Ardulum

by J. S. Fields

  Honk honk, the girl sent, practicing with Neek’s words. The bird from Neek’s mind morphed, and the letters for “duck” appeared, surrounding it. Which wasn’t right—there was nothing on Neek that even remotely resembled a Terran duck, but Neek had no desire to correct her.

  I’m a Neek duck, the girl sent, twirling away from Neek. She took several large, wide steps and let out another, louder honk. I’m calling to my mother to come walk with me. She took a few more wide steps and then hopped high into the air. Duck jump! She giggled in her mind.

  An image of Neek’s own mother as she had last seen her, flushed with pride despite gaunt, sickly skin, threatened to spill over the mental link. Neek squashed it.

  I’m not your mother, she sent as the girl landed from another jump. Just a pilot. A friend.

  The girl shrugged her shoulders. My mother is dead. I know that.

  Neek didn’t know how to respond. The girl was doing her best to suppress her sadness, but their link had tightened too much since Neek entered the hold. Hopefully the intensity wouldn’t be permanent. Neek didn’t need someone else’s parent problems on top of her own.

  The Pledge lurched, and Neek fell onto her backside. The girl ran over, words tossing in her mind in an unintelligible jumble. Neek grabbed the girl by the shoulder and pushed her away, the skin contact filling her head with a rush of images and emotions she didn’t have time to sort through.

  Stay here. I’ve got something to do. The pilot pulled her hand free, stuk trails arcing across the distance between them. Pressure chased her mind, but Neek ignored it, instead bolting out the door and down the corridor. Her boots slammed onto the metal flooring, but it was the sound of another, heavier footfall that warned her to pause. As she rounded the next corner, she saw the backs of Nicholas and Yorden, the cylinder already held by a cluster of gray-clad officers on the Risalian side of the causeway.

  BLUES!

  The color shot through her mind first, followed by the word. Feet shuffled behind her, and then a small body slammed into the bulkhead. Neek spun around to grab the girl, prepared to haul her back to the hold, when the girl lost her balance and fell belly-first onto the floor. Air forcefully expelled through her mouth, resulting in a loud HONK.

  Yorden, Nicholas, and the Risalian captain turned towards them. Yorden’s eyes stormed. Neek sheepishly shrugged in response.

  “It would seem, Captain, that you have not been completely honest with me.” The Risalian captain moved towards the girl, a small pistol in hir hand. Neek began to move towards her as well, when an image of a broken skull flashed across her vision.

  “Just my niece, Captain Ran,” Yorden said as he slid around Neek and blocked the girl with his bulk.

  “Really, Captain? Do we have to do this dance?” Hir expression turned cool. “You’ve done a remarkable job of keeping her alive for someone with no knowledge of stasis technology or animal husbandry. I don’t care how you did it, but know that this is no longer a negotiation.” Xe pointed the barrel of the gun at Yorden’s stomach. “That thing, uncontained, is dangerous. Deadly. I need her on my ship immediately.”

  “Why? So you can take her to Cell-Tal and dismantle her? Fuck off, Captain,” Neek spat. The girl took a step towards Yorden, but a wide hand motioned her back to Neek. The pilot grabbed the girl—careful to touch fabric instead of bare skin—and tried to pull her back down the corridor. The girl resisted, not taking her eyes from Ran. Neek had recognized the captain in the same moment that the girl did, the dreamscape image playing across her vision.

  The tip of Ran’s pistol wavered as xe tracked the girl. In a moment of distraction, Yorden pulled out his own gun and leveled it at Ran, the tip almost brushing the other captain’s hair. The Risalian dropped to the ground, dodging, and shots rang from the connected cutter, sending cellulose-infused mesh at Yorden’s chest.

  Neek had seen the officers pull up their weapons but reacted a second too late. Her launch into Yorden’s side resulted in her rolling off as a containment field surrounded the captain. It was better than a straight laser shot, but now she was on opposite ends of the causeway from the girl—something that Ran had already noticed.

  By the time Neek stood up, Ran already had the girl over hir shoulder, the child kicking and honking in protest. Neek cursed and sprang for Ran’s midsection. Before she could connect, masses of letters and images grew thick in Neek’s vision. She couldn’t see the causeway at all—only cluttered visualizations. She hit the floor on elbows and knees, missing Ran and knocking the wind from her chest. Her riot rifle shifted uncomfortably in her left pant leg. She’d missed her chance to draw it. Until the girl calmed down enough to stop transmitting gibberish, Neek couldn’t chance firing with spotty vision. Instead, she stood cautiously and tried to push through the images to the girl. Calm down, she sent, more tersely than she intended. I can’t help you if I can’t see.

  The girl honked again, loudly, and Neek’s mind showed her the girl’s mother—or rather, the mother’s brain matter—spread out over the floor. That was just the vote of confidence Neek didn’t need right now.

  “Shut up!” Ran yelled at the child. There was a loud smack, a childish cry of pain, and the glittering brightness of what had to be a shot from a containment gun. Neek’s vision cleared. Not completely, but enough that she could sweep the imagery to one side and process her surroundings. She didn’t appear to be sparkling with reinforced laser bits, but if the shot wasn’t for her, then who…

  “Stop!” Nicholas’s voice squeaked from somewhere off to her right. Andal help him, if he didn’t have his new gun, she’d strangle him—sight or no. Through her partial vision she could make out a weapon in the youth’s hand, which, mercifully, was pointed at Ran, the tip jostling wildly.

  “Reverse the goddamn fields,” Yorden hissed. “You’ve got the same weapon they have. Fucking teenager.”

  “Teen—” Ran’s mouth hung agape, and hir gun fell to hir side. The girl dangled limply on hir shoulder, surrounded by shimmering cellulose. Neek slid the riot rifle from her pant leg and eased it up, slowly. If Ran turned another five degrees, she could almost certainly get a clean shot off—if the other Risalians didn’t contain-shoot her first.

  “You have a Journey youth onboard?” the Risalian yelled at Yorden. “Are you insane? You would expose a child to your…your—” xe trailed off, little flecks of purple dotting hir neck. Neek had never seen a Risalian so upset, but likely Yorden was enjoying it far more than she was.

  The tip of Nicholas’s gun continued to go around in wide circles, as if he were using it to divine water instead of threatening a being’s autonomy.

  Neek considered. As satisfying as it would be to shoot Ran, the officers would certainly put them all in stasis and take them to the Council. If Ran wasn’t in a mood to shoot anymore—which, judging by the continued purpling of hir neck and the now holstered pistol, xe wasn’t—then maybe they were back to negotiations.

  Clearly, Yorden had come to the same conclusion. “Shoot at me, Nicholas, not Captain Ran,” Yorden spat. “Then why don’t you tell the captain about all the amazing things you’re learning on Journey, like how to fire a ship laser, how to bribe for information, and how to break up child trafficking rings.”

  The youth’s expression darkened. He fired at Yorden and then at the girl in quick succession. “This isn’t supposed to be what the Systems are about,” he said, turning back to Ran. “You’re supposed to protect us, not take advantage of our most vulnerable.”

  “You…” Ran stumbled over the Common words, neck now a searing violet. The girl landed a kick to a soft spot on hir chest and tumbled to the floor when Ran dropped to hir knees. “That isn’t a child, Terran. She was made in a lab—my lab. I arranged her genetic code myself, base pair by base pair—hers and her siblings. She isn’t sentient. She’s barely alive.”

  Yorden scooped the girl from the floor and snorted. “I’m not interested in debating this particular morality. What’ll it be, Ran? Dead tr
aders, easy to explain. Dead Journey youth? The Systems won’t forgive that. Get off my ship before you become the first gunshot victim in two decades.”

  There was silence then—one long enough for the girl’s fear to settle into unease and Neek’s vision to clear completely. At least she was right. The girl wasn’t Ardulan. She was a Risalian construct, a product of some strange convergent laboratory evolution. Oddly, that didn’t make any of the tension in her shoulders dissipate, nor did it lessen the strain in her chest.

  “You win, Captain,” Ran said slowly. Xe clasped hir hands and began to walk backwards towards hir ship. The officers behind hir reluctantly followed. “She was designed to save lives, not cause deaths. We’ll take the chamber, which should have enough genetic material in it to clone. I’ll have ten thousand rounds transferred to the account the Markin have on file for you.” Ran pointed at the girl but didn’t look at her. “Kill her,” xe whispered as Yorden lowered his gun. “You don’t know what she is. I didn’t make her to be a pet.”

  “You forgot my chair,” Yorden countered evenly. “Now fuck off.”

  Ran picked up the cylinder and backed down the bridgeway, eyes never leaving the other captain. Yorden waited until the Risalians closed the hatch door before grabbing Nicholas by the arm. “To the cockpit. Now. This did not go well.”

  * * *

  Neek grabbed the yoke and slammed fingers onto the computer screen, conscious of the thin layer of stuk she left behind. She hadn’t realized how much of the girl’s fear was still bleeding into her. That or it was her own apprehension. It didn’t matter.

  The pilot took several deep breaths as the Pledge rotated starboard, away from the cutter. A smooth calm overcame her. Her hands stopped shaking, and her movements became fluid. Confident. The Pledge was complicated to fly, with its archaic yoke and patched computer interface, but she was anatomically suited for the job and…it was flying. The “what” didn’t matter.

  It was only as the ship began to accelerate that Neek chanced talking. “We can’t outrun a cutter, Captain. Maybe Nicholas can help out. Maybe we can distract them long enough to get to a decent speed.” Neek’s fingers flew over the interface as her other hand maneuvered the yoke. The engines on Mercy’s Pledge sputtered and then refired. The ship bobbed. The starfield on the main screen began to blur. It was never a good sign when that happened.

  Except the starfield wasn’t blurring. Neek blinked several times before she realized that another image was superimposing her vision. The girl stood and was staring at the console, transfixed by the bare patch of metal. Whatever had her so fascinated was transmitting far too clearly for Neek’s liking, but she had no idea how to tune the link.

  See the strands, Neek? The girl smiled.

  The ship let out a series of beeps, indicating it had reached maximum speed. She’d already set a course, so Neek took a moment to really look at what the girl was showing her. I see cellulose microfibrils, Neek returned. Which is creepy. No one should be able to see glucose polymers without some type of scope. What the fuck are you doing?

  The girl didn’t get a chance to respond. A shot from the Risalian cutter hit the Pledge in its main engine and sent it careening to port as the backup engine whined in an attempt to take over. Even more alarming were the packets of information flowing into Neek’s head from her connection to the girl. The kid was…she was reading the information transmitted on the cellulose-infused biometals. That shouldn’t have been possible, but there was no other way to explain how Neek suddenly knew that the armor plates had melted, that the engine was vulnerable. Through the girl’s eyes, she saw the plates peel off, pinwheeling into space.

  “How did I know that was coming? Looks like Ran can’t kill a Journey youth directly, but blowing up a ship with one on it is just fine. Hypocrite.” Yorden slammed into his oversized chair and yelled, “Cover the damaged area, Neek!”

  “I know!” Neek yelled back. She couldn’t see, not really, but she could still steer the ship. She just had to do it through the girl’s vision instead of her own.

  The ship rotated as it continued to speed through space, undamaged side now facing the cutter. Another shot came, this one a steady, orange beam. The distinctive smell of burning wood wafted from the biometal.

  “They’re opening a seam,” Yorden said, slamming his hand onto the console. “Attacking a ship with a Journey youth onboard could get the entire Markin Council overthrown. That’s a huge risk to take, especially for a lab experiment.”

  Alarms screeched as Neek put the ship into a tight tailspin. Wherever Neek moved the ship, the laser followed, concentrating on the same spot. The computer warned of oxygen loss. Neek’s eyelids felt heavy.

  “God or not, it won’t matter if we can’t get away.” The ship spun to starboard and then back to port, the laser never wavering. Neek’s panic backed the girl from her mind. Grainy patches of console bled into computer stats and mingled with sudden images of Neek’s parents. She felt the girl linger on the images—the face of an older woman who looked much like Neek, her skin an unhealthy yellow. A tall, broad-shouldered man with a stern expression. Another adult with wide hips and long, braided red hair.

  Nicholas’s voice broke through. “None of my shots will connect!” he yelled from the turret. Shots streaked from the top of the ship, each somehow managing to launch on the correct path but ending up just wide of the cutter.

  “The ship is ten times the size of ours!” Yorden yelled. “It can’t be that hard to hit!”

  “I don’t understand what’s going on,” Nicholas responded, his voice starting to wheeze as well. “The system says I’m locked on the target. The shots go straight. Then they just…well, they just veer off.” The sound of Nicholas’s fist ramming into the control panel vibrated through the cockpit. “I don’t want to die!”

  “If these are our final moments, Captain,” Neek said, halfheartedly continuing her attempts at evasion, “then I want you to know that your pickup lines are terrible.”

  Yorden chortled and then burst into a coughing fit. “They’re better than yours,” he managed as he recovered. “I learned mine from the Markin themselves. And I can still drink more Oorin wine than you.”

  “That was shady counting on your part,” Neek responded. Her tone sounded flippant, when she hadn’t meant it to. The girl picked up on it and prodded Neek for an explanation.

  Sorry we couldn’t help more. Neek sent images of the seam on the ship opening, the crew gasping for breath and eventually falling over.

  The girl stamped her foot, climbed onto Neek’s lap, and pushed the pilot’s hands off the controls. Neek stared blankly.

  You can fly ships? she asked incredulously and then pointed to the triangular mark under the girl’s eye. That isn’t the marking for a Mind Talent, but hey, why not try? I only spent ten years in flight school. Clearly, I don’t know what I’m doing.

  The girl didn’t respond. Instead, she focused on the computer screen. Looking inside the child’s mind, Neek watched her identify cellulose in the navigational computer and the ship’s main computer core. Outside of the primary bundles, loose crystalline cellulose strands spun, buffered by laser light. The light cut through the crystallites, targeting the amorphous regions in the cellulose and snapping hydrogen bonds. The biometal buckled. The seam in the hull widened.

  The laser shouldn’t be there, the girl said. It has to go out. She focused on the laser—scoured crystalline chains until she found the same amorphous regions. Then, somehow, she broke them apart.

  A crackling sound started coming from the burning seam in the panels. The smell of burnt metal and wood filled the remaining air. Yorden pointed wildly at the viewscreen, which showed the laser beam—previously a tight, straight line—beginning to wobble and arc.

  “What is she doing?” Yorden asked, rubbing his eyes at the encroaching darkness.

  “Creepy telekinesis. I think. Or microkinesis. Whatever. I don’t really know.”

  Still too hot, the girl th
ought and pushed again. This push was stronger, and she strained as she leaned into it. A slow trickle of blood started to drip from her left nostril and onto the computer console. Neek thinned their connection, surprised by the physical reaction. This had definitely not been mentioned in any of the holy books.

  The girl couldn’t generate enough energy from herself. She was too tired, and the air was too thin. She needed a secondary source of power, which meant she had to form bonds, not break them. There was plenty of cellulose, however, hovering in every piece of metal, every plastic. Neek watched the girl trace relay lines, identify systems, and reach out with her mind. Instead of following the laser, however, the girl commanded the cellulose, pulling it across the Pledge’s systems, building thicker and thicker chains.

  The crystalline chains bonded together instantaneously, and energy surged into her. Each new bond sent a pulse directly into her body. The girl gathered the energy, pooled it into a single ball of blazing current, and pushed. It threaded across the laser line, destabilizing the weaker amorphous regions as it went. The more areas destabilized, the faster the process became. The beam sparked wildly, shots of white light spilling across the viewscreen, causing blinding flashes across Neek’s double vision.

  That’s enough, Neek sent. The console was getting softer under her hands, the metal around the ship groaning as the girl continued to collect cellulose.

  The girl didn’t seem to hear her. Instead, she let the energy follow the beam as it disintegrated, all the way back to the cutter. When the energy hit the already weakened infrastructure, the impact shattered a reinforced window near the laser port and continued throughout the ship, blowing out the power lines. The ship stilled, the lights on her hull blinking intermittently.

  Enough! Neek yelled inside her mind, trying to push the words to the girl, but the child was too caught up in the interior of the ship. Crystallite forms began to visibly emerge on the console. There was so much fodder at hand, so many integrated systems to pull from. Cellulose was bound in the fabricated metal that made up the shell of the ship. It roamed in electrical systems and coiled tightly in weaponry. More and more came to the girl, bonding in a horrifying chain reaction Neek had no control over.