Fluency (13 page)

She turned over and around, stunned by the views in every conceivable direction. “Is it the Milky Way?” she whispered.

“That is what you call it. And more. Far more.”

Her throat ached. It was astoundingly beautiful.

“Choose one and we will go there.”

“A star?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he revealed tantalizing promise in his mind.

A particularly bright star seemed to stand out to her.

“That is not one, but two stars—a binary system.
Very intricate. Now take us there.”

“I—”

“Do not contemplate what I ask, what it means, or how it is accomplished. Do not think at all. Merely do. Through me, it is possible. You shall see.”

She mentally grabbed the star and tugged on it, in a way she somehow knew she could. She felt the change before she could see it. Her body shuddered with joy as she was stretched and pulled along. The nearest stars smudged and streaked, while those distant stuck like anchors, and together, she and Ei’Brai surged toward the twin stars. Space and time and breath parted and folded. They were sucked through a short straw and emerged in a haze of blinding dust. Jane wiped her eyes and coughed, laughing too, with delight.

The anchor stars receded. Her eye was drawn to the warmth, the light. Twin suns orbited each other, dancing and spinning and nearly kissing, their white light scorching hot. Their planets flirted with each other in long, lazy orbits, a mechanized waltz that had evolved over eons—over countless destructions and accretions until those that remained could each abide the presence of the others.

How could I know this?

“This system has no sentient life. It is unnamed. What will you call it?”

She couldn’t tear herself from it. “I get to name it?” She felt deeply honored and searched her mind for something appropriate, reverent,
reflective of herself and humanity. “Castor and Pollux. They were explorers, like me.” How could she feel such pride in naming a thing that couldn’t possibly be real, but was so utterly lovely that she throbbed with repressed sobs?

He let her linger, for how long, she had no way of knowing, observing from multiple points of view, to take it all in. There were barren rocks of planets.
Gaseous planets, their atmospheres thick, nearly liquid, and whirling. Molten planets, endlessly remaking themselves under the friction of immense gravitational forces. Even a frozen planet—white and blue, looking from a distance not unlike Earth, but composed of ice and frozen methane, too far from the suns to feel their warmth.

Finally she turned away from it, sighing. “I cannot express how it feels to see this, Ei’Brai—”

“You need not. I am aware.”

That disturbing reminder again. “Then you must also know that I’m aware that you’re distracting me, deflecting me from what I really need to know.”

The warmth on her back faded. She knew, without looking, that the twin stars were gone.

He was silent and she could sense little of him. He was guar
ding something.

“Why have you come here, Ei’Brai? What did the Sectilius want from Earth and what happened to them?”

His voice was pitched low, a guttural groan. He uttered four words, and fleetingly unleashed a tsunami of pain along with them, “I mourn them, still.”

Jane recoiled under the onslaught, retreating from him instin
ctively to the furthest reaches of his mind, just to the tenuous point of disconnection. Regret followed hard on the heels of his misery, trailed by disjointed, chaotic images. Inside and outside of many minds, many viewpoints, she saw what had happened to the Sectilius.

In one moment, everything changed from organized, content symbiosis to some kind of hellish nightmare—as every man, wo
man, and child within the ship-community was suddenly and irrevocably changed by an unknown agent. Only Ei’Brai had been unaffected. He watched helplessly as his shipmates degenerated over the course of days.

Some became combative, at least at first. Most were simply mindless, unresponsive, until they ceased to function in any normal way and wasted away from thirst and starvation. He frantically assisted the scientists and medics, attempting to animate them with the sheer force of his will. Those individuals managed to hold out the longest, striving valiantly to determine what had happened in order to reverse it, but the discovery of the agent in their final m
oments hadn’t been enough to save even a single life aboard the vessel.

Her heart wrenched painfully as she plumbed the depth of his agony. All of this had happened many years before. He’d drifted
alone all this time, hoping for rescue, never knowing who had orchestrated the devastation. He replayed the events in his mind, looking for the point at which he had failed them, until he nearly went mad from it.

Empathy poured from her without hesitation. He gathered her thoughts and held them to himself like a child who’d just found a beloved lost doll. He seemed to be begging for forgiveness and she gave it freely, seeing no fault in his actions as they’d been di
splayed to her.

“But why did you stay?” she asked him softly. “Why didn’t you go home? You’re the pilot. Why stay here, alone?”

“It is not such a simple matter as that. I am not the pilot. I am the navigator. I, alone, cannot do what you suggest. The ship-community is a commonwealth. There are checks and balances, as there are in any democratic government. I do not have the authority to move this ship a single exiguumet without the presence of a Quasador Dux or a majority vote of documented citizens to give the order.”

Quasador Dux? Loosely translated, the title meant admiral or general, but there was a distinct emphasis on a scientific comp
onent. Possibly, it meant some sort of chief investigator/scientist. The Sectilius leader? Ei’Brai indicated affirmation. “But, they didn’t plan for every possible contingency?”

“There are measures.
Elections, under normal conditions. A succession, if necessary, under martial law. Who could prepare for every Documented Citizen to be expunged in a single swipe? Who could foresee such a despicable act?”

“I don’t know, Ei’Brai. I’m so sorry.”

He sighed, an otherworldly, plaintive sound that conveyed his despair without words. “I fear for my brethren—that they may be stranded in isolated pockets of the universe, as I am. We shall all meet dusk before we may commune again, sharing the sight of the silhouette of Sectilia and Atielle against the radiance of their star.”

Jane
hesitated, knowing the answers to her questions must be negative, but needing to ask them nonetheless. “Why haven’t they sent someone looking for this ship?”

“Either there is no one left to look, or they simply believe our mission took longer than anticipated.” He was starting to sound less despondent, more in control again, as if she offered him some degree of hope. But what could she offer him besides companio
nship—and even that, only briefly?

“And there’s no way to communicate?”

“The distance is vast. I will be long dead before any communication is received.”

“The asteroid
…do you know…?”

“In less than three orbital revolutions, it will make contact, obliterating this ship. Yes. I, alone, cannot prevent it.”

The reality of that sank in. He was facing certain death, with little hope of reprieve.

She stayed quiet for some time, letting her presence offer co
mfort without demand, as she thought through all that he’d shared.

“You are not satisfied, Dr. Jane Holloway.”

“Ei’Brai, we need to know why the Sectilius came here.”

“The Sectilius are a pragmatic people. They value science, knowledge,
truth, above all else. They have been searching for your world for a very long time. Many Sectilius have given their lives in the search for Terra.”

Jane felt like she was perched on a precipice. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know more. She could see bitter irony in Ei’Brai’s mind. Still, she asked, “Why?”

“Ancient Cunabalistic writing indicates that the population of Terra could be the source of salvation.”

11

Bergen was shoving his legs into the fresh flight suit Ajaya had brought when Walsh and the others stormed in, their hair still dripping from their recent showers.

“What the hell is going on?” Walsh demanded.

“What makes you think I know the answer to that question?” Bergen countered irritably, as he slipped his arms into the armholes and zipped the suit up.

Walsh ignored that. “Where’s Holloway?”

Bergen thumbed toward the small room where they’d had the light treatment. “She’s out again. Ajaya’s dressing her, I think.”

Walsh’s eyes narrowed on Bergen in suspicion. Bergen glared back openly.

Gibbs was oblivious to the subtext. “Did she say anything?”

Bergen shook his head. “Not really. She said something was wrong, that she’d be right back.”

Gibbs looked worried. “How long ago was that?”

“I don’t know.
A few minutes? She said that and she was out. The alarm started seconds later.” The alarm in question shut off mid-sentence and his last word rang out in the sudden quiet. They all glanced around nervously as the room’s lighting changed back to its normal setting. All except Compton, Bergen noted. Compton looked unaffected, unconcerned, while the rest of them were clearly in freak-out mode again.

Ajaya emerged from the light treatment room, a grim expre
ssion on her face. “She’s in the same state. I haven’t been able to rouse her. I’ve tried everything I can think of—light, sound, even pain. Nothing I’ve tried has any effect.”

Walsh rubbed his chin and lower lip with his hand and shook his head. “This thing—whatever it is—is playing some kind of game. It’s picked out the weakest link and it’s using her to control the rest of us.”

Bergen bristled. “Weakest link? What the hell? She literally just saved our lives, you stupid fuck.”

Walsh sneered in his face. “You think you’re so fucking bri
lliant, don’t you, Bergen? But you’re so mesmerized by Holloway’s sashay that you can’t see it—she didn’t save us. It engineered that whole scenario just to make her think she saved us—with its help. Get it? That’s what’s going on here. She’s gullible enough to believe it—whereas the rest of us wouldn’t have. That’s why it chose her—not because she has some magical language power. This is a setup.”

Bergen pitched his voice low. “I should’ve let you fall.”

Walsh huffed and moved in closer. “Maybe you should have. You’d have done the little green guy a favor, because I’m the only one who can see what’s happening here.”

They were nose to nose. Bergen waited, his hands clenched at his sides, for Walsh to make a move, to say one more thing about Jane, anything,
so he could smash that snide look off his face.

“All right, gentleman? That’s enough.” Ajaya pushed herself between them and Bergen allowed himself to be backed up, his eyes still locked with Walsh’s. Gibbs was similarly moving Walsh out of range.

Ajaya positioned herself between them. “There is no doubt that we’ve found ourselves in an unusual situation. Fighting amongst ourselves will not resolve that. I don’t know what’s happening here. None of us do, for certain. We have options. We should explore them, plan a strategy based on what we know now.”

Walsh grunted, leaning against a section of wall with few ou
tcroppings, arms crossed. “That’s easy. We go back to the capsule and fall back to Mars.”

Gibbs and Varma exchanged shocked glances. Compton r
emained impassive.

Bergen shook his head, incredulous. “You can’t be serious. We’ve been here for less than 24 hours. We haven’t got what we came for.”

“I disagree. We know what we’re facing. We’ll make our reports and leave the rest to the Bravo mission. They’ll be prepared for this mind-game shit. This was never more than a scouting mission, Bergen,” Walsh said.

Bergen forced himself to stay calm, to make measured arg
uments. “That’s a helluva lot of time inside capsules for very little payback. We’ll get back to Earth just weeks before they launch Bravo either way. Why rush it? The Mars window will be open for months. We can hunker down here, make some headway into the analysis of their technology. Come on, Compton, say something, here!”

Compton was unmoved. He had a stake in this. He was brought on board as a mechanical engineer. They’d worked together on the shuttle analysis team. He had to be as motivated as Bergen to stay. Was he formulating an argument? Or was he in on this with Walsh? He and Walsh went way back. They’d been on several missions together. Is that what his silence was about?

Gibbs spoke up, “Berg’s got a point, Walsh. Why not give Jane a chance? Maybe this thing is testing us before it hands over the keys to the technology, or something.”

“My objective was laid out clear—preserve human life. Don’t risk everything for what could turn out to be a goddamn wrench.”

Bergen threw his hands in the air. “A wrench? Seriously? They’ve got artificial gravity, Walsh. I think that’s a little bigger than a wrench.” He turned away from Walsh’s condescending expression and banged his forehead lightly on one of the larger protuberances sticking out of the wall.

Ajaya extended a hand toward Walsh, appealing to him. “Commander, we’ve always known that Jane would likely be the only one who could communicate with anyone here. How is this truly different?”

“Oh, I don’t know—maybe because she’s unconscious? Because she’s being manipulated? You all saw how scared she was. Whatever that thing is doing to her—she doesn’t like it—but she’s still going along with it. Doesn’t that concern any of you?” He turned his attention to Bergen. “Do you really care what happens to her? Or is she just another piece of tail to you?”

Gibbs was ready, and pushed Bergen back. Bergen stood there, seething, with Ron’s hands on his shoulders, physically keeping him from exploding.

Ajaya faced Walsh squarely. “Commander, I hardly think baiting Dr. Bergen makes for a convincing argument.”

Walsh dismissed her with a wave of his hand and went on, “Do you seriously think we can trust anything she says or does now? Let the shrinks back home sort it all out. That’s not our job. We were meant to find out what was here. That’s it. We’re done.”

Bergen grit out, “If you’re so sure we can’t trust her, then why did we leave the vicinity of the capsule at all? And why didn’t you report any of this with the last transmission to Houston?”

“That’s simple. I don’t intend on embarrassing Dr. Holloway any more than I have to. I had to humor her to determine if she’d actually made contact, or if she’d just lost it. Now, I can file my report. I don’t know how I can make this any plainer—she’s been compromised.” Walsh took a few steps toward the door. “I’m g
oing back to the capsule. I’m going to release the docking clamps and set a course for Mars. You can board that capsule, and be home in 17 months, or you can stay here and take your chances with Dr. Holloway’s telepathic friend. The choice is yours.”

“Now? Right now?” Bergen stormed through clenched teeth. “What’s the rush?”

Walsh glared at him incredulously. “What do you think that alarm was about, Bergen? It’s probably engineering another scenario for her to save us from, right now. It wants us running scared, dependent on Holloway. We’ve got to move before it can enact its plan. If you don’t think these scenarios are going to escalate each time, you’re crazy. That thing is going to ratchet up the stakes until one of us, maybe all of us, is dead.”

Gibbs and Varma both seemed to be indecisive. Walsh was ge
tting to them. Compton looked like he was falling asleep on his feet. What the hell was up with him? He normally contributed some kind of tidbit that everyone thought was the sage voice of experience.

Bergen said, “That’s speculation. You can’t know that. I can’t believe that the
brass in Houston don’t expect us to put more time and effort into this. We’ve barely seen anything—just a bunch of tanks and crates and an infirmary. We need to give this more time.”

“Your input is noted, Dr. Bergen. This is my call. Compton—go get Holloway. We’ll take turns carrying her.”

Compton blinked, but didn’t move.

Walsh sidled up to Compton. “You got something you want to say, Tom?”

“Hm?” Compton roused himself and inhaled sharply. “You say something, Commander?”

Walsh took a step back like he’d been slapped, his eyes roving over Compton’s face.

Ajaya moved in. “Thomas? Are you feeling well?”

Compton smiled, a slow, sloppy grin. “Sure. Whadaya need?”

She took a pen light out of her pocket and flashed it in Compton’s eyes. “What were you thinking about, just now?”

His eyebrows crept up and his features contorted into a leer. “You sound like a girl I once knew.”

Ajaya didn’t hide her dismay.

Gibbs put his hand on Compton’s shoulder. “Is the alien talking to you inside your head, Pops? Like it is with Jane?”

Compton made a face like that was absurd. “What? No.”

Walsh motioned them away from Compton, who didn’t notice or mind. “Do you see? It’s already starting. We’ve got to get out of here before all hell breaks loose.”

Gibbs and Varma nodded.

Bergen was so unnerved by Compton’s unsettling behavior
, he kept silent.

Walsh went out to check that the hallway was clear. Gibbs went for Jane while Varma coaxed Compton toward the door.

Bergen stood there, clenching and unclenching his fists. They didn’t have the big picture, yet, he felt sure of that, but Walsh was right about one thing—it seemed pretty clear—all hell was about to break loose.