An Atmosphere Of Angels

by H C Turk

  “My folks came from Balapasar,” Parno added. “People are just stacked on top of one another there.”

  “Hey, Parno, Stellar Service has found more livable planets than you can shake a dick at. This one has low population, stable geography, great surf—you name it.”

  “Lousy beer,” Parno said, and stifled a belch.

  They returned to the settlement, floating calmly beneath a darkening sky. Parno was in no hurry to return, for the spirit of success did not await him there. He thumbed the joystick.

  “Hey, where you taking me, chum?” Grazio demanded. “This is our first date. The last, too, if you try on me what you’d like to try on Kathlynn.”

  “A glide on the beach,” Parno replied, yawning. “Queer beer will do that to you.”

  Parno directed the sled past the mountain and along the beach. At this time of day, and in this locale, the waves merely rolled in without exploding. Yes, by that stand of yellow trees, Parno would build his hut and live without any thoughts of finance. When the sky became so dark he could no longer distinguish separate trees, Parno pressed the joystick, and the sled slowed, turning, heading home.

  After several Earth-norm minutes, the next alien moment arrived. The air sled turned needlessly, as though avoiding another mountain.

  “Hey, go straight, idiot,” Grazio seethed, yanking on the joystick, but the sled refused, continuing in a great arc that eventually returned them to their path across the lahar.

  “I bet the wifey has some stupid answer for that bulloney,” Grazio snarled, sucking at an empty straw.

  On the path to home again, Parno recalled that dead indigene, the old man’s terrific flame. Parno wondered if his anima now graced Nirvana. Any mystery can be explained, he thought, with enough imagination.

  “Oops,” Grazio said, “we just ran over the dead guy. Hope we didn’t blow him away or nothing.”

  They would not disturb his spirit.

  Chapter 5

  The Shadow Of The Demons’ Home

  Girls sat with girls and boys sat with boys around the folding table extending from the space room’s floor. At this first meal the personnel shared on Kapnos 3, the director feigned delight, the supervisor could not help but appear superior, and some people wished they were drunk.

  They appeared so clear without their ground suits, Parno thought, but obscurity ensconced them. He scarcely tasted the avocado fritters, one of his favorite synth meals. That evening, it tasted alien to him. His career seemed alien. One more mediocre success and he would be visiting the stars only when looking up at night from his home in overcrowded America.

  Visions of water came to Parno early in his sleep that night. He wore only plassilk sleeveless shirt and shorts, though other staff members remained in their coveralls. Just in case. In case they had to leap into their air sacks because aliens had set fire to the matter hold. The death of that first indigene, after all, had been a type of incendiary miracle. The Earthers would need a space-spec torch to burn a man so quickly—what force had this planet, or its people, applied?

  He dreamed of fluid, not fire. Pink waves crashed against his uncovered face, ejected by a tiny boy’s phallus. Parno went down, down in a lagoon of cream-colored water. Since lagoons are connected to the ocean, Parno rose at the top of a wave, flying down from orbital height against Kathlynn’s sandy breast.

  Parno rested better until dawn approached. Then he dreamed of tumbling in the overturned sled, though no reptile had attacked. Parno was the alien alligator here. Driving his companion too hard, approaching too near with his desire, he had upset the alien fem, who fell farther away from him the more he tried to near.

  Though not suffering a nightmare, Parno awoke from this dream because it had turned real. Opening his eyes, he felt the matter hold rocking, not violently, but noticeably.

  He stood, fully conscious, still feeling that minor quaking. As Parno donned his supportive undergear and coveralls, rapid thoughts came of the volcano: dormant according to the Earthers’ ignorant sensers, now erupting, about to encompass the intruders with lava as bright as that burning man.

  Parno, Ward, and Stacy entered the space room simultaneously. The director immediately began screeching.

  “What is it, Vera?” he demanded while motioning for Parno to near.

  Parno stepped to the director. Vera and Grazio had remained in their cubicle, reading senser data from the aux control console. Vera spoke through intrinsic communications, her voice seeming to emanate from the center of the space room.

  “Verified that the matter hold is tangibly being repositioned cyclically, low frequency, from an external force not yet determined.”

  “Hey, neg volcano, if anybody’s thinking that,” unseen Grazio added. “Neg earthquake, too.”

  Ward stalked to the Pacettis’ cubicle, gesturing with his head for Parno to follow. Without requesting entry, Ward smacked the palm pad, and the door slid opened.

  Parno closed it behind. Within, Vera and Grazio stood side by side—both nude—at the secondary command console situated against the wall, reading different data.

  “Did the mining initiate on schedule?” Ward asked quietly, his voice remaining firm.

  To Parno, Vera seemed remarkably lithe with no clothes. Grazio seemed remarkably thick, massive. These contrasts artfully bonded the composition of their marriage.

  “Verified, director,” Vera said, thumbing a wall pad to retrace metaglyphs.

  “Is the mining causing this rumble?” Ward demanded, his voice nearly a hiss.

  “Hey, Ward, it just doesn’t make any sense that molecular mining could cause this,” Grazio replied.

  “End the damn mining and see what happens,” Ward declared.

  Vera bent to input instructions with three fingers. Before she had fully straightened, the hold’s rumbling ended.

  Vera shook her head, shook her head. Grazio turned to Ward with a scowl, but the Pacettis remained silent.

  “You two will never serve on another planet,” Ward announced with no emotion. “The fact that our data systems are incompetent is acceptable. The fact that you cannot specify any minuscule part of the cause is utterly—”

  A sphere interrupted him, accompanied by one mechanical word.

  “Notice.”

  A small holovid had appeared before Vera and Grazio. From his vantage, Parno could see that the vid displayed an optical view from orbit, accompanied by an overlay of dataglyphs conveying pertinent data of position and measurement to the technolists. He saw a pastel strip washed by waves of pink-tinted green. He saw movement from scores of objects on the gritty surface. Living objects with arms and legs.

  “What the hey…?” Grazio growled.

  “You had better tell me something,” Ward demanded of Vera.

  “New informations,” she immediately replied, staring at that data sphere.

  “That pink beach is only on this end of the island,” Parno pointed out. “How far away are those locals?”

  Vera frowned, glimpsing toward the floor where her coveralls lay. She would not look to the men behind her. Grazio replied.

  “About two norm miles past where that kid peed on you, Parno.”

  Ward’s shoulders slumped, and he lifted his head to the skies.

  “How could we miss a gathering of a hundred indigenes only a few miles away?” Ward demanded.

  He did not expect an answer.

  “Have you sent a ground senser out?” Parno wondered.

  “Yes, one is on the way,” Vera said. “It will arrive and begin achieving data in a few norm minutes.”

  “I’m going there in person,” Parno said, and turned to exit the cubicle. He heard Ward speaking from behind.

  “Vera, I would like you to accompany Parno and me. Grazio, remain here and prepare the matter hold for orbit, but don’t charge the electres until instructed.”

  “Affirmed, director.”

  Parno stepped out to see Stacy and Kathlynn standing before the med cab.

&
nbsp; “What’s wrong?” Parno asked.

  “I don’t feel well,” Kathlynn said dully, head down as she turned to sit in the medical cabinet, aided by Stacy. Reclining, she added, “I had this awful dream about being tossed around in the sled. I felt nauseated when I awoke. I thought I was shaking, not the ground. What was that?”

  “No answer is forthcoming,” Parno said.

  The med cab spoke to the patient.

  “Nudity suggested for examination.”

  “Do what you can through my coveralls,” Kathlynn sighed, and the lid closed over her.

  Parno looked down to her via the lid’s display. Looking up, Kathlynn mouthed one word, and the display turned opaque.

  Ward stood behind him. Wearing coveralls, Vera exited her cubicle, dropping a ground suit bag onto the floor. She stepped on the back pad, lifted her arms, and the suit extended over her form, bubble down.

  “What is the problem with Kathlynn?” the director asked.

  Parno shrugged, said, “Nauseous,” then turned to the doc box.

  “Specify patient’s condition.”

  “Brain concussion of low consequence, currently being assuaged by metasound treatment. Problem rectified in three to five Earth-norm minutes.”

  Stacy added: “Kathlynn told me she had a dream about being tossed around in the sled. I think she fell out of bed and hit her head.”

  Vera passed, continuing to the airlock. Stacy, wearing a ground suit, followed.

  “I’ll prepare sleds,” Vera told the director, and left the hold.

  “Parno, I want you to stay here with Shumard,” Ward said quietly. “This might be a good opportunity—a personal opportunity—for you to help her.”

  “Very well, Ward. But if it’s reasonable to follow you, I’ll mount a sled.”

  “Acknowledged,” Ward said while extending his bubble and stepping to the airlock, the door slipping closed behind.

  Parno turned, proceeding to his cubicle, where he donned a ground suit. Then he walked to Grazio’s cube. Seated behind the control console, wearing a coverall, Grazio ended his input of verbal commands as Parno entered.

  “I’m getting ready to blast off,” Grazio snarled. “Hold on to your hat. What happened to the superfem?”

  “I think she bumped her head after a bad dream. Minimum concussion.”

  “Yeah, that’s about impossible with beds that don’t let you fall out. Maybe I’ll lift into orbit without the snotty boss. Naw, can’t do that. He’s got my hag with him.”

  “We’re not going anywhere,” Parno stated.

  “Who says, and why not?”

  “Nothing has happened here that’s dangerous. Strange, yes; dangerous, non affirm. Ward wants the ore. He’ll try to figure out how to get it.”

  “Hey, anthro man, what about the ales?”

  “They’re celebrating something. We might learn from it.”

  “Yeah, are we talking more of that intended coincidence here?” Grazio asked, fingering a dataglyph. Parno saw only numerals in different sizes, colors, apparent depth violating the integrity of the aesthetic picture plane.

  “Coincidence?” Parno returned. “You start mining, the hold starts shaking. You stop mining, the hold stops rocking. The natives begin a party at the same time. What coincidence? I’m checking on Kathlynn.”

  “No fair fingering the damsel when she’s locked in the doc box.”

  But she wasn’t in the doc box. Stepping to the infirmary, Parno pressed the control strip to activate the display, but an empty interior showed. Rapid thoughts passed: should he open the lid manually, go to her cubicle to see if Kathlynn had returned?

  “Hello, Kathlynn are you in your cube?”

  No reply.

  “Grazio, check on Kathlynn stat. She’s gone.”

  Grazio ran out from his cube, next door to Kathlynn’s, immediately running out, looking within every cubicle as Parno checked the loo. Empty.

  “She’s gotta be in there,” Grazio insisted. “The med cab’s screen must be dead.”

  “I see the pad inside,” Parno told Grazio as the pilot stepped near, watching Parno finger the control strip. “And I can’t open the lid because it’s occupied by a patient undergoing treatment.”

  “I’ll open it manually,” Grazio said.

  He bent to reach beneath the infirmary, but a voice stopped him. Kathlynn’s voice. Not emanating from the matter hold, as relayed by intrinsic communication, but coming from behind the airlock’s door.

  “Let me in,” she said, her voice nearly desperate. “Parno, please let me in.”

  Parno ran to open the door, finding the airlock empty.

  “Stay here,” he told unsuited Grazio while extending his bubble.

  Parno continued to the outer door as the lock cycled. He activated the door, which slid open to darkness. Empty darkness. Nocturnal birds whistled as though imitating the wind across foreign marsh. Insects threw threats into the air, but no person spoke.

  Parno immediately returned inside, sharing a look of ignorance with Grazio.

  “Open the box,” Parno told him, and the technolist bent, pressing a switch at the infirmary’s base.

  As the curved panel raised, Kathlynn sat, staring at Parno with a startled expression.

  “You didn’t step outside for a walk, did you?” exasperated Parno demanded, lowering his bubble.

  “No, but when the lid opened, I felt that I was outside, looking in, to you.”

  “This is nuts,” Grazio scowled, and stalked away. “I have to get back to the aux console. I say we’re blasting off before first light. Ain’t no law says I have to work on a damn haunted planet.”

  As Kathlynn stepped from the infirmary, Parno held out his hand, which Kathlynn accepted. She looked to the floor as though having to place her feet carefully in the marsh, avoiding small, bounding reptiles she might injure and vast, hungry reptiles that might eat her. Parno placed his arm across her shoulders, still holding her hand, as she straightened.

  “Thank you,” she said quietly.

  Reluctantly releasing her, Parno asked, “How do you feel?”

  “Physically, fine,” she said, pulling the hair from her forehead with both hands. “Otherwise, I’m confused. Will you please tell me what is transpiring here?”

  He told her what he knew, excluding any mention of the illicit mining.

  “The senser should have arrived at the indigenes’ locale by now. Let’s look in.”

  As he stepped away from the infirmary with Kathlynn, Parno called out:

  “Grazio, pop up the biggest holovid you can, please, showing us the beach scene.”

  “You got it,” Grazio replied, and pornography appeared in the hold. Alien pornography.

  The holovid provided an experience that approached reality. Against the lightening sky of dawn, green waves—more moderate this still morning—rose from the ocean and stained the sand behind the phalanx. The revelers. Parno could smell the salty water, for the senser transmitted even olfactory information. He smelled the burning, too.

  Scores of indigenes, all adults, interacted with one another. A woman grasped the grey hair of an elder man and jerked, again, until coming away with a handful of hair. Pain caused the elder to collapse to his knees, reaching to his bleeding scalp with a shaking hand. Turning to one of several small fires—no incendiary miracles here, only burning tree limbs—the woman thrust her hand into the flames, igniting the hair and searing her skin. Then she thrust the handful of melting, burning hair into her mouth, coughing and sneezing as she tried to swallow. The Earthers heard the flame sizzle dead in the woman’s moist mouth. They saw smoke exhaled sharply through her nose. She shook her head as though trying to retch, but managed to swallow.

  Two women grasped each ankle of a man and struggled to spread his legs, their feet digging deeply into the coarse sand, as though attempting to pull him apart. Their force lifted his lower body from the ground, where his head lay. He clutched the pink grit with an empty, squeezing motion
as a third woman manipulated his erect penis with her mouth, and teeth.

  Running among his peers, a man collected vomit in his cupped hands. This he fed to a woman, causing her to vomit, which the man collected in his hands, which he consumed, causing himself to vomit, which he….

  A pile of human feces became a palette for painting faces, an alien aesthetic for expression beyond mere beauty. Similar scenarios were repeated across hundreds of alien-norm paces of beach.

  The holovid’s replication of dawn’s ruddy light cast a glare on Kathlynn’s face. She did not look away from the indigenes, but Parno had to stare at her. Kathlynn’s voice from outside, while she was in the med cab yet not in the med cab…. That was more alien than the Kapnosans’ activities. Though disgusting, they were only human. For a moment, however, Kathlynn had been a ghost.

  “Hey, Vera, are you getting this?” Grazio spoke aloud.

  “Yes, Stacy and I are nearby in the parked sled, but the indigenes are paying us no heed. Ward is stepping even nearer, instructing us to remain.”

  “Good, you keep away from those crazies. Director Hanshaw, pos affirm matter hold’s prep for lifting into orbit with min charging of the electrelogical foundation as per instructions.”

  “Affirmed,” unseen Ward replied. “Thank you, and remain alert.”

  Within the matter hold, the Earthers saw their director unobtrusively approach the indigenes’ ritual.

  “Comments, Parno?” Ward requested.

  “I do not see an orgy,” was Parno’s assessment. “I notice no expression of joy, pleasure, or satisfaction. These people are performing a task. They might be purging themselves of these functions, in a type of catharsis. Or, they might be working at worship, offering corporeal activities to placate or invoke a greater force.”

  “An evil force?”

  “Evil here is proven by the pain and injury being caused,” Parno judged. “Sometimes, in primitive rituals and sophisticated politics, evil is utilized to initiate a greater good. Beyond that, I cannot judge their intents. We’ll have to continue observing.”