by Elin Wyn
“Shock does things to the brain,” Karzin shrugged. We stepped around the body of an elderly man to reach a young woman, sobbing and cowering against a wall.
“Let me,” I urged Karzin. “I’m less intimidating.”
“Fair enough,” Karzin agreed.
I knelt down beside the woman, whose pale hair was stained with blood.
“Are you all right?” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I sighed to myself. Stupid question.
“What happened to me?” She looked up at me, her pale blue eyes brimming with tears.
“That’s what we were hoping you could tell us,” I said. “We’re here to help, but we can’t do that if we don’t know what happened.”
“I don’t know,” she sobbed. “I was walking to my Nan’s house one minute, the next, I’m covered in blood and there were broken buildings on the street.”
“You remember nothing?” I asked. She shook her head, hiding her face behind her hands. “That’s okay. Doctors are on their way. Stay here and don’t move too much. You’re going to be okay.” I stood and walked back over to Karzin.
“She doesn’t remember anything,” I told him. We made our way around the square, asking everyone who could speak what had happened. No one seemed to have any idea. Everyone was going about their usual business, then suddenly found themselves injured and the square destroyed.
“Are you sure it’s not the Xathi?” I whispered so I wouldn’t cause unnecessary panic. “They were able to mess with people’s minds.”
“If it was Xathi, General Rouhr would’ve known already,” Karzin replied. “Besides, the Xathi specialize in indoctrination, not memory wiping. Still, I’ll call Dr. Parr down here. On the off chance it is Xathi, she’ll be able to tell if any of these people are at risk of hybridism.”
“While you do that, I’m going to look at the craters,” I said. “From the sound of it, the ground is going to be the only thing that can give us any information.”
I’d only grabbed my usual bag when I left the house in a rush. Thankfully, I always carried some field equipment with me. I counted seven craters total. I had only six sample vials. I picked the six craters that were closest to an injured person and scooped a small sample from each into a vial.
Nothing stood out to me immediately. The dirt looked as one would expect it to look. I was anxious to get back to my lab. I hadn’t yet gotten a chance to test the samples from yesterday.
“The doctors are arriving,” Karzin told me. “There’s nothing more we can do here.”
“I need to get to Nyheim and test these,” I held up my sample vials. “I’d rather not go through another rift to get there.”
“Fine, we’ll take the boring public shuttle,” Karzin agreed nonchalantly as if I couldn’t see the troubled look in his eyes.
I nodded my head. I’d rather take the unreliable and overcrowded shuttles any day than go through another one of those things.
How little I knew of what was to come.
Karzin
“We need to get back to Nyheim and talk to General Rouhr,” I had told Annie. “He needs to know what happened here.”
We got our gear together, loaded up into the shuttle, and went back to Nyheim. What we had seen in Duvest had been disconcerting, to say the least.
The fact that the attack had happened in the center of a busy city square was scary enough. It was the idea that no one remembered anything about it that worried me more.
We flew in silence back to Nyheim. Annie looked at her samples and the information she had gathered, while I sat and tried to figure out the attack. If it had been the same entity that had created the crater near the Aurora, then we were going to have problems.
I actually found it just as worrisome that whatever this was could make numerous circles in civilized areas than a large circle in the wilderness. While the giant crater was terrifying to think about, a collection of smaller holes in a concentrated area had me wracking my brain to find solutions, defenses, and ways to deal with it.
We landed, gathered our gear, and planned to head to the general’s office, but he met us at the airfield instead.
“I didn’t want to wait. Tell me what’s going on in Duvest.”
A human official hurried us into a small room, while I began the report I’d mentally prepared on the trip back. “Well, sir, there are seven holes in the city square. Perfect circles, just like the one near the Aurora.”
“How many dead and injured?”
“We don’t know for sure but early indications indicate four fatalities and over a dozen injured. There isn’t an exact count at the moment, though. No one remembers how anything happened, sir. For some reason, people’s memories seemed to be affected.”
“Well, skrell.” He paced away and back several times, processing the information. When he finally came back and stopped, he looked at Annie. “What about you, young lady? What information do you have for me?”
“Not much to give you, General. I can tell you, the craters hold the same shape, and the initial deposits that I collected look the same, but I won’t know until I get into my lab.” She looked up at him, then apologized. “I’m sorry.”
He did a double-take. “Why are you apologizing?”
“Because I don’t have any better information for you, sir. I wish I did.”
“I know you do. I’m not upset with you in any way,” he said calmly. “You have a job to do, and I need you to do it. I’m just upset this is happening and we don’t have a remedy for it yet. This is where you come in.”
“Yes, sir,” she said with a nod.
Rouhr looked at me, then back at Annie. “Do what you can. I expect results as soon as you can get them.” With that, he walked away, and he was not happy.
“Did we do something wrong?” Annie asked.
I looked at her and shook my head. “No. He just takes on too much responsibility and feels that everything is on him. He’s worried. He came very close to making himself sick over the Xathi, so he’s probably wondering if this is somehow our fault.”
“Why does he think this is your guys’ fault?”
“Because we brought the Xathi here, and he most likely thinks that it set off a chain of events that will end up with more people hurt.” I picked up our gear. “Let’s get to your lab.”
We walked to the airfield exit and got into a small vehicle to drive to her lab. With her directions, we arrived within a few minutes and took everything inside. She seemed to be proud of her little lab and showed me around a bit before we went into her own corner. I held back my smile as she showed me what things were and explained it all to me.
Watching her happily bustle around made something warm in my chest, just for a moment. “Do you think you’ll be able to decipher your samples?”
She gave me a look that essentially said I was stupid. “Decipher? You don’t decipher things in this lab. You discover, you learn, you…you…you dissect and dismantle until you get down to the basest materials and you take that information to learn about the beginnings of everything.”
Now it was my turn to look at her awkwardly. “You can learn about the beginnings from dirt?”
“Without a doubt. If you dig down deep enough, you can find the beginnings of life in an area, or on a planet. People think geology is simply looking at rocks, but it’s so much more than that! It may not be as fancy as some of the other sciences, but you can learn a tremendous amount that the others can’t.” She was beaming with pride and I couldn’t help but laugh.
She set about running her samples through the machines that she had.
I watched her work as I sat at the far end of the lab.
She was tiny. Not a warrior. But still, utterly fascinating. Her lithe body moved from station to station, intent on her tasks. Her brow furrowed, small white teeth absently nibbling on her lush pink lower lip.
My gaze was riveted to her mouth, the urge to taste her almost overpowering. I wanted to go over and wrap my arms around her. To
lift her up and feel her body rub against mine. My blood began to simmer with the lust that Valorni were known for. Her figure and attitude brought about the feelings that I had long told myself as a warrior I would never experience.
And despite all my heated stares, she worked. It didn’t take long for me to sense that something was wrong. I walked over to her to see.
“What is it?”
She shook her head, ran her hand through her hair, and blew out a large breath of air through her lips. “I’m not finding anything. My equipment just isn’t capable of figuring out the makeup and composition of some of the samples. These,” she pointed to roughly two-thirds of her samples, “my machines can test and give me information, and none of it is what Rouhr is wanting. It’s fantastic for me and my scientific pursuits, but it means nothing to what’s happening in Duvest.”
Then she pointed at the remaining samples. “On these, though, my machines can’t give me any information at all. Everything comes up as an error.”
She was stressed, I could see that. She was struggling to figure things out and it was frustrating her so much. This wasn’t something I could fight, something I could fix. But surely there was something I could do. Then a small light of brilliance popped into my mind.
“Give me a moment,” I said to her as I walked out of the lab. I got onto my comm to talk to Fen.
“Fen. Would you care to open a rift for me?”
“What is your current location, friend Karzin?”
“At the moment, I am with a human scientist in Nyheim. We need to borrow the Aurora’s science facility, if you don’t mind,” I said over the comm.
“Why would this human scientist require our laboratories?”
I explained the situation to her, including how the systems that Annie was using weren’t able to decipher what the samples were.
I was unable to tell if Fen was frustrated with me or not when she answered. “Very well. I shall open a rift in three of your minutes. Do not be late.”
I rushed back to Annie. “Want to use a more sophisticated lab and better equipment?”
“Of course! But where?” Her eyes were wide with wonder.
“Good. Pack up, our transportation will be ready in about two minutes, and we need to be outside when it is.” We hurried as we grabbed everything, then rushed outside.
“No,” she whined. “Not again!”
Too bad for her, I didn’t give her a chance. I turned and dragged her through the rift, her yelps echoing behind me.
As we stepped out of the rift and back onto solid ground, Annie ripped her hand out of mine and dropped to her knees. “Ohh,” she stuttered. “Why is it always so fucking cold?”
“Try doing it several times a day,” I said to her.
She looked at me.
I nodded, a small grin on my face.
“You people are nuts!” She got to her feet and I turned her around to see the remnants of the Aurora. “Oh. My. God.”
I led her inside and we were met at the laboratory doors by Fen. Annie had never seen an Urai and she had lost all ability to speak coherently, leaving me to explain in my simple ways what had happened and what we needed.
“Very well. Our equipment is ready for your use, Doctor Parker. I will assist you,” Fen said as she opened the doors to let us in. If seeing another alien species that made the rest of us look like brutish beasts wasn’t enough to completely destroy her mind, the Urai science facility was. I don’t believe I had ever seen anyone so excited, or so at a loss for words.
The noises that came from Annie were both unnerving and hilarious. I had never thought that sounds like that could possibly come from a human, but Annie was giving little yelps, yips, giggles, and some sort of squeal that I didn’t think was possible from anything living.
After a few short moments of Annie losing her mind, she finally looked at Fen and me and gave the world’s biggest, happiest smile, then settled down into coherence with an undertone of joy. “I’m sorry. I’ve just never seen anything this fantastic before.”
“I believe you have soil samples that need to be analyzed,” Fen said calmly.
Annie cleared her throat and settled down even more. “Uh, yes. Yes, we do.” For the next several hours, Annie and Fen analyzed and studied all of the samples, and Annie was beyond excited by the information that the Urai equipment was able to give her.
There was one minor problem, however.
“I must apologize, Doctor Parker. Not even our systems are capable of deciphering the samples that you have brought, not completely,” Fen announced.
“It’s okay, Fen. While we haven’t discovered what it is, we have discovered that it is an organic material,” Annie said.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
Both women looked at me. “It means that whatever caused the craters is alive. It’s a living thing,” Annie answered.
If it was a living thing, we’d be able to fight it, stop it, right?
But what could make those holes? And why couldn’t we remember?
Annie
The results from the Aurora’s superior lab caused me deep concern. The Aurora’s lab outstripped mine in every way imaginable and it still couldn’t tell me what had created those craters.
I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d made a mistake at some point. After all, I didn’t have enough supplies with me to collect full samples. I was unfamiliar with much of the equipment. This was my first time taking on such a project. The unusual results had me wondering if I was fit for it.
But Fen had been right there, working alongside me. And she’d reached the same results.
After pacing the lab for the better part of an hour, I decided to go find Karzin. If anything, he’d be able to point me in the right direction.
I found him in the corridor, walking toward the lab.
“I was just coming to see you,” he informed me. “You’ve been in there a while now.”
“Worried about me?” I teased.
“Humans turn stupid when they don’t eat enough. I was only coming to make sure you hadn’t been affected,” he explained with a raised eyebrow.
“I’m not stupid, but I’m stumped.” I folded my arms across my chest. “I need a second opinion on the samples. I need fresh eyes.”
“I might be able to help you with that,” Karzin rubbed his jaw, eyes distant.
“That is why I came to you. You always have a solution tucked up your sleeve.” I gave him a friendly clap on the arm.
“Don’t thank me yet. I’ve…what’s the human expression? Bombed bridges?”
“I think you mean burned bridges,” I corrected.
Karzin nodded as he pulled his communication device out of his pocket. He made some adjustments before speaking into it.
“Axtin, you there?” There was a long pause, punctuated by rustling sounds.
“You have a lot of nerve calling me up,” a gruff voice replied.
“I’ve always had a lot of nerve,” Karzin replied.
“Is that why you hide on the Aurora instead of facing us at meetings?” the voice growled.
“I see you’re out of the loop, Axtin,” Karzin drawled, trying to sound unbothered. I watched him work the muscles in his jaw. “I’m on a mission.”
“Skrell,” Axtin scoffed. “Like General Rouhr would give you an assignment after the way you’ve turned your back on us.”
I felt guilty for overhearing Axtin’s words. This was personal, private. I made a move to step back, but Karzin stopped me with a reassuring smile.
“Did you hear about the incident at Duvest this morning?” he asked into the comm.
“What incident?” Axtin snapped.
“That’s what I thought,” Karzin smirked. “Anyway, I didn’t call to talk to you. I need Leena.”
“What do you want with her?” Axtin demanded.
“I’m working with a human geologist named Andromeda Parker-”
“Annie!” I snapped before I could stop myself.
Mischief glinted in Karzin’s eyes. “Annie Parker. She collected samples from the incident. We brought them to the Aurora for analysis, however there’s still a lot we don’t know. I’d like Leena to come give her expert opinion,” Karzin explained.
“Leena wants nothing to do with you, either,” Axtin replied.
“Excuse me?” A woman’s voice spoke from the background. “Did you just refuse a job on my behalf?”
“Hello, Leena,” Karzin called through the comm. “Go easy on Axtin. He’s just pouting.”
“Axtin has every right to not want to talk to you after everything you’ve done,” Leena chided. “However, I’d be happy to look over the geologist’s samples tomorrow.”
“Thank you, Leena. Buy a shorter leash for Axtin while you’re at it,” Karzin said.
“Don’t push it,” Leena warned before disconnecting the call.
“She’ll be here tomorrow,” Karzin grinned.
“Great.” I wasn’t sure how to process everything I’d just heard. Clearly, there were some unaddressed issues between Karzin and the rest of his team. I decided not to press it. It wasn’t my business.
“You should stay here for the night,” Karzin said suddenly.
“What?”
“Leena is coming tomorrow. It doesn’t seem worth it for you to go all the way home just to come back, especially since you don’t like traveling by rift,” Karzin explained.
He was right. I hated the rifts. If I never had to travel by rift again, that would be perfectly fine with me.
“But, where…” I looked around, wondering how many of the rooms were set up for a human. Did it matter?
Or was he thinking…
“Plenty of cabins still ready for occupation.” Thankfully, Karzin didn’t seem to notice my heated cheeks, just waited for my answer.
The idea was logical and the Aurora looked like a comfortable place to sleep. Just once, it might be nice to sleep on a proper bed in my own room, like I had before the Xathi invasion.
As long as I could keep my imagination to myself.
“All right,” I agreed with a smile. “I’ll need to let my family know somehow.”