by H C Turk
“Please, Parno, I don’t care to remember any further. You do the remembering, but don’t tell me about it.”
Parno turned to his left, looking up that rise in the lahar.
“I remember that figure was right up there,” he said, pointing. And walking.
“Parno! You’re not really going to do this all over again, are you?”
“I’m not touching nothing,” he said. “I’m just looking.”
“Parno, why don’t we just run away?” Kathlynn said loudly, hands waving in no definite direction.
“Because this is how we ended up last time we tried to run away. I hope to do better next time.”
After two steps up the rise, Parno’s nausea disappeared, replaced by fear. Now he found he had to speak.
“It’s like getting shocked. The electricity doesn’t leap out of the appliance; you have to touch it.”
He would not touch that dark, human-like form on the lahar. It seemed unchanged, headpiece closed. Parno retreated backward, not turning until again standing on flat ground. Kathlynn’s sigh of relief was so deep that her shoulders sagged.
“What did you see?” she had to ask.
“It’s unchanged.”
“I meant when you opened the headpiece.”
“What?”
“When you opened the headpiece, before the flames…. I remember now, you said, ‘I think I see….’ Then, then….”
She closed her eyes, rubbing her left temple with two fingers. In that moment, she seemed a hundred years old. Not Earth-norm years, but alien eras.
“I don’t remember,” he said curtly.
“You also promised that we would learn something from handling the…thing. Well, Parno, what did you learn?”
“I learned to keep my damn hands off the aliens, and don’t disturb the dead. Do you still have to pee?”
“Let’s leave first.”
“Great, you find the exit, then we’ll go swimming and pee in the ocean.”
“I meant that we should leave this…place, this chamber. Like this,” she said, and stepped toward the entry.
Parno followed, allowing the superfem to do the thinking. She was his supervisor.
Kathlynn walked to the entry panel, decisively pressing both palms against the cylinder appliqué. The panel dissolved, Kathlynn stepped ahead, and the ribbon rug whisked her away.
Parno followed; so did the smoke smell. No: he brought it along. The self-cleaning plasweave of his coveralls retained the scent of smoke as though a painting’s permanent color. Where, in this structure, might they find the clothier’s boutique?
“This would be so fine an experience,” Kathlynn said from ahead, holding her arms out, enjoying the breeze, “if the greater place were not so horrid.”
Earth-norm minutes later, they stood in the parlor, the lobby, selecting their next horror.
“How many doors?” Parno wondered, pointing to each and moving his lips as he counted.
“Seven.”
“Here’s one with symbols, signifiers of some language I can’t discern. It might be math, or poetry. Where do we go, Kathlynn?”
They examined each panel before deciding.
“This panel has overlapping rows of foliage, Parno.”
“Here’s the one with outer space.”
“Here’s the greenhouse door. Nature’s greatness, Parno, I get dizzy even thinking of it.”
“Look at this one, Kathlynn. It has stacks and stacks of…stuff.”
“Ooh, this panel has a little animal. Like a cat.”
“Or a rat.”
“Whatever it is, I don’t like it, Parno. Look, the last panel is abstracted. It has gentle patterns.”
“What emotion do you feel when looking at it?”
“What emotion? I find it soothing. Why do you ask that?”
“I have an idea,” he said, stepping beside Kathlynn.
“So do I,” she replied, and retreated, looking alternately in all directions. “It’s strange that you have to achieve a specific angle to view the doors. That doesn’t make sense.”
Then she halted, two paces from Parno.
“I found it!”
“You found what?”
“I’m standing in the floor’s exact center, so I can view all the doors just by turning.”
He stepped beside her and spoke.
“Great, keep your eyes on them as I test my theory. Haven’t we empirically observed that this structure, to some degree, responds to emotion?”
“That might be your imagination,” Kathlynn suggested.
“Keep looking,” Parno told her, and grabbed his crotch.
“Parno!”
“Keep looking!” he said, but Kathlynn looked only to herself.
Her coveralls. After separating at the seams, the garment began dropping from her shoulders, along her torso.
Parno saw her underbare, that transparent supportive undergarment worn by modern women. Since the garment was transparent, he also saw her skin. But not for long. Snorting in surprise, Kathlynn grasped her coveralls and pulled the garment over her figure. It remained.
Seething, she turned to Parno. They stood inches apart.
“You did that!”
“You smell like smoke. It makes me gag.”
“When you touched your phallus, you were thinking of sex, not urination.”
“No, I was feeling the need to urinate. You know I find you desirable, Kathlynn. But that is not what I was thinking. A man can’t pee and have sex at the same time; I don’t know about ladies.”
“Very well, you’re right,” she said, no longer disturbed.
“Ladies can pee and have sex at the same time?”
“No, Mr. Anthropological Thief, I mean that this structure is responding to emotion. But not very well.”
“Let’s think this through. Verbal language is not like emotion. All races have different languages, but essentially identical emotions. Those differing languages, however, express the same emotions. Physically, however, emotional expression approaches the universal. Tears of grief, tears of joy, laughter, are the same in any language. People might express certain emotions in a certain manner, but these are cultural differences, not human differences. Yelling can be loud speaking or anger, but people understand the difference. People can understand the subtleties, but this ship is suffering from bad translation.”
“Parno.”
“Yes, Kathlynn?”
“I have to pee. I have to pee now.”
“You try it.”
“I should try to urinate right here?”
“I mean you might try to express the emotion of needing relief from the pressure in your urinary bladder.”
She sighed, or scowled, or….
“Don’t be bashful,” he retorted. “I just saw both your nipples. One more second and I would have seen your….”
Bending slightly, Kathlynn placed her cupped hand on her vulva.
“I truly have to go,” she said aloud in nearly a moan.
And a door opened. That panel with the soothing, abstract patterns dilated soundlessly. Recognizing relief though approaching from a foreign direction, Kathlynn stepped there immediately, a ribbon rug identical to the last whisking her away. Parno followed.
Up and down and around they traveled, unable to discern if this journey were longer or shorter than their visit to the greenhouse. The pyre.
They arrived at a blank wall that opened to a pleasant room. The high ceiling here suggested a moderately overcast day. Though the pale floor was flat, the contiguous wall curved in and out; not acutely, but gently. Typical of the greater structure’s interior, the walls exhibited no pure color, but a subtle neutrality suggesting every color. Unlike the parlor, this chamber was not empty. At knee height, puffy shapes had been situated against the walls. Softly rounded and opaque, they resembled the cast plasfoam used for modern furniture.
“That looks like a place to sit,” Parno said. Walking to the nearest protrusion, he sat.
Staring at Kathlynn, Parno blushed.
“My bladder is being drained,” he said, surprised. “So is my colon.”
Kathlynn stepped past, sitting on the protrusion farthest from Parno. In the next moment, she inadvertently sighed.
“That is the finest relief I have felt in my entire life. Much better than breathing again after smothering in the airlock.”
“This may be magic,” Parno said while standing. “It’s too good to be science. Alien osmosis.”
Still seated, Kathlynn found interest in Parno’s derriere.
“It must be bad magic,” she said, “because I see a brown stain on your coveralls.”
He turned his fundament from her, exposing his frontal side.
“And a yellow stain on the other side,” she smirked.
“So, Mizz Smarty Pants, do you think I’ll see anything different on you after you stand? Should I say, Mizz Messy Pants?”
“I am not moving,” she said, achieving that superior mien Parno had seen before.
“What if it sucks your blood out next?”
She stood decisively, arms akimbo, blushing.
“I’m not looking at you,” Parno told her, facing away, “but I can smell it on me.”
With an exaggerated expression of distress, Parno bent at the waist and waved an extended finger at his soiled fabric.
“This is your fault,” he said aloud, “please resolve the dirty situation.”
“I hope you don’t get castrated,” Kathlynn stated quickly. “Then again, it might be for the best.”
As Kathlynn spoke, Parno heard another sound. A pleasant whisking. Looking toward the alien bidet, he saw that a new opening had formed in the adjacent wall. Parno stepped to a nearly spherical chamber, two paces wide, the inner surface having the sheen of fine fabric, mottled in appearance, and…pleasant.
He stepped inside.
“Parno, where are you?” Kathlynn asked, unable to see him from her position.
As Kathlynn approached, Parno called out, “Come on in; I’m naked.”
The chamber had removed his shoes, coveralls, and undergear: the opaque undergarment worn by modern men. Parno then felt a breeze: not warm, not cool, but…pleasant.
“This feels great,” he said to himself, and a female voice replied from behind.
“Parno, you have no butt to speak of.”
He did not turn. He felt terrific.
“Then we’ll speak of yours. Your fundament is worthy of epic poetry. Later. This is wonderful.”
In the following, magical moment, Kathlynn found her own spherical toilet facility, and entered.
Parno felt that breeze caress every segment of his skin, inside his ears and nostrils, even within his mouth as he laughed. He gargled on the cleansing breeze. His hair felt luxurious, his beard lustrous.
“I’m never leaving,” he said, and the breeze ended.
He felt utterly clean, not at all moist, and pleasantly—not perfectly—refreshed. To achieve perfection, he required a meal and a bracing drink while reclining casually beside Kathlynn Shumard.
“Kathlynn, are you all right?” he called out with unnecessary volume.
“Go away,” she sighed. “I live here from this moment on.”
She spoke as though nearby, though Parno could not see her. He stepped toward the sphere’s exit, intending to peer in on Kathlynn—only to ensure her safety—but his feet skidded on something. Fabric. An apparel pile. Lifting his garments, he found them supple, bright, perfectly clean.
Parno exited the super loo fully clothed, seeing smiling Kathlynn approach him, equally covered.
“You look great,” he beamed.
“Thanks. So do you.”
“You smell great, too. Just like a lady.”
“If you’re going to ask me out for dinner, I accept in advance. I am famished. Where’s the restaurant?”
“Where’s the exit?”
“Parno, how would we express that emotionally?”
“Perhaps we’re not communicating so emotionally as I originally thought,” he told her. “How hard would it be for a technol system to read an empty stomach or full bladder?”
“Earth technols can manage that,” she replied.
“But how can a housing system sense your desire to leave?”
“Why, when you tell it you want to leave.”
“You’re right. Physical creatures do physical things. Humans even pull a string to ring a bell to summon servants to do things for them. These aliens are emotional, and physical.”
“And absent,” Kathlynn ventured. “We’ve only found two.”
“Perhaps three,” Parno added.
“Time to leave,” they said together.
Parno and Kathlynn decided to return to the lobby while discussing their future. On the ribbon, the Earthers learned that by moving slowly, they could step ahead or behind. Turning to either side by shifting their feet was easier. The static walls were over a pace away from their outstretched arms, but the Earthers did not consider touching the surface.
“Maybe we shouldn’t try to eat, but devote all our energies to exiting this place,” Kathlynn suggested. “If we found an alien restaurant, we would probably only poison ourselves. Our luck can’t hold out.”
“Our bad luck can’t hold out. We have to get out of here, then return with the staff. This place is incredible.”
“Parno, if you think about it, this structure is the greatest discovery in the history of space exploration.”
“What’s that, a speech?”
“Why are you so argumentative? Do you have a rational basis for contradicting me?”
“What I’m saying, Kathlynn, is that we have no space exploration without ether ore. Neither do the aliens, or they wouldn’t have parked this huge structure on it.”
“My speech was more profound than yours,” she smirked.
He almost reached to hold her hand. Without the suits’ interference, the touch would be delicious, he knew.
He had learned not to touch an alien.
Along the ribbon they traveled, slipping left and right, cresting a gentle hill, crossing a mild valley in the conveying floor.
“Geez, I don’t know where I am or what I’m doing. Kathlynn, do you know the first rule of rescue workers?”
“Save the victim? Is this a game?”
“My great grandfather was a traffic saver. When traffic accidents still occurred, he and a crew would extract people from float car wrecks. He told me the first rule of a rescue worker: don’t hurt yourself. The second rule is don’t hurt your partner. The third rule is don’t hurt the victim more than he’s already hurt.”
“Yes, that all makes sense. Rather, it will make sense if you simply tell me what you’re trying to say.”
“Kathlynn, I don’t care if I have the opportunity to make the biggest deal in Stellar Service’s history, or the history of outer space. I don’t care if I have the opportunity to save this expedition, the entire planet, or the galaxy. I am saving myself first.”
“What about me?”
“Since you don’t seem to like my rules, you can make up your own.”
“Oh. Very well, your first rule is to save me.”
“Oh. Well, you have to promise to have sex with me.”
“Right now?”
“You don’t have to share sex with me now, Kathlynn, you have to promise right now.”
“Oh. That’s fine, because we’re going to die here anyway.”
She then moved against Parno, embracing him, shaking her head, not weeping, merely dejected.
He pressed her away.
“Bullshit,” he scowled. “We are not dying in here. If that’s part of your deal, I tear up the contract.”
She stared for only a moment before extending her hand.
“I save you, you save me. Shake.”
He clasped her hand firmly.
“It’s a deal,” he said.
They dropped their hands, then moved t
ogether to embrace. Their mutual feeling was of breathing again after smothering. Then they parted, sharing a minor smile, and proceeded to the next rescue.
* * *
Standing back to back in the lobby’s center, they selected from the menu of planar danger.
“Whose turn to choose?” Parno asked.
“Yours.”
“Be my guest.”
“Not the greenhouse,” Kathlynn muttered, looking toward that door. Then she looked closer. She stepped near. Bending, she reached with one finger, but decided not to touch.
“The scene changed, Parno,” she noted. “Look, toward the bottom, you can see our suits on the lahar.”
“You’re right,” he said. “I wonder if it’s real time. This has to tell us something.”
The two stood side by side now, not moving until Kathlynn cocked her head.
“Do I hear something from in there? A rustling, or…?”
Turning away, Parno looked behind.
“No, I think it’s coming from….”
Kathlynn’s shriek scarcely resembled a word, though any alien would have comprehended her emotion.
“There!”
The greenhouse door showed flaws. Hands devoid of substance bent the rigid fabric, pressing from the far side, attempting to press through. Two kinetic protrusions actively attacked the static sheet, unreal hands thrusting against skin in order to enter a body’s heart. Fear’s ugly action corrupted the alien artwork, violating the integrity of the picture plane.
Parno and Kathlynn stood away, transfixed and staring in the first moment, that era of transition between stifling fear and required response. The thing could not enter, they knew, or it would be ripping their throats away at that moment. And they knew that if only they entered that door, they would have no more concerns about escaping the structure. They would spend eternity escaping their despair.
Chapter 8
Carboniferous Mist
No longer did they feel uncomfortable on the rubbery floor. With strong, secure strides, Kathlynn stepped to the panel whose appliqué depicted rows of tidy foliage. Parno paused, considering those pressing intrusions, those alien violations of his space. He could almost, almost see individual fingers, curved claws reaching for his throat, hands wrapped around his neck ending his breathing. These intrusions spoke in a universally understood emotional language of threats. I will get you. I will grab you, break you….
