by Alex Deva
He flew high and wide, then came swooping down and targeted one ground cannon. He rolled to offer the most narrow possible profile to his own incoming fighters, and asked Effo for a really tight offensive beam. He aimed three times, very carefully, with Effo storing each location; it would be locked regardless which way he flew from now on. Then, he fired in quick succession, so quickly that it appeared that the shots were simultaneous. The ascending bolts of fire ceased.
He found the strange ship, which looked like a hexagonal pyramid with a rounded top. At every edge it had one long, triangular wing, and underneath glowed six hot engines. He put himself between it and the fighters, and spoke in the suit’s comm.
“Zi, are you in that weird thing?“
The Albanian’s voice came back strangled and pained.
“Is it flying and taking fire?“
“It’s sorta flying, and just stopped taking fire.“
“Then I probably am in it. Thanks for the cover.“
“Don’t thank me yet. Is the cricket with you?“
“He’s either flying this thing or pickling, not sure which.“
“Glad you made it,“ said Aram.
“You too.“
“We’re glad you made it too, Zi,“ Doina’s voice joined.
“Lieutenant,“ said Mark. “Do you carry any cargo?“
“Affirmative,“ said Zi. “Just not one hundred sure it’s the right cargo.“
A short silence. “Just come on home, guys.“
The Saudade fighters were not giving up. They had taken up positions in an ascending circle, firing as they went up, making it really difficult for Aram to protect ken Selloa’s ship. The fact that they didn’t dare fly any closer to Effo made the aliens slightly worse shots. For a while, Aram tried to fly up in a spiral, but even he could not cover the entire circle all at once, and he was surprised to see that the pyramid ship was not flying straight up, but also in a wide spiral. At first he thought about ways to get in contact with ken Selloa and ask why, but when the first couple of fighters broke formations, he understood. They could not fly forever; they had limited fuel supplies.
With ten fighters left, he decided to change tactics. He noticed how equally spaced the fighters flew, how much they liked order and how disciplined the pilots were. Responding to the annoying pain in his side, he decided to help his attackers run out of fuel. He swooped down at them, tumbling madly edge over edge, dodging and rolling almost randomly, like a meteor out of space. They tried to aim at him simultaneously and he was even hit a couple of times, but he managed to scare two fighters away. They lost altitude; one of them tried to loop back up, but by then it was so low it had no chance of catching up, so both fighters disengaged and left. Aram repeated the tactic, and this time, by attacking from a side, he managed to avoid getting shot altogether, as the fighters on the far side were afraid to hit the others, who seemed reluctant to break formation.
When only three were left, and just as he was looking for the best angle to come at them, two of them gave up; one lonely fighter, probably their leader, pursued a few more seconds, squeezing a few more shots, but Aram had placed himself between it and the escaping ship, and simply let himself fall towards the fighter in a huge ball of fire. The leader gave up.
“You’re clear,“ Aram said to Zi. “Also, how do I tell this suit to give me little more of that good stuff?“
“Are you shot?“ gasped Zi. “How badly?“
“I’ll live.“
“Did you get both shots?“
“Two, yeah.“
“Well, that’s it then. Can you take it a little longer?“
“I said I’ll live.“
“Fly ahead if you want, no need to wait for us.“
“You don’t know the way.“
“Doina can help us.“
“Will you shut up and just hurry.“
* * *
Doina was waiting in front of the airlock door, and pushed it impatiently just as it was about to open. When it did open, she fell right into Aram, who was leaning against the frame, holding his left side with the right hand, and fumbling with his helmet lock with his left. She tried to help him, but she had no idea what she was doing, and only ended up being in the way.
Mark gently took Aram’s hand away. There was a scary round hole in the outer layer, thick as a thumb, but no blood; the suit sealed itself with a bulge covering the wound inside. He felt the bulge, which he assumed to be a pressure pack, and then followed it to Aram’s back, where he found an exit hole, twice as large.
“Hi,“ managed Aram, finally. “The others are just above the airlock.“
“We know,“ said Doina. “Are you alright? Come and lie down.“
The Dacian stumbled forward, grimacing. Mark got under his shoulder and steadied him.
“Easy, mate. Steady on. One step at a time.“
They moved slowly through the starship’s spoke, and as they approached the outer torus, they began changing gravity. Doina walked backwards, one step in front of Aram, holding his hand and watching his sweaty face in worry. Once they’d exchanged the vertical, she opened the door to Room One, but didn’t go in.
“Zi just came out of their ship,“ she explained. “I’ll go open the outer airlock.“
“Thanks, Doi,“ said Mark, trying to step inside at the same time as Aram. “But don’t open the inner door until I’m there.“
“Let’s go back,“ grunted Aram.
“You stay here,“ said Mark. “It’s alright, he’s friendly.“
“He’s a thief. He kidnapped us. He’s only in it for the profit.“
“We’re all in it for something,“ said the Brit. “Don’t worry.“
“Let me sit down back there in the spoke,“ tried Aram finally. “I can… trip him or something.“
Mark sighed. “No doubt you can. Or you can stay here and look after One.“
Aram didn’t argue.
“Doina fixed a place for you. It’s here somewhere…“ Mark felt his way around in the air with his hands and feet, and then said “Ah! Here it is.“ He helped Aram slowly lie on his back, and the starship held him, one metre above the floor, in its gentle yellow light. The Dacian held on Mark for support and, turning slightly on his right side, he let go and floated. Drops of sweat left his face, and formed round, perfectly spherical tiny globes.
“This is nice,“ he said, closing his eyes. “This is… nice.“
Mark rushed back.
* * *
When the inner cockpit door opened, Doina breathed in sharply. Inside, supporting a big column of irregular purple goop, stood Zi, propped with both feet on the ground and holding the thing with both hands.
“Help,“ he mouthed towards Mark.
“Where do you want me?“ asked the Brit, astounded.
“Helmet,“ he yelled behind the reinforced polycarbonate screen.
“Get his helmet off,“ said Doina, looking at the purple pillar in fascination. It was somewhat transparent, and inside it stood, trapped, a very tall bipedal creature, with very long arms and legs, an elongated torso which was slowly moving up and down, and a head that did not appear to have a mouth.
Mark managed to undo the latch on Zi’s helmet, and the soldier breathed in, then grimaced.
“Thirrje, this thing smells,“ he said. “I had no idea.“
“What is this?“
“These people don’t seem to have any space suits. Or at least this guy didn’t. He flew the ship from inside this big pool, in the bottom half the ship. I was in it, too. And since we didn’t tell me what to do and just stopped moving once we arrived, I had to pretty much carve him out with my bare hands and push him out in space.“
“How? Through where?“
“He opened up a side of the ship, while he was still hooked up. Cool stuff, brain control or some such.“
Mark tried to imagine the scene; the inside of an alien vessel, with one side open to space, Zi digging out a huge alien from a pool filled with goop.
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“I assumed this thing protects him somehow, and since he didn’t offer any resistance, and he doesn’t seem to be especially dead, I also assume I did the right thing. I hope.“
“How are we gonna get it out?“
“I figure it comes off once it likes what it breathes.“
Doina frowned. “And what does it breathe?“
As Zi recited the gas proportions, Doina’s frown subsided.
“Fine. I can ask Doi to set up a room for it.“
“He,“ said Zi. “He’s a he.“
The girl looked at the goop pillar, nonplussed. She gently scratched her nose with her little thumbnail.
“How can you tell?“ she asked, eventually.
“We can’t,“ said Mark, with a tiny smile, “but Doi can. In the translations, this… person was referred to as a ‘he’.“
“Oh,“ nodded the girl. “Yes, that’s right.“
“So,“ said Zi, conversationally, and the others could finally see just how tired the soldier was. “Permission to come aboard.“
“God, of course,“ said Doina. “But what do we do with… him?“
“Can you fix his air right here in the airlock?“
“Sure.“
“Then I say we leave him right where he is. We can talk to him later.“
The girl looked a little puzzled, and giving the tall alien a final gaze, she moved out of the way. Mark and Zi let the alien’s form gently down on the floor, then retreated through the door and back into the spoke.
“How’s Aram?“ asked Zi, wiping sweat off his temples.
“Let’s go see,“ said Mark. “Look out now, we…“
“…change the vertical. I know.“
The girl ran ahead and into Room One, where she put her hand on Aram’s forehead. “He’s hot,“ she pronounced.
“First aid kit,“ said Zi.
“Already here,“ said Mark. “I just didn’t really know what’s what. Some of the things look a little different than in my age.“
“No problem,“ said Zi, opening the big bag and sorting through the smaller packs. First thing, take off the suit’s pressure pack, clean the wound, then pack it fresh and give him a boost.“
“Antibiotics?“ asked Mark.
Zi looked up at him, frowning in surprise. “You know, they might actually work on him, seeing as how he’s never had any, I suppose. But it doesn’t matter, since we don’t have any.“
“We don’t have any antibiotics?“
“Nobody does. We ran out a couple of centuries ago.“
Mark was wordless. “You what? We what?“
“They stopped working, man, like everyone knew they would.“
The Brit considered, and swallowed dry. “So what do we give him instead then?“
Zi smiled. “Watch,“ he said.
* * *
Mark tried to help as much as he could. Zi worked quietly, methodically and quickly. He applied a thin paste on Aram’s suit, in a line around the wound, and the suit cracked open along that line, coming off without affecting the skin in any way. The wound had blackened slightly, but Zi took out a small bag of local anaesthetic and poured it in and over the wound; then he put back on his suit helmet and inserted a hair-thin endoscope into the entry. He took his hands off it and the tiny tube seemed to move by its own volition; Mark quickly realised that the soldier was controlling it with his suit computer. When the endoscope pulled out, it was covered in dark stuff.
“Dead tissue and foreign bodies,“ said Zi, taking off his helmet. He threw the dirty medical device in a small tray, and unsealed a pressure pack.
“So what about infections?“ asked Mark.
“Already taken care of.“
“How?“
Zi looked at him, smugly. “Guess.“
Mark looked at him, then at the wound, then at the endoscope.
“What! Really? Nanites?“
“If you mean nanos, then yes. Tiny, tiny robots.“
Mark nodded appreciatively. “Very impressive.“
All this time, Doina stood to a side, not wanting to come closer, and seemingly engaged in congress with the starship. Zi put both his hands in a side compartment of the first-aid kid, and the thin sterile layer that had covered his hands vanished into small crystals. Then, he gave Mark a discrete signal. The Brit stepped away, and the soldier followed. In the tiniest of whispers, he asked:
“Why doesn’t she fix him?“
“What?“ asked Mark.
“Well, she brought you from the dead, didn’t she?“
“Wasn’t her,“ said the Brit. “Ship’s Builder did that. Doina isn’t that advanced… yet.“
Zi nodded noncommittally, then went back to Aram’s floating body.
“How is he?“ asked the girl.
“We’ll see in a couple of hours,“ he answered. “I wonder, did you have time to fix the cricket’s air?“
The girl gave half a smile. “Yes. He’s out of the goop. It came off, just as you said. You can talk to him when you want.“
“We do,“ said Mark. “Please put him on.“
Top ken Selloa’s long form appeared in a three-dimensional projection in front of them. He was seeing them too, because he started producing those edge-of-human-hearing hisses, which the ship translated in real time.
“Who are you?“ he asked.
“My name is Mark Gardener, this is Doina,“ said Mark. “You already know Zi.“
“Where is the other one?“
“Aram got shot escaping, but he lives.“
The alien swayed. “I regret that,“ he said. “It was risky to begin with.“
“Let’s not forget you were the one who made it risky.“
“I am the one who made it worth it. Otherwise they would still be in a box right now, waiting for those idiots to figure out a way to talk to them. Where is my ship?“
“Right outside the airlock you’re in.“
“Ah,“ said the alien, considering. “So we are not under way yet?“
“Under way?“
“My ship is detectable. The military will follow it and find us here.“
Mark looked at Doina, who shook her head.
“We’re sorry, but if we move, we cannot take your ship. Do you have anything of value on it?“
“It is itself valuable, but given your own vessel, perhaps it is not that interesting. Not equally interesting as my… gift.“
“Your recordings of the dead military scientist’s last days.“
“Complete scans. Everything he did, everything he worked at, up to and including his death. And more.“
“But nothing concrete that might help us against the Squares.“
The alien sat down in the airlock, waving his feet as if missing the water.
“It is not impossible that our military has missed something in the scans. After all, he was murdered on order by the Squares, so he must’ve had something.“
The girl grimaced, and looked elsewhere.
“I am ready to discuss terms,“ said the alien, brightly. “Then you can send my information to your home planet and drop me off somewhere safe. I have a few suggestions in that regard. A small compensation would be in order, for my effort and for the loss of my perfectly good ship, as well as for the return of your colleague, and of course, a rather larger compensation if any valuable information will be derived from the scans.“
Mark looked at Doina and gestured discreetly; the girl understood again, and disabled one side of the translation.
“He has what Doi calls a portable memory on him,“ she said. “We don’t need him to give it to us. Doi can read it anyway.“
The Brit raised an eyebrow, but didn’t comment. “Fine,“ he said. “Copy it, if you’re sure he won’t notice. But more importantly, can we fly home?“
“Doi says yes,“ said the girl, with some hesitation.
“And what do you say?“
“Well, we… I mean, the ship and I, will probably black out again after we arrive.
It won’t hurt, and it won’t take as long to come back to life, because now Doi knows what to expect, but I’m not really looking forward to it. I don’t really like fainting.“
Zi looked up from Aram and spoke: “Any long-term effects?“
“What do you mean?“ asked the girl.
“Doing this… won’t make you sick, or anything like that?“
“Oh! No, I’ll be fine.“
Zi gave Mark a quick glance which said would she know it if it weren’t so? Mark looked down, with guilt. He would have gladly given Doina more time to work out a better way with the starship, but time was really running out. Every minute there meant more deaths back on Earth.
“I think we should tell him,“ he said.
“He won’t believe it,“ said Zi.
“Possibly. But I want to play it open, if only to cover for stealing his stuff.“
“Stealing from a thief, maybe that’s not as bad,“ opined the girl. “But you’re right, we should warn him that he might get a little sick.“
“Really? Would faster-than-light flight affect his species?“ asked Mark.
“I don’t know,“ shrugged the girl. Doi knows his kind, but this engine is so new…!“
“Fair enough. All right, let’s talk to him again.“
The girl gestured to him that he could speak.
“Can I call you Top?“ Mark asked the alien. “Is it even your real name?“
“Call me whatever you want, just let me know when you’re ready to make that transmission.“
“What if I told you that we can do better than that?“
The suspicion in the alien’s translation was unmissable. “Really. Better for whom?“
“We can fly back to Earth. Then you can walk us through the scans and maybe answer some questions.“
“I’m not stupid, human. Your planet is nowhere in Saudade space. We may not have ships as advanced as this, but our cartographers do not miss planets.“
Mark nodded slowly. “Believe what you want, for now. Just be prepared for a little discomfort.“
“To what end?“
“Just bear with us. Trust me, it’ll be worth it. We’ll be back soon.“ As Doina turned off the projection, Mark asked Zi: