Outside the craft, the thinkers had gathered. Their thick leathery carapaces glistened in the soft light as they surrounded the Swift . Workers scurried away from the burning light of Berry's torch. He opened the pressure regulator on the welding rig, twisting it beyond the safety mark, and squeezed the trigger. A burst of acetylene flared out in the light gravity, spraying in an arc some twenty feet around him as he turned. The thinkers pulled back, biding their time, watching, observing, calculating.
Fire roared from his torch, crackling in the dry honeycomb of branches that made up the inner hull.
Trixie crawled out of the airlock behind him. Flames licked at the darkness. Branches glowed in soft orange and yellow hues as they smoldered in the shadows.
Workers scurried in to control the fire, spitting fluids on the flames.
Trixie slid down the side of the Swift and came up beside Berry, the backpack slung over her right shoulder. She pulled down on the guard of her rivet gun, readying herself to fire, not sure what it would feel like or how easy it would be to aim. Adrenaline surged through her veins, exciting her.
Her eyes adjusted from the bright lights of the Swift to the darkness of the alien craft, and she was shocked to see how many thinkers congregated in the distance. Sets of four dark eyes, arranged in a crescent, reflected the glowing fires in front of them. She tried to count them, turning and looking around her, above her, below her, but they were several layers deep, stretching back into the tangle of black branches beyond. There must have been hundreds of them.
“It's a Mexican stand off,” Berry said, making his way around the front of the craft. “I don't think they expected this. Come on, we need to move quickly and keep them guessing.”
He dropped down into one of the gouges left by the crushed antenna array. Thinkers followed close behind. The regrowth in the groove carved into the inner hull was thinner than the treetop-like path they'd followed back to their ship, allowing them to move easily toward the network of tunnels within the alien craft.
Ducking and weaving through the limbs and branches, they hurried forward. The small worker beetles, normally moving with such purpose and precision, were in chaos, darting to get away from them, fleeing from the danger.
Berry turned a couple of times, unleashing a burst from the welder, lighting up the darkness. Thin branches caught fire, flaring in the oxygen-rich environment.
“Hopefully, this will give them a few more headaches to worry about beyond just us.”
Through it all, the thinkers kept their distance, hanging back. The giant bugs were taking multiple paths as they followed Berry and Trixie. Some of them were directly behind the two fugitives, tracing their steps through the undergrowth, while others moved up high through the vines and branches that braced the superstructure.
Trixie slipped, her feet falling through the undergrowth, and she found herself dangling above the scaffold-like superstructure of the alien craft. She dropped the bag, but it caught on a lower branch. Berry grabbed her, pulling her back up and helping her to her feet. He leaned down and picked up the bag, tossing it over his shoulder. Firing a burst of acetylene, he pressed on, pushing forward through the branches, heading toward the tunnels that twisted back into the heart of the alien craft. Ahead, just above them, Trixie could see the thin outer hull, the point at which the Swift had been captured.
“I don't get it,” he worried. “They're letting us run without a fight. Something is wrong.”
With that, they cleared the thicket and emerged in a narrow tunnel leading to the broad network of roots and vines that traced their way into the heart of the alien craft.
Several thinkers scrambled in the distance in front of them, scurrying away from them, fleeing down through the tunnel.
Berry pushed on.
Trixie held back, fiddling with her rivet gun, clearing some debris from the nozzle. Holding the guard down, she fired at a thinker closing in on them from the rear, before pushing on after Berry. The lack of reaction from the menacing creature confused her. The thinkers weren't trying to catch them, they were directing them. Berry seemed to come to the same conclusion as she joined him in the constricted tunnel.
“They're herding us,” he said. He too had been thinking about the way the thinkers had flanked them, pushing them toward the tiny tunnel. “They're directing us to where they want the battle to occur. Quick, go back!”
As he spoke, workers swarmed in from either end of the side-tunnel. Climbing over each other, they formed a series of spindly arms that reached through the air, like branches cutting across the narrow tunnel, sealing the two of them in the cramped conduit.
“This way,” Berry said, turning and making a run for the main tunnel.
Berry let out a burst from the welding torch as the creatures formed a mesh across the mouth of the tunnel. Flames licked at the insects. Workers screamed, their bodies burning, their innards boiling. The heat fused them together, turning them from a chain of living links into charred bars blocking the path.
Another swarm of workers closed in on them from the rear of the tunnel.
Trixie fired her rivet gun in rapid succession. The wheeze of the pneumatic breech cycling through the tiny, needle-like rivets resounded through the air, but it was useless, there were too many of them and they were too small. Anything she hit was by accident. The workers were being orchestrated by the thinkers. In the confines of the tunnel, they only had to contain two ends to control the battle.
Berry hacked at the smoldering remains of the workers blocking the exit. The butt of his cylinder chipped away at the charred mass as more workers swarmed around his feet, climbing up his legs and tearing at his clothes, but the fused shells he struck out against were like iron bars.
Trixie screamed.
Berry struck at the tiny creatures in vain, swinging with his arms, trying to knock them off his body, but their numbers were too great.
Normally, the workers glowed with phosphorescence, but they had doused their biological lights, attacking in the dark. Like a swarm of centipedes, spiders, cockroaches and beetles, the workers clambered over Trixie's legs in their hundreds. She jumped, twisting as she sailed through the air to the roof just a few feet above her, sending the alien insects scattering down the tunnel. The roof instantly became her floor, but workers teemed over all sides of the tunnel. They assailed her, pinning her down with their sheer weight of numbers. As she thrashed with her arms, she caught sight of Berry, upside down on the roof relative to her. His outline was barely recognizable. He fought, lashing out with his arms, but slowly sank under the swarm. The last thing to disappear beneath the sea of tiny creatures was his right hand, still clinging to the welding torch. The blue pilot flame flickered briefly before the tunnel was plunged into darkness.
At the end of the tunnel, a solitary thinker watched from outside the bars. It seemed calm, almost pleased. Trixie fought to raise her rivet gun, fighting against the horde to bring the barrel to bear on the thinker. Whether it knew what she was trying to do or not, she didn't know, but it was content to watch her futile struggle against the horde of workers. The thinker's beady, black eyes were barely visible in the half-light.
With all her might, Trixie struggled, but the workers clambered over her face, scratching her cheeks, tearing at her forehead and clawing at her neck. Panic overwhelmed her, fear surged through her veins. She dropped the rivet gun, suffocating, gasping for air under the crush. She choked, frantically pulling at the bugs, trying to fling them away, but her arms felt like lead under the weight.
Workers bit at her fingers, cutting into the soft flesh. With her eyes shut tight, she swung her head, trying desperately to free herself as tens of thousands of spindly legs pricked at her body.
Darkness overwhelmed her.
Again.
2:04 Awake
The darkness gave her no reason to wake.
Trixie's body ached. Her right shoulder was in agony, the muscles sore and stiff. Spasms of pain shot down her arm, throbbing c
lose to the bone. She moved, arching her back only to have her body rebel against the surge of pain, and so she folded back in on herself, curling up in a fetal position yet again.
Lying there was strangely familiar, almost comforting in the midst of the pain. These were her first memories repeated, the dust on the ground, the roots uncomfortably winding across the floor beneath her. This time, though, she was dressed. The torn jacket kept her upper body warm. Dried blood had caked on her face. She brushed it with her hands, feeling the thin cuts still raw beneath her fingertips. Fresh blood oozed from the wounds on her neck, hundreds of small bites formed painful welts. Her fingers brushed against them, feeling the raw bite marks and scratches.
She opened her eyes. That simple act reinforced something she hadn't expected. She was alive.
Beside her lay the backpack, its contents strewn across the ground.
Cylinders lay scattered haphazardly against the roots throughout the chamber.
Her rivet gun was there, as was Berry's welding torch, but the gas cylinder had been removed and lay idly to one side, just a few feet from her.
Dents and scratches marred the cylinder, making it seem much older than it had appeared under the bright lights of the Swift . The creatures had vented their frustration on these strange instruments from another world. She wondered if they understood them. She didn't. She knew how the torch worked, but she didn't know why. Perhaps it was lost on them as well.
In the darkness, Trixie could hear sounds, clicks and grunts, along with tapping on wood, or, at least, the alien equivalent of wood. Workers raced past, ignoring her. They seemed to have more purpose than she'd seen before. The phosphorescent glow lining their shells cast a soft light along the roots within the vivisection chamber.
Trixie knew exactly where she was before she rolled over to see Berry suspended in a force field again. It was the smell. The stench of rot filled her nostrils, only the smell was slightly different. It was sharper, crisper than the pungent odor she'd woken to last time. The smell seemed to be a contrast of different odors, confusing her.
Two thinkers stood in front of Berry, their hunched shell-backs towering over him. An array of long, thin, crab-like arms extended from below each carapace, allowing them to manipulate objects like humans would with their fingers. Trixie had never been this close to a thinker. Hundreds of arms extended down what appeared to be the thorax, slowly thickening into a cluster of legs near the ground. Their carapaces were different to those of the workers, with more of a matte sheen than a shiny shell. Their backs were thick and rough, like worn leather.
The closest thinker turned toward her and she froze, somehow hoping she was invisible. Its cold dark eyes didn't betray any emotion beyond a clinical detachment.
“She doesn't know anything,” Berry cried, seeing Trixie was awake. “Leave her alone.”
Trixie got to her feet and started backing away as the thinker moved toward her, its sea of legs carrying it smoothly off the vivisection platform and down toward her.
“No,” she moaned, terrified by this vision of the night. Given its size, it could have swallowed her whole. In the darkness, its black limbs danced around her like shadows.
Trixie started to turn when she felt thousands of needles piercing her skin, running from her lower back, up her neck and across her skull. A flash of pain cut through her like lightning. Her body broke in spasms as she was caught from behind by another thinker.
::Zzzzzht Xxxxxht Cccccht.
“Don't let them in, Trix,” Berry shouted.
::Vvvvvht Bbbbbht Nnnnnht.
Trixie moaned. A searing pain stabbed at her forehead as though someone had jabbed a razor-thin knife up behind her right eye and into her brain. The world seemed to narrow. Her torso twisted with involuntary muscle contractions. Her legs felt as though they were disconnected. The right side of her body, from her lips and cheek, to her arm, hand, leg and foot all trembled, shaking in a quiver.
::Mmmmht Kkkkkht Lllllht.
“Stay strong,” Berry yelled. “You can do this, Trix. Keep these bastards at bay. Don't let them inside your head.”
It was too late. Trixie didn't know what they'd done or how, but the bizarre sounds shouting within her skull fell quiet. Slowly, they formed into words. While before she had thought for herself, speaking within her head, articulating her feelings for herself alone to hear, now others did the same, thinking for her.
::Does she know?
::She does not know.
::How could she know?
The terms were coarse, the words broke with staccato inside her mind, but somehow they made sense.
::The female is weaker than the male.
::He is the thinker. She is the worker.
::She is his play-thing, his pet, his toy.
“Oh, Trixie,” Berry wept, seeing her eyes rolling into the back of her head. She could hear him, but she couldn't respond. Her mind and her consciousness seemed to be separated one from the other, so that she could observe herself but couldn't act.
::She does not know where the star-wanderer resides.
::They are pathetic. They know nothing. Their thoughts are so shallow. They have no concurrency and they process thoughts sequentially, so slowly. How have they been able to traverse the stars?
::He pilots his ship, but he knows nothing of where he goes or where he came from. How is that possible? Who would have a pilot so stupid?
“Fight it, Trix. They push their way in, but you can push them out. You've got to focus. You've got to think about something else, anything else. Crowd them out.”
::Can we burrow from her mind to his?
::Maybe he lies.
::Maybe he knows but he buries.
::We shall link them, drain him and examine him with her.
For a moment, the thinkers relaxed, and Trixie slumped in the arms of her captor. She watched as the thinker on the platform reached through the force-field as Berry struggled.
“Stay away from me, you spawn of hell. Stay—”
Tears ran from her eyes. Berry's head jerked back as he struggled to resist, but his efforts were brief.
Her thinker renewed her interrogation and Trixie felt herself propelled back into the depths of her mind.
::Cross them, dump them.
::She shall see, then we shall see.
::She is weak. She will reveal all. She will tell us what he knows.
Her mind flooded with thoughts, visions, sounds, colors, smells, words.
Trixie found herself standing on the broad deck of the Rift Valley .
The flight deck was sparse. She was surprised by its size. Everything she'd known since she first awoke on the alien craft had been cramped and claustrophobic. Even the vivisection chamber with its high ceiling wasn't that wide, but the hanger deck on the Rift Valley extended for hundreds of yards around her. Thick lines painted on the deck directed the motion of construction craft and starships in broad curves, being designed for the safety of the engineers and mechanics. Exclusion zones were marked with thick stripes of yellow and black, sectioning off portions of the floor. Couplings and valve handles lay level with the deck, covered with transparent plexiglass. Hatches and access ways lay just below the surface, hidden by steel grates.
Commander Anderson stood at the head of the small group of pilots, addressing them informally before they departed on their reconnaissance mission.
He shook each man's hand, smiling as he spoke.
Five craft rested in the launch bay, their hulls floating just a few feet from the ground. Each of them was slightly different, individually crafted, with their antenna boom folded up prior to launch.
Trixie didn't recognize the Swift , but Berry did, and that recognition excited her. She beamed with pride looking down at their lifeboat. But where was she? She wanted to look around, to turn and look behind her, but Berry hadn't looked behind so neither could she. Mechanics poured over the Swift , making last minute adjustments, triple checking systems. Anderson was talking wit
h Berry, but she couldn't hear what he was saying. Berry, it seemed, couldn't recall the exact words to mind.
::Still he fights, still he resists.
::We must break him down, make him reveal.
::They are sensitive. They feel damage as a physiological response. We can exploit this.
Suddenly, Trixie was standing in the hydroponics bay in the mid-decks of the Rift .
Leafy green plants swayed in the artificial breeze around her. It was humid, she was sweating, Berry was sweating.
As Berry turned, she turned, she could see orchids, resplendent in their blues and reds. She wanted to look more closely at them, but Berry walked past them and she floated on with him. Trixie could smell frangipani, the sweet fragrance wafted on the breeze. A hand reached out from in front of her, but it wasn't her hand. It plucked a red apple from a tree and bit into the crisp fruit. Juice ran down her chin, but it was his chin, and he wiped it, although she felt as though she had wiped it. Her mouth salivated for more, but it was a memory, not reality.
A cat wound its way between his legs, its tail wrapping lightly around his calf muscle for the briefest of moments as it peered up at him affectionately.
Berry reached down and scratched the cat on its head. Trixie could feel the soft fur beneath her fingertips.
Something moved in the bushes.
The cat went still.
Berry seemed to be amused, he knelt down, watching as the cat stalked off into the undergrowth, its black hair disappearing in the shadows. It was the cat in the photograph, from the cockpit of the Swift , thought Trixie.
A bird took flight, its colorful wings beat at the air as it lifted gracefully into the artificial sky, flashes of green, red and yellow pumped back and forth as the bird escaped into the branches of a tree.
Trixie & Me Page 6