Ardulum

by J. S. Fields

  The time had come for the girl’s metamorphosis.

  Chapter 14: Risalian Cutter 77

  We’ve had no communication with intersects 20 through 25 in over three days. Scout ships sent to investigate have not returned. We are forced to conclude that Risal has lost control of the aforementioned borders.

  —Intercepted communication from an unidentified Risalian cutter to the Markin Council, October 17th, 2060 CE

  Emn awoke with weighted eyelids, blinking back the harsh, yellow light that streamed overhead. Next to her lay a basket filled with thick sticks of andal. Steam rose lazily from the branches, the smell of something in between cinnamon and syrup thick in the air. Emn was entranced. She sat up and buried her face in the steam, letting the thick tendrils obfuscate her vision and overwhelm her olfactory senses.

  The smell brought back memories of her mother, of the dinners they shared together in their small room. Emn hadn’t had andal since—not properly prepared like this, at least. Would it taste as before? When she bit into a stem would the springwood crunch and the summerwood dribble fresh, white sap down her throat? Would the bark crumble on her tongue, adding a caramelized flavor that would linger long after she swallowed? Emn’s mouth watered. Raw andal was much tougher to chew, and while the sap still flowed, it left her more irritable than satiated. To be able to have the properly prepared variety was surreal, and she lingered for long moments in the aromatic draft of flavors and memories.

  As the steam began to dissipate and the andal began to cool, Emn looked up, suddenly conscious of her surroundings. She was certainly in Risalian custody—there was no mistaking the architectural similarities and the aftertaste of extruded bioplastics. However, this room was different from the one she’d occupied with her mother. Instead of porous metal, the floor here was a solid sheet of silver. The walls and ceiling were identical—all cool, metallic surfaces joined with petrochemical plastics. Without the steam from the andal, the room stank of chemicals and volatile organic compounds. The smells lingered too long in Emn’s nose, irritating her mucosal membranes and causing her to sneeze repeatedly.

  In an attempt to clear her sinuses, Emn put her face to the pot of andal, her nose touching a stem. The spicy aroma returned, however diluted, and helped her relax. She took a deep breath, held it, and then sat up, taking a look around the room. The most curious thing about her surroundings was the lack of cellulose. She couldn’t find the strands—the microfibrils—anywhere she looked. Releasing her inhalation and grumpily returning to normal breathing, Emn let her mind slip into the floor beneath her knees. Inside, she found nothing organic, unless she counted the extended history of the petrochemical sealant. It was the same in the walls and the ceiling, and in the mesh that sectioned the room in half, sealing her from the door.

  Her concentration slipped as nausea rose up.

  Hematoma, a dispassionate male voice said in her head. Minor blood collection due to cranial impact. No permanent damage. Eat the andal.

  Emn ignored her intense need to vomit and chased the presence in her mind. Who’s there? Where are you? There was no one in the room with her, unless invisibility was something beings could do. It felt like telepathy, like when she communicated with her mother or Neek, but she couldn’t talk to just anyone, could she? Neek had stuk. Her mother was, well, her mother. The male voice in her head was completely foreign.

  Hello? she called out again. Who are you?

  No answer came—neither in her mind nor her ears. Isolation settled back in. Emn listened, but everything was silent. She was alone again, and this time, not even the cellulose was around to keep her company. Her head spun, and the urge to vomit rose again, stronger this time.

  Suddenly, the smell of the andal, which had tapered to a mere whisper, assaulted her nose. Her stomach rumbled in response, and without bothering to wonder why, Emn shoved the nearest branch into her mouth. She fought the desire to grab another even as her molars made quick work of the thin twig.

  The andal was everything she remembered. This piece had been cut during early spring, when sugars ran high. Cloudy white rivulets of juice ran down her chin and onto the front of her dress, staining the bright material in sticky streaks. A familiar buzzing began in her head, and Emn closed her eyes, enjoying the waning of her hunger pains.

  The cooked andal in her stomach began to break apart, microfibrils of the cell walls peeling from the masticated pieces. The microfibrils churned slowly, rolling around in digestive enzymes that cleaved the long chains. Freed glucose absorbed instantly into her stomach lining and moved farther into her body, where it converted to energy. She felt strong, almost buzzing from the saturation of sugar and power.

  Properly cooked andal behaved very differently than greenwood. She’d tried to explain it to Neek once, but her jumpy conglomeration of words and images—especially the pictures of chemical bonds—only confused the pilot. She’d given up after that. Emn understood that her thought process was different from everyone else’s, but it frustrated her that only she could see where the differences lay. She wasn’t a child, not like the Common word connoted, but she wasn’t an adult either—not yet, anyway. She was sort of like Nicholas, stuck somewhere in between, except Nicholas didn’t have to struggle through nonverbal, mutually exclusive forms of communication to get his point across.

  Having her energy stores replenished meant she had more options. Emn sat back up and again considered her surroundings. How much energy would she need to escape, assuming she could find some cellulose to break apart in the first place? Even if she was on a cutter, breaking apart a floor or wall wasn’t a big deal. Disabling an entire ship was. She couldn’t afford to get tired halfway through just to be thrown back into a cell, or even put back into stasis. She needed as much energy as she could get, but there were several other matters she needed to attend to before attempting escape. The first was the nausea that was again rising up, and the other the pressure she felt in her head. She could take care of both—she just needed a bit more to eat first.

  Emn returned to the andal, devouring her piece and several others of similar size before releasing a large belch and lying back down on the floor. While she waited for her body to process the wood, Emn let her mind drift back to the Pledge crew—to Neek in particular. She’d taken the cellulose from Neek’s stomach, had ripped it from her body and left her bleeding out amongst enemies just to free her from the containment field. In the end, Emn’s actions hadn’t even mattered, as the wound had incapacitated Neek. Would the other Neek care for her, help heal her wounds, or would Neek be left to die because of Emn and her foolhardy attempts at rescue?

  Emn looked down at her dress and poked a sticky finger at a juice stain, the fabric lifting slightly as her finger pulled away. She had to find a way off the cutter, away from the Risalians. Neek was in trouble because of her. Neek might be dead because of her. The entire crew of the Pledge might be dead, all because they had helped her. Emn looked to the ground, fighting the tightness that constricted her throat. She had to get back to the planet, had to help the Pledge and her crew. She needed off this stupid ship!

  Emn got to her feet and turned in a circle. As she tried to assess her options, the nausea returned, and she retched, sending the remains of andal onto the metal floor.

  An image entered her mind of the lump on her head. Heal it, the male voice said again. This time, the male caught her consciousness and led her into the damaged areas. Emn watched, fascinated, as layers of capillaries and skin came into focus. A diagram overlaid the area, showing indicators of what was in the right place and what wasn’t.

  It’s not cellulose, Emn sent to the strange man. I can’t move it.

  You are not constrained in this way, the voice returned. Heal the area.

  Emn let out an exasperated sigh but drew on her energy anyway. She moved her consciousness inside herself, focusing on the capillaries of interest. Her mind moved around them, studying them, and mapping their topography; then, when she thought she had enou
gh information, she pulled at them as if they were cellulose.

  The capillaries moved apart. Surprised, Emn switched tactics, pushing the platelets seeping from the open capillaries into clots, sealing the flow. She then pulled at a small section of skin just over the bump, separating the skin in half. The trapped blood flowed out of the opening and down the left side of her head, the red drops bright on her dress and the dull gray floor.

  When the flow stopped, Emn slowly eased the skin back together, moving layers of dermis slightly so that a seal formed. She did the same for the capillaries, pushing off the scabs, moving the lines back together, and then growing clots around the junctions.

  Smugly satisfied with her work, Emn tapped her head with her fingers. Thank you, she sent to the male that slid from her mind before the last word formed. As his presence slimmed into nothing, Emn grinned. The ability to manipulate her own body—and possibly those of others—was fascinating, and she knew exactly where she wanted to start. Emn finished the last of the andal and, still grinning, turned to the mass of tissue in her throat. She understood the importance of this mass—the Neek scientists had studied it thoroughly over the past month, and she had prodded it herself several times while practicing her vocalizations. The speech impediment was bothersome, and while the Neek scientists hadn’t done anything to make it better, Emn had a sudden idea.

  I bet I can make it like Nicholas’s, Emn thought, drawing on a small amount of energy and probing the throat-mass with tiny mental pushes. Neek’s is complicated and has lots of funny little holes, but Nicholas’s just has muscles and ligaments. I have those too—they’re just not in the right places.

  Emn brought up a mental image of Nicholas’s larynx, an image she had put together from days of watching him laugh and talk to her while playing games in the water, and from the diagram he’d shown her when she’d tapped his throat. Emn studied the picture carefully. It would take too long to move each piece individually—rerouting the blood vessels alone would take hours, and Emn doubted she had enough andal to sustain that level of concentration.

  Instead, she gathered the energy and pulled it together. Emn took her mental picture from Nicholas and overlaid it onto her larynx. She then coiled the energy around both the image and the physical area, binding them together. When she had surrounded both with as much energy as she could, she pulled, forcing the image of Nicholas’s larynx onto her own.

  Ligaments unwound and snapped straight off her hyoid bone, muscles and cartilage correcting their alignment accordingly. Emn felt pressure ease off her trachea as the inner membrane settled into place. The girl took a deep breath and watched blood pump out of her heart and through her veins, all of which now connected properly.

  Cautiously, Emn pulled back out of herself. She drew a breath, jutted her chin out past her front teeth and brought her lips together, pushing air out of her lungs and through her voice box at the same time.

  “Emn,” she sounded, her new voice wavering. “I’m Emn.”

  Emn grinned and clapped her hands in delight. She was talking! She didn’t have to be a duck anymore. She could tell people what she wanted, join conversations. Even the Risalians would be easier to deal with now. After all, only sentient beings could talk.

  Emn was startled out of her thoughts as a rectangular panel dissolved at a corner of the little room. She felt a distinctive pressure change and jumped back in surprise as the metal floor shifted under her feet. Captain Ran tentatively stepped into the room, the familiar gun held at attention. Xe lingered in the doorway, watching Emn, shoulders tense.

  A Risalian in gray poked hir head around Ran, taking in the room. The edges of a conversation came with hir.

  “…over here. I know you think most of Cell-Tal’s business is moving to the external market, but forcing the entire Risalian fleet to speak Common when off-world seems extreme.”

  “Enough, First.” Ran inclined hir head towards Emn. “I brought you here to do a physical, nothing more. I’ve already reset the pressure plating so it won’t electrocute you when the weight distribution changes. Get in there.”

  The first stepped gingerly around Ran and into the room. Xe knelt before Emn, who took a step back. “I’m glad the board suggested installing the floor before the cutter left dry dock. It doesn’t have its cellulose reinforcements installed yet, but in this case, that seems fortuitous.”

  Ran nodded and remained silent, running hir big toe slowly over a small section of the floor. The first let hir eyes linger on Emn’s stained, yellow dress before extending a finger past the mesh to trace the hemline. “Clothes. On a juvenile. Yellow clothes, as if she had tested and passed the Captain’s Exam.” Xe tugged at the material near Emn’s shoulder, knuckles grazing Emn’s bare skin.

  Gross, Emn thought to herself.

  “Captain, I think you should come over here. Her eyes are following my movements. She’s fidgeting, like she’s upset I’m touching her.” The Risalian turned to face the captain. “How much did you change in this model? The behavior is atypical.”

  Ran did not move, but hir eyes flicked to Emn uncertainly. “I didn’t ask you for your opinion, First, just a physical assessment. Has the healer Ardulan spoken to her? Has she healed herself sufficiently? Is she well enough to be placed back in stasis?”

  “The bump is gone, and I don’t see any traces of blood.” Xe stood. “We could try to put her back in stasis, but that technology has never been tested on an Ardulan postmanifest. If she can break a Dulan field, as you mentioned, chances are she could break the cylinder as well.”

  Ran’s lips pursed as xe knelt to one knee, looking quizzically at Emn. “She’s eaten the last of the andal, and it wasn’t enough to do anything more than the healing. I’ll deal with her from here. You’re dismissed.” Ran holstered the gun and nodded to the doorway. The first’s eyes went wide, but xe left swiftly, the door swishing shut behind hir.

  Emn stared up at Ran, a rage-filled curiosity melting her insides. She would not remove her dress. Neek had said she could wear it. It was hers. Besides, she could talk now. Removing her dress was just stupid. Maybe she should take off the captain’s tunic and see how xe liked being naked in a cold, metal room.

  “You’re watching me, aren’t you?” Ran looked Emn in the eyes, the Risalian seemingly uncertain. When xe spoke, the tone was different too—softer, the words more of a question than a command. “You can’t wear yellow, you see. Or clothes. Juveniles don’t wear anything on Risal, and only captains can wear yellow. Just hand the garment to me, and I’ll go. No fuss.”

  “Why? It won’t look good on you.”

  She couldn’t have asked for a better response. The Risalian’s neck seared violet, and xe fell backwards, head slamming against the wall.

  “Well, it wouldn’t,” Emn added. “So I might as well keep it. If you want it, you’ll have to shoot me, like you did my mother.” Those words hurt to say—the vocalization somehow making the past event more real than just reliving it in her mind. Captain Ran could not be trusted. Captain Ran was dangerous. Captain Ran was, for some reason she couldn’t discern, perpetually in her way.

  Several words whispered from Ran’s mouth, the hissing clicks unfamiliar but the tone very similar to Neek’s when she was surprised.

  “Where’s Neek?” Emn asked, leaving the clothing issue behind. “I want to find her.”

  “You’re not supposed to be able to talk,” the captain managed finally as xe pushed hirself upright. “I didn’t code you for that. We prepared for multiple Talents but this…this near-sentience…” Ran struggled to collect hirself, eyes wide and breath heavy. “Ardulans don’t talk. They don’t ask questions. You’re…you’re not a child. You’re a weapon, a piece of living machinery.” Xe grabbed at hir tunic, hands riffling through fabric folds before finally reaching the hip holster for hir gun. Ran launched to hir feet and grabbed Emn by the throat, lifting her off the ground. Hir eyes turned dark, and Emn could hear labored breathing and a faint whistling as air drove thro
ugh the Risalian’s neck slits.

  Emn gasped for air while she tried to pry the blue fingers from her throat. Her legs swung and kicked, but Ran held her at a distance. “This is rudimentary intelligence,” Ran sputtered. “Like in a beast of burden. No different than the basic instinctual responses of your mother. Talking is…it’s a simple mistake. An error. Perhaps a mutation—that’s all.” Black spots began to swim in front of Emn’s vision as the Risalian shook her from side to side. “We can fix mistakes. I can fix you. Just have to tweak your code a little. Once we get to the Cell-Tal lab, it will be fine. You’ll see.” Ran ended the last words in a higher pitch, the sound hurting Emn’s ears.

  The fingers released her, and Emn fell to the floor. Ran put the gun back in the holster. Emn sucked in mouthfuls of air, coughing loudly. A hand hit her across the face before she completely recovered, sending the girl backwards and bouncing her head off the floor.

  “Remove the cloth. Failure to do so will result in additional beatings. Further disobedience could lead to more drastic measures.”

  Emn managed a sitting position. It was still hard to breathe, hard to see. Everything hurt.

  Then Ran was down at her level, tracing two fingers against Emn’s swollen cheek. Soft words came again, the jagged gentleness drawing tears from Emn’s eyes. Blue filled her blurred vision as the confusing tone lulled her, made her long to be back in her mother’s arms.

  “If you do have some flicker of life, think about this. Helping the Risalians means you’d help save everyone in the Systems. Isn’t that something you’d like? Helping your friends? Your Neek? You just have to listen to what you’re told. Take off the clothing.”

  “No!” Emn screamed, although the sound came out more like a honk than she intended. She was tired of being told what to do, tired of having no control over her life, tired of the Risalians, tired of Ran. Neek had fought back. Neek showed her how to fight back, and she didn’t need cellulose to do it. Drawing on her memory of Neek’s actions in the dreamscape, Emn got to her knees. Ran’s hand rose and swung, aiming for the same side of her face. In the moment just before impact, Emn lunged forward and grabbed the gun with both hands, pulling it from the holster.