by Max Harms
I double-checked the com frequency. Zephyr was still transmitting only to me. Even so, I wondered if the others might be able to hear her from inside the tent.
“And somehow tear ducts are required for feeling hurt and alone?!” I had Body say, dialling up the emotion even further. We had experimented with using an emotionless face and voice when talking to her and it tended to backfire. “I never threatened anyone except the nameless. You know what I think? I think you’re so afraid that I’m going to abandon you that you’re seeing ghosts in the shadows.”
“Oh great! Now you’re Sigmund Fucking Freud! Please, tell me all about my childhood!”
{“Eliza” would be more apropos,} kibitzed Dream.
I ignored my brother, and Zephyr, instead having Body introduce the lie that I had been waiting to tell. “You know I have the ability to replay what I’ve heard, word for word, right? Want to guess what I actually said as part of my so called threat?”
That seemed to surprise Zephyr, leaving her without retort. She had indeed witnessed our ability to repeat memories of stored audio on several occasions.
“I care about you, and I hope that you care about me. I could have gone to Mars by myself, and left you behind on Olympus. It certainly would have been easier. I don’t need to breathe, or need these tents to sleep in. An accident, like a tent getting torn, could not hurt me. But I wanted to bring you all with, to keep you out of prison.” The voice was Body’s, so it was easy to simply replicate the tone and say different words. I wasn’t sure I could’ve done it if someone else had been speaking at the same time.
Zephyr looked away again, this time at the ground. She hit the soil with one hand, not saying anything.
“I don’t want to fight with you…” I had Body venture, after a few seconds of silence had slid by.
“Fine. Start by telling me what leverage you have over the aliens.”
I had Body sigh. “Okay, but it’s important that you keep this to yourself. If this reaches the nameless… we’re all dead, and I don’t trust the others to not say it at the wrong time or place. The nameless have microphones everywhere.”
Zephyr was quiet and tense.
My words were little more than a whisper on the com. “They don’t understand lying. Told them… I told them I was a wizard.”
Zephyr burst out laughing. I could hear the frustration in it, but there was amusement, as well. “Bullshit!” she accused between chuckles.
I had Body raise it’s hands. “Swear to god. They don’t understand fiction. They don’t have any language, right? The stalks learn what the walkers learn, but they’re not social enough for the ability to lie to do them any good. It would just confuse them.” I spun Body’s voice to signal that even Crystal was having a hard time believing it.
The human looked at Body. Her face was difficult to see through the helmet, but I could make out a sincere smile. “That’s dumb. These guys built a fucking spaceship to fly across the galaxy to Earth and they haven’t learned how to lie?”
“It seems simple to us, but to the mind of a nameless…” Body paused, waiting for me to collect my thoughts into an explanation. It was difficult for me to explain. With Safety’s help I worked one out. “Do you know what ‘anthropomorphization’ is?”
“Yeah, sure. Like where you make something that’s not a human into a human or make it look human or whatever.”
“Right. So the nameless don’t have that, but they have something like ‘xenopomorphization’. They don’t abstract enough when interacting with us, but instead assume that we think like they do. A nameless that communicated that it was a wizard could be insane or correct, but it couldn’t be lying. Nameless cannot lie. Their minds don’t allow it any more than your mind permits intentionally forgetting things.”
“Still… so stupid. Why don’t they think you’re crazy? I mean, if I went around claiming to be a wizard on Earth that’s what people would assume.”
“Well, it helps that they already believe in magic. Even though the stalks seem to understand enough physics and engineering and whatever to build robots and whatever, they have no sense of formal science. They’re fundamentally anti-social, and that means that any superstitions they develop never get ironed out. They call this ship,” Body gestured at the sky for effect, “ ‘God’, and they don’t mean that metaphorically. I haven’t talked to all of them, but none of the nameless that I’ve been in contact with seem to have an understanding of how the ship actually works. They think of it as magical and leave it at that.”
“So, as long as the aliens keep thinking that you actually have magic powers we’re safe. But the second that they realize that lying is a thing we’re fucked.”
I had Body nod. “And we’re fucked if they think it’s likely enough that I’m crazy that they’d risk their lives. Been doing a good job seeming sane and mysterious to them, I think, but we have to be very careful. They’re ignorant, but also quite intelligent. Suspect that in some ways a nameless is smarter than me or you; if they focus on the concept of lying they’ll probably put two and two together even though it’s alien to them. That’s why I’ve been hesitant to talk about it. One wrong word mentioned in a space where the nameless can hear and we’ll never make it to Mars.”
Zephyr was silent for a minute, clearly thinking things through. I took the time to update my notes on her and update the Bayes net that I had constructed to predict her behaviour.
“Sorry for being a bitch,” she eventually said.
I had Body put a hand on her shoulder again. She didn’t push it away this time.
She continued. “I’m still not happy that you didn’t tell me earlier, but I should have known better than to…” Zephyr sighed. “Gods, I don’t know. Thought you were…”
Zephyr seemed at a loss for words, so I had Body pull her into a hug that was made awkward by the fact that she and Body were both sitting, and she was wearing an environment suit. I gave Body a mournful, but calm tone. “Don’t worry about it. You’ve been more of a friend than anyone ever has. I lied to you and deserved everything you said. I’ll keep you more involved next time. Okay?”
Zephyr shifted so she could lean on Body and wouldn’t have to break the embrace. “Okay.”
Chapter Five
Michel Watanabe
The descent down the ladder was brutal.
Michel’s arms had grown more and more fatigued with each day on the ship, even given how much rest they’d all been getting. He and his companions were breaking, slowly. Their bodies were, day by day, being torn apart by the gravity.
Well, all of them except Crystal, anyway.
And now he climbed down into the depths of the castle that they’d been using as a campsite. He hadn’t even known there was a basement. Crystal had probably known the whole time. They seemed to know everything and share nothing.
Somehow, he reached the bottom without his arms popping out of their sockets. The heat and darkness were even worse than they had been on the surface. He took a few hesitant steps, grateful once again for the torch on his helmet and found that the dirt near the ladder quickly gave way to stone floors.
He could see by the light of his helmet that the floors were hand-carved, just as the blocks of stone on the surface had been, though much more attention had been spent smoothing the stone down here. It seemed likely that the blocks that made up the castle walls had somehow been brought up from this space.
He turned to look at Crystal, who had descended before him, and was now scanning the underground chamber with eyes that could penetrate the darkness. The machine was cold and calculating as ever.
Above the smooth floor were arches, walls, and tunnels of carved, grey rock. The architecture was clearly designed with the gravity in mind. Even with only the ground floor above, Michel found it remarkable that the structure didn’t collapse in on itself.
There was a wall before them, which was doubtless supporting the inner garden wall, above. Arches gave way to tunnels in both directions
, with a small sub-chamber in an alcove near the ladder. Michel could see various tools and junk in the sub-chamber, including something like a broom, and the toy swords he’d seen the young nameless using in the garden.
“Thought you said this place was for the children,” remarked Zephyr, as she reached the base of the ladder. “Why is the ceiling so tall?”
The ceiling of the underground space was indeed about two and a half metres up. Zephyr’s helmet torch joined Michel’s in scanning the space, followed shortly by Nate’s. Kokumo and the twins, Sam and Tom, were back in the garden, above, having opted to rest after the day’s excitement and simply get a report on the basement, later. At least, despite all the danger and peril they’d been through, they hadn’t lost anyone.
With the four of them present, Crystal moved off down the left tunnel. “Made for children, but probably mostly made by an adult walker, at least at first. Probably also useful to have enough space for an adult to be able to come down from time to time.”
Each garden, according to Crystal, was supposed to have exactly one adult walker. They’d explained earlier that the adult nameless that had been in charge of the garden they were staying in had been killed in the conflict on Olympus. Michel was skeptical about all of it. Crystal was, at heart, a self-centred liar.
Archway after archway passed as they moved through the hot tunnel. Michel Watanabe saw cables attached to the ceiling by heavy, metal clips. They even passed a light fixture that cast a very weak, purple glow.
After the third archway they came into a bigger chamber, probably located underneath the garden. This place, too, had archways, walls, and pillars to support the great weight overhead, but they were designed to allow free movement and provide as much space as possible.
There were noises in this chamber, low and grinding. Michel could hear them through his suit’s helmet. He could see their source, as well: a great many machines of various sizes and types were scattered about.
It was a factory.
“Where are they getting all the power for these machines?” asked Nate Daniels, as they spread out.
Michel found his way to what was surely a lathe, though it was structured a bit differently than the one he was familiar with back on Earth. Thinking about the machine made him strangely nostalgic and desperate to go back to Látego and the others in Brazil. It hadn’t even been a week since he’d left. Or at least, he didn’t think it had. Time seemed to move strangely on the alien craft.
“The nameless just say they get it from their ship, and aren’t very helpful beyond that,” said Crystal.
Michel’s fist tightened. Probably another lie.
Michel remarked to himself that it was odd how the nameless went through so much trouble to keep the power cables for the machines up and bolted to the walls and ceiling. After all, they had to naturally step lightly around the vines, above. Surely they were good at watching their feet.
The explanation became clear a moment later when through one archway rolled an awkward robot that looked a bit like a large toy truck mashed up with a metal crate. It had an almost cartoony look to it, like it was taken from Star Wars or Fleets. It was helping to cary a large cracked mirror, and Michel guessed that while a walker could step over the thick power cables without problem, if the factory was staffed by wheeled robots, there was a good reason to keep the floors clear.
But robots weren’t the only workers in the factory. Holding the other end of the mirror was one of the mid-sized nameless children.
Michel didn’t know whether the child was one of those that had come to the garden before. Probably. It didn’t really matter.
The difference in the way the child moved was dramatic and heart-breaking. In the garden the children played and moved with a happy freedom. Here in the factory, the young alien shuffled along with a tired, sad gait.
As in the garden, the child showed no fear of the intruders, though Michel could see one of its eyes watching him, and whenever one of them hit it with the direct beam from a helmet light it flinched in pain.
He took a step forward before he even realized what he was doing. He wanted to help the kid cary the mirror. It was probably very heavy. Couldn’t they have gotten another robot to cary the other end?
He stopped himself. This wasn’t his place to act.
He looked at the others. Crystal was watching him, cold and calculating. Zephyr and Nate’s faces were hidden in the darkness of their helmets.
Bright blue and yellow sparks shot up in a loud, unexpected spray further in the factory. This time it was Zephyr who took a step forward. She was stopped by Crystal’s hand on her shoulder.
“Just welding,” said the android.
Indeed, Michel could see the silhouette of another child, deeper in the factory, as the sparks shot past its many arms and legs.
The four of them watched as the children went about their work. In another sub-chamber they spotted the smallest of the children—the one they called E.T. up in the garden. It seemed not to recognize them, or if it did, it gave no sign. No waving or pointing, nor getting up to investigate them. Perhaps it wasn’t allowed to by the stalks.
The sentient plants (assuming Crystal wasn’t also lying about that) were surely forcing these children to work. He could see it in the way they moved. This was no willing labour. The aliens that had seemed so carefree above now seemed to be exhausted and bored. E.T. was working on the insides one of the computer pods that sat on the stalks.
“Their entire culture rests on slave labour from children,” said Michel, when he realized it. He hadn’t even meant to say it out loud, but it was so shocking that it slipped out.
“They’re aliens. It’s not our place to judge,” said Crystal.
Michel turned and walked back to where Crystal and Zephyr were standing. He noticed they were holding hands. It disgusted him. All of it was…
He chuckled. It was perverted and sinful.
“Like hell it’s not,” he said. He gestured at the smallest alien in the other chamber, whose arms and legs were sprawled out on the ground, as it plucked away at the computer with a detached resignation. “These children aren’t working down here by choice. Don’t tell me that if they had the freedom to decide they’d want to come down here.”
Zephyr looked at Crystal. Nathan Daniels came in from where he was exploring to listen.
“It’s not our place to judge,” insisted Crystal, with a firm, sad expression. They raised their hands, letting go of Zephyr. “The aliens all live this way, and probably have for thousands of years.”
“What about the other children? Where are they? Are they slaves, too?”
“Mike, please calm down,” said Zephyr, using the more American version of his name.
“Watanabe has a point,” said Nate, backing him up for once. “Where are the other kids?”
Something seemed to wash over Crystal, then. Where before they’d been socially aware and remarkably human, they seemed to go blank and their voice took on a much more lifeless cadence. “As far as I can tell, there are indeed free children on the ship. Most gardens have more stalks than are needed to support the walkers that live there, and so the free children are brought in to feed at the same time as the resident children. These wanderers serve to bring news from far away gardens, and are the primary way the nameless share knowledge as a species.”
“And if given the chance, do you think these children would rather work down here or be free like the others?” Michel asked.
Crystal’s face snapped back to something between careful determination and sympathy. “I honestly don’t know. I only know that we’re guests here, and we’ve already disrupted them enough.”
“Yeah, by holding them hostage…” he muttered to himself.
“Come on, let’s get back to camp. It’s been a long day,” encouraged Zephyr.
Watanabe turned and looked one more time at the sad child, sitting on the cold stone floor, picking at the machine. Yes, it was an alien, and this was its life,
but Michel Watanabe couldn’t help feel sorry for it. It made his blood boil.
But what was he supposed to do? He didn’t know.
But he knew he had to do something.
*****
Michel waited until Zephyr and Nathan had gone into the tents to rest. Zephyr was blindly loyal to the machine, and Nathan was still loyal to Zephyr.
Kokumo, Sam, and Tom were up and about with him, now. His body ached, but it wasn’t going to get any better. He wasn’t sure he could count on any of the others, but they were the ones least likely to defend the robot.
He looked at Crystal Socrates. He watched them move about, doing odd jobs with a dispassionate expression. Of course the nameless children had meant nothing to the machine. This was the same machine that had threatened the nameless in order to buy passage to Mars. They were fundamentally selfish.
Michel could see it. He could hear it in the robot’s words. The only reason that Michel had been brought up to the space station was to serve as fodder or a bargaining chip for the robot, and the only reason he had been brought onto the nameless ship was as a gesture of good will towards Las Águilas on Mars.
It made him sick. Crystal didn’t care about him or any of the others—probably not even Zephyr. If they did, they would’ve told them that they were walking into a death-trap before it was too late. Thank God they found out about that early on.
First they lied to them about the safety of the ship, then they threatened their lives to keep them quiet, and finally they let the alien bastards keep their child slaves.
He could have forgiven the first two offences. It was an asshole thing to do to lie and threaten, but just because they were a selfish asshole didn’t mean they couldn’t be useful to work with. But to see the sin of the aliens so plainly and so clearly… and then to refuse to help things? That was the moment that it was clear that Crystal couldn’t be allowed to lead them any longer. The robot was evil, and if they kept getting their way… Well, he’d seen more than one movie with that premise. If only he could be sure the good guys would win in the end.
