Seeing that the first drone escaped unharmed, they decided to launch more. They garnered no greater reaction than that of the first. The sentry ships scanned the drones and seemed satisfied that they were no threat. Most of them were launched in the direction of various lonely nearby asteroids with no resident alien ships present. Sensors suggested that these had at least some of the Akoronite they were searching for, and quite possibly a great deal of it. Even at full burn it would take some time to reach the asteroids though.
“Let’s take a closer look at these alien ships,” Snow said feeling cheeky.
Max sent two of the drones on another longish journey towards a pair of occupied asteroids, but a third one passed nearby the sentry ships. The Dee-Dub's sensors showed that these ships made no attempt at camouflage. They stood out as artificial constructs in nearly every way. The spikes reflected the sensors signals back at nice sharp angles and displayed a hard, even surface. The Akoronite load that was jamming their drive showed up as well. Though the jump drive was not strictly speaking a sensor, any source of information was welcome to them. The drone reached the first sentry ship, diving in close. The sentry made no reaction. It's surface up close showed an interconnected pattern of geometric shapes. It was very pretty, but not even Linda commented on what such a pattern might accomplish. The blades too were covered in a pattern, though with slightly different shapes. The ship showed no sign of a transparent canopy as with the Dee-Dub or Longissima. Snow wondered if that meant the sentry was a sort of software driven drone, an AI or if they just didn't do windows in Torrian'ia.
The drone scanned the sentry ship from tip to tail sending the telemetry to the Dee-Dub, but there were no wow moments to be had for Snow or Max beyond the obvious waning excitement of seeing alien ships and beings. Linda on the other hand was fascinated by information gleaned by the scans. The ship seemed to be made of a very low-density material. Very, very strong. Very, very low-density. Which in part explained how the ship was able to move so quickly and effortlessly.
After a while, the drone moved on to investigate other areas of local space.
Doozer, who'd spent more time than usual sleeping in his tiny lair between the Dee-Dub's front seats, was ambling about, gripping the back of her seat for purchase. His limited movements reminded Snow of something she had been meaning to make for him. She slipped into the cargo bay see what she could come up with.
“See,” Snow said, when she'd finished. “He's like a jellyfish!”
Doozer, stranded by Snow in the middle of the living space, was flapping his legs in unison to propel himself through the air with his new space flippers TM. He reached the wall and grabbed on, pulling himself in close and hugging it.
Snow glided towards him and gave him a friendly tap on the carapace. He cooed with pleasure. The cooing stopped when she plucked him from the wall and stranded him in the center of the room again.
“Poor Doozer!” Linda said.
Max shrugged.
Doozer jellyfished his way back to the wall, more quickly this time. Snow kept it up, rewarding him and stranding him until finally, she glided over to him one last time. He jellyfished away from her, breaking her heart and filling her with pride at the same time.
“Here,” Max said, slipping some Doozer snacks into her hand.
Snow held out one of the snacks and called from across the room. Doozer gave her a suspicious look, then grappled his way around the edge of the wall and up her to her arm to reach the snack. Snow let him have it and rapped him on the carapace, after all a clever solution is a clever solution. The next snack she placed in the middle of the room away from any walls. Doozer eyed the treat for a while considering his options. Then he coiled up and sprang towards the treat. A mournful look filled his eyes as he sailed by it, facing the wrong way. He thrashed in the air a bit to orient himself and land, then he gave it another try. Then another.
Snow started to regret the whole exercise. She'd made Doozer mistrust her for nothing.
Then he tried again, leaping more gently this time and then jellyfishing around to grab the snack. Success!
Snow spreadeagled for joy. “Well done Dooze!”
She continued the exercise, winning back Doozer's trust one snack at a time.
Their drones arrived at the vacant asteroids a full earth day plus later, which was still less than half that of a Grailliyn day. The other drones had arrived earlier to observe the alien mining operations. The alien’s ships seemed to be primarily after Akoronite. But they seemed to be more interested in getting every molecule of the crystal than they were with filling their hoppers, and processed every bolder and pebble, no matter how mineral rich or poor.
The lonely drones continued to find evidence during their transit that the apparently unmined asteroids were in fact rich with Akoronite. The first drones to arrive began applying their meager tools to the giant rocks and confirmed it. The scans had been absolutely accurate. There was Akoronite practically growing from the surface of the asteroid.
“We need to try and see things from their point of view,” Max said.
It was out of nowhere, but he was right. The stress must have been getting to her, or maybe the strangeness of the aliens was just too strange for her. She usually did try to see other people's point of view without trying, or even knowing about it, but she had completely failed to do so in this case. “Why are they here? What do they need so they can leave?” Snow said.
“Right,” Max said.
“Well I thought they were after these materials…”
“Ya…”
“Well they are after them,” Linda said, “but they’re just not in any great hurry.”
“Maybe they have a system,” Max said. “Mine all of one sector until it is empty, then move on. I've been thinking about it and it's possible that they measure trips in jumps rather than time. They might be like…completionists.”
“That's not right…” Snow said. “That can't be the reason they are dooming us…” Snow said.
“It might be.”
“Well we need to talk to them about this. Right friggin' now,” Snow said, her anger rising again.
“I think we need to talk to the scientists instead. If we can convince them…”
“Anytime, boss. I have them on speed dial,” Linda said. She gestured with her thumb and pinky finger that she was ready to make the call.
The call to the scientist was accepted right away. Snow was willing to bet that they had been waiting for a call since the meeting with the mining boss.
“We were sorry to hear that your meeting went poorly,” the Torrians said.
“As were we,” Max said. “Are we correct in guessing that we said something rude?” Snow was too agitated to communicate at the moment.
“Yes. There was quite an upset,” the aliens said.
“It was an unfortunate slip of the tongue— er… a mistake,” Max said.
“We understand. Have you contacted us to relate your history in full?” the aliens said.
“No. We have not. We have some questions about your mining methods and priorities,” Max said.
“We are not experts on such things,” the aliens said, “but we will answer your questions as well as we are able.”
“Your goal here in this system seems to be to acquire Akoronite. Is that not true?”
“We can say that it is,” the aliens said. “We come here and other systems irregularly. The pattern of visits is random, and the frequency is long so as to avoid the oppressors.”
“Why don't they just wait for you here,” Snow asked, “or leave a station or something?”
“It is not their way to garrison the whole of the galaxy. We do not know why. Though it seems to us an impossible task. For the oppressors, it might be less so,” the alien said. “Their primary weapon is patience. They need not succeed in every hunt. Whereas we must escape every encounter if we are to survive.”
“When you leave the system, what triggers it? Is it when the ships
are full? Max asked.
“Yes, when the ships are full.”
“Our scans show the ships as being pretty full already,” Max said.
Snow wondered if she had missed something. She didn't recall the scans being so forthcoming in that regard.
There was a bit of a pause this time before the aliens responded, “The ships are nearing fullness, yes.”
“So why is it going to take so long to finish filling them up?” Snow said, catching on.
“The remaining source material is much less dense in Akoronite now. At this stage, the material requires more processing for smaller gains,” the alien said.
“Couldn't they fill the ships by mining more densely packed source material?” Max asked?
“It is possible,” the aliens said, “but they will not do so. They have determined that there is no requirement or reason to do so and so they will follow through with their plans.”
“Do you think there is a reason to do so?” Snow asked.
The alien blobs on the monitor, for the first time, changed their alignment and positions. They turned towards each other and all four of them began gesturing at once with their tendrils. New tendrils emerged from their blobby bodies and others disappeared as required.
“They’re not sending 'audio',” Linda said, with finger quotes around audio, “and I am having difficulty following the gestures to translate directly.”
On the monitor, the heated discussion became more so. Tendrils seemed to multiply and the writhing of said tendrils increased. Suddenly one of the blobs, a back-row blob, Snow thought, formed a number of larger tendrils and started smacking the other blobs with them until they all simmered down. When things had returned to a more manageable level of gesturing, the large tendrils disappeared into the blob and they continued discussing things for a bit. They finished their deliberations and returned to the normal four post positioning. This time the back-row blobs were the ones to gesture a response, “Yes.”
“Well that's a relief to hear,” Snow said. She sighed to express more fully what she was feeling.
“Sadly, our opinion on the matter is of little consequence,” the aliens said. “We have little sway in these operations.”
“I might have a way around that if you would be willing to lend us a hand—I mean render us—I mean give us assistance,” Max said.
Chapter 26
“It will be much safer,” Chaplin said, explaining that to put everyone to sleep would certainly be part of the plan. “And less terrifying.”
“But we would be at the mercy of…” Quin said, trying to give words to his instinctive reluctance to be placed in a coma for the duration of the trip. “We wouldn't be able to protect ourselves from…”
“Evacuation to space will limit your ability to take action in order to protect yourselves. Your safety will be in the hands of others, awake or otherwise,” Chaplin said.
“I agree with Quin,” Greta said. “We should stay in control of our own lives as much as possible.
“There are many other reasons to prefer sleeping travelers to wakeful ones,” Chaplin said. “A reduced food requirement and reduced bodily waste processing are two excellent points in favor. But the reduction in boredom is perhaps the most critical point of all.”
Greta gave Chaplin a look of annoyance. “Yes, those are very good points. I'm not opposed to passengers sleeping, their lives left completely in the hands of others. I'm opposed to doing so myself.”
They had passed through the doorway and found themselves in the concrete corridors of what passed as an evacuation ship. It had many levels. Quin was unsure just how many levels, but he was aware that those above and below were smaller than the central floor as a result of the stone ship's spherical shape. They passed right through the center of the ship and out the other side where a network of caverns had been dug to house them until they were placed in stasis and packed like bac-mat in the ship before liftoff. The warren of tunnels and chambers was drafty, which Quin understood was necessary to keep the air breathable and free of Cailin farts, but combined with the lack of warmth from the sun and the starting temperature of the stone tunnels, it was quite chilly. There were a few escape routes that lead up and out of the warren, further drawing cool air in and allowing warm air to escape. Quin wished they'd brought more clothes from home.
Greta had claimed the closest available room to the ship as their domicile, but they were now in a large common area where they had just been told about the sleeping part. Everyone in attendance was surprised by the news, even the majority of organizers, which consisted of volunteer SoCharians, hadn't known. Immediately some refugees turned about and started to leave. No one tried to stop them, but the tunnels being narrow as they were, meant that it wasn't immediately clear that no one was trying to stop them. Most of the refugees were too exhausted to attempt a breakout. And in any case, they had nowhere to go, so a full stampede was avoided. Though too exhausted to run away, the crowd from the first caravan—the only one to arrive thus far—did have the energy to express outrage verbally.
There was movement at the tiny dais at the end of the hall. Commander Carrack stepped up and cleared his throat. The sound filled the room with a volume reminiscent of the theater, and the grumbling voices dropped off quickly until there was silence in the carven stone cavern.
“Hello,” he said, his voice echoing loudly from the walls. “Lawrence has informed me of our failure to properly inform you of the full process involved in evacuation. What can I say but that things are moving quickly, and for us, sleep stasis is a very normal procedure. It is for us a very obvious step required to transport so many people through space. All the same,” he looked behind him down the corridor he'd come from, “it was a big mistake. And I'm sorry. We're sorry.” He gestured down the corridor as if perhaps the blame belonged down there.
The crowd started to murmur.
“If this changes some decisions upon whether to go through with the evacuation, then you are of course free to leave. You can gain passage back to the city upon the returning wagons,” Commander Carrack said, “but understand this. If you stay, it means stasis. There is no other way to accomplish this task. And furthermore, I will say this. If you leave, you are making the wrong decision. It's a hard truth to accept, but GE, the Great Evil out there in the galaxy? It's not going to stop coming for us here. Ever. If I didn't believe that I'd be spending all of my energy fighting to keep us safe here on Grailliyn. Instead I am spending that energy to save as many people as is humanly possible, by lifting them from the surface. You have a couple of days or so to decide—” He turned to hear someone behind him. “That is, you have one local day to decide. By then the remainder of the wagons should have arrived and it will be too late. Those of you who are already decided, there is no time like the present to get started. The line starts over there.” He pointed to a side corridor.
No one moved towards the start of the line. Some closer to it actually backed away. An awkward moment passed. Then, a few brave, or tired travelers stood up and made their way over to start the line. Either they had all their belongings with them, or they simply decided to leave them behind. Quin looked back to the dais just in time to see the commander looking right at him. The commander turned away and gestured back in Quin's general direction. A Grailliyn woman nodded and headed through the crowd towards Quin and the others.
“I guess we should get in line then,” Cailin said,” First on, first off right?” He was looking at Greta.
But Greta was looking at Quin.
“I'm not sure it works that way, Cay,” Jayleen said, “but I guess there is no reason to stick around waiting for these caverns to get stinky.”
“All the more reason to get Cailin into stasis,” Chaplin said. “He is a major contributor of greenhouse gas emissions.”
“Ya,” Cailin said, “a major contributor.”
“Yes,” Chaplin said, “it is funny, because it is true.”
Jayleen laughed in surprise.
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“Don't go just yet, I think something might be happening,” Quin said.
The tall attractive woman with long black hair was approaching them, or rather, approaching him.
Quin's one palm became clammy in an instant, not at all ready to talk to attractive women that had him in their sights. His plastic palm though, was calm and cool and ready to date an older woman.
She stopped and looked him over. “How'd you get the gear kid? Is there a form I need to fill out?”
“He's a veteran squid fighter, half-eaten in the line of duty,” Cailin said, loud and proud, looking around to make sure everyone heard him.
The woman's eyes widened a bit, but then she gave a quick laugh. “Half-eaten eh? I guess I'll give it a pass if that's the process. I guess your friend there must have been fully eaten.” She laughed some more.
“Several times,” Chaplin said.
She stopped laughing but continued to smile uncertainly. “Carrack wants to talk to you,” she said, still uncertain if he'd been joking. “This way if you don't mind.”
Quin only nodded in response and then followed the woman through the crowd. He looked back once to find that, much to his relief, the whole crew was following him.
Behind the dais, a short way down the corridor and around a corner was Commander Carrack's office. Inside were a few flimsy white plastic chairs in a jumble near a flimsy white plastic table. The table was empty but for a few interesting pieces of equipment. One was a miniature screen like those in the Tent City theaters, but smaller. Small enough to fit on the desk and still leave room for other things. The usefulness of the other equipment was unclear, making it all the more interesting to Quin. Most of the items were no larger than the handle grip into which they were formed. They sat on the table as if they had been simply discarded there and left where they lay, like children's plastic building blocks. It seemed a reckless way to treat such valuable and rare technology.
Starship Invasion (Lost Colony Uprising Book 2) Page 21
