I leaned back in my seat, startled. Kaur couldn’t be alive. She’d left Earth before I’d been cryo-frozen, but I’d play along. “Where is she?” I said. “Where are the other colonists?”
The woman lowered her head. She tapped her foot on the ground. Her fingers fidgeted with the chains that connected her wrists. When she spoke her voice was low and had a tone of embarrassment to it. “We were left behind.”
“On Nasee Four?” It felt like I was getting somewhere, that she was opening up to me. I wished I had a psychologist in my ear telling me what to do because I didn’t want to prod too much.
“No,” she said. She sniffed and wiped her nose on her sleeve. “Kaur left us on Masirah, to wait, to spread their word, but then they came. They joined us and from them we went to Nasee Four. It was empty.” She raised her head. Her penetrating stare was back. The embarrassment was gone. The zealot returned. “Retribution in the old ways.”
“What old ways?” I said. “Whose word?” The woman spoke like she was in some kind of cult. It sounded like Kaur had started some kind of religion.
“They will return from beyond the veil,” screamed the woman. “They have awoken, and Kaur will ride at their head.” She strained against her restraints. They cut into her flesh, and she began to bleed. Veins in her neck bulged as she yelled. The woman threw her head back and began screaming at the ceiling in a language that I didn’t understand. Its words sounded guttural and phlegmy.
I pitched back from the table, catching myself as my chair began to fall. Two Planarium ran in and grabbed the woman. She bucked them off, continuing to scream before being injected with something and overpowered. I edged my way around the three and back out into the hallway.
Out of the room I let out a sigh of relief. I lightly slapped my cheeks and ran my hands through my hair. The woman scared the hell out of me. She sent shivers up my spine. Whatever had happened to her had sent her off the deep end. I hoped that searching didn’t lead me down the same path.
“Quite a piece of work,” said Wards as she came out of the neighboring room and into the hallway.
“I have no idea what she meant,” I shrugged. “I’m sorry.”
Wards nodded and handed me a tablet. It had pictures queued up. The subject matter looked like the altar on SpaciEm.
“What’s this?” I said. I handed the tablet back without scrolling through. I had no interest in reliving what we had found.
“It’s on Nasee Four,” said Wards. “They sacrificed the missing members of The Hive.”
I wanted to shake out the revulsion, but it wasn’t there. After seeing SpaciEm I expected that they would have done something cruel and inhumane. It seemed to be their signature.
“Do you know what she was yelling about with the veil and the old ways?” I said.
Wards furrowed her brow. “There are tales of travelers who go mad. During their voyage they leave this plane and enter another where space and time don’t exist, where beings that have always been and always will be live. The travelers are stuck there for all eternity as they perceive it, and when they return their minds are lost.”
“They travel between dimensions?” I said.
“Sure,” said Wards. “It’s known you can do it, but we don’t.” She looked at the tablet and caressed the edge of it. “I’m not an expert, but from what I remember, scientists were able to send inanimate objects to another dimension. They were never able to get the object to come back to the right place or time even with the correct coordinates and date. No amount of correcting or accounting could make it work.” She shrugged. “So they gave up.”
“So you think our friend traveled between dimensions?” I said. It didn’t sound plausible. The easiest solution to me was that she was mad. While her, and the others’, actions were abhorrent they were the work of minds lost in the vastness of space. “That seems pretty unlikely.”
“Do you know how your people achieved FTL travel?” said Wards. Her voice had an edge of defense to it.
I admitted I didn’t.
“One theory is to rip holes between dimensions. Travel into one with no time,” said Wards. “You calibrate how far you need to go in your new dimension to match up with our dimension and at the end of that rip a hole back into our dimension. If all goes right you’ll pop out at your destination, and it will seem like no time passed at all.”
“Okay,” I said. “So how would you know if the colonists did this?”
Wards’ tongue lolled out to the side: a Planarium smile. “There are extra heavy particles that are attributed with interdimensional travel. Scientists found them when they were experimenting. Our friend is filthy with them.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. It’d been a long day, and I was getting tired. I just wanted to get to the point. “So she travelled between dimensions?”
“Correct,” said Wards. “In addition, the particles not only stay with a traveler but are ejected before an object returns to our dimension.” She jabbed me in the chest with her finger. “And your system is filled with them in varying degrees of decay.”
“So,” I said, the realization beginning to dawn on me, “the colonists have been coming back to the Sol System periodically.”
Wards nodded. “And if we can figure out a decay rate pattern we might be able to predict when they come back.”
“Does that mean we’re heading back to Earth?”
Wards nodded. Her tongue lolled out even more. She looked like a ball of energy bouncing from foot to foot. I didn’t share her enthusiasm in heading back to an empty Earth.
Chapter Nine
Mars loomed large in the view screens of the shuttle. It didn’t seem quite real that I was coming back to the Sol System. Since being abducted by the Vantagax I hadn’t seriously thought I’d be coming back any time soon. I’d requested to go to Earth, but Baron had, with what I assumed was a gentle tone, denied my request. There wasn’t time.
“We’ve located the most recent excursion to be somewhere on Mars,” said Chare, the new member of our team. “We’re meeting a recon team on the surface.”
I’d found out on the Omanix that Chare was a male of Baron’s people; the P’you. He was half the size of Baron. Compared to her Chare looked like a child even though Wards told me Chare was ten years older. She also said it was an insult to assume Baron was a male because of her size. Their height and girth was a matter of pride amongst P’you women.
I shook my head and said “On the planet?”
Chare gave me a quizzical look. He cocked his head to the side a little. “Why did you think we took the shuttle?” he said.
My face turned red. I hadn’t really thought about it. The excitement of being back in the Sol System had overwhelmed my thought process and common sense. I cleared my throat and tried to calm my racing heart.
“How is on the planet possible?” said Wards.
Chare shrugged. Even though Mars had a thin atmosphere the shuttle jumped and bucked enough to make me glad to be harnessed into my seat. We watched the view screen in silence as the skeletal remains of Nova Komenco came into focus.
Red sand dunes piled up against the outer dome. Long forgotten machinery glittered in the sun. A gaping hole allowed unfiltered sunlight and radiation through the top of the dome. The sides were peppered with smaller holes and a multitude of cracks. Some of the taller buildings had toppled over, their debris littered throughout the streets. How the entire system of structures hadn’t collapsed into a pile of rubble was beyond me.
I let out a small sigh as the shuttle landed. There hadn’t been anyone on Mars that I’d been close to, but I had visited the planet. My family had come every couple of years when I was a child. Looking at the ruins felt like a childhood memory tarnished. The gravity of what had happened here started to weigh down on me, and it was difficult to not think about all of the misery that had visited this place.
The shuttle’s side door slid open and the three of us jumped out. Seven small figures stood outside
an airlock in the dome. An emergency exit signed hung over it. Despite myself I gave a small laugh at its pointlessness.
The seven figures waved as one: The Hive. “Hello,” they said in unison.
Wards stepped forward. Since the death of Dell she’d been promoted. “Hello.”
The Hive turned to me. Their antennae pointed in my direction. “You’re a Terran,” they said.
I licked my lips, my mouth gone dry, and said, “Yes.”
“I’ve met your kind before,” The Hive said. “You’re…” They paused. Each one’s antennae made rapid movements, pointing in one direction then another as if sending messages between each member. “You’re not like the others.”
“The colonists on SpaciEm?” I said.
“Yes and no,” said The Hive. They turned as one and began heading into the ruins. Each one fanned out instead of the group walking in a single file or in a tight grouping. They moved as individuals, hopping over pieces of rubble or skirting chunks of structure, yet remained within a couple arms’ length of another. Their antennae continued to angle and point in different directions as they moved.
The three of us followed behind. Wards, with a gentle push, put me in the lead. She motioned for me to continue speaking.
“I appreciate your compatriot letting me know about what you found on SpaciEm,” said The Hive.
“We found your other members,” I said. “They were sacrificed on Nasee Four.”
The Hive moved through the emergency exit in a single file. They didn’t jostle or hesitate; they fell straight into line with practiced precision as they passed through the doorway.
“Yes,” said The Hive. “That is expected. Before I lost contact with…” They paused talking.
I reached forward and put my hand on the shoulder of the member in front of me and gave it a small squeeze meant to comfort. All seven reacted the same way in unison: reach up and pat my hand except the front six had nothing to pat.
“I’m not upset, but I appreciate the sentiment,” they said. “It’s difficult to verbally explain myself to someone not of me.”
We came out of the emergency exit tunnel and spilled into one of Nova Komenco’s streets. The Hive fanned out once more and continued in a specific direction without hesitation.
“I was called to SpaciEm,” said The Hive.
They glanced back and smirked at me. Before they had said anything my next question was going to be about why they were on the desert planet. I got the idea that they enjoyed playing with someone who wasn’t familiar with their psychic ability.
“The colonists contacted you?” I said.
“No,” said The Hive. Their mandibles clacked and antennae were going wild. “I don’t know how to describe it beyond something tapped me on the shoulder and gestured for me.”
“Something reached out to you?” said Chare.
“Yes,” said The Hive. “It reached across vast distances to find me and beckon.”
We walked in silence. I didn’t know what to say to keep the conversation flowing, so I looked at the ruins around me trying to pick out something I recognized. Everything was a shell of its former self though. The radiation had faded the colors and the windblown sand had pocked marked every smooth surface. Any organic matter had died as soon as the dome broke open and the atmosphere sucked out. The bones of the city didn’t have the fortune to be overgrown with lush foliage.
“Where are we going?” said Wards. She sounded impatient. It was the type of tone that would have been accompanied by a tapping finger if she sat at a desk.
“Not much farther,” said The Hive. They pointed to a small building. Its roof hadn’t caved in, but the windows were all broken. They’d probably been destroyed, like everything else, when the atmosphere left. It was difficult to imagine looters had thrown rocks through them.
We ducked through the front door. The inside had a fine layer of dust on it. I was amazed how intact everything was. The Hive stopped and spread into a V-pattern. Wards, Chare and I crowded behind. The ten of us were nearly on top of each other.
“There,” said The Hive. They pointed at the floor about halfway across the room.
Footsteps, leading to and from a blank wall, disturbed the dust.
The Hive pointed towards the wall and said, “That is where I found the most recent heavy particles.”
Wards pushed past us and walked over to the wall. She ran her fingers over it and leaned in so close that her helmet almost touched the wall. With a grunt she drew her arm back and punched through the wall. It offered no resistance. She ended up shoulder deep in the material.
Chare let out a small chuckle that sounded like heavy machinery rumbling. Wards glared at him and pulled her arm out, shaking the bits of material that stuck to her exosuit. The Hive didn’t appear to be phased and continued to stand in their V-formation although their antennae were all pointed at the wall. My mouth hung open. I didn’t know why she’d smashed through the wall.
“Just wanted to check something,” Wards said. She dusted her hands off and took a step back. “There’s no machinery in the wall.”
“So it’s a wall?” I said still not quite getting why she hadn’t scanned the wall. The first thing that came to mind was frustration. I could understand that happening.
She nodded and tapped her visor while looking at the wall. “Everywhere else we’ve detected dimensional heavy particles have been outside a planet’s gravity well,” Wards said.
“Indicating a ship entering and leaving,” said Chare.
“Correct,” said Wards. She motioned to the wall. “This is like a doorway.”
“Indicating a person entering and leaving?” I ventured.
Wards nodded. “I thought that when we were told the most recent activity was on the planet it would be somewhere away from a city like a ship landing on the surface.”
“That’d make sense,” said Chare. “You could have a large ship show up close to ground, destroy a city and leave through another dimensional rip without having to deal with the well.”
“It’d be almost untraceable if you didn’t know specifically what to look for,” said Wards. “But this,” she said, motioning at the wall again. “This makes no sense. Why send people through?”
“To escape,” said The Hive.
We turned to look at them. “How do you know?” I said.
“When I was beckoned it was to help find someone,” they said. “Before I lost pieces of myself I was shown a small group of Terrans who had arrived on Mars. At the time I didn’t recognize this place, but previous to their escape they’d been on SpaciEm. I was there to figure out who contacted me.”
“Were they the group on Nasee Four?” said Wards.
“I don’t know who those ones were,” said The Hive, “but I was overwhelmed at SpaciEm. Whoever beckoned me laid a trap. That’s why I lost myself. My connection was cut.”
Chare shrugged. Even though he was half the size of Baron his bulk still overwhelmed the rest of us in the small room. “Doesn’t really matter why or where they escaped. We’re here to figure out the half-life of these particles and compare them to rest. Try to figure out a timeline, some kind of pattern,” he said.
Wards nodded and said, “Right. We don’t have time to speculate on deserters.”
“But what if they could help us?” I said as Wards began taking samples of the wall. “What if they could explain the reasoning behind what is going on?”
“Doesn’t matter,” said Wards. She kneeled down and took a bit of dust from one of the footprints. “With minimal resources we’re already trying to chase down one group. We don’t have the time to chase down another. If nothing else pans out maybe we go after them.”
I looked to Chare. He stared at Wards and didn’t look at me. I wasn’t going to get much help from him.
“I can help,” said The Hive.
“You’d go searching for them?” I said. They’d know what they looked like. The Hive had a psychic ability. Maybe there was some
kind of connection forged when they were shown them.
“No,” they said. “I can help with the reasoning of what is happening.”
Wards stood and said, “How?”
“While I was being summoned there were quick flashes of something else,” said The Hive. They turned to face me. “I saw cryo-chambers with sleeping humans.”
My heart jumped and lodged in my throat. I tried to keep calm and not appear too eager but my whole body tingled with the possibilities. Wards probably wouldn’t have held it against me, and The Hive didn’t really seem to have much in the way of emotions, but who knows what Chare would have done. “There are others on Earth?” I said trying to keep my voice level.
The Hive shook their heads. “No.”
My heart sank as fast as it leapt.
“We found them on Arterzen,” said The Hive. “Five cryo-tubes all filled. All alive.”
I couldn’t place if I’d heard that name before.
“That wasn’t one of the colonial settling targets,” said Wards. I nodded my thanks for the information.
“They were placed there sometime after the Terran colonial fleet left their system,” said The Hive. “We detected trace amounts of the dimensional heavy particle. They were there for a while.”
“What’d they say?” I said. Despite my attempts at self-control my words came out in a tumble, stumbling over one another as they left my mouth.
“Nothing,” said The Hive. They said it with a definitive matter of factness. “They’re still in the cryo-chambers.”
“Why?”
“Taking them out would kill them, and we’ve tried to speak with them,” they said. “Their brain patterns are different.” The Hive gestured to me. “Different from yours and different from the other Terrans. We can’t seem to break through while they’re asleep.”
“So what good are they?” said Chare. “If we can’t speak with them it seems kind of useless to keep them around.”
“We can’t speak with them,” said The Hive, “but another Terran could.” They gestured towards me. “The chambers have hookups in which another Terran can speak with those who are sleeping without removing the inhabitants from stasis.”
The Terran Representative Page 6
