Wars

by Alex Deva

“I ask again. Do you know who they are?“

  “Would you believe me if I told you?“

  The Chief’s thorax collapsed as she exhaled in quiet fury. She pondered for a few moments, then walked to the door.

  “Have them,“ she said, not looking. “But I shall remember this.“

  * * *

  They sat on the floor, in the gently swaying liquid that Zi’s suit declared to be, more or less, water. They sat with their knees bent, the modern soldier’s right boot barely touching the ancient one’s left one, just enough so they could communicate through induction, with a reasonable expectation of privacy.

  “Did you make anything of that?“ asked Aram.

  “Went too fast for me,“ said Zi. “I tried counting the light pulses, but they were too strong and I kinda blinked a lot.“

  “Yeah. I wonder what it was.“

  “Oh, I know what it was. They’re trying to communicate with us.“

  The Dacian was interested. “With light? How does that work?“

  “Well, not very well, apparently.“

  “You think they didn’t hear us yelling at them?“

  “I don’t even know if they have ears.“

  “Did that Jox woman have ears?“

  Zi looked sidelong at Aram. “How the hell should I know? I’m a soldier, not an ear detective. I didn’t check her for organs.“

  Aram shook his head slowly and looked ahead again. The light show had stopped, and was now being replaced by some bluish shapes which were so transparent he could barely see them.

  “Ultraviolet,“ said Zi, and then explained: “Literally too purple for our eyes to see.“

  “Hum,“ made Aram. “Very purple, in Latin. I thought I’d heard you wrong.“

  “How’s your air?“

  “About four hours. Yours?“

  “Just over half an hour.“

  “But you said we could share?“

  “Yep,“ said Zi, confidently. It was Aram’s turn to look sidelong at him.

  Suddenly the shapes vanished, and a long rectangle appeared in one of the walls, as a part of it fell down. A tall alien stepped through, carrying a large pouch in one hand. He stepped in front of the two men, who looked at him expectantly. It had been the first live alien they had met, and sitting down seemed kinda wrong. Slowly, they got up to their feet, and raised their right hands in a human salute.

  The alien began to lift his left hand, then appeared to think better of it, and raised his own right hand in response. Aram smiled encouragingly.

  The alien sat down slowly, allowing the bag to sit on the floor in the pooling water right in front of him. He opened it and brought out a long, ovoid object, with a transparent front. Fiddling with it for a few moments, he fitted it over his head. Then, he pointed at it with both his hands; and then, he pointed at Aram’s suit helmet. After that, he repeated the motion, pointing at Zi’s helmet.

  Without looking, Zi reached slowly to his right and touched Aram’s sleeve. “I think he means to talk to us about air,“ he said.

  “Thank fuck for that,“ said the Dacian.

  “This is gonna be interesting,“ said Zi.

  The alien produced another device from his bag; this time, it was a hexagonal, white box, about the size of a human head; he attached a tripod underneath and installed it in front of him, before the two men. The side facing him appeared to have an opening, because he stuck his hand in it and appeared to be doing something inside the box.

  Concentric ripples appeared in the water around the box, which Zi watched curiously. The ripples changed size, number and disposition, and in a few seconds his suit microphones picked up a low, booming noise. As the sound slowly increased pitch, so changed the circles on the water, and when the sound turned to a clear, crystalline tone, he finally caught on.

  “Stop,“ he said on his suit’s speakers, and raised his hand at the same time.

  “What’s going on?“ asked Aram.

  “He’s sweeping through frequencies, trying to see which one we can hear.“

  The alien leaned to the left and then to the right, in what must’ve been satisfaction, and the pitch remained constant, then stopped. His hand twitched more inside the box, and soon, from inside it, came Zi’s own voice:

  “Stop.“

  “Smart guy. He’s figured out that we communicate by sound waves.“

  “I saw an old raven do that once,“ said Aram. “Are you sure this means he’s smart?“

  “Let’s see where it takes us,“ replied the soldier, and then said, on speakers:

  “Hello.“

  The alien swayed left and right, and a perfect reproduction of Zi’s voice soon came: “Hello.“

  And then, again:

  “Hello.“

  And it continued:

  “Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello.“

  “I’ve seen a…“ began Aram.

  “I know,“ said Zi. “Shut up and wait.“

  After a few dozen times, the playback stopped. The alien kept doing things inside the box for another minute, then stopped, and finally took out his hand. Using both hands, he indicated the box and then pointed at Zi and Aram.

  “Say something,“ said Zi to Aram, privately.

  The Dacian looked at him. “To the box? What?“

  “Anything.“

  Aram opened his mouth and closed it, then opened it again, and started talking.

  “It was my thirteenth year… On a cold winter’s day, as I walked through the Enchanted Forest, I heard the sounds of horses and men at arms.“

  Zi looked at him as if he was crazy, but the alien put his hands in between them and the box, and Aram stopped talking.

  “What the hell was that? What enchanted forest?“

  “It’s from a Manowar song.“

  “A what song?“

  “It’s called The Warrior’s Prayer.“

  “The… whose what?“

  “You think the box didn’t like it?“

  Zi blinked once, then shook his head.

  The alien brought up his hands in front of his face, as if asking for attention, and the two men turned towards him. He reached into his bag and produced two white cubes, which he set onto the floor. He waved his left hand over them, and then unfurled two long, many-jointed fingers from his right hand.

  “Teaching us how to count?“ ventured Aram.

  The alien repeated the gesture, but this time unfurled three fingers. Then, he did it again, with two; and again, with three; and so went on.

  “What’s he mean when he shows us three fingers?“ the Dacian wondered.

  “I don’t know,“ said Zi. “I mean… there are only two cubes.“

  “That we can see.“

  “So why three fingers?“

  “Idiot can’t count…?“

  “Or he’s checking if we can?“

  “How the hell would he travel to another planet not knowing how to count?“

  “I have an idea,“ said Zi. He watched the alien, who was patiently waving over the cubes with one hand, and showing two fingers.

  “Yes,“ he said, loudly.

  The alien stopped for an instant, then continued the movement with three fingers.

  “No,“ said Zi.

  Again, two fingers.

  “Yes.“

  And three.

  “No.“

  The alien swayed and put the cubes back into the bag. Then, he waved towards his helmet again, and then towards Aram’s, and then again towards Zi’s. A few seconds passed, and a message popped up inside Zi’s helmet indicating that the outside levels of carbon dioxide were increasing. He quickly brought up the atmosphere diagnostic page, and sure enough, the carbon dioxide levels were passing thirty percent and climbing, while oxygen and nitrogen remained constantly low. The soldier understood: whatever else was in the atmosphere was being replaced.

  “No,“ he said quickly.

  After a few seconds, the numbers stopped growing, and instead went down.

  R
ight idea, wrong gas, he thought.

  “No,“ he said again.

  As the numbers stopped changing altogether, he stopped expectantly. In less than half a minute, the nitrogen started increasing. He watched it climbing all the way to about sixty-five percent, then said:

  “Yes.“

  Nothing else happened for the next few minutes, during which he hastily explained to Aram what was going on. He assumed that the alien was, by then, attempting to guess the other gases suitable for humans, but since their suits would only recognise and measure the gases normally found on Earth, they had no indication about it. But then the oxygen levels started going up. Zi sighed with relief. Finally, he thought.

  He allowed it to reach a nice, round thirty, and tried to make his “yes“ sound as close to the previous ones as possible. The atmospheric indicators inside his helmet had already turned green, the scrubbers went offline and the suit began to refill its ultrahigh pressure reservoirs.

  Here it goes, he thought, as he undid the latches and took off his helmet; Aram followed a second later.

  The air was incredibly humid. The surface of their suits and their visors were totally water repellent and impermeable, but when they could finally feel it on their faces, it hit them. A fine mist was constantly falling from the ceiling. The maximum relative humidity had been noted by the suits, but not considered a problem. Still, after breathing nothing but canned air for so long, it felt strange. There was also a smell, that mixture of ozone and other things commonly referred to as “the smell of rain.“

  “Not bad,“ said Aram, sniffing.

  “Yeah. I call that progress.“

  The alien swayed, and raised two fingers.

  “I think he agrees,“ said the Dacian, returning the victory sign. Zi breathed in deeply, smiled, and said:

  “Thanks.“

  The alien swayed again, and the soldier said, somewhat taken aback:

  “I think he got that.“

  “What?“

  “I think he understood when I thanked him.“

  “What? Really? You think this guy understands English?“

  Zi’s eyebrows nearly joined as he said: “I know. Kinda farfetched, right?“

  The Dacian made a face, then said: “Hell, let’s just ask.“ And then, to the alien:

  “Can you understand us?“

  The alien promptly lifted two fingers.

  “Whoa,“ said Aram. He tried to read the expression of the creature in front of him; he could see his face well enough through the aliens's helmet visor, but other than the big eyes (if they were eyes) he could find nothing that might express any meaning.

  “Impressive,“ said Zi. “I can see how he learned about yes and no, but the whole English language?“

  “Didn’t take me all that long,“ said Aram.

  Zi smiled.

  “Question is, where do we go from here? How do we understand what he’s saying?“

  “I don't know,“ said Aram. “But I know someone who does.“

  XL.

  Mark almost didn’t notice when the walls started glowing again. He was sitting on the floor, with his back against the light crate and his eyes closed. The only thing he noticed was a change in the hue on the back of his eyelids, which made him blink and look around. The room was gently lit, as it had always used to, in the same pale yellow light coming from everywhere.

  The first thing he did was to check on Doina; her breathing had become faster, more consistent with that of a sleeping child, and her pulse had quickened. He shook her gently, and her eyes opened almost at once.

  The wave of relief that Mark felt was beyond description. It was like waking up from a nightmare. He forgot at once all the black thoughts he’d been fighting against until only a few seconds earlier.

  “Doina!“ he exclaimed.

  “What… ouch,“ said the girl, trying to sit up. “My back hurts.“

  “Sorry,“ said Mark. “Didn’t find a proper mattress.“

  “What’s this?“

  “Some insulation. Never mind. How are you feeling?“

  “Like I overslept. What… what’s going on? How long have I been sleeping?“

  “I’m actually not sure. Do you remember what happened?“

  She tried again to sit up and Mark helped her. She rubbed her eyes and gazed around the room.

  “What are those?“ she asked, pointing at the light tripods.

  “Just lights,“ said Mark.

  “Why, what’s wrong with Doi’s lights?“

  “They went out. Doi blacked out, and so did you. You really don’t remember?“

  “I remember telling Doi to… Oh, God. What happened? Where’s Aram, Effo? Where’s Zi?“

  “I was rather hoping you could explain. I don’t know how subjectively long we’ve travelled, not to mention how, but as near as we could tell, after we arrived both you and the starship… turned off, I think, somehow.“

  “Doi doesn’t just turn off,“ frowned the girl.

  “Well, she did.“

  “But you said we’ve arrived?“

  “Yes.“

  “How do you know?“

  Mark swallowed and scratched the tip of his nose. “I think the starship entered some kind of safe mode,“ he said. “It hooked me up to the Builder’s world and I talked to someone named Control, someone who knew about the starship and the… alien who built it, Toma. Keai. Whatever.“

  The girl’s eyes were wide. “You spoke to another Builder?“

  “She looked like a human. For the most part.“

  “Unbelievable. What did she say?“

  “That she could restart the starship remotely, and that she thought that would also fix you, and apparently she did and it did, and I’m ever so grateful.“

  She gave a little smile.

  “I have no idea what happened,“ she said. “I didn’t feel anything wrong. I wonder…“

  “…if it’ll happen again on the way back,“ he continued.

  “Yes, exactly.“

  “I wonder, too.“

  She stood up, waved her arms and the starship surrounded her with her usual countless floating glyphs. Mark took it as a final sign that all was well, so he stood up too, and went to turn off the lights and pack them in. The girl moved her thin arms this way and that, checking and feeling, ignoring him completely. At some point, she created a lower gravity zone around her and began to float, her ponytail raising slowly from the back of her neck. Mark shut the lid of the crate, and sat on it.

  “This can’t be right,“ she said, suddenly. “Zi flew alone, in space, all the way to the planet and then fell to the surface?“

  “That’s exactly what he did,“ said Mark, hardly believing it himself. “We couldn’t come up with a better plan. Effo only carries one.“

  “But that’s crazy,“ she said. “He wasn’t protected out there. He must’ve weighed… many times his own weight, for a long time.“

  “Yep.“

  She thought about the elite soldiers of her own days, the Ungri Nigri, and their scary tales of the twelfth century. “I thought in the future you didn’t need to be insane to be a soldier,“ she mused.

  “Usually not. But sometimes it helps,“ said the Brit.

  “I’m sorry the plan didn’t work.“

  “Well, most plans don’t work. Especially crazy ones like ours. I think that…“

  “Aram’s not with Effo,“ she interrupted.

  He stopped, and thought about it for a moment. “Ok,“ he said. “What else?“

  “Effo is in a lake… no, I think it’s a pool. It’s surrounded by strange creatures, very tall, with faces that have no mouth or nose, and really long arms and legs.“

  “Do they breathe up and down instead of forwards and back?“

  “Yes… yes, exactly.“

  “That’s Jox’s people, then. Where are Aram and Zi?“

  “I don’t know. They’re not around Effo. But I can call them on their space, erm, radios.“


  “What, from here?“

  “I could, but it’s easier to do it through Effo. I just need to…“

  “No,“ said Mark. “Please don’t. Not yet.“

  “Why not? What if they’re in trouble?“

  “We don’t know that they’re in trouble, and by calling them we could get them in trouble.“

  The girl looked at him, then turned back to her floating glyphs. “Fine,“ she conceded. “What should we do then?“

  “Several things,“ said Mark. “One…“

  * * *

  “This isn’t working,“ said Aram. “This damn cricket can understand everything we say, but he can’t, or won’t say anything that makes sense to us.“

  “Which means that he can’t ask questions,“ said Zi.

  “Or answer ours.“

  “Unless we ask yes or no questions.“

  “And if we trust him.“

  They fell silent. The alien was looking from one to the other, offering nothing. The two men had a vague idea how the aliens were communicating — it was a raspy sound, right at the edge of human hearing range, which they’d noticed on their way in — but the “cricket“ appeared, for all intents and purposes, not to be doing any talking.

  “You know, I just remembered we have a job to do,“ said Aram.

  “Yes,“ said Zi, quietly noticing the reaction that Aram’s words had on the alien.

  “Listen, your Cricketship,“ said Aram. “We need to get back to that big black round thing we came in.“

  “He came in,“ said Zi.

  “We came with.“

  The alien seemed to ponder. He brought his arms together in front of him, rubbing them, somewhat absently, and then made the decision: he put the white box back in his bag, and stood up in a very complex motion. The two men followed suit, and the alien exited the room. The door rose back up before Aram and Zi had a chance to step through.

  They looked at each other stupidly.

  “What the fuck?“ said Aram.

  “I… Oh, shit. Air,“ remembered Zi. “Seal up, he’s only fixed us up with air in this one room. Out there it’ll be unbreathable, unless he’s gonna terraform the whole planet for us, and make every cricket wear a suit.“

  Aram was locking his helmet in place; Zi locked his own, then checked Aram’s. They both turned to the place in the wall where the door had been, and waited. A minute passed; then another one.