyers are,” Maxsym said. Magnus decided to wait to comment on that until they were all together.

  Caden offered his view to Magnus’s link, understanding that it might be tactically useful. Even though no fight had broken out, Magnus accessed the view and saw that both Arakaki and Telisa9 watched him carefully from behind, though perhaps for two very different reasons. Arakaki looked ready to put a bullet into him in an instant’s notice, while Telisa9’s gaze was more forgiving.

  They arrived at the mess. Siobhan, Telisa, and Marcant awaited them. Lee and Cynan had made themselves scarce.

  “What’s your mission here? You’re saving aliens?” Maxsym asked.

  Magnus thought that Telisa had said she already told the other Telisa the basics, but he supposed Maxsym might just be looking for details.

  Telisa saw she had the attention of the other three PIT members, so
she let them have it with both barrels.

  “The Quarus built robot weapons called the Destroyers. They decimated Shiny’s homeworld. These are the aliens that destroyed the Seeker. They sent Destroyers to inflict genocide on the Celarans as well. This was the Celaran homeworld.”

  “By the Five...” Telisa9 whispered.

  Maxsym’s face also showed surprise. Only Arakaki did not respond, except to shift her weight from one leg to the other. Magnus noted Arakaki had a stubby submachine gun hanging at her side. The other guests had only laser pistols.

  Well, at least she’s not a Trilisk.

  “I’ll send you pointers to the details on the Quarus and the Celarans,” Telisa told them.

  “I look forward to seeing some in person. Well, Celarans, at least. Do you have any samples?” Maxsym asked. “I’d like to take a look right away.”

  Magnus recalled that Maxsym had been the team’s xenobiology expert. He smiled, anticipating Telisa’s next revelation.

  “I neglected to mention, we have two Celarans on the team,” Telisa said. “Sorry about holding back on you, but, we all had a lot to absorb.”

  “I want to meet them!” Telisa9 said immediately.

  Maxsym brightened. Even Arakaki started to look around as if searching for the aliens already.

  “Lee?” Telisa signaled.

  Lee and Cynan made a dramatic appearance, flying in from the far door. Lee looped and swirled, excited as always. Cynan remained more stationary, with his silvery body hovering a meter above the floor.

  “Amazing!” Maxsym breathed. “Are the differences in their appearance related to sexual differentiation among Celarans?”

  “The vines twist and turn, but their leaves all grow alike,” Lee sent to them. “My species has but one gender.”

  “Cynan is a cyborg, is all,” Magnus clarified.

  Maxsym walked forward, delighted to examine the aliens. It looked funny to see such a large man as excited as a young child at a party.

  Caden, Siobhan, and Lee started to fill Maxsym in on the details of Celaran physiology. Lee basked in the attention happily, flying in acrobatic patterns and hovering before Maxsym. Magnus looked over at Telisa9. She and Telisa had moved away to talk between themselves.