I’d only noticed the door nearest my cell, where all the Chron I’d seen so far had entered. Now that I could see the far end of the curving corridor, though, I realized that another doorway lay at that end.
“I’m inclined to vote for the door no Chron have come through,” Viss said.
Hirin nodded. “And I’m inclined to agree.”
“We have to find Mother and Cerevare,” Maja said. “Do we split up?”
“And Pita,” I said, but no-one paid any attention to me.
“Absolutely not. We might never find each other again. I doubt they’ve taken either of them very far. So here’s what we do.” Hirin pulled a deep breath. “We go out, we stick together, we try to find Luta and Cerevare. And we don’t kill anyone unless it’s us or them. Got it?”
“Where’s the fun in that?” Viss asked, but he winked at Hirin as he said it.
I tucked my fork inside the makeshift bandolier and nudged Viss in the ribs. “Still think I’m the crazy one?” I asked him.
For an instant the skin around his eyes tightened, and then he grinned. “Absolutely,” he said. “But I never said you weren’t in good company.”
“Let’s go,” Maja said, and put her hand on the door at the end of the hall. It clicked open, revealing a short, empty hallway that turned right and then left again almost immediately.
And an ear-splitting alarm cut the air.
Chapter 32 – Luta
And Into the Proverbial Fire
MY FIRST CONFUSED thought on waking was I’m not on the ship anymore. Even when the Tane Ikai’s engines were silenced for docking, I knew the hum of the air cyclers, the scent of my ship, the feel of it. Here I heard no throb of engines at all. Had we gone planetside somewhere? I wondered muzzily.
Then I remembered. The Chron ships bracketing us. The engines shutting down. The horror of everyone on the bridge slumping, falling, hitting the cold metal decking.
I opened my eyes, struggling to sit up, but restraints held me to a soft surface. The room must be some sort of medical bay, filled with machines and instruments I didn’t recognize. Some of them were marked with symbols that looked like Chron—similar enough to the markings inside the artifact moon for me to be sure. Cool light spilled from glowing rectangles set into the ceiling, not bright or harsh enough to make me squint, even when I stared straight up at them. A quick glance around was enough to tell me that I lay alone in the room.
I closed my eyes, fighting off panic as my heart rate stuttered up and racing adrenaline prickled in my arms and legs. Hirin, Maja, Rei . . . where was everyone? Surely I couldn’t be the only one—no. I would not let myself think that anything bad had happened to the others. I was here, so why wouldn’t they be? They were likely all in identical bays right this minute.
But where is my ship?
I concentrated on my surroundings. I couldn’t find an answer to that question until I figured out where I was. A low, background rumble hovered on the edge of awareness if I really concentrated—could be ship engines, but I didn’t think so. Could be life-support systems. Could even be something as mundane as air or heat systems in a large building, I decided. No real clue there.
I lifted my head as far up as I could and surveyed the rest of my body. A pale yellow sheet draped most of it, but it seemed to be intact and pain-free, laid out on a high gurney or cot. My left arm lay atop the coverlet, the forearm encased in a sheath of smooth, green, resin-like material. The wide restraint that held me to the bed was a band across my chest and upper arms—if I wriggled a bit I could tell that there were two more, one over my hips and one over my ankles. Apart from the restraints, everything seemed to move and work as it should, although my right arm felt tender, as if it were bruised. Pale red furrows scored the flesh as if something had been tightly wrapped around it for a considerable length of time, and only recently been removed. A row of round red splotches, like the imprints of octopus suckers, trailed up my inner arm.
Both arms were free from the elbow down, and I reached across gingerly with my right hand to touch the sheath on my other arm. It felt cool and unremarkable, if somewhat heavy. If I rotated my hand, it appeared seamless, but the smooth surface was broken in one spot by a wavy-shaped opening. A keyhole? There was no other obvious way to open or remove it. The way it covered my implant port made me nervous. I couldn’t touch the implant to activate it and see if the ship or anyone from it was within calling range.
I went over what I could remember before the Chron had knocked us all out. I’d been angry again—angry at Jahelia Sord this time. For some reason I’d blamed everything on her, which didn’t make any sense. She’d apparently been trying to help, and I’d been overcome by one of my stupid blind rages. A hot flush of embarrassment warmed my skin. I hated being out of control. Was it really my nanobioscavengers failing and causing all of this? Mother had obviously not known such a thing was imminent, or she wouldn’t have postponed my upgrade. It must have been something external that had affected them, something outside the normal parameters.
I blinked and shifted my focus to the room and my restraints. I had no answers for those questions, and nothing useful I could do about them. If my crew was here—wherever “here” was—I had to try and get myself free so I could find them.
Peering to the sides, I followed the soft cloth restraint over my chest down to where it disappeared under the edge of the gurney. It probably fastened under the side, out of reach. A wave of dizziness hit me and the room spun. I closed my eyes again until the feeling subsided, then cautiously opened them again. Everything stayed put, but a low-grade nervousness settled in my gut. Had whatever the Chron did to us somehow made my condition worse?
I focused on the restraint again. The band was not particularly tight, and my arms had enough freedom to allow me to reach up and grasp the top edge of the restraint. I pulled it away from my body as far as I could and I wiggled toward the end of the bed experimentally. There was enough give to let me move an inch or so easily. It occurred to me that perhaps the restraints were not so much to keep me imprisoned as to simply keep me from rolling off the sides of the gurney. If that were the case, I might be able to slip out from under them. Yes. I bent my knees and pulled my feet free of the lower one easily.
Inch by inch I wriggled down the cot, sliding out from under the top restraint as if it were a shirt that I was slowly, slowly pulling off over my head. It got tricky when I’d inched down far enough to get caught up on the middle band. I wheezed, feeling short of breath, and sweat prickled my skin. I took a few deep breaths before moving again. My arms were mostly free and I managed to twist myself out of the top band. I’d become even more tangled up in the yellow sheet, and I kicked it to the floor with a rush of satisfaction. Cautiously, I slid off the gurney after it and leaned against it for support while I surveyed the room.
I wondered suddenly if any surveillance devices had recorded my “escape,” but nothing obvious presented itself, and no-one came running to wrestle me onto the table.
A single door was set into the wall on the opposite side of the room. It had no handle, just a touchpad next to it. I didn’t want to touch it too soon in case it set off alarms, so I left it for now. I expected it was locked anyway, but I wanted a few minutes to get ready before I tried it.
The room had an air of being unfinished. A couple of buff-coloured wall panels stood next to sections they were obviously meant to cover, revealing masses of cables and multicoloured wires running through the walls. Shelving held boxes obviously waiting to be unpacked. A recess in one section of counter appeared ready to hold a computer device of some sort, but was empty except for a lining that looked like packing material. Now I saw a device atop a movable cart, which had been wheeled to the head of the gurney. Long translucent tubes hung from it, their insides brushed intermittently with dark red streaks and droplets. At the other end of the tubes hung a limp casing made of something that felt like soft plastic. I pulled it up and peered at the underside. A row of round
protrusions that reminded me of the end of a med injector ran up the center. They matched the marks on my arm.
What had they done to me, and why?
I dropped the casing and turned my attention to the rest of the room. It offered little I could use as a weapon, if it came to that. A cupboard held an array of typical med injectors, but I couldn’t tell if they held any medications or what they might be. A couple of pieces of equipment might work to bash someone over the head, but I couldn’t picture myself lugging any of them through hallways.
I did, however, find Jahelia Sord’s datapad on the counter. I recalled clutching it as I fell to the deck on the Tane Ikai. I felt a hot flush slap my cheeks again at the vivid memory of my fingers twined in her dark hair. I couldn’t fully remember why I’d done that, only that I’d been horribly angry.
“Well, let’s see if you can help me,” I muttered.
“Good to see you awake, Captain Paixon,” the datapad said to me in a female voice, and I almost dropped it.
Without waiting for me to reply, it continued, “I have no visual input in this device, so I was waiting to hear your voice to know you were conscious again. I take it we’re alone?”
“Er, yes,” I said. “Is the rest of my crew nearby?”
“I can’t get any readings on them,” the voice said. “However, I can’t read your implant, either, so that doesn’t necessarily mean anything.”
I glanced at the green casing around my forearm. Maybe one of its functions—or its only function—was to cut off communication possibilities. If everyone had one—
“However, they were all together earlier,” it continued. “I heard Jahelia wake up and have a conversation with Maja. There was a lot of yelling—”
“Yelling?”
“Yes, yelling,” the voice from the datapad said, a hint of annoyance creeping into the tone. “Everyone woke up with a yell or a scream, but then it stopped. I can’t ‘see’ when I’m not hooked up to any cameras or sensors, right?”
“Oh, right,” I said, trying to calm the volatile AI. “Pita, isn’t it?”
“Aw, you remembered,” the voice said with a hint of a drawl that reminded me of Jahelia Sord. “Anyway, everyone was concerned when you were the only one who didn’t wake up, and it sounded like they could all see each other and you. But Jahelia didn’t come and collect me, so I assume they’re in cages or chained up or something—”
“Let’s not assume anything,” I interrupted, not wanting to visualize my crew and family chained like animals. “Do you know where we are?”
“We’re not on the Tane Ikai, I can tell you that much. I believe we must be on a planet or some kind of station, judging by the conversation I overheard among your captors.”
Carrying the datapad, I crossed to the door, still not willing to try the touchpad but wondering anew if there was anyone beyond it. “Yeah, about those captors,” I said in a low voice. “Are they really Chron?”
I put my ear against the door, hoping the skin contact wouldn’t trigger it, but it didn’t move. I shut my eyes as if that would help me hear better. I didn’t detect any sound beyond it.
“Oh, I think they’re Chron, all right,” Pita said. “I mean, they speak Chron, and they were in a Chron ship, right? So although I don’t have anything else to go by, I think they’re Chron. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck . . .”
Her cavalier attitude was hard to take, but I wasn’t sure it would do any good to tell an AI to try and be more serious. “What did you overhear?”
“Well, there was mention of your ship being docked at a particular bay. I don’t know how it translates, but this is what it looks like,” she said, flashing a symbol on the screen.
I felt the weakness of pure relief wash over me, and leaned against the wall for support. The Tane Ikai was intact, maybe even nearby.
“There was also mention of enemies, which didn’t sound so good,” she added. “And it sounded like they were close.”
“How can you understand what they’re saying?”
“I have this, remember?” The datapad screen flashed, and I recognized the images that had been on the screen when Jahelia Sord gave it to Baden, and I took it from him.
“But what is it?”
“It’s a Chron-Esper translator,” she said as if speaking to a small child. “I think it’s a little out of date—okay, a lot out of date—because I can’t translate a hundred percent of what they say and it ends up sounding pretty stilted, but it’s close.”
I stared at the Chron symbols, trying to make sense of this. “Where did you get it? How did Jahelia Sord come to have a Chron-Esper translator? How does such a thing even exist?”
Pita was uncharacteristically silent for a moment. “I guess you’ll have to ask her about that,” she said finally.
I was still standing beside the door when it slid open. The first Chron I’d seen in real life stood staring at me, something like surprise evident in its deep-set brown eyes.
FOR A LONG moment, the Chron—at least, I had to assume it was a Chron—and I simply stood staring at each other with wary surprise. Despite being quite comfortable around Nearspace’s amber-skinned Vilisians and wolf-like Lobors, I was still taken aback at how different the Chron were from us. I’d never seen a picture of one, although I’d heard Cerevare’s basic description. This one stood taller than me, at least six feet, and its camel-coloured skin seemed to be constructed of interlocking, tough-looking plates, almost like shell, or carapace. These swept up and to the rear into a ridged and knobby parietal crest. It had no hair, and its long fingers were smooth, without the knobby knuckles of humans, and scaled similarly to its face. Nothing about it indicated gender. Whatever it had evolved from would have been insectoid or reptilian on Earth, and an ancient revulsion rippled my stomach.
My heart thrummed painfully as adrenaline pumped into my limbs. Fight or flight. This creature was Chron. This was the species that hated humanity with such an irrational hostility that it had tried to wipe us from existence. The species that, according to the Corvids, desired the extermination of every other species they encountered. They had chased my ship, captured me and my crew, and I had no idea what they planned for us. In an instant my mind measured the distance to the door, calculated the most advantageous point to hit it, considered the usefulness of the datapad as a weapon.
I don’t know what might have happened if I’d acted on those instincts, but three things stopped me.
It held a covered tray of something that smelled suspiciously like bread. And the plates of its face shifted into something suspiciously like a smile.
And my knees went inexplicably weak. I staggered back a few steps, fetching up against the edge of the counter and clutching it with my free hand for support.
The smile disappeared, and the Chron spoke to me in a language that sounded like a cross between the chittering of beetles and the whistling chirp of birds. I wondered how to convey the idea that I didn’t understand. If I shook my head, it might think I was simply saying “no.”
Pita piped up and said, “I think it’s asking if you’re feeling all right.”
I stared down at the datapad in surprise. “You got that?”
“I told you before, there’s a trans-cymatics sound library in the translator,” she said. “It takes the sounds, turns them into visuals, and compares them to the database. It’s a basic vocabulary, and like I said, out of date, but I’m confident.”
“Do you think it understands nodding for yes, and head-shaking for no?”
“File says standard body language is understood. But don’t clasp your hands. That’s a rude gesture,” she advised.
“Wow. Okej then.” I looked to the Chron and nodded slowly. The momentary weakness had passed. My worry hadn’t, though. My symptoms had magnified considerably.
The Chron said something else, and I waited for Pita’s translation.
“I think it’s asking if you’re hungry.”
“Well, it does seem t
o be offering me food,” I said. I nodded again.
The Chron motioned with the tray that I should retreat to the gurney, which I did. It moved into the room and set the tray down on the counter where I’d found Sord’s datapad, lifting the cover to reveal a plate and shallow bowl beneath. Then it backed away, motioning me toward the tray with a graceful gesture of its long-fingered hand.
The plate held what I would have sworn were two slices of Rei’s cinnamon pano, and the bowl was filled with a clear liquid I assumed to be water—cold, judging by the slick of condensation coating the outside walls of the bowl. I picked up a slice of the bread, took a bite, and nodded in what I hoped was a combination of thank you and this is good.
The Chron nodded, and said something. The inflection actually made it sound like a question, although I couldn’t be sure that anything like that conveyed the same meaning in their language.
“Pita?” I asked.
“Give me a second.”
I smiled tentatively at the alien and took another bite of bread while I waited. It cocked its head at me quizzically.
“Um, Pita?”
“Oh, for—okay, this one is tricky. It’s saying something like, You are not of the others? But I’m not sure who these ‘others’ are.”
“Well, how can I ask for clarification?”
“Here, show it this.” The datapad’s screen changed and a series of Chron symbols—letters forming intelligible words, I hoped—displayed across it. “I think it says Who are the others?”
“You think it says that? You’re not sure?”
“I’m doing the best I can with information that’s over a century out of date,” Pita snapped.
With much trepidation, I turned the datapad around and held it up so that the alien could see it. The planes of its face shifted slightly, the expression unreadable. Finally it met my eyes and nodded. Opened a cupboard, and a square of light displayed on the countertop near my tray. With one long, scaly finger, the alien sketched a symbol in the square of light, the lines appearing out of nowhere as if the light were paper and its finger, a pencil. Except that somehow, colours were represented, too. I knew before it was even finished exactly what it was drawing.
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