My efforts are futile, but I have to do something. The alien legs shine like the chrome alloy fittings on my father’s old Harley Davison. Again and again, I hit the rear leg. The reverberation coming through the pipe shakes my body, causing my injured arm to pulsate with pain, but I will not relent. To my surprise, the leg remains planted in the soil before me, while the other dangly appendages hanging beneath the machine swirl around, closing in on me as the alien machine twists around to face me. The dome descends rapidly, forcing the arms, legs and tentacles to splay wide, hovering above the ground like the tails of a dozen scorpions.
“No,” Pretzel yells. “Get away from that thing.”
I can’t. They took Jana. I can’t let them take Lady as well—not without a fight.
I strike harder, leaving rusted metal chips and flecks of paint wedged in the gaps between what looks to me like the joints of chrome-plated knuckles.
The head of the machine lowers, curling around in front of me, distorting the light. Inside, I can see Lady. She’s faint, ghost-like, but she has her hands pressed hard against the inside of the dome and in the silence is roaring, screaming with fear. She pounds her fists, but there’s no sound.
Dozens of metallic arms reach for me, spreading out on either side and looming over me. The sky, the jungle and the wreckage of the village reflect back at me in crazy, distorted shapes. Electricity arcs over the mirrored body of the craft, running along the arms and crackling in anger. I’ve seen this before, when the aliens shot into the distance, but I refuse to relent, striking at the leg again and again.
Suddenly, fingers wrap themselves around my wrist, holding my arm back, preventing the next blow.
“No,” I yell, seeing Pretzel standing behind me in the smooth, curved surface of the alien machine.
“Fight the battles you can win.”
“They took her,” I say, struggling to hold back tears. “They took Jana. They took Lady.”
“I know,” he says, but his grip is unrelenting, holding my arm high and wide.
I struggle, trying to pull free. Tears stream down my cheeks. The massive alien dome is so close I could reach out and touch it. My distorted reflection peers back at me. I could smash that image into a million pieces.
“Be smart,” Pretzel says as electricity arcs just inches from my face, threatening to explode in violence.
“Please,” I say, begging him to let me go. I don’t care if they take me. I don’t care if I die. I can’t go on like this. I can’t pretend anymore.
“Not here. Not now,” Pretzel whispers, dragging me slowly away from the machine. The vast reflective dome retreats as well, pulling back at the same rate. I drop the pipe.
“No lies,” I say with my lips quivering. “We’re going to get them, right? Both of them.”
“Both of them,” Pretzel replies, stepping back carefully over the ruins.
Tentacles reach for us. Although the body of the alien machine is rising in the air it is as though its tendrils have a mind of their own. Thin steel probes touch at our arms and heads, pressing softly, probing.
Pretzel whispers, “No sudden movements.”
He pulls me hard against himself, making as though we’re one. The dangly appendages taper to a point no thicker than my little finger, running over my chest and shoulders, poking beneath the bandages. Several of them prod the blood-soaked trousers rolled up over Pretzel’s leg.
I’m shaking. The alien machine reaches full height, walking away with its feelers trailing behind, reluctant to leave us. We stand there for a moment under the scorching sun with sweat dripping from us, still trying to process what just happened.
“Breathe,” Pretzel whispers.
The Plan
“What’s the plan?” Garcia asks.
“We go over there, get Jana and Lady, and get the hell out of here,” Pretzel replies, limping along with Garcia holding onto his shoulder, trailing behind him, stepping over debris as we make our way toward the space elevator.
“That’s not a plan. That’s an objective. Actually, that’s a series of objectives. How are we going to do all that? How do we even know they’re still down here? They could have been sent up there by now.”
“I don’t know,” Pretzel snaps. “I don’t fucking know, okay? Are you happy now? I have a dual PhD in Astrobiology and Astrophysics and can calculate relativistic metric tensors in my head—and I don’t fucking know!”
My arm really hurts. My fingers are throbbing. Blood seeps from the wound on my shoulder, running down the inside of my arm. I’m burning up but not from the heat of the jungle. I’ve had this before. Infection. Tiny splinter in my finger. Ignore it for a few days. Goes a little red. Turns into a boil. Dad panics when he finds out and scolds me and starts pushing antibiotic tablets into my mouth every eight hours without fail until at least a week has passed. I miss my dad.
I stumble but regain my footing, not wanting the others to realize how quickly I’m coming apart. Jana and Lady, they’re important. I’ve got to make it for their sakes. I don’t want Pretzel and Garcia stopping on my account. One boot in front of the other. Concentrate on the next step. Don’t think about anything else. Distance is no object. I only need to take that next step. Stay in line with Pretzel and Garcia. Follow the rhythmic plod of their boots and the crunch of dead foliage.
We reach the brow of the hill and look down into the valley. Now we’re close, I can see the rope forming the space elevator is actually a ribbon. We’re approaching on an angle, so we can’t see the full width, but it’s probably thirty feet wide, if not more and has a shine to it as though oil was spilt on a stream cascading over a waterfall. At the base, there’s a platform. Alien machines swarm over the smooth, flat surface like ants, being dwarfed by the sheer height of the elevator. Seeing our goal so close gives me strength. It’s all downhill from here.
“Magnificent,” Pretzel says.
“I take it we’re staring at this thing, right?” Garcia asks.
“Yep.”
“And it’s?”
“Big,” I say, being horribly vague. “Lots of alien stuff.”
Not the most scientifically accurate description but as even Pretzel is at a loss to describe the base station, it’ll do. Honestly, the less Garcia knows the better. It looks like we’re walking straight into a hornet’s nest.
“Sounds like fun,” Garcia says with his head hanging low and his arm set firmly on Pretzel’s shoulder.
“Oh, so much fun,” Pretzel replies. All pretense is lost. None of us have any illusions about what’s going to happen down there. There’s no Sigourney Weaver with a flamethrower or Arnold Schwarzenegger covered in mud ready to take the fight to these aliens—just us.
Another alien spider-like machine walks past with its curiously thin legs and dangling arms reflecting the sunlight. It passes surprisingly close to us without making any noise, ignoring us entirely. Are we invisible?
We move into the shade of a small clutch of burnt trees, which brings relief from the oppressive sun. I catch sight of a monkey swinging from the branches. How he survived, I don’t know. He’s looking for food, calling for other monkeys, but there’s no response to his eerie cries. Given the wall of noise that normally surrounds us, his hollow, echoing call sounds sad, almost a cry of grief.
Pretzel looks up at the tall machine swaying as it passes by. “Well, the good news is they don’t see us as a threat.”
“That’s because we’re not,” Garcia replies, laughing.
Alien machines approach the central platform from all directions, converging on the base of the elevator.
“Look,” I say, pointing, only then realizing that’s insensitive to Garcia.
Pretzel explains. “The machines—they’re shedding their domes, swapping them out, sending them up on the elevator and grabbing new ones. It’s like they’re swapping heads.”
I’ve become so accustomed to watching the lanky alien spider machines picking their way over the devastated jungle that to se
e just the legs moving around is startling. Their tentacle-like appendages pluck off the dome and replace it with a new one before venturing back out. Wide strides have them clear the platform and disappear over the surrounding hills in a matter of minutes.
Garcia doesn’t seem bothered by any of this, keeping his head down, following along behind Pretzel.
“Being blind gives yah time to think, you know.”
I can’t imagine what Petty Officer Garcia’s going through having been robbed of his sight. I’d be tripping and stumbling, scared of bumping into things or falling over, but he strides confidently behind Pretzel, listening to the sound of Pretzel’s boots so he can anticipate what’s coming next. When Pretzel steps on some spongy branch that bends and cracks, Garcia lifts his boots a little higher in the next step. If Pretzel walks on loose gravel, Garcia picks up on the crunch and lets himself relax a little, allowing his boots to fall naturally.
“I’ve figured it out. I know why they don’t want us.”
“Why?” Pretzel asks.
“No one’s willing to pay for damaged goods... That’s right, isn’t it, Doc? That’s why they’re here. They’re collecting specimens. They’ve got their butterfly nets and tranquilizer darts, hunting big game and small. But you don’t shoot the sick. Not if you want a trophy kill.”
Pretzel is a little introspective, neither confirming nor challenging Garcia’s point, simply saying, “I guess.”
A mud slide has buried the fallen trees in this region, making it easier to traipse through the ruins. The dirt has dried but is soft under foot.
The base of the space elevator is flat but circular and looks as though it’s made from polished concrete or marble. There are staging areas. Large bundles of mirror-domes are stacked on one side, being picked up by the machine legs and transformed into the walking alien spiders we’ve seen throughout the jungle. At a guess, the platform is the size of a football stadium. The sides slope away, tapering to the ground, but there’s some kind of tunnel under the platform. Without any discussion, we make for that, even though it appears to be the source of the yellow/green goo flowing into the streams and rivers.
“Plan seems to be going well,” Garcia says, clearly enjoying the soft mud shifting beneath our boots.
“Best plan I’ve ever had,” Pretzel replies. He’s salvaged a straight-ish branch and is using it as a walking stick, picking his way over the rocks and hard-packed mud like some wizened sorcerer on an epic quest. If only he could cast spells and draw upon magic.
On reaching the platform, Pretzel leans down and touches at the smooth surface, running his fingers softly over the marble-like stone. Garcia crouches as well, simply because Pretzel dropped down and it’s easy to mimic his action. He too reaches out in the same direction, following Pretzel as he leans to the left.
“So this is it, huh?”
“This is it,” Pretzel replies.
I kneel, placing my hand on the slick surface. I’m not sure what I expected to feel, but there’s no epiphany. This could be the war memorial in Kisangani or the base of the George Washington statue in Boston and yet it’s not. This is from another world. I guess technically that world is the asteroid Cruithne, as that’s where this material would have come from, but it was crafted by creatures from some other star system and that is pretty damn wild.
I notice Pretzel chooses to walk alongside the platform in the mud rather than stepping on it even though there’s what looks like a concrete lip we could walk on.
Yellowish green gunk runs from the opening in the base of the platform. The tunnel is oval in shape and big enough for a car to drive inside. We come to a halt somewhat symbolically, pausing before stepping up and into the darkness. Whereas the outside of the platform was slick and plain to look at, inside there’s a hive of activity. Alien machines clamber over the tiered walls of the tunnel, which seem to act like shelves. Like the machines we’ve seen carrying the mirrored domes over the jungle, they’re conglomerations of thin, chrome-plated tentacles. They’re like a mechanical octopus without a body—spiders without an abdomen.
The only light within the tunnel comes from glowing points embedded in the walls.
“Are you sure about this?” Garcia asks, which is precisely what I was going to ask. Although he can’t see the spindly robots, he can hear them scurrying about, scratching at the walls. “Is this really necessary?”
“All part of the plan,” Pretzel replies.
“Liar.” This time, it’s me providing the counterpoint and Garcia laughs softly at how I’ve beaten him to his punchline.
As the machines are no larger than a small monkey and can clamber upside down on the ceiling, they give us a wide berth, which is fine by me. Pretzel pulls out a flashlight he must have retrieved from the helicopter and examines the various things on the wall. None of it makes any sense to me, but he seems fascinated by the array of soft, flickering lights. As the tunnel winds within the base, we lose the light from the opening and find ourselves relying solely on the flashlight.
“What are you thinking, doc?” Garcia whispers, sensing Pretzel’s growing curiosity as we walk on.
“It’s a laboratory,” Pretzel says. “There are hundreds of sterile vials—the equivalent of our petri dishes only on a smaller scale. They’re growing cultures, analyzing microbes, testing them in a variety of manners. Look at how everything is connected and yet sealed.
“None of this would be out of place in a sophisticated lab on Earth. They’re running gas analyzers to look at the respiration of microbes—it’s textbook stuff.
“There’s even a UV light to stimulate growth. That, up there, is some kind of centrifuge to separate components. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was an autoclave in here somewhere.”
He’s excited at recognizing the equipment and forgets Garcia can’t see.
“That’s an orbital shaker. Look at how it’s swirling the liquid around, teasing out bio-chemical reactions. Oh, and there’s a vortex mixer.”
Garcia asks, “What does it all mean, doc?”
“It means we’re not that dissimilar—not in terms of chemistry or time.”
“I don’t understand,” I say, falling a little behind, fascinated by the sheer scale of all the work being undertaken and the robotic helpers clambering over the walls to tend to their experiments.
“We assumed—I assumed there would be more of a gap,” Pretzel says, walking slowly on through the darkness, losing any apprehension he had. “Time scales in the universe are vast. We’ve only just reached any appreciable level of technology in the last couple of hundred years. Given complex life has existed on Earth for at least six hundred million years, that’s such a tiny fraction it would normally round down to zero, and yet we call it civilization. As they’ve followed some similar evolutionary path, they could be hundreds of thousands, millions, perhaps even tens of millions of years more advanced, but they’re not. This is equipment I could use. They’re our contemporaries.”
“How do you know?” I ask as he examines a dim hologram floating above one of the devices. To me, it looks like a bird’s nest, only there’s no soft, squishy, padded-down section in the middle. It’s a tangle of twine.
Pretzel doesn’t reply, he’s too busy examining the hologram from different angles. He’s found he can manipulate it, rotating and enlarging it with his hands simply by grasping at the thin air around it.
“Looks like the ear phone cords in my desk,” I say.
“It’s DNA,” he replies. “They’re trying to understand our biology.”
“I thought DNA looked like a ladder or something, you know, twisting in a spiral. That looks like an afro.”
He laughs. “In the textbooks, maybe, but within the nucleus of a cell it’s all squished and compressed, jumbled up like this, but meticulously jumbled in a chemically astonishing manner. DNA is only neatly arranged when a cell divides.”
“So, they want to know what makes us tick,” Garcia says. “To what end? So they can be more
effective at killing us?”
“Think like a scientist,” Pretzel replies. “Not a soldier. Not everything is about death and destruction. If they wanted to kill us, they wouldn’t need this level of detail.”
Begrudgingly, Garcia accepts that point.
As there are all kinds of levers and devices stretching into the darkness, most of them too high to reach, Pretzel doesn’t respond when I say, “Hey, there’s an arm.” He’s probably thinking I’m describing something mechanical with hinges, but it’s a human arm, severed at the shoulder. At first, I wonder if it is from one of the Russians, but the skin is dark and charred. It’s mounted as though the person was somehow embedded inside the middle tier of the wall, with just their arm hanging outside the alien concrete.
I touch it. Stupid, I know, but there’s something alluring about a human arm in the middle of this meandering alien laboratory. Perhaps it’s that it’s not encased in anything, like the microbial specimens. Perhaps it’s a sense of familiarity, but I reach out, touching softly at the muscles on the forearm, watching as they twitch slightly under my fingers.
Life in the jungle is very different from growing up in the suburbs of Boston—and it’s not just the lack of snow in winter. Chicken dinners come with feathers instead of plastic, with fat drumsticks that allow the bird to strut around looking for seeds rather than being skinned and vacuum-packed ready for cooking. Here in Africa, we’re used to dinner having a name. Old Hen Solo or Princess Lay-ah stops producing eggs and that night she’s neatly arranged on a bed of rice. Before that can happen, though, her head needs to be severed from her body, and the kids in the village loved playing ‘catch,’ chasing a headless chicken around until it finally keels over, so I’m not surprised to see fingers flex and twitch in response to my hand gliding over the back of the wrist.
3zekiel (First Contact) Page 21
