The Fifth Civilization: A Novel

by Peter Bingham-Pankratz

  Sisal gritted his fangs. “Commander, the orders from the Hanyek were explicit. No men were—”

  “Listen to me!” Grinek roared, and Sisal visibly tensed. Must he repeat himself with this simpleton? “Observer Vorjos only instructed that we not set foot on Earth soil again. He said nothing about any of the structures in orbit. Now, have a shuttle ready for immediate departure. Is that understood?”

  “P-Perfectly, sir.” Sisal pivoted on his heels and was out the hatch. Grinek enjoyed a moment of quiet, and took his seat in the center of the room. The cushions were most pleasurable, and he stroked his tail as it curled in his lap. Perhaps Vorjos had only meant Grinek should intercept the Earth vessel as it left orbit, but the Commander had another idea in mind. The Observer might upbraid Grinek when he returned to the mothership, accusing him of risking another galactic incident, but an old saying aptly fit Grinek’s mood: It is better to snap an unjust authority’s neck than ask for its permission.

  ***

  A Type-B vessel, the Colobus, was scheduled to leave for Orion in a half-hour. Barely five minutes after the order was given, the Kotaran team departed from the disguised command vessel and was rocketing toward the Company Entrepot in the shuttle. If one had the proper pass, it was easy to find a landing berth on the station that was mere minutes from the departure ring. The Kotaran shuttle, which carried three commandos, was lucky enough to have such a pass, courtesy the Kotaran intelligence service. The station’s control tower didn’t even seem to notice the heavily-accented English of Specialist Roh, the insertion team’s lead member.

  Grinek monitored the team’s progress from the bridge of the command ship. He watched as the ship-to-ship sensors indicated the shuttle had docked in a private space that was ostensibly for VIPs, but in reality was rented out to whomever could pay. VIP visits to the Entrepot were scarce, after all. Roh reported that his team was departing the shuttle and heading into the cargo section of the ring. Grinek visualized their long, concealing cloaks, knives and pistols secreted in the folds within. Any Earthman that stood in their way was to be dispatched.

  Sisal cautiously approached Grinek, having just conferred with a crewman at another console. He eyes squinted and his ears were slicked back, a sign of concern.

  “The Hanyek requests an update.” Presumably, Vorjos wanted to know Grinek’s course of action.

  “Tell Observer Vorjos to wait.”

  “Commander, I—” Sisal held his tongue. Realizing he was on his last legs with his tetchy superior, the captain turned back to the console, where he relayed Grinek’s wishes to the Hanyek. Sisal reported there were technical issues and it was of the utmost that they maintain radio silence. It satisfied Grinek to no end to think of that bureaucrat on the Hanyek standing around impatiently, waiting for details.

  Specialist Roh, whispering now, reported over the frequency that his commandos had entered the Entrepot. Some Earthmen were approaching: workers. Earthmen voices, then shouts, could be heard on the other end. Grinek prayed that Roh would handle the situation more expertly than that idiot Talmar.

  ***

  It took a few minutes to clear security. Neither Roan nor Masao were even supposed to be on the Entrepot, owing to the fact that their shift had ended the previous day and a week break was mandatory. Some sweet-talking from Masao managed to sway the guards on duty, and Roan made a note to try his “I have important business with so and so” canard more often. David was a little harder to clear through security, being an alien heading to an Earth colony, but since Masao had convinced everyone no one would be stepping foot on a freighter, the guards let him through, too. Roan wondered if they’d heard a Nyden was involved in the mall shootout on the Surface.

  Roan was relieved to see an electronic timetable that indicated Kel hadn’t yet departed the planet, though the Colobus was listed as LOADING. That meant it could leave at any moment. Roan quickened his pace.

  On one wall of a hallway was an observation window looking out to the Entrepot hangar. The window looked out onto a hammerhead-shaped Type-B freighter, its body an unappealing cylinder tucked into a boxy propulsion system, suspended from the hangar ceiling over open space. The Colobus. A loading crane, rolling on tracks suspended from the hangar roof, was lowering some last-minute crates into the open spine of the Colobus. From the shape of the crates, rectangular and oversized and emblazoned with the logo of a transportation company, they probably held some kind of vehicle. Orion was probably stocking up on orbital shuttles or skimmers, and it looked like the ship would be full.

  “Pardon me,” David asked, “But do you know where we’re going?” He was probably a little intimidated at wandering the halls of a galactic shipping company. No doubt the thought of being wanted by police didn’t help much, either.

  “Of course,” Roan replied. They continued their jog for another minute or so before they navigated a corner and arrived at the blindingly-white quarantine section, which on this part of the journey was the last piece of Earth anyone stepped foot on. Since Orion was a rather stable colony and there wasn’t any fear of Earth bacteria causing a plague, no one was screened before boarding. That made it much easier for the three to just walk onto the ship…in theory. But once they went through those sterile blank walls, they were stopped in their tracks.

  A mechanic, dressed in red overalls and engrossed in a print magazine, leaned against the bulkhead in the ship’s entry hatch. He transformed into a sentry as soon as he saw them.

  “Hey, you guys have IDs?” The guard was mostly interested in David, toward whom he cast an indignant look.

  “We’re just here to see Kel,” Roan said. The mechanic sniffed, not amused.

  “Oh yeah? Kel who?”

  “Kel Streb,” Masao offered. “She’s supposed to be the captain today.”

  “Or the copilot,” Roan quickly offered. It was possible her position on such a freighter was tenuous, as she’d taken the job at the last second. Kel had the status of a captain within the Company, but if she accepted a late trip to Orion she might be bumped to something more submissive. It was not something she would normally take kindly to.

  “Can’t decide, eh?” scoffed the mechanic. “Sounds like you guys are full of shit.”

  David stood rigid, as if assessing the situation. His cranium feathers appeared to be twitching and trying in vain to fly away. Masao, meanwhile, began taking an interest in the back of his hand—hungover and bored, this wasn’t his fight. Roan saw he was going to have to be the one to handle this on his own. “Look, we know she’s on this ship. Just tell her we’re waiting outside. I’m her fiancé.” So he had to lie a little…

  “You?”

  “Look, have you seen the news today? We’re the ones who were at the mall shootout. With the Kotarans.”

  “A shootout with the Kotarans? Do I look like an idiot to you?”

  Actually…OK, so this man wasn’t a purveyor of BV news. Hoping they’d be able to offer some suggestions, Roan turned to his companions, but their expressions were dead-eyed and confused. Roan decided he’d have to rush the mechanic.

  “Jasper?” squawked an intercom. A woman’s voice. Roan searched for the source and found a panel attached to wall just beyond the threshold, on the Colobus itself. Still keeping his eye on the three trespassers, the guard, evidently named Jasper, cautiously backed up to the intercom panel and tapped a button.

  “This is Jasper.”

  “Is that who I think it is at the entrance?” It was definitely Kel’s voice.

  “Ma’am, he says he’s your fiancé.”

  “Goddammit,” Kel said. Jasper narrowed his gaze, as if assessing if Roan’s appropriateness for marriage: Too tall, too tanned? “OK,” Kel continued, her disembodied voice sounding electronic and distorted. “I’m going to come down there. Don’t let them on the ship yet.” Jasper replied in the affirmative and clicked off the intercom, pulling a wrench from his overalls and twirling it. Roan knew that there were cameras pointed toward the entrance of the ship
as an extra layer of security, and that their footage could be viewed from the cockpit. He was sure Kel had been watching them try to haggle their way in.

  An awkward, silent minute passed before Kel arrived, during which Roan endured the one-handed wrench juggling of Jasper. Unfortunately, the physical Kel was not much of an improvement. The stress she’d shown the previous night was now magnified by a factor of ten. Sacks bulged under her eyes and the hair under her cap hadn’t seen a brush or comb in many hours. She swaggered into the doorway and stood next to Jasper, crossing her arms and mirroring the mechanic’s imposing nature.

  “Well. If it isn’t the three blind mice.”

  Roan didn’t respond to the comment. “Kel, we need your help.”

  “Roan, do I have to spell things out for you to get it?”

  Roan nodded and looked to the floor. “You know, I liked it better when you called me ‘Nick.’ ”

  Kel cocked her head and sized up Masao. “What’s the rhythm like in your head, Masao? A steady pounding?”

  “Three times a minute, actually,” Masao responded, rubbing his forehead. “I didn’t really have all that much fun last night.” Kel gave a grunt of an affirmative in response and then took in the Nyden in the room. Unlike most other humans, Kel didn’t appear surprised or repulsed by the alien, but she certainly didn’t seem impressed.

  “You speak English?” she asked David.

  “Me?”

  “So you do. Wonderful.” Then she set her sights on Roan once again, her torso moving not one inch and her arms standing guard at her plexus. “You three are all over the BV. How the hell did this happen to you?”

  At least she watched the broadcasts. “I can explain, Kel, but I think it’d be better once we got on the ship.” He made a move forward, but Jasper slapped his wrench into his palm with an audible thwack. It did the trick and Roan stopped. Kel offended him with a laugh, and shook her head.

  “We’re going to Orion, Roan. Not one of you is scheduled to be on the Colobus. Regulations say no outside travelers are allowed, and certainly not a Nyden.”

  “Just listen to me,” Roan said, again moving forward, this time unconsciously and into the threshold of the ship. This caused Kel to step back and Jasper to step forward, the mechanic holding the wrench back as if he were winding up to bullseye a dartboard. Roan again halted, then cleared his throat in an effort to cut the tension. “Kel, you saw the news. A bunch of Kotarans tried to kill us. Kotarans!”

  “They didn’t try to kill me,” Masao put in.

  “If people are trying to kill you,” Kel said, ignoring the fat man, “Then you go to the police. A spokesman on the TV said they wanted to talk to you, anyway.”

  “Aaron Vertulfo was killed! Do you remember him, Kel?” Kel averted her eyes for a second, evidently recognizing the name. “They shot him in the back in a public mall, in broad daylight. They were tracking Aaron. We go to a police station, the Kotarans will find us there. Don’t you think they’re monitoring the police transmissions? These guys aren’t worried about tangling with Earth authorities. That’s why I want to leave right this second.”

  David had inched closer to the threshold, too, and seeing this in his peripheral vision, Roan grabbed the Nyden by his scaly arm and yanked him to his side. “David here was a friend of Aaron’s, and was working with him on a project. That project was why they killed Aaron. Now this blue-feathered guy is presumably their prime target. Doesn’t he deserve sanctuary?”

  Jasper watched the whole conversation with quiet fascination. His wrench had again worked his way into his overalls. Kel had lightened up just a fraction, a curious frown joining the tired creases in her face. “What kind of project are we talking about here?” she asked.

  David stammered to explain. “It’s about the origin of life—”

  “Inside!” Roan shouted. Pulling David by the arm, he started to move, but it was a false start, as neither Kel nor Jasper budged. Kel was glowering, in fact. “Listen, Kel, you and me are going down separate paths. Fine. I get that. But we can find another time to start that separate path. Right now we need to stick together. Please. My life is at stake.”

  “You come aboard, then it’s my life at stake, too.”

  The room flashed red and a klaxon blared, a constant grating melody. As is usual in such situations, everyone gawked at the flashing alarms like moths to a light.

  “Attention!” intoned a voice over the station-wide PA. “All personnel find a safe room and lock your doors. Unauthorized persons have entered the Entrepot.” Kel’s expression changed once again from alarm to annoyance.

  “So the Entrepot know you’re on board,” she said. “Looks like I have no choice now.”

  “It’s not us!” Masao protested, still watching the flashing lights. “We got here legally!”

  The ship intercom buzzed, a male voice calling for Kel. Roan thought he recognized it as one of the Company’s star captains, Benji Silverman. Kel pressed a button on the intercom.

  “Harry, what is it?”

  “Some dock workers say they saw Kotarans,” Silverman said. “They came across a few dead bodies and then noticed the Kotarans entering a loading area. Our loading area, Kel. We need to get the hell out of here.”

  “Shit.” It was the collective word of choice around the room, save for David, whose bulb was blinking green, and Jasper, who went pale. There was an unspoken consensus around the quarantine area that the single door behind them was a very good spot for a bunch of wild aliens to come rushing in, and that the only safe place was into the maw of the Colobus.

  “Kel, I think now is the time we come aboard.”

  “I…fine. Get on board. I’m not jeopardizing anyone’s safety.” She wasn’t even acknowledging them, too busy staring at the floor and comprehending what Silverman had just told her. Roan took the lead and charged into the Colobus’ hold, right past Jasper, who barely twitched his wrench in protest. David and Masao followed, the Nyden adding a little bounce to his step.

  “Close it, close it,” Kel said as they passed, and the panicked Jasper pulled a lever by the door and the Colobus hatch creaked shut. Though it moved too slowly for everyone’s comfort, no one stayed to watch and make sure it closed. As Roan took a left turn down the corridor, he heard the reassuring thunk of a properly locked door.

  ***

  “We are on board,” Roh reported via the secure channel.

  Grinek had been listening patiently, strumming his claws on the armrest. Out the viewscreen floated the double ring of the Company Entrepot, the insertion point but not the team’s eventual destination. Situated in berths were the tube-shaped Type-B vessels ubiquitous to the Company. One of them was this Colobus.

  How exciting.

  ***

  The hallway lights flashed amber. It was the departure signal for the Colobus crew, the signal for everyone to get to their stations. Roan dashed through the light show, rounding corners and following the familiar corridors of the ship. A pipe system on his left, a storage closet on the right—they built all these ships from the same schematics. So automatic was his run and so focused on his destination that he forgot about his two friends tailing behind and their respective unfamiliarity and girth.

  “Nick!” Masao panted. “Where the hell are you going?”

  Roan didn’t stop to respond. “Cockpit! To talk to Silverman!”

  “Silverman?” Masao knew the name. The two were not exactly drinking buddies. “What’re you going to do, convince that slug to keep us on board?”

  “The ship’s leaving anyway, isn’t it?” The staircase to the cockpit was in front of Roan now, and he climbed its metal stairs, startling a turban-wearing crewman coming down the other way. He muttered an apology as the crewman backed against a wall, the toolbox in his hand clattering. From behind him, Roan heard a gasp that meant the crewman had just noticed David.

  “Roan!” He halted, and backtracked to peer down the staircase. Kel, appearing like magic, stood at its bottom, matchi
ng his gaze. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “Everyone wants to know, huh? The cockpit.”

  “Not on this ship, you aren’t.” Using the flexibility of yoga, honed in secret when the practice was still banned, Kel nimbly hopped over a few steps to the top of the staircase. Along the way, she passed David and the turbaned crewman, who was now more perplexed at the collection of strangers than frightened. Kel landed firmly next to Roan.

  “I do the talking on this ship.”

  “You’re just the copilot.”

  “Regardless, let me do my thing, and you go wait in the mess hall. You and the boys are guests until we find somewhere to drop you off.” She poked Roan in the ribs with her index finger, less of a playful poke than a shut-up-and-do-what-I-say poke. Straight ahead of her was the cockpit door.

  “At least let me talk to Silverman.”

  “You? A wanted man?” There was no trace of irony in her voice, no trace of any of the irreverence that Roan had been charmed by a few months earlier. He’d become in her eyes a swarthy vagabond trying to bum a colonial ride. Maybe it wasn’t an entirely unfair opinion.

  Kel undid the latch on the metal cockpit door and pulled it open, revealing the lanky Silverman sitting at the controls. Despite the name, there was nothing silver about this man, his hair and bushy mustache radiating a fiery red. His buck teeth, though, vaguely resembled a glinting white beacon. Silverman flashed them in a grin when he saw Kel.

  “Ah, Kel, there you are. I’m all set to get underway. Kotarans on the Entrepot! Can you believe it?”

  “Benji, I’ve got a problem,” Kel said.

  “That’s me!” Roan declared, and gave a little wave. Roan had not gone down to the mess hall but worked his way up the corridor, inching up the corridor as Kel’s back was turned. Both pilot and copilot turned to him, Kel rolling her eyes.

  “Go wait in the mess hall!” Kel hissed, dismissing Roan with a wave of her hand. Silverman, in a gesture that had become all too familiar as of late, jerked his head back in confusion.