The Celaran Solution (Parker Interstellar Travels Book 9)

by Michael McCloskey

  So many rods. So many owners now dead. And these must be just a fraction of the local count.

  The Celarans were opening the rods. Telisa supposed they might be searching for particular tools manually since many of the power cells might be dead. Or maybe the Celarans were looking for good power cells. She had no idea.

  Another Celaran seemed to take interest in the gear. It hovered nearby, doing something with one of its rods in the three-fingered hand at its front end.

  The rod flashed. One of the Celarans beside the salvaged gear darted away. The new Celaran flew in and collided with the other. They writhed against each other, rods in each hand. One of them retreated out of sight. Then the newcomer sorted through the pile. It had happened so fast that Telisa felt sure that she would not have been able to follow without her host body reflexes.

  “Did you see that? They’re fighting over that equipment!” Telisa said on the team channel. “Lee, is your group special? Are you and your friends much more peaceful than other Celarans?”

  “No, but when the vines are scarred by disaster, those who live among the vines are also changed,” Lee said.

  “It’s true,” Cynan said. “We who flit among the vines are known to be molded by extreme stress. We become monstrous. It hasn’t happened for hundreds of years, but the Destroyers have brought us to this.”

  “You had wars in the past? I had no idea,” Telisa said.

  “Not this strange Terran concept. But in times of great stress from natural disaster or overpopulation, we turn on one another until the numbers that hang from the vines are reduced. It’s a terrible part of our distant past I hoped we would never experience again.”

  Telisa was careful not to reply, but she felt a certain relief to see another piece of the puzzle fall into place.

  “So that’s what has happened here. It explains the Celaran behavior we’ve seen,” she said privately to Magnus.

  “We need to be more careful. You and I should not reveal ourselves to these Celarans,” Magnus pointed out. “We can’t expect them to react like Lee and Cynan. These are... for lack of a better word, savages.”

  “Magnus and I are missing a lot of what’s being said,” Telisa said her team. “We can’t read the flashes. It’s only you two that speak to us through the link protocol.”

  “I can send along what we observe,” Cynan offered.

  “Are you sure? Will you be able to keep up?”

  “I’ll set it up to happen automatically,” Cynan said. “My artificial parts can do this easily.”

  “Thank you,” Telisa said.

  Cynan’s feed came through to her link. Conversation logs started to fill. Telisa could pick any nearby talk to read through. She scanned through it and saw only mundane chatter so far.

  “Where should we go?” Magnus asked.

  “Around the town, clockwise,” Telisa said. “First trip around is looking for any cyborgs. If that comes up empty, we need to ask about a leader.”

  “This way, then,” Magnus said, taking the lead. As they walked around the old building with the rod pile, Telisa spoke with Lee and Cynan.

  “Are you two willing to reveal yourselves and interact with these people?” Telisa asked. It no longer felt weird to refer to Celarans as ‘people’.

  Hrm. I don’t think I would speak of Vovokans that way.

  “I will,” Cynan said. “Lee can stay cloaked. Why suck on the vine where predators can see?”

  “No, we’re all on the same vine. I’ll fit in better than you,” Lee said. “There may not be any cyborgs here anymore.”

  “Very well, if you want this sap together with its biting insects, then take it,” Cynan agreed.

  They walked around the worn buildings of the town. The Celarans Telisa saw were sluggish, droopy, and spoke little. It was a sad contrast to Lee’s normal behavior. The natives seemed to be sleeping, eating, or collecting and sorting supplies.

  No one detected them on their route around the town. The team and their scout attendants did not spot any cyborgs. Telisa stopped next to a huge support spike with holes around its perimeter that emitted streams of clear water. Celarans flitted in to drink from all directions.

  I thought they got their water from the sap. But I guess there isn’t enough sap for everyone here, so...

  “Lee, you’re on,” Telisa prompted.

  Lee faded into existence over her echoform. Within two seconds she was completely visible.

  “What now?” Lee asked.

  “Help us find the leader,” Telisa said. “There would be a leader here, wouldn’t there?”

  “Yes, likely there would be,” Cynan said. “Finding the leader should not be too difficult.”

  “I can ask,” Lee said.

  She flitted over to another drinker and flashed away. The other Celaran responded with rapid glowing chevrons, then flew away.

  “I know the name,” Lee said. “And I have an image.”

  “How do you tell each other apart?” Magnus asked.

  “On a light day or a dark one, everyone’s light panels have their own shape and spacing,” Lee said. “You can’t see it? That’s a good vine! Now I can admit, I can only tell you two apart from your clothes, weapons, or link identifiers.”

  “It’s the same for us,” Telisa said. “Our faces have slight variations that we learn to discern.”

  Telisa looked at Lee’s image of the leader. The Celaran had no Terran name yet.

  “So the leader is this... Leland,” Telisa said, pausing to assign a Terran name to the Celaran leader in her link memory.

  “Yes. You want to find his vine? It will be faster if you let me fly to find him.”

  Telisa considered that. How dangerous was the settlement?

  “Okay. At the first sign of any trouble, use your cloaking device and come back here,” Telisa told her.

  “As you say,” Lee said and darted off.

  “I can also recognize Leland,” Cynan pointed out.

  “Then look. Maybe you can stay closer to us, though. Magnus and I can’t move too far while cloaked, or Lee might not be able to find us when she returns.”

  “Surely there are some principles they could use to find the leader quickly,” Magnus said. “Wouldn’t Celaran leaders usually be found in certain places with higher probability than others?”

  “You sound like Marcant. Maybe Lee is doing exactly that right now. If we were trying to find a Terran leader, what principles would you follow?”

  Telisa watched Magnus’s echoform as he thought. The display was not helpful, as it only knew his location. She would not be able to tell if he was pondering or getting ready to take a shot. She supposed the echoform would change if he made a drastic motion—like dropping to do pushups.

  “I guess there would be no foolproof way. I’d just look for the best protected and well-equipped place in the town,” he finally replied.

  “A Celaran leader does not hang from the juiciest vine,” Cynan said. “Still, Lee found him.”

  “Already? That was easy,” Telisa said.

  “Well, you were just hanging on the vine,” Cynan pointed out.

  Telisa smiled, even though no one could see her face. “Fair enough. Lead the way, please.”

  They walked under a slender archway covered with the thin vines. To each side, a carbon-strut tower rose twice as high as a Celaran support spire, though the vines had been kept clear of the structures.

  Cynan routed a conversation into the channel.

  “We have nothing to offer travelers,” a Celaran said. Telisa saw the source field was marked as Leland. “Our vines are overused, and we have only a few power harvesters.”

  “We’re seeking groups of Celarans who left the planet,” Lee said.

  “Why would I know about that? Those who fled the vine cannot return to feed upon it. They won’t come back here. Why would they?” Leland said.

  “So you haven’t seen any cyborgs hanging from your vines?” Lee asked.

  “Oh, I
’ve seen one or two. I assumed they were ones left on an old vine to rot,” Leland said.

  “What vine did they leave for?”

  “I did not see them fly,” Leland said.

  “So you have no idea where they live?”

  “I don’t know. They wander the vines. They have no home stem or even a jungle to call their own.”

  “I fly now. I’ll flash you again when we next share the vine,” Lee said.

  “When we next share the vine,” the leader agreed.

  Lee flitted away and returned to her hidden teammates.

  “So much for that,” Telisa said. “We might strike out here.”

  “We can check the next oasis,” Magnus said, staying positive.

  “At least he’s seen cyborgs here. We’ve just missed them. We should choose a place where they may have traveled next,” Cynan suggested.

  Telisa did not want to accept failure just yet. The lack of progress just made her feel more stubborn.

  “I have an idea,” Telisa said. “Cynan, if you would become visible, too, we can check their reaction to you. And maybe someone would tell you if you have any cyborg friends around.”

  Cynan appeared where his echoform had hovered a moment before.

  “And if this doesn’t work to flush our prey from the leaves?”

  “We try another of these oases as Magnus and Cynan suggest,” Telisa said.

  Lee and Cynan floated side by side.

  Telisa did not see any large reactions from the Celarans nearby.

  They know what a cyborg Celaran is, and they’re not surprised.

  “Follow me. One more time around the town,” Telisa said. She walked with Magnus, still stealthed, while Lee and Cynan floated along.

  “We’re just parading Cynan around? Hoping for... what?” Magnus said privately.

  “A friend of the cyborgs might speak to him,” Telisa said.

  They traversed half the town without any such event, listening to Cynan’s translation service all the while. Then a local saw Cynan and flew by her Celaran teammate.

  “Tell that the vine is thicker near the base,” a Celaran flashed at Lee.

  Sounds like Celaran sarcasm. Or insult, Telisa thought.

  “I didn’t know they talked that way!” Magnus sent her privately. Telisa shrugged.

  “Why did you call this cybernetic sap sucker that name?” Lee asked.

  “Some vines look the same. Isn’t he ?” replied the one who had flashed the message.

  “I’m Cynan,” Cynan said. “Is there another like me here?”

  “The wind blows the bugs off the vines,” came the reply. “Perhaps he will be back.”

  “Bribe him,” Telisa said. “We have power cells, or you could give him some of your sap bars.”

  “Your words are strange. The translator is not working, I think,” Lee said to her team. “If this one could help us, he would. You want me to give him gifts?”

  “Back from where?” Lee asked the stranger.

  “He always comes from the south flight path over the machines we left to dismantle the Screamers.”

  A new path appeared on the tactical.

  “He lives that way?”

  “I don’t know, but he must. What other explanation is there?” the native Celaran flew off.

  “Okay, we have a lead,” Telisa said. “Let’s check it out.”

  The path brought them south until the vines thinned. Telisa took a look from the edge of the Celaran town. The greenish support spikes were almost barren, like the bare tree trunks of a denuded forest. Ugly reddish vines, diseased and dying, clung from the spikes, though they did not manage to climb even half way up their supports.

  Telisa sent a scout attendant ahead to check the path.

  “We should hide again,” Lee suggested.

  “Look!”

  The attendant spotted something new. Telisa focused on the video feed in her PV. It resembled a Destroyer. Her heart skipped a beat. Then it occurred to her the stranger was more Cynan’s size. The lack of light and wind quickly made it clear that it was a lone Celaran cyborg. The team headed down the path to meet it.

  When the stranger saw Lee and Cynan, he did not run. When they approached within twenty meters, the other flashed and Telisa heard the translation from Cynan.

  “You’re not familiar,” said the cyborg. “Did you come from space?”

  “My vine rested on a colony planet,” Cynan said. “I’ve come back to the homeworld with help for your vinemates.”

  The cyborgs closed on each other until they were only five meters apart. They grew still, floating calmly above the sickly vine stumps.

  “What are they doing?” Telisa asked.

  “They have faster methods of data transfer that use other kinds of light that are not seen except with machines,” Lee said happily. “Just like your links. It will allow them to become friends much faster, I think.”

  The stranger was the first to flash again. Cynan’s translation resumed.

  “This is hard to believe. Can it really be so?”

  “It’s luck for all who hang from our vine,” Cynan assured him.

  Telisa got tired of the unknown name; she tagged the alien Undine and shared the name with Magnus.

  “Undine?” Magnus queried.

  “Well it starts with U like unknown, and, after all, they fly in a wave motion like an undulation,” Telisa explained.

  “After this, I’m telling Marcant that we need an auto name generator at the highest priority,” Magnus joked. They focused on the other conversation.

  “In older days I would have trusted you,” Undine was saying. “However, now, many of us are damaged by the horrors. It will be difficult to—”

  Telisa deactivated her stealth sphere to reveal herself before Undine. The Celaran retreated several meters.

  “A threat underleaf!” exclaimed Undine, but he did not continue to retreat.

  “This is one of the aliens I speak of,” Cynan said.

  Undine started to float around Telisa, getting a better look at her.

  “Why do you trust this thing of the roots?”

  I guess that’s what a walking thing gets called around here.

  “They have saved a whole colony of us on vines under another star,” Cynan said. “These very ones faced the Screamers and broke their parts.”

  “Really? All aliens are dangerous, then.”

  “They’ve come to dismantle the Screamers! They brought many ships. But the Celarans from the distant star seek allies on these vines, allies like us.”

  “Yes. There are more like us, driven underleaf by the Destroyers. Many more. I’ll go to my superiors and deliver your message at once.”

  “Cynan, please arrange a method to contact Undine in the future,” Telisa said.

  “I’ve done it,” Cynan replied simply.

  Undine turned and headed back the way he had come.

  We succeeded. And everyone’s still alive.

  “Great job! Time to head back,” Telisa said. “Just to be super safe, why don’t you guys cloak again for the hike back... or the flight back, I mean.”

  Telisa chose a return path that shared most of the route they had taken on the way in so that they could avoid traps or other unknown threats. She shared it on the tactical.

  The team cloaked again.

  “We’ve almost made it free and clear. Let’s not mess it up now by getting sloppy. Keep a sharp lookout for Destroyers, and mind the traps. Let’s get home in one piece,” she told her team.

  They set out. Attendants led the way to scout out dangers. Lee followed about fifty meters behind with Cynan at her side. Telisa and Magnus took up the rear.

  “We need a name for this faction,” Magnus said to her privately.

  “What’s wrong with ‘the cyborgs’?” asked Telisa.

  “Vague. How about the Cylerans?” Magnus said.

  “Cylerans. Clever, but it sounds almost exactly like Celarans,” Telisa s
aid.

  “You have a better idea?”

  Telisa shrugged. “Hopefully it’s just a temporary thing. If the groups of Celarans reunite, then we won’t need to name any subgroup of them.”

  “Yes, let’s hope so.”

  Chapter 11

  Telisa9 was still thinking of Magnus when her team debarked. They started in a sea of sickly red vines where the support spikes rose naked far above the leaves. One of her attendants floated upwards and fed her a view over the area, facing their target. The vegetation ahead soared higher, forming a green mountain of oval rotundas and passageways connecting them.

  Siobhan walked with Caden. The two formed a sub-pair of the team. It reminded Telisa9 of Magnus yet again. Arakaki walked a meter to their right, silently observing the vines, her weapon ready. In a strange way, Arakaki was like a female replacement for Magnus: always alert and loaded with weapons.

  If we had all met at the same time, Magnus might have ended up with her. Though I doubt that would have been an exclusive arrangement. Sharing him with her would have been much more painful than sharing him with my copy.

  The group approached the edge of the anomaly and headed straight between two round towers of vines. Telisa9 felt that something was off. It came to her quickly: there were no bugs crawling or flying around.

  “Weird,” Caden summarized quietly.

  “In more ways than one,” Siobhan said. “There’s much less diversity in the smaller life forms around here.”

  “Less diversity? I don’t see any native creatures,” Telisa9 said.

  “The scans show there are some, just not a wide selection,” Siobhan explained.

  “There should be Celarans here too, right?” Arakaki asked. “Isn’t this an important food source?”

  “I’m pretty sure whatever got rid of our attendants flushed out the bugs, and probably any Celarans that flew in,” Telisa9 said.

  “If the same happens to us, it may be a long walk home,” Arakaki pointed out. Telisa9 understood what she was saying, but she planned on having the Iridar pick them up if they got scattered across the continent.

  The team walked onward. The vine runners grew in dense, flowing lines like metal shavings conforming to a magnetic field. Arakaki led the way into the wide opening of a vine tunnel that gradually narrowed like the mouth of a rectangular loudspeaker.