by Martin Tays
T’han-mri hesitated, then nodded. She finally pushed off to go to the humaan built console. Grabbing hold of a restraint, she gestured to the panel. “Yes. Yes, I’ve made progress. Before you ask, no. I still have no idea of how it functions. For all I know it’s magic… or more likely the Hand of The Architect. I don’t even know what questions I would ask of the builders to try to understand it. However, as any bureaucrat who operates a steam car can tell you, you do not need to know how something works in order to know how to work it.”
S’Nhu-gli looked at his daughter, startled. He took a deep breath, then asked quietly “You mean…?”
Rather than reply, T’han-mri pulled up to the panel, latching herself in place with her midfeet to operate a set of controls with her forefeet. There was a rumble from deep inside the little ship, one S’Nhu-gli had never heard before. She keyed another set of controls, then handed him one of the data plates the humaans appeared to have used for information display. The plates had been stored in an out of the way location, and it had taken years for the people studying the craft to find them. Apparently, the humaans used another method to interface with the systems, but S’Nhu-gli had no idea what it was.
“This…” she said, pointing to the display, “… is an exterior view of The Interloper. Now, I’ve only done this once before, back before we had our nosy neighbors.”
He nodded. The warship had been constructed in parts down on the surface. The parts had been brought up by massive booster rockets, to be assembled in orbit. S’Nhu-gli was certain the assembly orbit had been chosen so that the General’s people could keep an eye on The Interloper and its workers.
T’han-mri adjusted her tool belt and continued. “Now this will take a few moments. It seems to need to… think about it, or something… gather its strength, maybe. But we should see it right… about… now.”
There was a flash, in a plane all around the little ship. Then, as it darkened, something came into being. Something wondrous, beautiful, and utterly incomprehensible.
It was a line of nothing. That’s the best he could find to describe it. It hurt his eyes to look at it, even over the video link. There were occasional, faint sparkles; after a moment of thought he realized that it was dust particles impacting with the line. Impacting with it and disintegrating.
S’Nhu-gli looked at his daughter, awed. What was that thing, anyway?
And in the small monitor, unnoticed by either, the warship began to slowly move.
He finally found his voice and looked over at his daughter. “How does it… no, what does it do?”
T’han-mri looked at him, confused. “It makes the ship… move. I think. Somehow. That’s all I’ve been able to determine. What we need to do now is…”
They were interrupted by a voice over his suit radio. Well, technically, they were interrupted by a scream. S’Nhu-gli grabbed his headset out of his helmet and pulled it over his ears, clipping the strap under his muzzle hurriedly.
The scream had stopped, abruptly, as another more controlled voice took over. General K’har-atah. He actually sounded fairly close to screaming, himself, though in a very controlled fashion. “Attention! Interloper! What in the name of The Broken Hells is that?!? What are you DOING over there?!?!?”
S’Nhu-gli looked quickly back at the vid window. The warship looked wrong. After a moment he realized that it was out of position and moving. Moving toward the Interloper. Moving toward them. He spoke, confused, into the microphone. “What are you doing, General? Why are you moving your ship?”
“I’m not moving it, you fool!”
His eyes widened. He looked at the approaching warship, then at the line of dark nothing. Something clicked. “Mass. Sweet Maker, it creates mass! Shut it down! Shut it down NOW!”
T’han-mri slapped a control with both forefeet, so quickly that she lost her grip and spun off into the compartment in response. But in the window, the line vanished ― flashed out of existence in a burst of light as if it had never been there.
Reaction thrusters on the warship were firing as it desperately tried to halt its implacable movement toward the tiny probe. It finally stopped, less than a ship’s length from the humaan built device. S-Nhu-gli peeled his forefeet off of the grip and looked toward his daughter. “Well, that was… invigorating.”
The radio crackled. “Priest? Is that you?”
“General. A pleasure, as always.”
“Somehow, I should have known you’d be involved. What was that, that thing?”
S’Nhu-gli briefly regretted not having the humaan’s ability to transmit picture as well as audio. He would have truly enjoyed seeing the expression on the General’s face. “My daughter… you do remember she’s my senior researcher? She has been busy. That ‘thing’ is the drive mechanism for The Interloper. And, no doubt, what the humaans are going to be using when they visit us.”
There was a long pause before the General replied. “Indeed?” The tone of his voice was entirely different.
“Indeed, sir.”
“Is that your shuttle docked to The Interloper?”
S’Nhu-gli started to nod, then caught himself and answered verbally. “Yes. Yes sir, it is. I take it you’d like company?”
“I would. You and I need to have a long talk, Priest. Bring your daughter. I wish her input, too.”
“We will be there momentarily.” He shut off the circuit, pulled off the headset, and sighed.
T’han-mri pulled herself over to him, anchored herself, and patted his forefoot awkwardly. “I’m sorry… I didn’t know it would have that effect.”
“Of course not. How could you know it created mass?” He paused, then looked at her in wonder. “It creates mass. How is that possible?”
She leaned in close and spoke with a quiet intensity. “You know what he wants, don’t you?”
“Yes.” His ears flattened. “Yes, I do.”
“Well, we can do it.”
S’Nhu-gli turned quickly enough to bump muzzles. “What? You mean it?”
She pulled back and looked away, not meeting his eyes. “Yes. The humaan drive mechanism seems to be capable of propelling anything that will fit inside…” She gestured to the vid window, “… that circle. Well, the sphere that that circle defines. With a little judicious trimming we can fit the warship inside of it.”
“Oh.”
She reached out and took the small display device from his unresisting forefeet, storing it before she spoke again. “The question is… should we?”
He hesitated, then reached out and drew her in, holding her close and smoothing the ruffled gray fur on the back of her thin, lovely head. “I don’t know, child.” He finally said, shutting his eyes. “I don’t know.”
“Harriet Tillerman has, by a margin of several hundred meters, been farther from Earth than any other human being. And today she runs a small hand thrown pottery company in El Paso.
Sometimes, at night, she sits in her yard and stares up at the empty, empty sky.”
Dee Ann Smyth, from “The Lonely Stars”
Chapter 12
“The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.”
H.L. Mencken
“It’s about time you got back.”
Moses stopped short in the open doorway. Leo stood in the hallway before him, tapping his foot. He shrugged at the redheaded boy and moved in to allow Ami to enter behind him.
“Well, there you go.” Moses replied as the doorway slid shut behind them. “Unlike you young whippersnappers, we old folk has got jobs what we gotta take care of. Get the air plants?”
“Done.” Sher had come up behind Leo to speak. “And quit changing the subject.”
“Fair enough. I’ll quit changing the subject as soon as I find out what the hell the subject
is.”
Leo grimaced. “Not without the privacy field on.”
Moses made a face in return. “The cone of silence it is, then. Joy.” He gestured toward the hallway. “Lead on.”
They moved into the small apartment’s living room, where Fiona and Doug were watching yet another of Moses’ old movies. Ami looked up just in time to see a man wearing an improbably large helmet scream “My brains are going into my FEET!” then fly across the bridge of a space ship to collide headfirst with the wall. The two watchers doubled up with laughter.
Ami, Leo and Sher moved into the dining area, then realized that Moses was not with them. Ami sighed and went back to grab Moses by the arm.
“Oh, sorry.” Moses said, a bit embarrassed. “This is a good scene.” He looked back at the vid window and spoke along with the actor. “’Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.’”
“Just which one of us is the grownup, here, anyway?”
He reluctantly looked away from the action on the screen and replied matter of factly. “Well, neither, actually.”
“Erm.” Ami paused, considering, then shrugged. “Fair cop, I suppose.” She gestured toward the kitchen with a self conscious smile. “After you.”
After the four of them had settled around the table and activated the privacy field, Moses looked over at Leo. “So, big guy, what’s the big deal?”
In response, Leo pulled the small metal box out of his pocket and opened it. Moses peered inside. “Huh. Absolutely nothing.” He looked back up at Leo questioningly. “And I didn’t get you anything.”
Leo stuck two fingers into the box and pinched. He then moved his hand over the table and deposited what appeared to be a speck on the white surface. Everyone leaned forward to look.
Moses solemnly considered it. “It, um, it’s a dot.” He shrugged, then looked back up at Leo. “Nice dot, don’t get me wrong, but…”
“I’ve been noticing something out of the corner of my eye for the last several days. I just assumed I’d been seeing things. Then, today, on the way back from the hydroponics place, I caught it against the sun. Something…” He gestured down toward the unassuming little dot. “It just didn’t look right. I grabbed it.”
Moses looked at him curiously, then back down to the tiny dot. Suddenly, his face cleared. “Oh. Ah. Right. That’s…” He looked up suddenly, eyes wide. “You grabbed it out of mid-air?”
Leo nodded.
“Remind me never to play ping pong against you.”
Ami was drumming her fingers. She looked over at Sher, who just shrugged and spoke. “Don’t look at me. I’ve been trying to figure it out since he went all loony and stuff.”
Looking back down to the subject of the conversation, Ami paused, then drew her head back as something clicked. She looked back up toward her brother, surprise on her face. “It’s a bug, isn’t it?” Leo nodded.
Sher stared at her, then looked back at Leo under lowered brows. “You mean all this is about an insect?”
“No, no, no.” Leo shook his head. “Not a bug, a bug.”
“Ah.” Sher replied flatly. “It’s not a bug, then.”
“That’s right.”
“It’s a bug.”
Leo smiled brightly. “Exactly.”
“Good. So long as we have that straightened out.”
Ami laughed. “Sher, it’s not a bug ― an insect. It’s a monitoring device. A bug.”
“Oh. Oh! That means… who could have…” Sher looked up at Moses, confused. “Rafe?”
“Nah. Not his style. Besides, why should he watch us? He’s got us by the short hairs, anyway.” He pointed down at the table. “No, this is Valentine. Or one of his goons, rather.”
There was a moment of silence as the four of them looked again down at the device, considering. Then Moses and Ami both spoke at once. “I just thought of something…” The two of them looked at each other without finishing the sentence, grinning.
“They scare me when they do this.” Leo whispered to Sher out of the corner of his mouth.
Sher reached out and patted his hand. “Me too, babe.” She replied consolingly. “Me, too.”
☼
The office was the same as before. Same cheap holo-art on the wall, same out of date sales material, quite probably the same dust.
The only difference was the addition of another person. A person who seemed disturbingly familiar to Mattie.
She considered the newcomer, annoyed that she couldn’t place him. Finally, she shrugged and turned to the business owner. “Well, Mr. Moore? Do you have our unit ready?”
The little man nodded. “Absolutely. It’s ready to go.”
The other man in the room came over. He looked at No appraisingly ― No sneered back ― then turned to Mattie. “Excuse me, but do I know you?”
Mattie turned and looked down her nose at him. Actually, she knew she’d seen him, she just had no idea where. She sniffed and turned back to Guido.
The little businessman was staring at the intruder, eyes wide, as he answered. “She’s a big movie producer, just like I told you, Mr. Suave. They’re making a movie!”
“Mister Moore?” Mattie quickly reached out and grabbed the front of the little businessman’s shirt. She braced her feet and hauled him up effortlessly in the low gravity of the station, bringing him nose to nose as she continued in a low tone of voice. “I believe that we had spoken of not speaking of this? Am I correct?”
Guido, wide eyed, started nodding vigorously.
“Good. If I may be so bold, then…” Mattie turned him in the air and shook him at the stranger as she continued. “… who the hell is that?!?”
“Please!” The other man said, pointing to the businessman Mattie was gesturing vigorously with. “Stop waving that thing around. It’s my fault. I can be quite… persuasive.”
“’The powers of evil…’” No interjected, “’… are too great for those with weak minds.’”
The conversation momentarily paused as all three turned to stare at No. Finally, Mattie leaned over and muttered “Star Wars?”
“Dracula.”
“Ah. You’ve been watching Moses’ movies again, haven’t you?” She considered the business owner in her grip, then opened her hand and dropped him. She turned back toward the newcomer, who stepped back hurriedly out of her reach.
He then paused, cocked his head and looked at her face closely. “Damn it, I know I’ve seen you before, and it wasn’t at a movie premiere. Wait! Moses… you said Moses… I’ve got it!” He snapped his fingers, then pointed one at her gleefully. “You were on that ship! With that Dunn character! How could I forget a pair like you!”
Mattie’s jaw dropped, then her face slowly clouded over. Beside her No, seeing the expression, took a judicious step away. “You.” Her voice held the same tone someone else might have used to report moose droppings in the stew. “You’re that… reporter.”
Jin Suave smiled, utterly oblivious to the deadly tone in her voice. It was always good to be recognized, after all — no matter what the circumstances. He preened a bit, basking in the attention, until Mattie’s arm shot out and grabbed him by the shirt front. He squeaked as she drew him inexorably in to stare deep into his now frightened eyes.
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t pick you up by the ankles and use you to pound him…” She nodded over toward the confused business owner, “To a pulp?”
“Because no one wants to use a club that cries like a baby and wets itself?” The reporter supplied helpfully.
Mattie paused, considering. “That’s actually a better reason than I expected. And, if I might add, ew.” She let go of the visibly relieved ― in more ways than one ― reporter. Wiping her hand on her tunic, she turned to Moore. “You called him, right? How much did you get for this little… s
coop?”
“It wasn’t like that!” The business man babbled. “Well, okay, it was. Except I didn’t call him! My wife did! Okay, my wife’s cousin did. But that was all I told, other than…”
“Shush.” Mattie raised a finger at him as she spoke, then glanced at the reporter. She leaned in to the business owner and whispered with a quiet intensity. “You have something else to do, right? For about five minutes? Something that won’t involve our… discussing… this serious breech of business etiquette?”
Guido looked over at No, who simply smiled and mouthed the word ‘run’ silently.
“Oh. Oh! Yes! I… need to… go. With the stuff. And the thing. And, um… see you!” He took off to the rear of the shop.
She looked at the closing door, then turned back to the reporter. He took a step back, considered, then took two more. She smiled, and he swallowed.
“So. Mister… Suave, did he say?” He nodded convulsively. “We need to talk.”
☼
“Moses. Dear. Sweetheart. Be a sport and put the nice reporter down.”
Moses shook his head and growled. “I’m not done with him, yet.”
“If you’re not careful you’re going to break him.” Replied Mattie, reasonably. “And then what are you going to play with?”
He considered the fistful of reporter, then grimaced and dropped him abruptly.
Ami moved forward, rucking up her sleeves. Mattie put out a hand to stop her. “No, dear. You can’t play with him, either. At least, not yet.”
The reporter had backed up as far as he could and was eyeing the little crowd apprehensively. He looked over at Mattie. “Um… you promised me he wouldn’t hit me?”
