The Celaran Refuge (Parker Interstellar Travels Book 8)

by Michael McCloskey

  They manipulated this vine growth to obscure the structure from space.

  Lee and Telisa came to a trap door on the roof. It opened for Lee, who rolled through like a falling wheel. Telisa dropped in after her Celaran friend.

  Like most Celaran buildings, it was hollow, forming a single room. The inside was dark, but Telisa’s eyes adjusted quickly. She had dropped onto a small platform hanging near the ceiling. Dozens of balconies and similar platforms littered the inner walls. Rows of Celarans surrounded them, hanging from their resting rods along the platforms. Telisa estimated that there must be over a hundred present incarnate.

  “Where do I stand?” asked Telisa, aware that the word stand was probably being translated to hang.

  “The leaves rustle above so you may stay wherever comfortable,” Lee said. “The forest is dark despite the star above, so your voice will be heard.”

  Probably an archaic phrase from before they had electronic communications. I bet she really said ‘your voice will be seen’. An amusing artifact of a solid literal translation.

  Telisa dropped twenty meters to a stack of flat panels at the center the floor, using her lift baton to soften her landing. She knew she could take the drop without injury, but she did not want to damage the panels, whatever they were. The floor held a dizzying array of equipment and supplies. Unlike a Terran building, there was no way to walk among it all. The Celarans obviously accessed the niches and piles by flitting above them. Telisa opened Marcant’s translator and set it on its tripod next to her.

  “Do I speak with everyone at once?” Telisa asked. “I’m not sure our translator can hear more than one of you at a time.”

  “The sap is sweet when we hear First Speaker, who will talk with you while all listen,” Lee said.

  First Speaker. Must be that one, Telisa thought as a Celaran floated over to her, near the center of the room. The Celaran looked like all the others, though Telisa noticed its second baton glinted more than most other Celaran tools. She thought of it like a lordly rod. Telisa told the translator to watch that Celaran.

  “In the cool shade cast by leaves above, we welcome our alien friend Telisa,” said First Speaker. “As empty space opens in vast cold distances, you have come here for what reason?”

  Well let’s get right to it!

  “We came looking for you,” Telisa said. “I’ve met a member of another alien race, a long golden creature with many thin legs, whose people had found evidence of your civilization. We sought more friends to learn from... and also to join us in our fight against the Destroyers.”

  “The creatures hide under the vine in fear as the Celarans are killed by the Destroyers. We are amazed to find friends exactly when we most need them.”

  Many of the other Celarans flickered. The leader turned this way and that, exchanging comments. Telisa regained her lock on the leader as it calmed and faced her again.

  “As we are cloaked by darkness deep under the vines, we have many questions,” continued First Speaker.

  “I’ll try my best to answer,” Telisa said.

  “The leaves are burning as we meet with the Terrans and ask them for help,” First Speaker said. “Season of bright light upon us, can Telisa arrange to protect us from our enemies?”

  “I’ll send a message back to my home, asking for more ships to come here,” Telisa said. “I want to convince them to help fight the Destroyers.”

  “At the time of the sunrise, we hope the Terrans can send their ships soon.”

  I think the Space Force will respond, but I wonder what Shiny will do... I hope I haven’t given them false hope.

  Telisa decided to deliver what encouragement she could.

  “There are also Terran soldiers coming from our ship the Midway to help us today. They will bring large war machines through the vines and join us here. Please do not be alarmed. They are only to oppose the Destroyers.”

  “As our tools work with the power of the wind and water, this ‘soldier’ translates oddly.”

  “Terrans are more specialized than you are, I believe,” Telisa said. “Our tool design is usually focused on just one task. In my pack, I have a light that is only a light and nothing else. It’s often the same with our professions: some of us investigate materials, some of us build ships, and some of us fight our enemies. You do not know soldiers? Who among you stops the Destroyers?”

  “As the vines grow thick overhead, Celaran scientists devise ways to protect us from these Destroyers.”

  Could they have no military arm? They fight with their scientists and engineers!

  “You must be terrified if war is unknown to you. We’ll help you in any way we can. Terrans want to learn from you, but maybe we can also teach you.”

  “Heat radiates into the cold vacuum as our people scatter and die. The Destroyers have burned and tainted many of our worlds.”

  “Magnus is one of our soldiers. Please work with him to place our machines around the forest for protection.” Telisa paused. Should she explain to them that not all the robots were their own?

  “The Terrans have other alien friends whose machines we also use,” Telisa continued. “The Vovokans made these attendant spheres, and our spaceship.”

  I guess they may not know much about the Vovokans, but knowing they made these things is a start.

  Telisa sent location pointers and pictures, but she did not know if the Celarans could understand those yet.

  “As the planet turns, we are interested to know more of your ship,” First Speaker said.

  “I would be glad to bring you aboard my ship and show you everything,” Telisa said.

  “As strange beings walk upon the vines, the Terrans must have many questions to ask the Celarans. Your friend Lee will answer them.”

  “Thank you,” Telisa said.

  We’re done already?

  She looked uncertainly towards Lee, whose chevrons wavered chaotically. Telisa had learned from Marcant that the colors changed more rapidly than a Terran could follow; also, the patterns of each statement repeated many times. The Celaran decided what to say and some trick of their physiology said it over and over again very rapidly. Telisa told the translator to focus on Lee.

  “The promise of fresh sap awaits as I beg you to show me your spacecraft,” Lee said.

  “Now? Sure. Are we done here?” Telisa asked, puzzled.

  “The edges of the vine curl in extreme heat as many must address another pressing issue,” Lee said.

  Wow. It must be very urgent. Or are aliens just not that important to the Celarans?

  Telisa picked up the translator and followed Lee when she flew out of the building. Telisa’s mind raced. She had expected to spend the entire day trading information with the Celaran leaders.

  Once they were outside, Telisa paused to ask another question. She focused the translator on Lee’s chevrons.

  “What’s the problem that they’ll work on now?” Telisa asked.

  “The vine needs light to grow, and the production of ships must continue to face the next Destroyer attack,” Lee explained. “A technical issue has halted one of our production hangars in orbit above.”

  “How many times have the Destroyers hit you here?”

  “The raindrops never end near the sea, just as the Destroyers attack repeatedly, the count has risen to nine now.”

  “Our new friends are fighting just to survive,” Telisa said on the PIT channel. “We’re going to help them win this. I hope that will earn us long lasting allies.”

  “Yes, we’re ready to do whatever it takes,” Caden said.

  “Let’s just hope that Celarans stay loyal longer than Vovokans,” Cilreth added.

  “I’ll show you to the Iridar,” Telisa said to Lee. “My friend Cilreth works there now.”

  “The star nears the horizon to usher in darkness as I will see your ship, but know that another will soon take my baton.”

  The day was only half over, so Telisa took the preamble to refer to the fact that Lee wo
uld step down, rather than a measure of the time of day.

  “What? Is something wrong?”

  Is she going to die? Are Celarans short-lived?

  “As one cycle ends another begins, so my time on this assignment is over. I will rotate out to another task. How long will you remain on your PIT team?”

  “I don’t know. It may be as long as I survive.”

  “One insect differs from another on the vine as your people differ from mine.”

  Telisa found a vine path leading back to the Iridar and set out. Instead of leaping and running, Telisa took her time. She wore the chevrons and aimed the sensor at Lee so they could speak as they traveled.

  “You all carry two batons, right?” Telisa prompted.

  “The vines twist around the white trunks as Celarans carry one personal baton, and a second one matched to a particular set of roles to play in society.”

  “So you choose the functions of the second rod to match what you need for your job.”

  “The vines grow up to meet the light while your mind moves toward the truth,” Lee said.

  “Your leader said you would teach us more of the Celarans. Are there questions that are forbidden?”

  “The light shines from above and reveals the trunks and the vines as we look, so there is no reason not to discover everything.”

  Telisa took that to mean she could ask whatever she wanted.

  So many questions!

  They approached the Iridar.

  “We have a guest,” Telisa sent Cilreth, even though she suspected their Vovokan expert already knew exactly where Telisa and Lee were.

  “I heard. The hatches are open.”

  Telisa hopped from a vine down onto the forest floor. She led the way under the ship to the main cargo ramp. She felt Lee might feel a bit more comfortable in the relatively large cargo bay before moving into the smaller corridors of the ship.

  “The forest floor sits covered in waste as the Terrans walk there to enter their ship?”

  Ah. Celarans think of the ground as dirty. It is, I suppose!

  Telisa felt slightly uncomfortable, suspecting that the Celarans thought of all ground-dwellers as unclean.

  “On our greatest worlds, the ground is kept relatively clean,” Telisa said. “At first I found it strange that all your doors are on your roofs. But it makes sense for someone who flies.”

  “One insect differs from another on the vine as your people differ from mine.”

  Telisa noted the usage of the exact phrase from before. She wondered if that would be common in Celaran speech.

  Lee flew into the cargo bay and halted in mid-air.

  “I’m sorry, Lee, but our ships are not wide open as yours are.”

  “Grubs tunneling in the dark soil, you crawl through your own ship?” Lee flitted about in a tight pattern as if exhibiting anxiety.

  “Yes, see, the doors look like this,” Telisa said. She told a hatch to open, revealing a long corridor. “You don’t have to come if you don’t want to. Marcant could figure out a way to send you pictures you can understand.”

  “The forest is complex and varied, such is the work of the engineer. We are learning to use your links soon.”

  “That would be great!” Telisa said. It would be nice to leave her clumsy chevron band behind and speak to the Celarans like she spoke with Shiny, over the links.

  Lee half-flew, half-hovered into the corridor. Telisa showed Lee the room she shared with Magnus.

  “I sleep in that soft web there,” Telisa said. “Do you sleep?”

  “When the starlight is bright, rest in shadows. Our primitive ancestors did this, but we have since changed ourselves to greatly reduce this need.”

  “We have reduced our need as well, but we still spend five hours a day in sleep.” Telisa hoped Marcant’s system had mastered time translations.

  She opened a shower tube. “I wash myself with water in there. Hot water sprays down from here and drains there to be recycled.”

  Lee paused to examine the recessed toilet seat.

  “Where no vine grows, what is this for?”

  “Waste disposal. Celarans drink the sap from the vines? Do you eliminate the leftovers from your body?”

  The Celarans were basically a tube, a common form for life to take: food coming in one side and leaving on the other. Yet the Celarans seemed identical along two axes: left/right and front/back or end to end. Their top to bottom sides were also very similar, but had subtle differences: their fingers curled underneath but could not fold up above, and their bodies glided much better upright than when “upside down”.

  “From the light to the vine into the body, we use what we drink. Our outer skin sheds and removes a few impurities with it. We have engineered the vines to produce very pure sap.”

  Telisa frowned.

  Shedding skin? That’s it?

  “You drink from... both ends? Is there a preference? Do you spit anything out?”

  “Life drinks from the vine, and I drink from either mouth tube as it pleases me. Why spit anything out? Simpler to avoid drinking in the first place, if I don’t want to consume something.”

  “That sap is probably much closer to completely digestible than what we eat,” Cilreth offered on the PIT channel. “I don’t think the Celarans ingest... anything that goes through in large quantities, like cellulose in our digestive tracts.”

  Maxsym would be all over this, Telisa thought. The PIT team had lost so many amazing people. The PIT team needs to rethink this policy where everyone on the team shares the risks of walking into alien environments. We should have a ground team and a ship team, specialize further, let those best equipped for it take the risks and keep experts like Cilreth back on the ship.

  Telisa did not share her thoughts because she knew they were half-formed. How could the ship be any safer, when the Destroyers could attack from space at any time? The experts on the ship could be in more danger than those on the ground. It might also prevent incarnate discoveries only they were capable of making.

  There’s nothing safe about this team.

  Telisa’s thoughts returned to the conversation. She felt a bit embarrassed for her race. The Celarans seemed to be... cleaner than Terrans in more than one way.

  Well, I lived through that... might as well cover all the bases.

  “Most Terrans are one of two types, male or female,” Telisa said. “Do Celarans have different types necessary to make more Celarans? How do you reproduce?”

  I wonder if this is translatable?

  “On a bright day when the vines are taut with sweet sap, we inject microscopic pieces of ourselves into the vine. As the warm days pass, the parts of two, three, or four of us combine into young Celarans which grow in the vine, feeding from the sap, eventually to break out and take flight.”

  Two, three, or four?

  “Can every Celaran do this? You are all the same, able to inject the vines?” asked Telisa. “Or do different Celarans inject pieces that can only go together with certain types of Celarans?”

  “The spikes hold the vines above the ground and all mature, healthy Celarans are able to do this, the same way with any others. Two identical leaves on the same vine, we have no types and no special combinations are required other than at least two of us must inject the same stem. The Terrans have no vines here so I wonder if they do the same.”

  Lee stated this last part, but to Telisa it felt more like a question.

  “We inject each other with the microscopic pieces and the young grow inside us,” Telisa said. “As many warm days pass... the young emerge.”

  Lee flew back and darted a scared circuit of the room from one corner to the other. Her chevrons glowed.

  “The vines eaten by an insect swarm, that is horrible!”

  Yet another aspect of Terran life for the Celarans to be horrified by.

  “It’s often done with an artificial surrogate now,” Telisa said, hoping to soften the news. “I spoke mostly of the past. The females a
ccepted the microscopic pieces of a male and combined them with her own, and grew the young inside, but now either male or female can grow the child in the surrogate, with pieces from one other partner.”

  Lee seemed to have calmed down. She hovered in midair.

  “Tools made in the forest, it has changed for us as well.”

  Telisa led Lee into one of the ship’s messes. Cilreth waited there to meet Lee.

  “This is Cilreth,” Telisa told Lee. “She runs the Iridar, and she studies another alien race, the Vovokans I mentioned earlier.”

  Lee floated into the center of the space above the tables.

  “The ground always awaits any who fall, she has done this her entire life? How long do Terrans live?”

  “Not her whole life,” Telisa said. “Less than ten percent of it, certainly. Terrans may live...”

  Telisa decided not to trust the translation this time. She paused to do the calculation in her link. The average core worlder made it to about 140 Sol years. She used the Iridar’s data on the local system to project the time of this planet’s year. “Over a hundred twenty rotations of this planet around its star.”

  Unless they join the PIT team, in which case it is much, much shorter.

  “Darkness slowly approaches the brightest of vines, like the Terrans, we may live a similar time.”

  “Here, we eat,” Telisa said. “Celarans drink sap. Terrans eat hundreds of structures produced by the plants of their home planet, as well as many more things produced synthetically to mimic the archaic carnivorous portions of our diet. Very basically, carbohydrates similar to your sap, proteins from the structures of living things, and fats made by creatures that must store energy.”

  “The shadows can be confusing in the evening, and a Terran can eat so many things?”

  “It is odd,” Cilreth said. “The Celarans are so very versatile, yet they only eat this vine sap.”