An Atmosphere Of Angels

by H C Turk

  The ENU supervisor then spoke.

  “Ward, you of course understand that even if these people cause one another permanent injury, their culture remains their own, not ours to influence or morally reject.”

  “Yes, I do understand, Mizz Shumard. Thank you for the input.”

  Kathlynn then stepped nearer to Parno. Their arms touched.

  “This is terrific,” she said, “and so eerie.”

  She did not speak quietly, for the holovid projected a thick, complex sound. A hundred voices groaned, some yelped, people moaning and breathing deeply. The forest remained unusually quiet, but the ocean continued to drop loud waves against the sand.

  “Not just the, er, ritual,” Kathlynn added. “It’s so strange to hear Ward as though he were standing in the hold, yet see his little doppelganger move across the sand.”

  “It is terrific, but not great,” Parno had to say.

  “What do you mean?” Kathlynn replied, looking between Parno and the ritual.

  “I have never failed in my career, but I have never achieved anything great. But that has always been my dream. How can a person be in this profession and not seek greatness?”

  “How do you discern greatness from startling flash?” Kathlynn asked.

  “Simple. The door to flash is intriguing. The door to greatness is frightening.”

  “You can’t achieve greatness as a supervisor,” Kathlynn noted. “You can only observe it.”

  “Or stifle it.”

  “I hope I never do that, Parno. When the spooky door to grandeur opens, I’ll step through right behind you.”

  “Ladies first.”

  Staring at the holovid, Parno and Kathlynn watched Vera and Stacy in the sled rapidly approach Ward. He turned to the fems as Vera held out her arm. Parno and Kathlynn were confused by the voices that followed. One too many.

  “The demons’ home will open,” spoke a mechanical voice.

  Pointing, Vera excitedly explained, “It corresponds to that man!”

  Ward turned, staring. “Yes, I see,” he replied.

  In the hold, Parno instructed, “Vid, show me.”

  The holovid replayed, in close-up, the indigene’s speaking. A man bent over a brush fire, his head so near the flames that his eyebrows were singed and his scalp hair caught fire. As his hair burned away, tiny sparks lit against his skull like stars in the night sky. His mouth formed words that did not correspond to English enunciation.

  “Vid, specify sound source,” Parno instructed.

  The same mechanical voice replied, “Translation of indigene spoken language optimized by local senser.”

  “What demons’ home?” Ward spoke, transmitting his voice to the senser for translation to the indigenes.

  An answer came from space.

  “Holy mother of pearl!”

  Grazio shouted from the aux console as Vera dropped her arm, staring—transfixed—at a reflection inside her bubble. Ward and Stacy saw the same depiction.

  Parno shouted: “Grazio, let us see it!”

  A smaller holovid expanded inside the space room. Stepping near, Parno and Kathlynn saw an irregular ovoid, without color or surface feature, flat.

  “What is it, Vera?” Ward snapped.

  “A coherent mass, likely constructed, has been sensered from the drive unit in orbit,” Vera explained. “The size is over fifty Earth-norm paces length and width, height two. Apparent mass suggests a hollow structure. Material, synth-composite, specifics undetermined, but manmade, likely contemporary.”

  “Where, where is it?” Ward demanded, and Grazio replied.

  “Yeah, Ward, the mass is about three hundred Earth-norm paces from our mining exploration site. We have sensers there, so I’m sending one over.”

  The hand of an indigenous woman had disappeared within the anal cavity of her peer, neighbor, friend. Both women showed stress on their faces and in their quaking bodies, but only one spoke. Her voice came to the Earthers via technol translation.

  “If you remove the demons’ home, all the rock is yours.”

  “We can’t move something that big,” Grazio grumbled, “not for a few pounds of ore we’re going to end up getting anyway. Holy crap, nix that last.”

  Grazio paused, next speaking more energetically, enigmatically.

  “Vera, geez, I can’t believe it.”

  “What are you talking about, Grazio?” Ward shouted.

  His small limbs in the holovid shook from anger, lit by the indigenes’ flames.

  “Geez, Ward, the senser found a crack beneath the mass and sent a fly-eye in. Geez. There’s a huge pile of ether ore below the thing, more than we ever dug up on Earth. I could pick it up with my hands.”

  Parno extended his bubble and ran to the airlock.

  “I’m on my way over there now.”

  Not until he stepped outside and ran to the nearest sled did Parno understand that he was being followed.

  “Parno, I’m coming with you!”

  Ignoring the supervisor, he boarded a sled and floated away at full speed.

  In his suit’s display, he saw her follow.

  Over the lahar, across the slope, Parno flew along the forest’s edge, toward the Earthers’ mining apparatus. The self-guiding sled continued around the ragged mountainside, heading toward an area Parno and Grazio had approached before. Approached, but not crossed. Their sled had floated around this area. Parno now saw the cause, the obstruction. An object, a building. Nondescript, regular, all a contiguous curve, vertical sides, dull and colorless, smoother yet less reflective than the lahar.

  On the beach, the pubic hair of an indigene man had caught fire. His neighbors, friends, and peers extinguished the flames with urine. The man gasped, his eyes tearing, and spoke.

  “The demons’ door will open for a breath.”

  All of the Earthers heard Parno instruct his sled.

  “If an opening appears in this object, take me to it at top speed.”

  The director balked.

  “Parno, you can’t go in there,” he insisted. “They are calling it the home of demons.”

  “What do they call us?” Parno wondered as the sled stopped before the great object. “Darlings?”

  “No,” Ward told him. “They call us aliens.”

  Kathlynn’s sled stopped beside Parno’s. With no word, no pause, she stepped out and sat beside him, breathing heavily. She had not been running.

  In the sky, bright from the light of a single star, clouds formed at the behest of no humans, all people indigenous to their homes, but often alien to their neighbors.

  “Don’t supervise me,” Parno said casually.

  “Don’t be a fool,” Kathlynn demanded.

  They waited for magic. At this distance, the object revealed its true height: not two paces, but twenty, perhaps more. Parno could not place the sheen of that material, not devoid of color, but reflecting all color.

  “I wanted to screw you at first sight,” he told Kathlynn, not looking toward her. “I didn’t know your spirit was bigger than your bosom.”

  “I didn’t know your brain was smaller than your balls,” she seethed.

  Mechanical passion spoke in their heads.

  “The home opens for aliens.”

  And the sled accelerated. The occupants were not jostled as they sped around the long, contiguous curve.

  “Opening observed,” the sled informed them.

  “I’m going in,” Parno said.

  “Yes, and I’m going in with you,” Kathlynn insisted.

  The sled halted. Parno only glimpsed the object’s dark entry patch, which seemed no more than a shadow.

  “Suit prep,” Parno said. After fingering his wrist, he reached for Kathlynn’s.

  Only her suit went limp. Parno leapt from the sled, followed by Kathlynn, who struggled to move in her half-functioning suit. Before entering that dark blot, Parno pressed both hands against Kathlynn’s shoulders. Losing her balance, she gave Parno a startled expression, perh
aps one of disappointment. He placed his fingertips to his bubble and pursed his lips, smiling fondly as he gained the void.

  She tumbled to her backside, striking her skull against the lahar. As Parno entered the vast object, Kathlynn rose to her feet, clambering to the alien wall, the dark entry retreating. She tried to follow, but could only reach in with one arm.

  Parno found himself in darkness. From outside, he heard a perfectly human voice, a peer, neighbor, friend crying out with her spirit.

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

  He would not contradict history that had traveled in time, delivered by the force of passion. Reaching, he grasped Kathlynn’s hand, pulling her through the shadow of the demons’ home.

  Chapter 6

  Alien End

  “Kathlynn, can you hear me?”

  She did not reply, though Parno felt her hand in his. He also felt his suit’s plasfab limp against his skin. The air layers had receded. His suit was also dead. Reaching with his free hand, Parno inserted his fingers beneath the shoulder control flap, but the suit did not respond. A few minutes. They had a few minutes of air. Parno had to decide to remain inside this structure, testing the atmosphere with his own lungs, or leave. It might be too late to leave. The indigenes had said that the door would be open for a matter of a breath. A matter of breath would soon become the most important problem in his life. And Kathlynn’s. However, the door might readily open from inside the structure.

  He turned, and was assaulted. Light surrounded him only to be instantly smothered by an opaque entity that pressed against Parno too quickly to be discerned. A moving force engulfed his limbs, torso, head. He lost his clasp of Kathlynn’s hand as the pressing movement continued, not crushing him, but taking his breath. A damp suction sound, like pulling one’s bare feet free of wet sand, accompanied the force. Parno’s entire body was so controlled that he could not move any limb, could not retreat.

  The pressure ended and Parno collapsed, along with that other body. He lay in partial darkness, partial light, sprawled together with Kathlynn on a solid floor. Her headpiece filled most of his vision, but her face was turned from his. Their arms were entangled, Parno noticing that he and Kathlynn breathed with the same deep rhythm. Airless gasping would follow. The air in his suit was more CO2 than oxygen. Another sensation came. A hand weakly pressed against his neck. He could read the complexities of Kathlynn’s emotion with that simple touch. I need help; do something.

  When his eyelids began closing, Parno inhaled a final lungful of bad gas and manually opened his suit’s bubble, then breathed glorious air.

  Inhaling deeply, he lifted his head to see a half-brilliant, half dark interior with vertical walls and a flat ceiling. Turning to Kathlynn, he grasped her headpiece. She was pale, eyes closed, barely breathing. With that first inrush of oxygen as her bubble separated from the plasfab joint, Kathlynn opened her eyes, and smiled.

  Still sprawled together, they blinked, breathed, and tried to understand.

  “I smell your perspiration,” Parno whispered. “You stink good.”

  “We die from alien germs in six hours,” she replied, nearly panting. “Wait till you smell my corpse.”

  He reached to kiss her lips. She smiled again, her eyes half-open.

  “Do your raping now,” she said, weakly. “When I regain my strength, I might fight back.”

  He sat, feeling better. The air seemed perfect: no scent, no dizziness caused by an imbalance of gases.

  “I just saved your life,” he said, looking left and right.

  “You nearly killed me.”

  “That makes us even.”

  He did not offer her a hand as she sat. Parno was carefully looking around. They sat inside a featureless chamber several paces high, wide, and deep: a glossy box with the sheen of composites, not metal.

  “It’s so perfect,” Kathlynn said, looking to the ceiling. “I don’t see a crease or seam. It all seems so…expensive.”

  “I don’t like that,” he said, and nodded to the chamber’s two opposing, lightless walls.

  Kathlynn looked only to turn away, disoriented. Depthless black as though looking down an endless well, inviting one to fall forever.

  “I think we’re in an airlock.”

  “What caused that terrible smothering, Parno?”

  He looked to her ground suit, her immaculate ground suit.

  “Spit on the floor and see if it starts again.”

  She needed only a moment before replying.

  “It’s perfectly clean in here. I had grit all over me from falling—after you turned my suit off.”

  She began rubbing the back of her head, frowning.

  “Ouch. The…whatever this place is, it must have cleaned us. I wonder if it will try to bathe me because I’m perspiring.”

  Parno stood, reaching to help Kathlynn stand.

  “Let’s leave,” he said, grasping her hand.

  “Which way? In or out?”

  He looked to either side.

  “I can’t tell where we entered, can you?”

  She shook her head. Then she frowned, gently rubbing the back of her skull.

  “I don’t know what’s going on,” Parno admitted. “From the death of that indigene onward…I can’t figure any of it.”

  Kathlynn stepped to the nearest wall.

  “Let’s leave, then return with new suits, sensers, Vera and Grazio—everything. I think it’s this wall.”

  She reached to touch the glossy surface, then jerked her hand away.

  “How does it feel?” Parno asked.

  “Cold. That startled me. I felt it through my suit. It’s cold, and rigid.” Pressing against the wall with the palms of both hands, she said, “Come on, open up,” and the wall complied.

  An oval hole appeared, the wall’s material seeming to neatly vanish in a type of dilation. Looking down, Kathlynn gasped, and retreated.

  She bent double as though ill.

  “I’m terrified of heights,” she moaned.

  “But you are a genius,” Parno said, and stepped to the opening.

  He saw another well. Parno viewed a cylinder ten paces in diameter. He stood at an opening situated in the continuous wall halfway between floor and ceiling. Parno looked down to a fifty-foot drop.

  “That’s not the way we came in,” he said.

  Turning to the opposing wall, he tried the same tactic, with no result. Walking along the wall, pressing with both hands, speaking aloud that it should open for him, he navigated to that dark area, then stopped. Looking to the void, he could not focus, but felt that the endless depth drew him, felt that he might fall, fall into the darkness and never stop.

  Chilled, Parno shook his head and stepped away. Kathlynn had arrived at the second dark end of the room, feeling the same dread.

  “I am not going in there,” she moaned, then turned to the opposing, dizzying void.

  Parno noticed that the oval hole had closed. Facing Kathlynn, he saw her eyes open wide as she pointed beyond him while inhaling sharply.

  “And I am not going in there!” she shrieked.

  She pointed low. Turning, Parno looked toward the floor at that dark end of the chamber. He saw a boot, and a mitten. Connected wrist and ankle were obscured by the void. A hand and foot covered with a dark, faceted material extended from the darkness. Before Parno could step near to search for the connected limbs and body, Kathlynn shrieked again, this time wordlessly, expressing the idea of pure emotion. The emotion of fear.

  Above hand and foot, deeper within the void, a shadow approached. Within the utter blackness, Parno saw a darker form. A shadow with the shape of a person. A moving person. The shadow’s limbs swung as though the dark person were running, running desperately. Running toward Parno and Kathlynn.

  Parno ran to the site of the oval opening, smashing both palms against the cool surface as though trying to crash through.

  “Open up, dammit!” Parno holl
ered, and the oval hole dilated open again. Looking down, Parno saw no features in the plain cylinder, only a drop.

  Kathlynn stood behind him, her hands on Parno’s back.

  “Parno, we have to go somewhere.”

  Her voice was nearly a groan. Parno looked to that shadow. A shadow with arms and legs ran toward the humans. A creature of nothingness. Human limbs running with a reaching, grasping, clawing motion, the black action directed only toward the Earthers.

  “It’s coming closer!” Kathlynn blurted.

  Childish fears of night lay in that figure. Adult fears of vacuum’s void lay in that empty depth. Parno was sure he smelled the scent of smoke.

  Looking between the void creature and the vertical drop, Parno spoke to Kathlynn, his words coming so quickly that he nearly stuttered:

  “These people can’t fly, can they? Kathlynn, I’m dropping. If I just fall, I’ll try to grab the floor’s edge. Don’t touch me, or you’ll fall with me.”

  He turned and stepped backwards, arms outstretched. And he floated, descending securely.

  Looking upward, he called out:

  “Kathlynn, step off.”

  She looked down, then turned to that black form, ashes stretched to infinity, the extension of death.

  “I’m afraid of heights!”

  Parno had never seen her terrified. He also saw a type of anger.

  Twenty feet below her now, Parno extended his arms to Kathlynn. Meeting her eyes, he angrily shouted:

  “Step off, damn you!”

  He was surprised to see Kathlynn place both hands over her face as she stepped strongly ahead…and floated downward, her body remaining perfectly vertical.

  Above, the dark runner arrived as the opening closed. Kathlynn could not see, for her hands remained over her eyes. She could not see that utterly rigid surface flex, as though fabric. Like pressing against the wall of a tent with both hands. Pressing against hell’s gate for entry, or release.

  Parno felt those shadow hands pressing against his heart. Unlike Kathlynn, he had to stare. He wanted to discover the truth of this creature, but Parno had to look away. The view showed him nothing but fear.

  Though looking ahead upon settling, Parno continued to see that void man running toward him, pressing near, bringing the peaceful horror of nothing forever.