Valence (Confluence Book 4)

by Jennifer Foehner Wells

  It seemed like it was telling her something important, but she couldn’t figure out what. She put her finger on the touchpad and a small green dot appeared. It moved around like a cursor. She clicked on the symbol and an animation in that same drab green and black began to play. A smattering of dots all over the screen coalesced into a cloud in the middle, and then she realized it was rotating. The cloud exploded, and then after a few more seconds the swirling mass was recognizable as a solar system. The animation froze, the central ball glowed more brightly than the rest, and then the original symbol reappeared.

  She watched this happening over and over again, fascinated. It suddenly clicked—this symbol meant sun or star. A feeling of euphoria and discovery flooded through her. She watched the animation again and this time noticed a squiggly line in the upper-right-hand corner of the screen next to an open square. The squiggly line undulated in a rhythmic pattern over and over again.

  Wait a minute. Did that represent sound? She kept the laptop muted at all times so its random beeps and boops wouldn’t attract unwanted attention.

  She leaned sideways to reach into her backpack for her earbuds, hurriedly shoved them into her ears, and plugged the cord into the headphone jack without ever taking her eyes off the screen. She turned up the sound.

  A voice pronounced a word—first fast, then slow, over and over: Solistella.

  It sounded so different, so foreign, but she thrummed with excitement. She whispered it without thinking, wanting more than anything to hear her own lips say the word. The empty box in the corner flashed, then filled up. When the box was solid, a new symbol appeared on the screen.

  She smiled. The laptop’s microphone had picked up her voice and confirmed that she’d said the word out loud. The file that she’d chosen was a language-learning program. She assumed it was meant to teach humans Mensententia, the common language Jane had described in her broadcast. She’d said it had been genetically locked inside every sentient species by an ancient alien race called the Cunabula—even humans had these genes, though humans didn’t express them the way other galactic sentient species did. Aliens learned it during puberty, when they were old enough to begin interacting with adults from other worlds.

  How lucky to have stumbled on that first thing.

  She wondered if her dad already knew this language. She swung her legs over the side of the bed to run downstairs and wake him up to talk to him about it. Then she remembered she didn’t dare.

  But even that couldn’t curb her enthusiasm. She eagerly clicked on the next symbol.

  First it taught her nouns—words like star/sun, planet, moon, and asteroid. There was a full-color animation of a real planet. Sectilia. And then her moon, Atielle. Each time she realized what the word meant, she felt an intense, thrilling feeling.

  Then came person, man, woman, neutral-gender adult, child—also with neutral gender. Then came nouns for everyday objects, some of which she didn’t recognize, but she learned them anyway. She realized that if she only repeated a word without fully understanding what it meant, she didn’t get that exciting rush. Somehow comprehension was incentivized. Internally. Inside her.

  Pronouns came next. Then verbs. Then descriptive words that were like adjectives and adverbs. The program began to show sequences of symbols, combining words she already knew with new ones in ways that made it easy to figure out the meanings of the new words.

  She was enthralled and elated. Time passed without her noticing. She never felt tired. She couldn’t stop herself from clicking the next tutorial and then the next.

  A sound downstairs startled her out of the trance. The light in her room had changed. It was morning. She’d been up all night learning Mensententia. Really learning it. She could already think in a few short sentences, like a small child. It was amazing.

  She really didn’t want to stop.

  She sped up, trying to get as many words in as she could before her dad came to knock on the door to wake her.

  When he did knock, she’d long since forgotten about him and jumped violently, nearly flipping the laptop over the side of the bed. She took a second to recover, then had the presence of mind to call out in a sleepy, muffled voice that she was getting up. She hid everything reluctantly and took a quick shower, marveling that she didn’t feel tired at all. Maybe she shouldn’t waste so much time on sleep, if this was what staying up all night was like.

  As she dressed, she looked longingly toward the place where the laptop was hidden. On impulse, she plucked it from its secret spot and shoved it into her backpack among her notebooks, coiling the charging cable and putting that in the front pocket. It added a lot of weight to the bag, but it was already overloaded with textbooks, so no one would notice the difference.

  She wouldn’t have time to look at it at school and even if she did, others might see, so that would be a bad idea. Her closest friends would know what she’d done at a glance and they’d want her to share. That would definitely compound the trouble she was already in. She hesitated, then zipped the backpack shut.

  She was now a delinquent and she found she didn’t really care that much. Not anymore. This was worth it.

  She went downstairs and poured a heaping bowl of cereal and milk. She was starving. Dad was already seated on a stool at the island, absorbed in his work. Mom came home a few minutes later, looking even more tired than she had the night before. Mom mechanically made herself a fried egg and two pieces of toast and placed a couple of animal-shaped vitamins next to Zara’s plate. Her mother ate with a blank look on her face, then waved and went upstairs to shower and relax before she got her sleep.

  As Zara walked to the bus stop she noticed other people going about their business—work, school, other obligations—some hurriedly, others looking frazzled or dull. They were oblivious to her. For them, it was just another day.

  But it was a special day for her. At this very moment across the globe, there were probably dozens of adult scientists learning this language with her. She was among a very small, lucky few.

  She mouthed some of the words she’d learned in Mensententia, then experimentally strung together some sentences, whispering them under her breath. She knew she was only speaking very simply and only in present tense, and she suspected that soon she’d learn other tenses and lots of new words. Important words. In another language from the other side of the galaxy. She wanted to do that right now more than anything else in the world. It felt so important.

  She felt an even-deeper connection to Jane Holloway now. There was something incredible they had in common, her and the linguist-astronaut.

  Jane took risks. She did what was necessary to make things happen. Jane had told her friends and family she was going on a trip to Tibet when she was really in outer space, rocketing toward an alien spaceship. That took guts. And then, when she found the navigator on board had been marooned and alone for decades, she helped him to go home. That was the honorable thing to do. Jane was out there now, doing brave things among the stars with that alien navigator, and she was speaking to him in Mensententia. Zara wanted to be just like Jane—courageous and smart and noble.

  When Zara reached the end of the block before the corner where she normally got on the bus, there was a crowd already forming—kids pushing and shoving, taunting, talking smack.

  Dread welled up, turning her stomach sour.

  She thought about the moment during Jane’s announcement when she’d talked about how important it was for the people of Earth to learn Mensententia. Jane had said it had probably been easier for her because of a lifetime spent learning languages. Her language facility was still open like that of a child, while the other adult crew members found it more difficult to learn. She’d said the process of learning the language would most likely be easiest for young teenagers. She’d talked about what it had been like for her when she’d learned it—each new word a discovery, a rush, a feeling of unlocking something important. That’s how it felt to Zara too.

  She smiled. She was
exactly the right age to be learning the language. Jane would be proud of her. She was doing what Jane wanted and that was worth the risk. It wasn’t fair that they were keeping all this secret. That wasn’t what they were supposed to do!

  Zara stood there for a moment, thoughts of rebellion churning, as she watched her peers pushing each other around. Then she turned right and kept walking, still mumbling in Mensententia. She wasn’t going to go to the bus stop. She didn’t pause until she found herself standing outside a coffee shop a few blocks away. A thrill went down her spine and her stomach quivered, but her resolve solidified.

  She wasn’t going to go to school today. She was going to have a full day of learning, but not at an Earth school.

  She went inside and rummaged in her pack for her prepaid credit card while she waited for her turn to order. Her parents loaded the card weekly with chore money. She didn’t usually spend it, so she had plenty to buy a mocha frap and a muffin. She was a little worried the cashier might ask her why she wasn’t at school, but then she saw another kid in line and stopped worrying. If anyone said anything, she’d say she was homeschooled and her mom was in the bathroom, then leave. She got her order and discovered a corner armchair was free. No one would be able to see her screen—and hopefully no one would notice her at all.

  There was a newspaper on the coffee table in front of her. She picked it up to move it and the bright orange in the main photo caught her eye. It was someone in an astronaut suit. She scanned the headline. New controversial footage had just been released. Supposedly two of the original Providence Six—Providence Five according to the government—had returned to Earth on the day of Jane’s Global Announcement. Someone had sent a bunch of camera drones to fly over the government installation where a small spaceship had touched down, and the footage had just gone viral. The photo was a single image from that footage, and the headline was asking whether it was real or faked.

  She connected to the cafe’s Wi-Fi immediately so she could see the footage for herself. It was easy to find. It looked like something from a sci-fi television show. It showed a bunch of drones buzzing around, being shot down by men in military uniforms. The camera kept zooming in and out of focus as the drone evaded being hit and tried to capture images of something coming in for a landing. It was hard to watch but there were several very clear moments. It didn’t look like a helicopter or airplane. It did look like a spaceship.

  She leaned forward, trying to comprehend what she was looking at.

  The drone continued to dodge as a group of men in blue biohazard or hazmat suits rushed to the vehicle as it opened. By that time there were only a few drones left and they were all bouncing around crazily. The men in the bright blue suits clustered around two new men in similar orange suits with big, clear faceplates.

  The last surviving drone managed to capture a few seconds of the two men in orange as they were rushed into a nearby building. She looked for related links. Stills from that footage were all over the internet this morning. The two men were the Providence’s Commander Mark Walsh and his pilot, Thomas Compton. Those stills were being published side by side with official images of the two men as they looked just before the supposed Mars mission had been launched.

  It was kinda amazing. They both looked a lot younger.

  Zara stared at the pictures. Compton, at age sixty-four, had been a controversial choice in 2016, despite the fact that John Glenn had completed a mission at age seventy-seven. Previously the oldest continuously working astronaut had been a fifty-seven-year-old woman. NASA had put out a statement that Compton was the most physically fit sixty-four-year-old they’d ever seen—in better shape than many forty-five-year-olds in peak condition. They said that the crew would benefit from his experience and expertise. Due to the difficult requirements for and restrictions on becoming an astronaut, few astronauts were younger than thirty-five anyway. That meant their careers were short by necessity. Compton’s robust health and fitness had given him an edge few people his age possessed.

  She guessed Compton had looked young for his age at the time of the launch a little over a year before, but now everyone was saying he looked like he could be his own son, and the Web was already exploding with theories about how this could be possible.

  Zara frowned. Jane had explained what had happened to him in her announcement, so she didn’t know what they were all getting so freaked about. All of the astronauts had been put in some kind of medical device on the Speroancora to save them from the nanite plague on the ship. That device used tiny robots to fix sick people. Wasn’t this just proof of how lucky the human race was that the Speroancora had come to their system? Hadn’t Jane said that all of this tech stuff was explained in the download? It was going to help a lot of sick people here on Earth. They needed to focus on that.

  Maybe they would start being able to, if they were learning the language like she was.

  For a moment she considered anonymously uploading the language software to a popular site all her friends used. That lots of kids used. She twisted her lower lip between her thumb and forefinger, thinking. She had to think it through carefully to make sure that it couldn’t be traced back to her. She wasn’t sure she knew how to do that. She’d have to do some research.

  She took a sip of the mocha and winced. It was too hot. Then came a second pain, a stab in the stomach.

  She might not have a lot of time to think about it or plan anything. Someone could be checking her dad’s computer right now. She could already be in trouble. The program might be taken from her by the end of the day. There could be federal agents already at her school, waiting for her bus to show up.

  Tears flooded her eyes. She didn’t want them to take it away from her.

  She sniffed, wiped her leaky eyes, and looked around the coffee shop. No one was paying any attention to her. Yet. But she was very close to home and could be easily found if they searched the neighborhood.

  She needed to be smarter than this if she was going to make a difference. If she was going to be like Jane.

  She repacked her backpack, thinking through her options. Her student ID would allow her to take a city bus anywhere in town. Could that be traced? She thought about the times she’d used it with her parents to go downtown to the museums where parking was scarce and expensive. They scanned the ID. It probably could be used to find her if they were really motivated. She could buy a single-day bus pass. That could probably be traced too, but it would be harder and require more steps, which would give her more time.

  She stood and walked to the door.

  It was scary that she was thinking this way—making decisions that would affect a lot of other people. She’d never had to do anything like this before.

  But it was what she had to do.

  7

  BRAI DRIFTED down toward the continental shelf next to Pio, each of them lost in thought. The water cooled with each push through his siphon. It was very dark here, but the shelf below them was darker. His eyes adjusted automatically.

  “Have you given my request any more thought?” Pio asked. Her mental voice was almost casual, belying the gravity of what she was asking of him. She’d only brought this up once before, and yet he knew immediately what she was after.

  Now he was on alert. “Pio.” His tone was reproachful. He’d already refused her once.

  “Just one packet. I can control it. I can program my squillae to keep the spermatozoa alive indefinitely. To release one egg at a time. Only one.”

  “I can’t hurt you like that. It’s barbaric.” He wouldn’t entertain the idea. Truth be told, he didn’t think he had the control to give her only one, though he was fairly certain he could produce the dreadful things. He didn’t think he’d been neutered when they’d implanted the cybernetic devices in his body, though he couldn’t be sure.

  He was afraid some unknown, savage part of himself could be let loose in the attempt. He didn’t want to find out what that side of him might be like. Perhaps that side was what went into
the making of an individual like Kai’Memna.

  “Not if I choose it. You speak of freedom. True freedom is controlling my own biology.”

  “Sexual maturation for a female kuboderan may mean premature death after fertilization. It may mean the same for a male. We don’t know.”

  “That’s what they told us to keep us in line. They made us believe we were very useful animals.”

  “Now you’re sounding like Kai’Memna.”

  “He was right about some of it,” she said coldly. “His tactics were evil, but his anger was righteous.”

  She wasn’t wrong about that.

  “We will find other kuboderans—”

  “I don’t want to mate with other kuboderans.”

  “That’s not what I was about to say. I’m trying to articulate that we won’t be alone. There will be others. And humans. And sectilians. Perhaps even pligans.”

  “You don’t know that. You don’t know what the future holds.”

  “You want this as insurance.”

  “Yes. Clearly.”

  “Is that a legitimate reason to take the risk? Death, Pio, is a significant risk.”

  “Wild kuboderans don’t have cybernetic implants. Or squillae. Or a working knowledge of medicine and their own biology. I can control every aspect of it. I assure you I have no interest in allowing reproduction to kill me. I won’t let it. I’ll monitor every process very carefully. The squillae will not let it kill me.”

  “Our habitats were not designed to support more than one individual.”

  She flung her arms away from him in frustration. “Don’t be ridiculous. You know that can be changed easily. The pligans—”

  “I can’t do it,” he said harshly. He wanted that to be the end of it. He didn’t want to talk about this anymore.

  “You won’t do it. There is a difference.”

  He hurled her own words back at her. “True freedom is controlling my own biology.”