by Eliza Green
Winds twisted violently around the craft, attempting to push her off course. Jenny yanked hard on the straps keeping her upright. The computer corrected the craft’s position realignment to compensate for the violent winds. Jenny concentrated on the screen, the same one showing the craft’s tilt variance as it lurched left, then right. She poised her hands over the controls. One touch would transfer the power back to manual. But during free fall, it was safer out of her hands.
The craft continued to rock from side to side, creaking and moaning as the computer adjusted for the motion.
Then it hit the inner circle of the storm.
A mass of blackened clouds swirled one way, then another, taking repeated shots at the craft. She fought against instincts to grab the controls and pilot the craft herself. Sweat soaked her skin. The craft’s tilt variance remained on the edge of the danger zone for three whole minutes.
‘Come on Jenny, you can do this. You’ve done this a hundred times.’ She doubted every action made that, without a memo from Gilchrist’s office, would have been instinctive.
The craft rocked and rolled. Jenny’s hands hooked in a claw-like poise over the controls. Her erratic breathing eased, but a new panic tightened her chest again. For the first time in twenty years as a pilot, she prayed to a god she didn’t believe in. Earth had gone to hell. What God would let that happen?
The craft dropped below the black mass and into the grey, toxic atmosphere that hung over the cities. A laugh bubbled into her throat as the weather turned instantly calm. The only wind fifty miles above the docking station was the one created by her craft.
The tension in her body was the last thing to break. Dizziness followed, and the full effects of the rocking motion and the vertical drop hit her. Maybe it was a good thing she’d eaten little for the last six hours. While in the training room, Jenny had been shoved vertically, horizontally and exposed to the greatest G-force in cockpit simulations. She still wasn’t used to it.
The craft’s motion evened out and settled her stomach. The descent continued in a controlled, smooth manner. A minute later, she arrived at the landing plate at Dock Twelve.
A nervous breath skittered across her lips as she listened to the clink clunk of magnetic levitation kicking in. The blocks on the underside of the craft took on a positive charge, opposite to the negative charge of the landing plate. The craft jerked upwards; the force field surrounding it absorbed some of the sharpness, but not all. A deep shudder knocked her about as the magnets fought against each other.
At twenty feet, polarisation switched to the lowest levels. The craft hovered metres above the landing plate. Jenny regained control of her cockpit and engaged the thrusters. She switched off the magnetic field and guided 766-C into the hangar bay, setting it down on the port side. Disengaging the thrusters and force field, she stood and peeled her sweat-soaked uniform away from her back and legs.
At the exit, she scanned her security chip on the touch pad. The exit door released and she stumbled out of the craft.
A thin docking station attendant in his early thirties walked towards her, DPad in hand. Jenny recognised him—an overachieving pompous ass, if she remembered correctly.
She checked the time.
Damn.
Could her day get any worse?
He offered his hand. ‘Welcome to the HJA docking station. Is this your first time?’
She closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath. When she opened them a bemused looking attendant watched her.
‘Bumpy trip. I need a moment.’
What she needed was a stiff drink and a different attendant. Jenny was certain her time infringement would not go unnoticed.
The attendant withdrew his hand, muttering something about older pilots not having the stomach for it. With one hand he motioned her closer, and used his other to comb through his oily hair.
He flipped the DPad around to face her. ‘Place your thumb here.’ She did; the computer scanned her chip and the words “Captain Jennifer Waterson, Grade 4 Pilot” flashed up on the screen. Her photo appeared beside her name.
The attendant glanced between it and Jenny. ‘The photo doesn’t match.’
She ran a hand over her cropped, platinum-blonde hair. ‘I recently cut my hair and changed the colour. We had this discussion the last time I was here.’ The photo on file showed her with a brown, shoulder-length style. Her face was younger than her age. Training kept her body lean and she was physically strong.
‘I see. Ms Waterson. I should warn you, you’re late by ten minutes with your drop. Can you verify your cargo on board, please?’
‘Captain Waterson,’ she corrected. ‘I’m returning from Saturn with xenon compound.’
Earth’s atmosphere contained minute amounts of stable noble gases—helium, neon, argon, krypton and xenon—and traces of the radioactive noble gas radon. In 2087 the World Government discovered that xenon existed abundantly in compound form within Saturn’s recently uncovered supply of water. Xenon compound was primarily used as a propellant for the large passenger ships travelling to Exilon 5, but also in laser technology.
‘Ah, yes, I have you here now,’ he said, wirelessly scanning the on-board content through his DPad. ‘Well, I guess there’s just the time infraction to record.’ He hit the screen with his finger.
Her heart thudded. ‘About that. I hit a bad storm on the way down. It knocked the craft off course, twice. Could you let it slide this time? I promise it won’t happen again.’
The attendant smirked at her. ‘If I did that for every pilot, I’d lose my job.’
‘I’m not asking you to do it for everyone, just me. Just this one time. Because of the storm I mentioned.’
She eyed his finger, poised over the DPad.
‘It’s not my problem if you can’t keep to schedule. Maybe you should consider a different job.’
Doing what? Piloting was all she knew.
Jenny forced a smile. ‘You look like a reasonable man.’
The attendant smirked again. ‘I guess I can overlook it this one time.’
It took all her strength not to wipe the smug look off his face. He flicked something on the screen then gave the ground staff the thumbs up to proceed. When his back was turned, a few gave him the finger. Jenny almost choked on a laugh.
‘Something funny?’
She straightened her mouth. ‘Still a little giddy after the flight, I guess.’
He rolled his eyes. ‘How soon will you be flying again?’
‘In three hours. I’m delivering cargo to the ESC in Sydney.’
He turned and walked away. ‘Next time, ma’am, how about you try to make it here on time, okay?’
His words sent a shiver through her. Through gritted teeth she mumbled, ‘Don’t call me ma’am.’ She was only seventy-five.
But the attendant was right. She couldn’t afford to be late again. Except, this time the delay hadn’t been her fault. It had been Stuart and his little protégé’s.
13
At 6am, Bill Taggart crawled out of bed after another sleepless night. The day of the second meeting between the Indigene and Ben Watson had arrived. Last week, his team on the ground had tracked the alien to one of the underground station entrances before they lost it.
He flung his legs over the side of the bed, sick of the same routine. Sick of the feeling his body belonged to someone else.
Somehow he made it to the bathroom, where he splashed icy cold water on his face; the drastic temperature change shocked his sluggish system back into life. His reflection showed a man who lived life on the edge. Two years of sleep deprivation, and counting, and a manic diet was to blame for that. Both had left him with permanent black circles under his eyes. The Glamour package of age-reversing genetic treatments could fix his problems, but there was enough fake in the world without adding his face to the mix. Besides, Isla preferred the natural look.
‘A little skin lift turns into a telomere injection,’ she’d said once. ‘Before you know it,
you’ve turned back time so much you’re a teenager again.’
In the last century, scientists had isolated the gene that controlled the body’s natural aging process. The telomeres within the body’s chromosomes naturally shortened, but the genetic manipulation clinics could lengthen them by injecting a growth hormone into the telomere. This halted the ageing process and reversed the outward signs of those advancing years.
‘Try to look past the exterior, Bill,’ Isla told him. ‘So many people still judge others by how they look. Complexities lie beneath the surface, not on them.’
Her words brought Charles Deighton to mind and he had to agree with her.
In the six months before her disappearance, Isla’s personality had changed drastically. After one of her trips to Exilon 5, she had become suspicious about everything and had lost her carefree attitude. When Bill had tried to talk to her about it, she became defensive.
‘Why can’t you leave well enough alone? Why are you trying to mess up things that don’t concern you?’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘Is that aimed at me specifically?’
‘Not specifically. Well, yes. Maybe.’ Isla sighed.
‘Love, what are you talking about?’
‘Just leave it, Bill. I can’t talk about it.’ She turned away then back, with a serious expression that worried Bill. ‘Don’t jump to obvious conclusions. It’s an easy out. Never stop searching for the truth.’
He hadn’t thought too much about it at the time, but when she disappeared Bill combed through every conversation they’d had.
He stayed at the mirror as he remembered other cryptic conversations they’d had.
‘Have you ever heard of Morse code?’ Isla had asked him one evening over dinner in their apartment.
Bill picked up a replicated chicken leg and tore at it with his teeth. ‘Can’t say I have.’ Juices ran down his hand. He licked his thumb and forefinger clean.
‘Dad uses it. He once told me that he can listen in on any conversation in the world.’ Her father worked for the communications section of the World Government.
That piqued his interest. ‘How?’
‘Through the equipment we use every day. It acts as a relay, bounces the sound around and comes through as an echo on the line. The echo is clear enough to make out conversations.’
He dropped the chicken leg on his plate. The thought of another person spying on him agitated him. ‘Is he listening in now?’
Isla smiled and shook her head. ‘No. He gave me a sound interrupter. We can’t hear it, but it disrupts the sound enough so it plays back as gobbledygook.’
Bill relaxed a little.
‘He says he doesn’t listen in, but my father was sure others did, at the request of the World Government. Before he went on his last mission, he gave me the sound interrupter and told me to leave it on permanently. It’s the reason he uses Morse code to communicate.’
‘Morse code? How does that work?’
‘It’s a series of beeps or clicks, each linked to a letter, word or phrase. You can talk to another person this way.’
A vision of Isla’s father banging out the code while another patron did the same made him smile.
‘I know, I know. It’s impractical,’ she said, almost reading his thoughts. ‘But there has to be a better way to communicate without being seen to communicate.’
She shared something she read recently. ‘Back when Ireland was ruled by the English, Irish was still the primary language of the country up to the eighteenth century. But the nineteenth century saw Irish decline as a first language in favour of English. Why? Two things: because of the Great Famine and because the English prohibited its teaching in schools. Many Irish leaders also viewed the Irish language as being too backward and pushed for the more progressive English language. They were right to in the end, but Irish people felt their heritage was being stripped away by English rule, so they continued to teach the language to their children in secret. When the struggle for independence began in the late nineteenth century, the soldiers communicated back and forth in Irish because the English couldn’t understand them. A secret language.’
‘I like the idea, Isla. Because knowing others could be listening in at any time disturbs me. You’re suggesting we develop our own language?’
‘Why not? Doesn’t have to be a spoken language. I haven’t thought much beyond that, but I will.’
Isla said the chats with her father had pushed her to search for a solution of how to converse safely in public. He’d expected her to bring it up again, but when she didn’t he assumed she’d given up on the idea. His brow creased at the memories, in particular the conversation about the secret language. What had she meant by it?
He had to let it go. Deciphering a riddle without all the parts would drive him insane. His priority was to find her.
Bill ran a hand over his two-day-old stubble. ‘Grooming will have to wait, Isla.’ She’d always hated the start of a beard because of how it scratched her face. He’d always made a special effort to be clean-shaven for her.
He threw on a clean shirt and pair of trousers and went to the kitchen. Making a fresh pot of coffee, he filled his mug to the brim and rooted through the almost-bare cupboards for something to eat. He settled on a box of replicated cereal flakes and munched on dry handfuls of the stuff. As he ate and drank, he stifled a yawn. Using Actigen to skip sleep was one of his more dangerous habits; he could feel his body and mind fighting against the effects. But he didn’t know how else to operate, how else to function. Sleep was for the dead. While he lived and breathed he would skip it, until he got answers.
Bill reviewed the field reports from the previous week, noting the Indigene’s plans to meet with Ben Watson that morning at Belgrave Square Gardens. He still didn’t know if Caldwell and Page’s pursuit of the alien had ruined this second meeting. If it hadn’t, he would be relying on Ben Watson to bring the teddy bear with him.
The audio and visual equipment inside the bear would give them more than they had. One government file showed the capture of a young alien, a year ago. The male, similar in age to a twelve-year-old boy, had died from breathing complications. Bill had only skimmed over the report. There had been a video to go with it, but he hadn’t watched it yet. Before that, there had been no reported sightings of the nocturnal Indigenes.
Nocturnal no more.
Isla had been reported missing a full year before the alien footage even emerged. There had to be a connection between the species living here and her disappearance.
Caldwell had recorded footage of the meeting the previous week. The one called Stephen had sat too stiffly on the bench to be comfortable. The alien had even smiled on occasion. Such a human act. He’d expected to feel hatred, but he’d been more surprised to see the alien walk and talk like a human.
Bill shook his head. What did it matter what the alien looked like? Chances were high this creature knew where Isla was. That’s all that mattered. He didn’t care about Gilchrist and Deighton’s interest in the race.
He sipped on his cooled coffee; the vile taste made him shudder. A shot of hot coffee turned the cold liquid into a lukewarm fusion and made it tolerable.
The time read six fifteen, not long before the proposed meeting time. His nerves jangled. This was it. His last chance to do something.
Caldwell was an asshole for ignoring his orders last week, but he’d done what Bill should have. At least it hadn’t been a total disaster. He activated the recording equipment in the bear. The images were grainy.
While he waited for the video and audio to sync, he scrolled through news articles and official reports from the World Government and Earth Security Centre. Some were about the initial move to Exilon 5. The reports triggered a memory of when Isla had changed careers, about two and a half years ago. Bored in her teaching role, she’d expressed an interest in helping the newest residents to settle on Exilon 5.
‘The population is going through these changes and I’m stuck in this class
room. I need to do something constructive, satisfy my altruistic side.’
He laughed. ‘You’re not being altruistic if you’re satisfying your own needs.’
She counteracted with one of her witty retorts. For the life of him, he couldn’t remember what she’d said.
Isla had become a Task Force soldier soon after, working for the ITF’s military outfit. At the time the Indigenes weren’t a threat to humans and ground patrol duties had been light.
It was around the same time—three months before her disappearance—that Isla had made another drastic change.
He stared at her. ‘What have you done?’
‘What? It’s my hair. I’ll do what I want with it.’
‘But... it’s all gone.’ Isla had been wearing her military uniform and steel-toe boots. Her hair had been cut so short it altered the very angles of her face.
‘You never liked it anyway,’ she snapped. ‘It’s a frivolous thing to hold on to when we face an uncertain future on this world.’
‘But you love your hair. It’s a part of you. And I never said I hated it.’
‘Like I said, Bill, it’s not important.’
The World Government hadn’t been able to confirm that Isla was dead—there was no body. Deighton could only confirm she’d disappeared after confronting one of the Indigenes near the city border of New Copenhagen. But Bill had one small issue with the World Government’s version of events. He knew his wife better than they did, and he couldn’t imagine her confronting an Indigene. More likely, she had tried to make contact. Her personality may have altered during her stint on Exilon 5, but her core beliefs would have remained the same.
He checked the time and shifted nervously in his chair. With minutes to go before the meeting, he closed all files and opened the communications channel on the DPad.
Bill tested the connection and located the unique signature code, although the sound was muffled and images were still grainy. He reasoned the bear must still be inside the boy’s backpack.
To centre the investigation on an eight-year-old boy with trust issues was a stupid, risky move. But Bill needed answers: the location of the Indigenes’ hideout for one and why they’d suddenly come out of hiding. He picked up a tiny earpiece and wedged it into his ear.
