Primal Estate: The Candidate Species (47 page)

“You guys okay?”

Shainan, spooning Carson on his bed and stroking his hair, looked up and nodded. He hadn’t told her he would be leaving for the Provenger ship. He didn’t want to alarm her, especially in her condition.

Rick looked at it in amazement. It was a solid black cylinder, just as Nwella had described, about the size and shape of an old 35 millimeter film can, perhaps a little shorter. It looked puny in Utu’s palm, and yet it held so much power, the potential for multiple transports across the solar system, independent of any outside power source. In weapon mode, which is what he assumed this cylinder facilitated, Nwella told him a single bolted gauntlet could lay waste to cities.

“It weighs almost nothing. It goes in here,” Utu pointed to a shallow hole of the same size on the top of the gauntlet on his arm. “Then I can destroy just about anything I have a mind to. Rick, I’m going to destroy the Provenger ship. I’m convinced I need to go immediately. I was going to do it this morning, first thing, but I delayed because Shainan wasn’t well. Then you got involved with the man in the hole…”

“Utu, you can’t go now. Nwella is still there!”

“Rick, your thinking on this is clouded. When she confesses, they might immediately come for us. The fact is, we have no idea what they might do. That’s exactly the reason we need to act now. For your sake, I hope she can make it back. But you need to think of Carson first.”

“Utu, Nwella said we have immunity because of the baby. They won’t come after us. You even felt she was telling the truth.”

“What if she’s wrong? What if they do? What if she loses the baby? Any way you look at it, we need to destroy them as soon as possible. We have the capability right here, right now. The longer we wait, the more likely we are to lose this capability. They are very careful with these things. The only reason this one exists is because they thought it was destroyed thousands of years ago. For some reason, they missed it. What if their scanners are capable of seeing it somehow? What if they see it here? They’ll come get it, and we will lose our chance. We’d be lucky if they didn’t kill us.”

“You can’t go until Nwella gets back.”

“Rick, that might be too late. I can’t afford that.”

Rick realized that Utu was determined and also probably correct about the need to do it now. But Rick wasn’t willing to lose Nwella. He believed what she’d said about their immunity and believed she’d be an asset to any future issues they might have with the Provenger. And he loved her. Nwella had told him that at this very moment Synster was on Earth, as was Ryvil. Who knew how many other Provenger were on Earth? Rick would need her help dealing with them.

Rick also realized that Utu was probably twice as fast and three times stronger than he was. Utu could really do anything he wanted, and he wouldn’t be able to stop him. Rick casually took a couple steps away from him.

Utu quickly put the bolt in the gauntlet. Rick drew his 1911 and held it on Utu, not believing the course of events unfolding. Utu was his friend, his ally, and now, in a moment, they were ready to sacrifice everything for what they believed should be the next step.

“Don’t move!” Rick growled, determined to save everyone. He believed he was right concerning keeping Nwella alive, as an ally. Yet, he felt the same about Utu. And still, Rick sensed he might shoot the brother he’d always wanted.

Utu froze. He was looking at the controls on the gauntlet. The colors on the controls changed once he put the bolt in, and he had to figure out which ones would take him to the ship and which combination was the weapon. He’d seen it done a long time ago and needed to be sure. He hesitated.

“Don’t move. Dammit, Utu. You can’t do this to me. You can’t do this to us! Let me see if I can signal her. I can call her off the ship.”

Utu considered this. As his mind raced through the possible issues involved, fingers poised over the controls, ready to press, both men heard a tapping at the back door. They looked at the same time. It was Nwella.

“That was fast,” said Utu.

They both exhaled in relief. She looked strange, but no other Provenger was with her. Rick lowered his pistol, backed up to the door, and let her in.

“Who’s the dead man in the hole?” Nwella asked.

Rick holstered and threw his arms around her. “Why are you back so soon?”

“It’s done. I’m banished,” she stated with a stoic resolve.

“Are you alone?” Rick asked. “Why is your head red…and your eyes?” She appeared to have a horrible rash, with her scalp and the skin around her eyes swollen and red.

“Syrjon was leaving for Earth with Ryvil this morning. I confessed and was sentenced last night, and he offered to give me a hair cell implant procedure. I’ll be growing hair,” reported Nwella with a forced sense of enthusiasm. “What is going on here? Why were you pointing your weapon at Utu?”

“Utu has a bolt, I think you call it, in the gauntlet. He was going to your ship.”

Nwella’s first reaction was disbelief. Then it changed to horror. She was almost panicked in her agitation. “No, oh no.” The men sensed her alarm and somehow knew it wasn’t for the safety of the ship. She hurried up to Utu, without even thinking that it might be dangerous to approach him. She grabbed the gauntlet with her fumbling, shaking hands, and turned it to see the top, the bolt sticking out of it. She verified it was real. “Oh no!” she cried.

“What? What’s wrong?” Rick asked.

“The Guard, they’ll be coming. They’re the caretakers of the Essence. The bolt activates it. They’ll come to destroy this and all of us. The bolt activates a signal. The scanners. It’s the only thing they do, to prevent its theft. That is what powers the bolt,” blurted Nwella, panicked.

Rick and Utu understood enough of what she said to know they were in trouble and looked at each other in horror. “How long do we have?” asked Rick.

“How long has it been in the gauntlet?” Nwella questioned

Forgetting to act the fool, Utu replied in perfect English, “I just put it in, maybe a minute ago. I lost track of time when Rick pulled his gun on me.” Utu glared at Rick.

“Then we may have time. What were you going to do?”

“I was going to transport to the ship and destroy as much of it as I could.”

“You would have failed.” Nwella threw a pinched look at Utu. “How can you talk so well?”

“I’m much smarter than you ever imagined,” retorted Utu, forgetting everything he’d ever dreamed about how he’d reveal himself at this moment. The imagined satisfaction drained from him.

Nwella cocked her head. “Forget that. No time. None of the outer ring of the ship can be modified by gravitation waves. It’s built that way. But, if you do this correctly, there may be a way to save us. I’m not sure how long we have, but there is some delay before the gauntlet signal will be decoded and interpreted by any of our scanners, somewhere between five and ten minutes, I think, or maybe less. Not only will the Guard move to recover it, but they’ll be able to track it from its origin once they get the signal. So ditching it won’t do any good. We’d all be in danger regardless of where it was. If you promise not to kill any Provenger, then I’ll show you how you can shut down the scanners and disable the ship by taking out its main power source. This will strand it in orbit and prevent the Guard from finding us. Do you promise not to kill any Provenger?”

Utu didn’t like the idea of not destroying the ship, but he sensed that she was being honest about not being able to. If he could eliminate the ship’s ability to travel, retain the gauntlet, and avoid being discovered by the Guard, whatever they were, what Nwella was saying sounded like a good option. “If I can truly disable the ship and strand it in orbit, I promise not to kill a Provenger. On this trip,” Utu added.

Nwella knew time was very short. If Utu didn’t disable the ship within a few minutes, they would be identified and swarmed with Guard that would annihilate them. She wasn’t going to quibble over context. “Done.”

The Provenger Nation Ship was composed of two rings or wheels, one inside of another held by spokes between them. The inside ring support structure that carries the Essence and holds the binary star would have to be collapsed.

Nwella pressed the controls on the gauntlet to produce the exact type of disruption beam he would need, and she showed him how to aim and activate it. She then modified the settings to deliver Utu to a receiving station on a spoke adjacent to the inside ring. Due to the zero gravity in that area, no one lived or worked on the inside ring or the spokes. Those structures were merely the binary star containment system and storage areas.

“Think of the ship as a wheel within a wheel, connected by spokes. You must destroy a section of the inside ring, then a section of the spoke just beyond it. The section of the inside ring and the piece of the spoke that is connected to it should then start drifting toward the center. Before it drifts too far, you must then at least crack the second spoke. That should start a chain reaction that will break all the spokes around the smaller wheel that is the containment system. This should result in the ship’s loss of the binary star. With the charge that exists on this bolt…” Nwella turned it to look, “you might have enough power for a transport back. Do you understand?”

Utu’s face was blank. He’d heard most of what she said, but part of his mind was stuck on the statement that he just made about being smarter than she ever imagined, and regretting it.

Nwella glared at him, “Do you understand?” As she spoke Nwella could feel valuable time ticking by. The urgency of the need for immediate action was pounding her.

“Um, what’s a spoke? I mean, I know what a wheel is, but all the ones I’ve seen don’t come with spokes.”

Nwella rolled her eyes, completely exasperated. Rick realized Utu lived in a pre-wheel society and the modern technology of the Provenger didn’t use wheels. And most wheels on Earth didn’t have spokes anymore. “He’s a Cro-Magnon. No wheels!” Rick yelled at Nwella, pointing vigorously at Utu.

“Oh, right!” she yelled back. “So a spoke is a support which connects the outside of the wheel to the center,” she said, violently making circles and lines in the air with her hands.

“Okay, okay, I get it!” Utu reassured, then paused. “Um, where is the second spoke from where I am?” Utu asked, trying to concentrate.

“You’re on a spoke. The second spoke would be on either side of you, depending on where you arrive on the station, beyond the first spoke. You make the choice. It could be either side, either of two spokes!” Nwella responded quickly.

“Either side of what?”

“Either side of the spoke you’re on!”

Utu’s face became twisted. “So I’m not shooting any of the spoke I’m on, right?”

“No, that’s right. Don’t shoot your spoke!”

“Maybe we should draw a picture. I’ll get a pen,” Rick suggested, hurrying over to the desk at the edge of his kitchen. He grabbed the only pen he saw and an envelope on the desk and hurried it over to the living room table.

“Here!” He thrust it at Nwella, and they all leaned over the table to watch.

Nwella tried to draw a circle, but the pen simply made a dry impression. She looked at Rick. Rick grabbed the pen and scribbled back and forth across the paper, quickly. It started to write, and he slapped it down into Nwella’s waiting palm. She tried again to draw a circle but still, no ink. Rick leapt toward the desk for another pen as Carson walked into the room. The moment he spoke, everyone jumped, thinking the Guard were there.

“What the hell is going on here? Is that guy buried yet?”

“Carson! Watch your language! Do you have a pen?” Rick asked as he hurriedly shuffled across the surface of the desk with his hands groping for anything that resembled a writing implement.

Carson walked over to the table next to Nwella, picked up a felt tip pen, popped the top off, and handed it to her. She drew the big circle, the spokes, the small circle, and showed Utu where he would be and what sections to destroy, telling him, moments before he vanished, that he would be able to see his targets through windows and to hit the green panel on the gauntlet to come home.

Utu nodded his comprehension. “Tell Shainan I love her.” And he was gone.

Rick realized that their very lives and the future of humanity depended on the effectiveness of a rushed set of instructions communicated in a non-native language from an advanced alien female to an ancient Cro-Magnon male. He needed to shoot at something called a spoke, a thing of which he had never previously conceived. Rick recalled the couple times he’d tried to get directions from his ex-wife. “We’re doomed,” he muttered.

Meanwhile, in South America…

Ryvil and Syrjon were scheduled to survey an area in the Bolivian Andes for human populations that might be appropriate for immediate harvest. They were also tasked to assess the area for other mammalian species that might be easily harvested in volume.

Synster must be getting desperate, Ryvil figured. This assignment to survey for species not perpetuated by Provenger programs was approaching a violation of their renewable resource directive. Ryvil knew that the second assignment would be futile. He’d been to this area before and no such animals existed in any kind of volume that would allow for efficient harvest. He knew the area because he’d visited an ancient Provenger base there, one of five on Earth that had been established by the Provenger long before their recent war. So far as he was aware, he and Syrjon were the only living Provenger that knew of them. They were still intact, effectively shielded from all scans, and well-provisioned. The Old Ones had planned well, Ryvil thought.