The Fifth Civilization: A Novel

by Peter Bingham-Pankratz

  “Nick Roan?” Silverman said.

  “That’s right.”

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Kel opened her mouth, but Roan was out with it before she could utter a syllable. “I’m with her.”

  “Really?” Silverman gasped. “You?”

  “It is that hard to believe?”

  David and Masao had just worked their way up the steps, and Silverman spotted them behind Roan. “Oh no, what…what the hell is this?” His gesture, an index finger aimed down the corridor, suggested his anger was directed at David, whose feathers ruffled in surprise. “Did you bring one of those on board, too?”

  “He came with Roan,” Kel said.

  “He’s not my friend,” Roan said. “He was Aaron’s friend.”

  “Aaron? Who the hell is Aaron?”

  Masao cleared his throat. “Benji, I don’t want to interrupt, but aren’t you supposed to be getting us out of here?” Silverman was taken aback, no doubt because he and Masao weren’t exactly chums. And yet, Silverman swiveled in his chair in silence and calmly asked the Tower for permission to depart. When it was granted, Silverman toggled a few switches. With a clunk the docking clamps demagnetized and the Colobus floated away from its berth, the view outside changing from the grey wall of the station to the dotted starfield of space.

  Detachment done, Silverman swiveled back to the group.

  “Where were we?”

  “You were about to let us stay on your ship,” Roan said. At this, Silverman looked to Kel as if she had veto power over the decision. Her look was noncommittal, indecisive.

  “No,” Silverman said. “I’m probably in enough shit as it is, letting you come aboard. You’re lucky there are Kotarans out there or else my boot would be up your ass. Honest-to-goddamn-Titan....”

  “Captain Silverman.” David had joined in, his first utterances in a long while. “The Kotarans are the reason we sought refuge on the Colobus. A mutual friend of both Mr. Roan and myself had valuable scientific information that these Kotarans seek. Your ship was our only sanctuary.” Or rather the first sanctuary I could think of.

  For the first time, Silverman rose from his seat and stepped out of the cockpit, staring toe-to-toe with the Nyden. David was taller, but seemed intimidated by the captain’s forceful personality. “What the hell does ‘scientific information’ mean?”

  “Mr. Roan has an information pad that explains it further,” David said. Roan patted his chest and found the pad still in his pocket.

  “Sounds extremely dubious to me. Frankly, information from a friend of a Nyden is probably bullshit. I’ll bet a thousand marks you pulled a fast one on this Aaron and duped him into advancing your goddamn Nyden agenda. What is it? Conversion to that spiritualism of yours? More recruits for your monasteries? Well, that stuff doesn’t fly on this ship.” David shook his head vigorously, and opened his beak in a hint of a stammer, but Silverman laughed. “I don’t need you characters on the Colobus. We’re going to drop you off at Mars, and you can work your way back from there. That way the Company’s not going to find out I took on some trespassers.”

  “Suits me,” Masao said. “I was only in it to get these jokers here.”

  Silverman returned to the cockpit. Roan wished he hadn’t thrown his Nalite pistol away at the mall, because a part of him would’ve liked to use it to hijack the freighter right then and there. Before the captain plopped back into his seat, Kel leaned in to confer with him.

  “Benji, wait. Maybe we should just take a look at this information.”

  Silverman shook his head. “No, Kel. This isn’t our problem. And if it’s hot info, I don’t need it on my ship. Too criminal-like.” He looked right past Kel and straight at Roan. “Friend or not, he’s not going to Orion. None of them are. Remember, Kel, for the next few months you’re married to me. Get them out of here.” Silverman slammed the cockpit door in her face. Kel let off a long, deep sigh, and touched the hatch with her palm.

  “Odd fellow,” David said.

  Kel marched past them, muttering a “come on” and then heading down the stairs, her boots clomping all along the way. Roan jogged after her, following the woman hell-bent on settling them somewhere for the thirty-minute journey to Mars. Judging by the slower pace of the footsteps behind him, David and Masao were still having a hard time keeping up. At least Masao knew the way—David seemed like a space virgin. Kel passed the mess hall and Roan guessed she was leading them directly to the crew quarters. Roan peered into the nearly-empty chow center, visible through glass doors, and saw one crewman slumped over and dozing at a table. Looks like someone didn’t care about being caught snoozing on the clock. He briefly wondered where the rest of the crew seemed to be hiding.

  After a five-minute walk, Kel stopped outside a door in a section of the ship set aside for crew quarters. Type-B ships came with forty available rooms, most of which were cramped and reserved for the plebes. If you were part of the command staff or a dignitary you were given a slightly more spacious room—in this non-egalitarian system, that meant you didn’t have a waste pipe running through your ceiling. They’d stopped outside one such door, marked “2A,” the copilot’s room. The three males bunched up in the hallway, unsure if Kel would soon explode in anger or fume in quiet rage. She took a deep breath.

  “This is the last thing I wanted.”

  Roan nodded, but didn’t respond.

  “I needed some time alone. Some time to think.”

  Roan noticed Kel was breathing heavily and biting her lower lip, as if to not let any more slip out of her mouth. If he hadn’t known better, he’d say she was somewhat upset that he wasn’t arguing. She placed her hands on her hips, then quickly took them off and folded them, but soon untangled them from that position as well. Roan could only guess she was desperately attempting to not seem scolding. She placed her left hand on the door and propped herself up with it, putting on a much more casual pose.

  “Look, Roan, let me be truthful for you. Dishonesty is for the devil.”

  “I know.”

  “I don’t see a future between the two of us.”

  Why was she doing this in the hallway, in front of Masao and the Nyden? Perhaps she believed Roan had said horrible things about her over the past few hours, and was trying to show these people that she was none of them.

  “Kel.” The name hung there, like something taboo. “I think we both want to make things better.”

  “Roan, don’t say ‘We can work it out.’ ”

  “No, we need some repair work. That’s all. A turn of the screw and a tightening of the pipe.” They were nonsense phrases, but the best expressions of what was coiling around in Roan’s head.

  Kel flashed him a half-smile. “And you don’t think I can find that in a little excursion to Orion?”

  “No ma’am.”

  “You don’t want me to take the chance of falling in love with some pirate there. You want me to tell Silverman to find another copilot.”

  “Let’s talk in your room, shall we?” He pointed to the door, and by extension to the two men behind them, waiting and wallowing in their awkwardness. No doubt Masao was studying a wall panel with fixation and David was looking on, intrigued. Hell, he was probably examining human courtship behavior or something. Kel looked to them and then to Roan again, and Roan saw a hint of resignation on her face.

  “We’re just going to talk.”

  “Of course.”

  “You know what talking is, right?”

  “It’s what we’re doing now. Only we’ll do it in there.”

  Kel rolled her eyes. “You guys can wait in 3A,” Kel said, pointing to a room at the end of the hall. Masao obliged with a whistle and David nodded and said something in his own language, something that sounded like feng shui but was probably a whole goddamn sentence. Once they’d passed, Kel ran her fingers over the keypad next to her door, inserting a small keycard into the door.

  “It’s really bare, I only just got here,” Kel said
, smiling. The door chimed open.

  “Hey Captain,” came a voice from down the hall. It was Masao.

  “Yes?” both Kel and Roan answered.

  Around the corner, David appeared, slowly backing up. His head was radiating teal. Roan remembered that color from earlier. It meant fear. Roan and Kel jogged in unison toward David, rounding the corner to where Masao was calling for them.

  A trail of dark red ran down the hallway. Masao looked to where it led and his features went pale. On the floor, twisted in a fetal position and slammed against the wall, lay the bloodied body of one of the crew.

  Chapter 10

  The crewman’s uniform was torn with two long slashes. Whoever did this to him used a knife, or something else very sharp. The color of his work shirt, which was normally blue, was stained maroon, and the crewman’s eyes were wide with shock. The guy had been taken by surprise.

  “Jesus Christ,” Masao said. Kel stood back with her hand on her mouth, fixated on the horror. But this was only one of the corpses Roan had seen today, and he could no longer be horrified by the sight.

  The man’s neck had no pulse. Roan didn’t think it would, but he wanted to make it seem like he was doing everything he could. What he really sought was the time of death.

  “Not cold,” he said. “This happened a few minutes ago.” With the back of his hand, Roan felt the blood on the man’s shirt, and it was very wet.

  “We must’ve just missed him,” Kel said. But she couldn’t yet articulate it out loud what him meant. “We left the Entrepot only fifteen minutes ago, so they must’ve…they had to come on…”

  “The Kotarans got on somehow,” Roan said, standing up. He looked down the corridor. Listened. Only the faint hum of the engines.

  “Goddammit, I should’ve stayed at Grand Central,” Masao muttered. Meanwhile, David was rubbing his talons together, watching Roan with his huge eyes. What was he doing, waiting for Roan to take the lead? Why was it always up to him?

  “Kel,” Roan said, clasping her upper arms. “You with me?”

  She looked away from the corpse. “Yes.”

  “Here’s what I need you to do. Call the cockpit. Tell Silverman to lock down the engine room. Got it?”

  “Got it.” She paused. “Why the engine room?”

  “If I were a Kotaran, I’d go there first. Stop us dead in space.”

  Kel nodded. She looked back down at the body. Roan was about to ask if she knew the man, but thought better of it. That was a terrible sight no matter your relation. Kel snapped out of it after a few seconds, coming back to the clear and present danger they were all in, and whipped out her com. She frantically paged the cockpit.

  “We should hide,” David said. Roan glared at the alien. “I don’t know why you’re looking at me like that! They came here for the information on that pad. It’s the most valuable thing we possess!”

  “I don’t know, human lives are pretty valuable,” Roan spat.

  “What information is so important to the Kotarans, anyway?” Masao asked, sizing up the Nyden.

  “I’ve been asking that all day,” Roan said.

  David squawked. “You must believe me. They want that information badly. If you understood the Kotaran mindset, you’d know why.”

  Kel clicked off her com. “No response,” she said, glumly.

  “Shit,” Roan and Masao said, in unison.

  “That’s right, boys. There’s only one thing to do. I need to get up to the cockpit myself. Lock down the engine room from there.”

  “Miss Streb,” David started, “I suggest we lock ourselves in your quarters—”

  Kel rolled her eyes. “Knock yourself out, my feathered friend. But if we want to live we need to be active about this.”

  “Right.” Roan said. He glanced down the empty corridor. “I’ll head to the engine room.” He pivoted and began walking.

  “Roan!” Kel hissed. “It’s not safe. Come with us to the cockpit.”

  “That’s where I’m headed,” Masao put in.

  Roan glanced back, but there was no stopping his stride. “Not safe, my ass. Nowhere is safe as long as those kangas are onboard this vessel. Kel, do you still have that antique gunpowder piece in your traveling kit?”

  “Roan…”

  “If it’s in your quarters, you might want to grab it. And I suggest you hurry. Every minute we argue is another they can use to disable us.”

  “What about you?” Masao yelled.

  “I like to improvise.” And he was around the corner, out of sight.

  ***

  “We have encountered only minimal resistance,” Roh reported. “We are proceeding to the engineering section.” The bridge of the operations vessel was unusually subdued as all paid attention to the transmissions. The ship was now far from Earth orbit, tailing the Colobus and en route to meet up with the mothership.

  As much as it pained him, Grinek repressed a smile.

  ***

  Roan knew there was a supply closet close by. He hoped to find a weapon inside. But even before he came upon it, he could smell the copper scent of blood in the air and didn’t want to round the corner. Roan steeled himself and peeked around.

  A second crewman, a bearded African dressed in the same blue work clothes as the last one, was lying dead on his side in the hall. His eyes were wide open in shock and there was a jagged, burnt stain in the center of his chest. From the looks of the carnage, the cause of death appeared to be a point-blank energy blast. The walk-in supply closet, door still open, was a few feet from the body. The Kotaran had probably surprised the crewman as he emerged from the closet, just going about his daily routine.

  Footsteps a little down the hall. Roan pressed his backs against the wall and crept slowly along it, toward the open supply closet door. Somewhere close, he heard the whir of an automatic door and the sound of it shutting. No more footsteps. Roan knew that the entrance to the cargo bay was nearby, and if the Kotarans reached that, they would soon be in engineering.

  His heart racing, Roan ran into the supply closet and immediately found what he was looking for: a welding torch. For good measure, he flicked it on, and a bright flame painted the closet blue. He flicked it off. The settings could be adjusted, and however briefly, the torch could be used to shoot out a long stream of flame. Not much, he knew, but he felt better having something in his hands.

  Roan stepped over the body of the crewman. Another face he was going to see when he closed his eyes. How many more of these horrors lay down the Colobus’ corridors?

  At least, he came upon it. Marked CARGO, it was what stood between him and at least one very nasty Kotaran. Roan whirred the torch again. The security it gave him was very real, but how much help it would be in a fight was another matter. Closing his eyes, Roan inhaled deeply. He had to do this. He had to go through that door. With the heat of the tool giving him some solace, Roan put his hand on the latch.

  Turned it.

  The door creaked open. Torch in front of him, Roan was prepared for anything, but all he was greeted with was the hum of electronics. He stepped inside, cutting the air with his flame, peering around the room. It was an observation bay for the larger cargo area, furnished with chairs and computer terminals that would normally be manned by crew. But now it was empty. An expansive window covered one wall of the room, looking out onto the dark cargo bay.

  Where was that light switch? Roan thought. He flicked off the torch and looked at one control panel, looking for anything to illuminate the cargo bay. Finally, he found a button he thought controlled the lights and flicked it on.

  The bay lit up. Roan saw cargo containers and forklifts come into view beyond the glass, as well as the catwalk spanning the length of the bay. A figure came to Roan’s attention out of the corner of his eye: a Kotaran, long cloak billowing, working his way across the catwalk.

  The Kotaran turned quickly. He knew someone was watching him.

  Roan ducked, and momentarily several green bolts impacted the window. Ro
an kissed the ground as the glass burned away, crinkling and smashing and leaving a rotten smell in the room. One final laser blast zipped overhead, striking the wall behind Roan and causing sparks to fly. Roan played dead. The Kotaran might have been fooled, because soon Roan heard boots on the walkway, moving away from him.

  Roan stuck his head out from the floor. He peeked out the burned-away window and saw the Kotaran had indeed left Roan for dead and was running along the catwalk. The walkway was long, but the Kotaran could probably reach the other end in two minutes. Once he was through the airlock at the other end, only a hallway and a door separated him from the engine room. Roan would’ve given anything for a long-range weapon.

  There was a “Gravity Control” button on a panel in the observation room, meant for simulating zero-gravity inside the cargo bay. Adjustable gravity was useful in an area where you constantly needed to move three-ton containers around. But by the time the weightlessness kicked in, the guy would be through the door. That was a no-go.

  He had to try the cockpit. If Kel or Masao were still alive—and please God let them be—then they must have reached the cockpit by now. As it rang, Roan watched the Kotaran get ever smaller as he approached the airlock door in the distance.

  “Yes?” came Masao’s voice, finally.

  “It’s Roan.”

  “Roan? Thank God you’re alive! We’ve—”

  “No time to talk, Masao. Seal the engine room, now!”

  “What?”

  “Just do it! Put in a breach scenario! Tell the computer we’ve got a fire or something!”

  Masao mumbled a response then typed something. The computer beeped an affirmative a few seconds later.

  “Done. Jesus, Nick, are you OK?”

  “Mostly. I just had a run-in with our Kotaran friend, and he’s making his way to the engineering section.

  “God.”

  “What’s the situation like up there? Where’s Kel?”

  “She’s here. But it’s bad on this end.”

  “What happened?”

  “Silverman got one in the face. We found another crewman just outside the cockpit, too.” Roan wondered how many murders the bastards carried out. Masao cleared his throat. “We killed one of them, Nick. It wasn’t easy. Kel used that stupid pistol you reminded her about. At first it only stunned the Kotaran, but then I came behind with a pipe I found. For the love of Io, that’s not an experience I want to repeat. And her neither, I think.”