Fluency (26 page)

After a moment, she raised her head. He was still respectfully floating horizontally, eyes averted from her.

“Stop that,” she said crossly.

“As you wish.” He came to vertical and relaxed his limbs. He exuded tranquility. It was infuriating.

“But why put anyone in danger at all? You’re certainly capable of creating any scenario you like, making it feel as real as…reality. Why do all of this?”

“I regret I do not posses the imaginative traits needed to e
ndeavor to plot such a scenario. I am but a practical individual. I utilized what I had to hand, so to speak. It was imperative that your experience be heuristic in nature. I believe I accomplished that admirably, did I not?”

She drew her brows together. “But Compton really is infected then
….”

“With the latent squillae that infected the Speroancora Co
mmunity, yes. I had presumed them all uncovered and eliminated by now, but—”

“Clearly a few hid from your efforts,” she said dryly.

She could see in his mind that over the decades he had ordered his own cadres of squillae to comb the ship, seeking and destroying the rogue squillae that had lain dormant, unnoticed under their noses, biding their time until something triggered them, infecting everyone on board simultaneously. Only Ei’Brai was spared, because his environment was encapsulated, kept separate from the rest of the ship, impervious to infiltration.

“Agreed. They were programmed by a sophisticated and r
esourceful individual.”

“Who?”

“I regret I cannot say, but I am eager to take revenge in whatever manner you see fit, should we discover the perpetrator’s identity and whereabouts.”

She exhaled slowly, determined to come to terms with her new role as the Quasador Dux of the Speroancora. “Is there any hope for Compton?”

“Unknown. The Sanalabreum has declared him clear several times, but then another is found replicating elsewhere within his anatomy.”

“I see. They’re tenacious and not easy to detect. So, there
is
risk to Alan and myself and to Earth—if Walsh, Ajaya or Gibbs are infected with even one of them.”

“Regrettably, yes.”

“How do we get rid of them, once and for all?”

“That, Qua’dux Jane Holloway, I do not know.”

24

Bergen was paddling his ass off toward shore, building speed. He glanced back and could see the swell rising over his shoulder. He’d missed the last one. It broke sooner than he’d anticipated, but this one was his.

Today, the wave trains weren’t tremendous, but a good solid five feet, shoulder high, and perfect glass. He was starting to tire; he’d been at it for a while, and he should be heading back into the lab to get started on his day, but it was hard to say no to just one more wave.

Surfing was like a drug.

He huffed at that thought and paddled harder. Almost there.

Nope. Not a drug—it was like sex. You spend a lot of time working up to doing it, it’s mind-blowingly awesome for a few moments, then it’s over and you want to do it again.
And again. Always good. Even if it wasn’t perfect. Still good.

He felt the wave catch his board and fought the urge to rush to his feet. He let the board match the momentum of the cresting wave, and pushed up slowly, keeping the board
well-balanced as he got his feet under him and corrected his course.

Such a fucking rush.
Nothing else like it. He knew intellectually that the energy pushing his board had been transmitted from wind to water, that the water molecules rotated in that energy, passing it on from molecule to molecule, forming the waves, moving relentlessly for thousands of miles before reaching shore, the energy slowly dissipating as it went.

A different kind of energy surged in him. Everything was right and good in this moment: the warm sun, the fine spray of the water on his exposed skin, the sounds of breaking waves and the raucous calls of gulls—the amazing feeling of disbelief that he was actually doing it—flying, skimming the sea, walking on water.

This was a pretty popular beach. Normally by now he’d be annoyed with the other people in the surf and on the beach, getting in his way when he’d caught the perfect wave, truncating the experience, spoiling it with buffoonery or ignorance. But today he was alone. It struck him as a rare pleasure. He didn’t dwell on his luck. He just savored it.

He scanned ahead. The wave was starting to break up. Som
ething moved in his peripheral vision and he turned slightly to see what it was. It was probably just a gull, but something told him it was larger.

There it was again.

The thrust from the wave destabilized. He lost his balance and plunged into the water. Just before he went under, he got a decent look at it. It was long and thin, like an arm or a tentacle. An octopus this close to shore would be unusual on this beach and he was pretty sure the local octopi were supposed to be small and reddish.

He stayed under for a moment, orienting himself to catch a glimpse of the creature from beneath the surface. He bobbed as the sea churned around him, the tether from his forgotten board tu
gging on his leg. That leg ached, and for a moment he felt
deja vu
or like he needed to remember something important.

He forgot all that when he finally caught sight of it.
Oh, fuck.
It was way bigger and way closer than he’d realized. He’d heard news stories of Humboldt squid attacking divers near San Diego—plucking at masks, ripping hoses, tearing skin—but those were supposed to be around five feet long and confined to deeper waters. This thing was easily ten times that size. And it…
holy shit
…it was watching him. One of its tentacles snaked out and came within inches of his arm.

He reacted instinctively, lungs burning for air, kicking like hell for the surface and his board, every bit of the
zen he’d gained during the last hour of surfing obliterated. He gasped for air and didn’t bother to look around. He knew he was alone. There was no help for him out here if this freaky, misplaced kraken decided it wanted to have him for breakfast. His only recourse was to get to shore as fast as possible.

He busted his ass to get there, just aiming for sand, half expec
ting to be pulled under any second. His thoughts raced with the legends he’d heard of ships being destroyed by sea monsters—legends he’d once thought were embellished, but now he wasn’t so sure.

As soon as he could get his feet under him, he trotted onto the sand, dropped his board, and collapsed. He sat there, panting, and scanned for signs of the creature in the surf. He was so absorbed
that when he heard someone softly clearing their throat beside him, he leapt to his feet, whirling.

It was Jane.

She smiled sheepishly and gestured at the sea. “I’m sorry, Alan. I should have told him not to do that. He’s thrilled to finally meet you and when he saw you were dreaming of the ocean, well, that only fueled his excitement. He didn’t realize how his greeting might affect you. It’s a cultural thing. The Sectilius are not as easily ruffled when they encounter something out of the ordinary.”

He looked from her to the pounding surf, confused. “What?” He reached out a hand to her arm. “Jane, what are you doing here? What’s going on?”

“You’re dreaming. You’re in a Regeneration Basin, recovering. You remember the ship, the slugs, the nepatrox?”

He took a step back, letting his hand fall away from her. He couldn’t stop himself from looking down at his leg. Suddenly he felt very silly and very unsure.

He nodded slowly. “I’m dreaming. Of course, of course. That makes sense. Gotta pass the time somehow.”

He turned back to her. All her attention was on him. He liked that. He felt his lips turn up into a libidinous smile. She looked stunning. Her hair glowed in the early-morning sun, whipping around her face in the breeze coming off the water. She wore some kind of long tunic that was pressed against her body by the wind, revealing every wayward curve.

This was going to be a dream to remember.

She held up a hand, her lips twitching. “That’s not where this is going, Alan.”

Damn it.
His subconscious mind was a real bastard. Why would he fuck with himself this way?

“Hey,” he said out loud to himself as much as to Jane as he wrapped his arms around her, “This is my goddamn dream. It’ll go wherever the hell I please.” Her face was turned down. He reached into her hair, tugging gently and lowered his lips to her temple, her cheek, hungrily seeking her mouth.

“Um, no. It’s not as simple as that.” Her hand came up to cover his lips. “Listen to me, Alan. You were dreaming. But you aren’t precisely dreaming anymore. I’m actually here. We are here.” She removed her hand from his mouth and put some space between them, gesturing at the sea again. A tentacle raised out of the water again and made a limp gesture.

“What the fuck
…is going on here?” He felt queasy and tense.

She led him to the waters edge. “Dr. Alan Bergen, meet Ei’Brai, Gubernaviti of the Speroancora.”

“Greetings. It is an unbearable pleasure to finally interact with you, Dr. Alan Bergen.”

The voice was deep. And it was inside his head.

Water lapped at his ankles. The white tentacle remained visible on the surface, rolling with each heave and swell of the sea.

He felt nothing but disbelief. His thoughts spun in place, stuck in the wrong gear. “I…ah….”

The voice continued, “We approach now, Dr. Alan Bergen, because Qua’dux Jane Holloway insists upon your input. It strikes me as a futile effort, however I am bound to comply with every caprice of the Quasador Dux.”

Bergen turned back to Jane, blinking.

She had an intense look on her face, gazing out to sea. “What we need are ideas and you don’t have any, Ei’Brai.” The tentacle withdrew from the surface with a splash and he could faintly hear some kind of disgruntled, crackling grumbling deep in his ear.

Jane’s eyes narrowed and she turned back to him. “Alan, you have some knowledge of nanotechnology, don’t you?”

He shook his head. “Wait a minute. What did he just call you?”

Her lips drew together in a thin line. “That’s not important right now. I want to show you some things, see if you can make sense of them.”

“No. I think it is important. What did you do, Jane? Are you in danger?” He grabbed her arm, harder than he should have.

She shrugged him off. “I’m fine. He called me the Quasador Dux because I’ve taken control of this ship. I’m in command now. He works for me.”

The deep voice rumbled again, inside his head. “I do, indeed. I could not have envisaged a more propitious commanding officer. It is my honor to serve the honorable Qua’dux Jane Holloway. We are here to consult. Are you prepared to begin?”

He ignored the gnarly beast for the moment. “You command this ship? What? How?”

“It’s complicated, Alan. I will explain, I promise. But right now we have a more pressing issue. This ship is swarming with nanites—I’ve already told you that—they perform many repair functions throughout the ship. They were programed by the Sectilius to perform those functions, coordinated through Ei’Brai. What the Sectilius didn’t know is that a portion of those nanites were hijacked and re-programed to attack the central nervous system of every living thing on board in a synchronized strike.”

Bergen’s eyebrows drew together. “That’s what happened to the crew of this ship?”

“Yes. And it’s what’s happening to Compton, right now. He’s fighting for his life in the tank next to you. It could be happening to Walsh, Ajaya, and Gibbs too, out there in the capsule. We need to find a way to turn these things off or reprogram them. I have no way of knowing if the damage is irreparable. I hope not. But there’s no way to know for sure.”

Bergen opened his hand and gestured toward the sea. “Shouldn’t your buddy out there be the expert on this shit? Why do you need me?”

Disgruntlement rumbled in his head again. He ignored it.

“He’s been trying to solve it since 1947, Alan.”

Alan put a hand to the back of his neck. “Okay. What makes you think I’ll succeed where Cthulhu has failed?”

She smiled. “You’re not him. You don’t think like he does.”

25

Jane felt out of sorts, like she should be doing something i
mportant, though she had no idea what that might be. She’d eaten and found herself wandering the corridors of the ship. Her trajectory seemed aimless, yet she was compelled to continue. She was giving herself a tour of her new domain, layering her own concrete experience on top of the mental map in her mind’s eye.

The ship seemed different to her now, since her immersion in the Sanalabreum. It seemed shockingly silent, lonely, perhaps even haunted. She half expected to see Sectilius purposefully bustling by as she rounded every corner.

Alan and Ei’Brai wouldn’t need her for a few hours. She should have slept, but she felt restless. She’d been sleeping in the spartan crew quarters within the medical center to stay near Alan. Those were adequate, but they weren’t intended to be permanent quarters for any crew member, just a place to nap during a long, uneventful shift. They didn’t feel…right. She spent as little time there as possible.

Neither Alan nor Ei’Brai could be convinced to rest much e
ither. The two of them were inexhaustible when faced with an intellectual puzzle. They went round and round for hours on end, arguing about how to deal with the rogue squillae.

Alan had come up with a solution straightaway, but Ei’Brai r
ejected it just as quickly, insisting Alan’s plan was fraught with pitfalls that neither of them could adequately anticipate. So the endless research, analysis and translation began. It was draining and frustrating for Jane, because she was forced into the role of translator within a sphere that she knew nothing about.

Alan was picking up Mensententia quickly, but even a genius immersed in a language wouldn’t be immediately proficient in the complex vocabulary of engineering. Jane had to pull from deep within and all of them had to exercise extreme patience as they learned how to communicate in this complex way.

Ei’Brai made the link possible and Alan adapted to Anipraxia quickly. He seemed to like it, though he wasn’t about to admit that, because he harbored intense levels of mistrust toward Ei’Brai and his motives. He’d heard the whole story, all the justifications for it, and he didn’t like any of it. He made it very clear that he thought Ei’Brai should have been upfront from the beginning.

Jane did her best to keep the squabbling between them to a minimum. Since she was the intermediary for nearly every conve
rsation between them, that was a constant role she was forced to play.

It didn’t help that Alan was stuck in the Sanalabreum. He seemed to despise being interred there every bit as much as Jane had. He was a restless
type, needed to keep moving, keep busy.

At the moment, Alan was occupied with picking apart lines of computer code and he’d be immersed in it for hours. They’d r
ecovered a single example of the miscreant squillae from Compton’s Sanalabreum and immobilized it for study. Jane downloaded its code under Ei’Brai’s instruction. Alan was studying that code, line by line.

He’d picked up on the structure and rules of the alien code quickly, drawing parallels to his extensive knowledge of code on Earth.

He’d riffed, “It’s all just ones and zeros no matter where you go in the universe, Jane.”

She hadn’t gotten the joke, but she didn’t think he expected her to. Before she could ask what he meant exactly, he was back in it again.

She’d been walking for some time and he was still at it. She came back to herself and realized she was standing in a deck transport. She selected the deck that contained the public and private rooms of the ship’s governing body. Soon she was standing outside the door of the rooms of the Quasador Dux. This corridor was the same dull green as any other on the ship. It could have been any door on the ship.

She reached out her hand purposefully to the door control. She knew the woman who had occupied this room in an unsettling and unearthly way. Jane had seen many of her memories. No, not just seen them. She had, in fact, inhabited them.

Jane knew what it was like to be Qua’dux Rageth Elia Hator. Jane knew her favorite places in the ship, knew who her lovers were, knew what her favorite foods tasted like. Jane had seen her ferocity in battle, had seen her coping stoically with adversity. Jane knew her—knew that she’d been intelligent, determined, secure in her own abilities and those of her crew. She was respected and revered by the majority of the Sectilius onboard. She’d been an intrepid woman. Her loss was a tragedy. These were deep boots to fill.

The door slid into the ceiling with a near-silent whisper. Jane gasped with surprise and stepped inside the large, sparsely fu
rnished room, mouth still agape.

Color.
A riot of color.

Each wall had been painted in great blocks of swirling color. The wall opposite the door was particularly stirring. She moved forward to examine the work up close.

It was painted with wide smears of pigment so thick there were peaks and ridges within the medium itself. At the top third of the wall, the colors blended from amethyst to azure, thin streaks of vivid, contrasting colors commingling so well that they could only be distinguished at close range.

There was a break in the painting where the dull green of the wall was exposed, much like a Rothko, and the lower portion of the wall was a study in blues and greens, lighter near the top, gai
ning depth and mystery as the heavy strokes of darker pigments blended toward the bottom of the wall.

It was a depiction of dawn over a vast sea. She knew it intu
itively, as if she’d been there, as if the experience was personal. She fingered the textured surface with the lightest of touches, thinking. Maybe she had, indirectly. Her own memory was a mixed-up jumble now.

It seemed like the break between the two paintings wasn’t meant to separate them entirely, only to highlight the contrast.
They co-existed. They depicted the same location. They were different realms within the same world, a watery world. Ei’Brai’s home world, she realized suddenly, stepping back and taking it all in again. Water and air.

Qua’dux Rageth Elia Hator had felt so strongly connected to Ei’Brai that she felt compelled to create art from the memories he shared with her.

Jane flashed on a memory of standing in this room, holding a wide, shallow bowl containing a traditional mixture of mineral clay slurry thickened with a bright blue pigment. There were many more bowls on tables nearby, filled with similar shades as well as contrasting colors that she had painstakingly mixed. Some of them had strong, chemical odors. Others were earthy and pleasant.

She reached into the bowl, scooping the cool paste into the spoon-shape she made with her fingers. Then, with a practiced hand, twisted and twined her fingers to release the thick pigment on the wall with special attention to how the paint flowed from each long finger. With a new color, she went back to that same spot, arching, extending her willowy body to reach, creating hig
hlights, ridges and valleys, building up texture and color with each stroke.

She’d been at it for some time. Her fingers were stained, cold, and stiff. The muscles of her arms burned and her back ached, but she took little notice. This was her space and she would fill it with something lovely. She felt content and highly motivated to co
mplete this section before someone interrupted her.

Her form was still very good, she thought, as she paused, scr
utinizing her progress. She frowned when she realized she’d brushed her hand against her brow, smearing her forehead with dark cyan pigment.

Painting was imbedded in her. She’d practiced this technique since she was a child, had been good enough for formal schooling, but the stars had beckoned to her. She wasn’t fanciful about it. She was thoroughly practical. She could have had a good life as an artist.
A safe life. But she knew she was made for more.

As the wisps of the memory faded, Jane imagined what might have happened, had circumstances been different, had the squillae not destroyed this incredible women, so that Jane might have met her, on Earth, as Rageth had intended.

Jane sighed and turned, realizing the adjacent wall wasn’t just a depiction of geometric shapes as she’d originally presumed. It, too, was an impression of a place that meant something to Rageth. This painting was more detailed.

From this angle, she could see it was a view of Sectilia from her moon, Atielle, where Rageth had been born. Sectilia hung large and low on the horizon, a misty, blue-green sphere, dominating the painting. Dawn encircled the planet with a brilliant halo of color—violet and coral and tangerine on a sky that was a slightly different cast of blue than Earth’s sky. It was so lovely, this moon with a
nother world looming in the heavens.

There were other rooms adjoining this one, including a be
droom, but Jane didn’t have the desire to explore them yet. This room was appointed with plenty of sturdy-looking, simple seating. It was a room meant for social events. Jane approached a piece of furniture that resembled a streamlined, low, modern couch and sat down opposite one of the paintings, still absorbing its details.

“You have many attributes in common with her,” rumbled sof
tly in her head.

“That’s very kind of you to say,” Jane replied with a wry smile.

“I do not contrive the assessment to inflate your sense of self. I observe. I do not embellish.”

“Thank you, then.”

“Do not compare yourself to her. You exceed the necessary criteria required to perform.”

Jane looked down at her hands in her lap. “I know you believe that’s true, but entire worlds full of innocent people are depending on me to get these next steps right. It’s such a heavy weight. I don’t want to fail.”

He acknowledged that, silently. He felt a similar responsibility. They communed in that. It helped, somehow.

After a moment, he rumbled, “Those other worlds beckon to you.”

She frowned. “They terrify me.”

“No. This is not who you are.”

She saw a face in her mind’s eye and wrinkled her brow. Ei’Brai was summoning a memory that’d been buried deep. She hadn’t thought of Mowan for decades. He was a Nawagi boy she’d met when bushwalking with her parents in Queensland in the months before they started their new venture on the coast. The two of them had spent more than a week romping in the scrub before it was time to move on. One day, he’d arrived at their campsite and said he wanted to take her to a special place.

He’d held her pale hand in his warm, dark one and led her across the plain to a rocky outcropping and an ochre pit. He said
the adults in his tribe ground the brightly colored, soft stones with fat to make a paste that they used to paint the body for secret dancing ceremonies that sometimes lasted for days.

He picked up a bright orange stone and rubbed it against a flat rock jutting out of the dry landscape, quickly creating a small mound of orange, chalky powder. Smiling, he pressed his finger into it and drew his finger from her hairline at the center of her forehead, down her nose, over her lips and chin. Jane chose a small, yellow lump of ochre and ground it against another stone nearby. She smoothed the powder in stripes over his cheeks.

They took turns daubing each other with the mineral dust—faces, neck, arms—giddy with the results. They transformed each other into otherworldly-looking creatures. His lips twitched when he said his mother had painted his sister’s chest to make her breasts grow. Jane laughed and told him she didn’t need breasts yet.

The sun grew hot overhead and they tired of smearing each other with the colorful rock dust, so they crossed the dry grassland until they came to a greener place with a rushing stream. They splashed the pigment away with cool water and
laughter, then went off to explore some other delightful thing.

As the memory faded, Jane eased back into the stiff furniture. Ei’Brai had uncovered a long-forgotten memory of Australia that was untainted by the aftermath of her father’s death. He made his point eloquently. She’d arrived in Australia, a child eager for exp
erience—curious and open. The months and years that followed had changed her.

It was more than just coming of age, slipping into an adult skin. She’d always thought her proclivities toward adventurism, risk-
taking, exploration, hedonism had simply been tempered by time. They hadn’t. They’d been crushed by fear—her own and her grandparents—who feared losing Jane the same way they’d lost their daughter to the wildest corners of the world. They questioned her every inclination, brandished the potential worst-case result of every action, relentlessly reminding her of her father’s death, until she began to doubt all but the most mundane desires for herself.

She’d learned never to trust herself.

Yet somehow she’d still ended up here. What was keeping her from reveling in this adventure now?

Some worry was normal. Paralysis was not.

Ei’Brai was right. Just look at the child she’d been. She owed everything to that child—her language ability, her curiosity, her passion. How could she have ever buried her so deep?

Jane slipped off her boots and pulled her feet up onto the low couch. She hadn’t slept properly for so long. The meal she’d just consumed was making her feel drowsy.