Chapter 23
She was alive. And she was unharmed, except for bruises, sprains, and a few broken ribs. Her smart-suit would have administered a local anaesthetic; not too much, as she needed to be clearheaded. Consequently, she ached all over. Miraculously, her escape pod seemed to be in good condition. It had flung her away from the red giant into an orbit around a planet, a process that had probably shed part of its complex, protective shell. Her super, intergalactic ship had not survived, yet her escape pod had. If it was a coincidence, it was an astonishing one.
She was lying on her back, looking up at screens and holo charts. Readouts were drifting across her visual field. The planet on which she had landed was similar in size to her home planet, with a slightly larger mass. Well, her smart suit would compensate for that once she started walking around. Air was uncannily like that of her home planet and, incidentally, the planet Earth. One striking difference, however, was the degree of pollution, at least five times worse than planet Earth.
What would cause that degree of pollution? The planet must be inhabited, and there must be industry, masses of it, even war. That was a thought. She continued to scan. Unwelcome news: radiation. It was not enough to kill quickly, but enough to cause long-term terminal health issues. In the short to medium term that was no problem; her smart-skin would take care of that.
Had she reached her destination, the Great Wheel Galaxy? She questioned the AI, which had been part of her ships AI infrastructure. The AI assured her that she had crossed the immense space between her Home Galaxy and The Great Wheel. She had indeed arrived, not in a chosen manner, but in an escape pod, having lost her star ship to a red giant. Not only had she arrived, she was marooned.
She wanted outside, but her training informed her that she needed to complete many checks and double checks. She surveyed the pod’s status, and something surprised her: the pod was in stealth. Now that used up energy – potentially an undesirable thing.
She went audio. ‘AI, why are we in stealth? Is it a malfunction?’
A cool, metallic voice responded. ‘No malfunction. We are in a war zone. High-risk area. Stealth is essential for survival.’
‘Shit!’
She closed her eyes and opened them again, hoping that somehow, she would wake from what was clearly a nightmare.
‘Show me the outside.’
A clear view of the outside panned across her visual spectrum. She had landed on the edge of a desert. The ground was rusty red with zero vegetation. In the distance were hills shrouded in mist and smog. Above the hills floated the faint images of balloons. Little bursts of light seemed to decorate one area of the hills. Occasionally, a balloon would burst, emitting fire or luminous clouds or bubbles. Were they explosions? Was this war activity? It had to be.
Could Astral-La be here? She activated her implant and tried to reach her. She hooked her implant into the pod’s AI for amplification. After half an hour, she gave up. There was nothing.
She tried to connect with Astral telepathically. She was no empath, but Astral might notice her thoughts if she tried hard enough.
No response. Not even a feeling, not even an imagined feeling of something probing.
She closed her eyes for a long time. It had to be a dream. How could she possibly have landed on such a planet, a planet that seemed tailor-made to place her in maximum jeopardy?
After checking her suit and rechecking the pod’s systems, she placed the pod in planetary mode. This would allow her to drive around, collect samples of earth and rock, test water and vegetation (if she found any), and recycle air, urine, and perspiration. On its own, the pod could sustain her for six months, possibly longer. If Astral were here, surely, she would make an eventual connection.
The pod was now a vehicle with a see-through front, a driver’s seat, and room at the back for sleeping, food preparation, and toilet. First, she needed to eat, drink, then get out and stretch her legs.
The ground was stony and unforgiving, the view awe-inspiring, but ominous, and a feeling of doom pervaded. Scanning the distant hills, she noted the strange balloon-type objects, faint and mysterious at this distance. Areas of the hills were on fire, obviously forests of some description. There was vegetation after all, and therefore water. That should be her priority, she thought – water. The thought of drinking recycled urine and sweat for months did not appeal to her. And she wanted a swim or at least a nice long shower. Her smart-skin was a wonderful thing, but it could not compensate for such a loss.
She got back into her pod, checked that it was in stealth mode, and began to drive towards the hills. She had no idea what she was driving towards, except danger. But it was paramount that she contacts some form of intelligent life that was not actively engaged in destruction.
Placing the AI on full alert and continuously surveying her surroundings, she drove slowly. There was little in her immediate field of vision to explore – a few mounds and variation in ground colour. At one point, she came to a small fissure, which the pod easily negotiated. As she drew nearer to the hills, the stones became larger, and gradually gave way to boulders.
Suddenly she was in a different terrain. Large, polished rocks between which were areas of hard, white sand – a landscape that filled her with unease. She felt desperately alone and in need of Ninthe. What, she asked herself, was she doing here? Why had she embarked on this ridiculous mission, a mission that was placing her in continuous jeopardy? She could have stayed on New Salvation, even gone back to Earth. Why had she this insatiable craving for adventure and, it appeared, trouble?
Well. She had her adventure and her trouble, and it was not looking good.
‘Activity!’ The AI issued readouts and visual confirmation of a figure running between the boulders, about half a mile away. It was a boy, of about ten or eleven, and he looked human. Three million light-years from home and the first sentient being she had come across was humanoid. She would intercept the boy; if he spoke standard galactic, she would know that she was dreaming.
‘A single figure pursued by thirty individuals,’ The AI announced.
‘Intercept the one pursued. Increase speed and adjust pod alignment appropriately,’ she ordered. Soon, she had visual on the boy, who appeared terrified and was frantically looking back at a militia horde rapidly gaining on him.
The AI was filling the pod’s information screens with readouts and depictions of the boy’s plight. The AI conjectured that the boy was part of a group of refugees, whom the militia had attacked and killed. Somehow, the boy had escaped. The militia were pursuing him for sport. They obviously wanted him alive as they had the means to kill him outright without giving chase. What would they do to him?
Flower-of-Sands was not prepared to find out. The pod rose into the air and came down behind the boy. She ordered the AI to open the pod on the side facing the boy, leant out, grabbed him, and hurled him into the pod.
That was when her troubles began. The boy believed that she had captured him and fought ferociously. She tried to restrain and soothe him, but he rewarded her with a barrage of punches, kicks, butts, scratches, and bites.
She looked him in the eye and gestured for him to calm down. Adopting an appropriate body language, she indicated that he was safe. For this, she received a punch in the face that drew blood, followed by an all-out assault.
Normally, she was unbeatable in hand-to-hand combat. She had a gift that caused her opponents to defeat themselves. People attacked her and somehow, unexpectedly, hit the floor, often with a resounding slap. Back home, the best part of a thousand years ago, (subjective time), she was famous for it. But it was not working here. To raise a hand against a child, even in self-defence, even indirectly, was beyond her conception; it simply did not compute. Therefore, she had no means of defending herself, despite her suit’s sophisticated technology. The boy’s fists and feet were landing on her face and body with impunity. If the assault continued for much longer, she would lose consciousness; he might even kill her.
‘AI, neutralizes the boy immediately, but do not harm him!’ she cried between punches.
‘Will do. Seal up!’
There was a delay in which time she received several blows to her legs, abdomen, and chest. She ordered her suit to seal for hostile air conditions. Looking anxiously at the AI’s readouts, she noticed gratefully that the pod had lost the boy’s pursuers.
The AI released a hypnotic gas into the pod and after a few half-hearted attempts at further kicks and punches, the boy collapsed onto the pod floor.
She pulled the lad to the back of the pod and laid him down on her sleeping area. She would need to restrain him. She hated doing this, but she could see no viable alternative. Well, there was one, which was to keep him permanently sedated, but that was even worse. Then she had an idea. What if she slipped him into a smart-skin? S-skins were not designed for children, but a one could be modified to accommodate the boy temporarily. She could link it to her implant-network and to her own skin. That way she could order his skin to release appropriate mood adaptors, again not something she would have wished for, but infinitely preferable to the boy seriously hurting her or himself. This would give her time to establish communication and alley his fears.
‘AI, how many spare s-skins do we have?’
The AI guessed her intentions. ‘Three, two standards, one for seriously wounded. I recommend standard for the boy. The suit will quickly adjust to his size.’
‘Good. Let’s get him in.’
Half an hour later, the boy began to awaken. Flower-of-Sands had linked his skin’s vital controls to her implant-net, which meant that she had access to his lymphatic and nervous system and would be able to monitor his fears and aggression levels. She programmed his skin to administer appropriate chemicals to subdue his fight/flight response. She hated doing it, but felt she had little choice.
The boy regarded her sullenly, his mouth curled down sardonically. She reached over his head to a water outlet in the form of a thin tube. This alarmed him a little, and for a few moments, she expected a repeat of his aggressive behaviour. It didn’t happen, and the boy returned to his sullen, quietly hostile attitude.
Rather than give him the tube, which he may not understand, she poured water from the tube into a small plastic-type cup and offered it. The boy hesitated, but she could see that his need for water was overwhelming. She gently raised his head off the pillow, offering him the water. After a few sips, he took the cup from her and began to drink. She offered him more, which he took.
After drinking, she lowered his head onto the pillow, her mouth curled in the nicest, reassuring smile that she could muster. He looked up at her, suspicious at first, then curious. That, she told herself, was a step in the right direction. She began to speak. ‘Hello, my name is Flower-of-Sands. What is yours?’
She knew he couldn’t understand, but the AI’s language sub-system and her skin’s language application were fully active and linked. The Ai and she must learn his language. For this he needed to speak, and speak a lot. She made a series of gestures that she hoped indicated that he should say something. At first, he looked blank, and then he caught on. He was obviously intelligent, for which she was relieved – dealing with a halfwit was not a happy thought, since she was up to her eyes in a war zone.
He began to speak. A strange tongue, she thought. It almost made her feel sick. At first, his words sounded like a series of squeaks and short sharp shouts. How could the AI make sense of such a noise? After a while, the boy became tired, but she signalled to him to continue. He seemed to be aware of the importance of what they were doing and continued to speak even although his voice became hoarse.
They continued in this manner for a long time, sometimes taking breaks and drinking tea, an activity the boy appeared to like. She was no linguist, but the AI’s language sub-system was at genius level, though with a database of languages from the Milky Way and the Large Magellanic Cloud, not this galaxy. Yet here in the Great Wheel she had before her a boy who was remarkably human in appearance, so she guessed anything was possible.
Exhausted, the boy fell asleep and she had a chance to observe him. All through the language interrogation, his deep blue eyes had struck her. Now she was captivated by his long black lashes. His hair was light red, almost blond, and his mouth full, revealing white, glistening teeth that she knew from experience were very sharp.
She became aware of the AI probing her implant-net. At last, it had a handle on the boy’s language. Next time he spoke, it would translate directly and at the same time encourage her to form the words of the metallic, singsong language. It was going to be a very steep learning curve.
She woke the boy and signalled him to continue his monologue. He seemed exasperated with the tedium of it, but also appreciated the vital nature of what they were doing. Gradually, she felt able to form a few words. This was rapid learning, by any standards, but both she and the AI knew that the situation was urgent. Anything could happen at any time on this planet. And they were on borrowed time, all the time.
‘What is your name?’ she asked falteringly in the boy’s language.
The boy laughed at her accent, which, from his perspective, must have been hilarious.
She asked again, the AI feeding information into her head.
He laughed again and then spoke, but his answer was incomprehensible. Well, it was good to see him laughing; at least she was establishing some rapport, bonding.
Suddenly, she could understand him. ‘Daff! Call me Daff. It will be easier,’ the boy giggled. ‘And a lot less embarrassing.’
‘Daff,’ she squeaked. ‘Daff! I like that,’ she squeaked and shouted. ‘My name is Flower … Hey, just call me Sands. Can you say that?’
The boy said ‘Sands’ and seemed to find that funny too.
By now, she had quite serious jaw ache from trying to get her vocal chords around Daff’s language, not to speak of the punches she had received earlier.
‘Let’s have a drink and a rest,’ she squeaked.
Daff seemed to have lost his fear of her and smiled trustingly. She risked giving his shoulders a gentle, reassuring squeeze and pointed to a new seat against the pod hull that the AI had constructed, as by now it recognized that the boy was to be a permanent guest.
She made tea and dialled for biscuits and the nearest thing to cheese that the AI’s data banks could come up with – after all, it was only an escape pod’s AI, which under the circumstances was working well. Daff loved the biscuits, but viewed the cheese with considerable scepticism. Flower-of-Sands practised his language some more.
‘Where are you from? Who are your people?’ she asked.
Before speaking a sad expression drifted like a cloud across his face.
‘My people belong to the sub-continent of North Krill. War has destroyed our homes, our land, everything. We are all refugees – that’s all we are, refugees, nothing else. A group of us separated from the others and ended up here in this nameless land. We found water and a small amount of vegetation in one of the valleys, nearby. There were animals, so we could hunt. At first, it all seemed good, but then this militia faction attacked us. They killed all, just for fun, except me. I managed to hide and then escape. One of them spotted me escaping and they chased me, just for sport (for these militia war crime is a way of life), and that was when you came along. Sorry I hurt you, I was so scared.’
‘That’s okay Daff. I understand how frightened you must have been.’ She gave him a long hug. ‘Listen, is there anywhere on this planet that is not a war-zone, where we could hide?’
‘Nowhere that I know of.’
‘Nowhere at all?’
’No, it is a world war. Every continent is involved.’
She was incredulous. ‘What’s it about. Why is everybody fighting?’
‘I don’t know. Nobody knows. We are just fighting.’
‘You must rest Daff, and so must I. We will talk again and formulate a plan.’
‘Plan?’ Daff spoke with iron
y beyond his years. ‘Here there is no plan. When the H-bombs fall …’ His voice trailed off.
‘H bombs! Are you sure?’
‘Definitely. They say the Southern State has already used them.’
She decided not to mention the radiation levels that the AI had detected. It was obvious that someone somewhere on this lethal planet was using weapons of mass destruction.
‘Nevertheless, we will try to plan,’ she said with a practical voice. ‘There must be somewhere on the planet where there is no war. A sanctuary of some description.’
‘No way.’ Daff looked sceptical. With good reason, she thought grimly.
She lay down beside Daff behind the driving area and pulled a warm blanket over both. Daff curled up close to her and she allowed him to rest his head on her right shoulder, which was still sore from the landing and his earlier assaults. He had gone from hostile and suspicious to wholehearted trusting; he needed her as she needed him. They were alone in a hostile world that seemed dedicated to destruction, where lawlessness and chaos ruled supreme.
She gazed at the ceiling of the pod that was now dim in sleep mode. The AI was saving energy. Nevertheless, she had a job for it.
‘AI, can you give me a run down on this planet?’
‘Will do, but it is a grim picture.’
‘Okay, link to my implant only. I don’t want Daff to be disturbed.’
A population of 7 billion. Four, maybe five, major continents. At least a hundred countries. The poles are militarized. Mass starvation and disease. 100 million or so killed in action. Refugee camps stretching for hundreds of miles. War crimes rife. Mass slavery. Children of five trained to kill. Use of nuclear weapons, both tactical and otherwise.’
‘Otherwise? You mean full-scale nuclear. Sounds a bit like Earth – when I was there, eight hundred plus years ago.’
‘No, Flower-of-Sands, it is not like that. Here, war is total. There is not a part of this planet that is not involved in war. And nobody knows why they are fighting. They are just fighting. All the time. It’s what they do. It’s all they do.’
Flower-of-Sands_The Extraordinary Adventures of a Female Astronaut Page 23
