The Tau Ceti Diversion

by Chris McMahon

  Mara smiled thinly. She reached across Karic to operate the console as he piloted the pod. “Let’s see if you’re right, Karic.”

  “Could it be some automatic signal from the Starburst?” asked Andrai.

  Mara shook her head and continued working. After a few minutes she stopped. She stared at the console in disbelief, shaking her head. She checked her results again, working furiously, then held her head in her hands as though to clear her thoughts. She turned to Andrai and Karic. “It’s a personal beacon.”

  “A personal beacon?” said Andrai. “All the rest of us are dead. Maybe one of those aliens was playing with a comband and set it off by accident?”

  “Or the leader is luring us into a trap,” said Mara, glaring at Karic. “So he can destroy us and the fucking pod!”

  Karic could understand Mara’s doubts. She was a scientist and had spent her life working with concrete facts. She was used to things she could see, touch and control. But Mara had not experienced the mind of Utar firsthand. If the Imbirri had intended to destroy them, Karic would have sensed it.

  “Mara, where is the beacon coming from?” asked Karic.

  “Around twenty kilometers away, in the shadow of the mountains,” she said reluctantly. “On the other side of the alien’s camp.”

  “That is nowhere near the leader or his people, so it’s unlikely to be a trap,” said Karic.

  “You don’t know that! There could be another group with another one of those weapons waiting for us!”

  “I am going to follow the beacon,” said Karic. “We’re stranded here. If some of the Imbirri are inclined to help us, it could be our only chance to survive. We have to take the risk and check this out. What other choice do we have?”

  Mara turned away, refusing to respond.

  “Who is Utar? And who are the Imbirri?” asked Andrai, unable to hold his questions back.

  “Those aliens are called the Imbirri. Utar was their Deepwatch, a sort of shaman. Hold on.” Karic set the autopilot to execute a line-of-sight course toward the source of the beacon and turned to face Andrai and Mara.

  “So you’re saying that one of these Imbirri wants to help us and is using the beacon to help guide us to safety? It does seem a little far-fetched, Karic,” said Andrai. “And how do you know all this?”

  “I know it seems crazy, but you must trust me. Utar is trying to help us,” said Karic.

  “One of the Imbirri is trying to help us?” asked Andrai.

  “That shaman is dead, Karic,” said Mara.

  Andrai shook his head, confused by the whole exchange.

  The pod jolted violently.

  Karic swung back to the controls and cursed. The automatic pilot had set a course straight to the beacon — taking them directly over the path of the Awakener’s group, now in the forest between the ridge and lake.

  “Damn it! I should have checked the course,” said Karic.

  Turning in his chair, Karic sighted the distant group of Imbirri, massed together amidst the growth of the forest, and applied full thrust in the opposite direction, banking the craft steeply to avoid the weapon’s powerful beam.

  A jagged bolt of lightning swept past them, sending alarms ringing.

  The pod shook.

  “We’ve got high temperature alarms, Karic!” yelled Mara.

  Karic wove the craft madly. It seemed they were in the middle of a lightning storm, the sky flashing around them — but finally they exited the range the Awakener’s weapon, and the deadly light show stopped.

  He kept them running at full power until the Imbirri were lost below the horizon, then he backed off the thrust and dropped down, flying meters above the forest canopy. He reset the autopilot, the pod nosing its way forward by radar toward the source of the beacon. The level of liquid rocket fuel in the pod’s tanks was alarmingly low. The tiny craft had been stretched to the limit propelling three people at full thrust through the thick atmosphere — and heavy gravity.

  ***

  Two hours later all three of them looked out the viewport, waiting anxiously to see who — or what — awaited them at the beacon’s source.

  The darkness had deepened. It was an empty dark, a featureless landscape of night that drew the spirit from them. As the light faded, the vegetation around them had grown huge and frail. They passed massive stands of pale fungi, twisted into fantastic shapes — some painted with bizarre, dream-like colors, others glowing with luminescence. It seemed they had slipped into a netherworld untouched by time.

  A tone sounded through the cabin.

  “We have reached the source of the beacon.” Karic slowed the pod, switching on the outside lamps. The three crowded forward.

  “My God. Utar’s body,” said Karic.

  Anxious not to waste any more of the pod’s fuel, he gently lowered the craft to the bare earth. The craft shook with a soft impact, then the muffled whine of the engines cut to silence.

  Releasing the pod’s door, they stepped out onto the clearing.

  Hesitantly, they approached the bier. On the center lay the raised body of Utar, a solid, formless lump in the dim light. On either side of the raised platform were the prostrate figures of two acolytes of Utar, their features only just discernible as the sticky resin oozing from their skin began to encase them.

  “They are all dead,” said Mara, picking up the comband from the ground in front of the bier. She turned off the beacon.

  Andrai tapped on the casing around Utar’s body. It was as solid as concrete. “This was Utar?”

  “Yes,” whispered Karic. “Their bodies seem to undergo this transformation when they die.”

  “Well, whoever he was, there is no doubt he wanted you to follow the beacon to this spot,” said Andrai.

  Mara’s mouth tightened, but she said nothing in reply to Andrai’s matter-of-fact observation.

  Karic looked at the bodies. Why did Utar want him here?

  A feeling of excitement and danger flooded him as he considered triggering the fugue. It seemed insane, but he was determined. He let the state develop in his mind, then reached out to the prone figures, at first touching the lifeless shell, then pressing deeper. They shone like suns! Filled with warmth and life. He was so shocked the connection vanished.

  “They’re alive,” said Karic in whispered awe, scarcely believing it himself.

  Mara shook her head in disgust and stalked to the edge of camp.

  “Look!” cried Mara a moment later.

  The two men turned to follow her outstretched arm. Deep in the pale growth, glistening in the pod’s lights, stood a metal structure. The thrill of seeing it was indescribable.

  “That has to be a remnant of same culture that constructed the Imbirri weapon,” said Karic.

  They approached it cautiously.

  It was constructed in curving lines. The sides, at first appearing straight, were a series of intricate, interlinking arches, giving a sense of strength and union. As they drew closer, they could see it was not an isolated structure, but an entrance. Steps of the same metallic material stretched out below them, and they descended together, eventually entering a vast underground enclosure. Strips of crystalline material ran across the floor, each emitting a clear white light that was barely enough to drive back the gloom. The walls and roof were lost in shadow.

  Ranks of machines filled the space, hulking shapes of metal with unknowable functions. As they walked deeper, the white light reflected from the strange angles and curves of the stored machines as though caressing their alien, silvered surfaces with a desperate, immortal avarice.

  “They look brand new.” Without thinking, Karic reached out to touch a strut extending from the side of a bulky machine the size of a truck. He snatched back his fingers at a sudden, numbing shock.

  “I don’t believe it.” Karic leant closer to the machine, massaging life back into his numbed fingers. He had come into contact with enough stasis fields in his work to recognize the effects on naked flesh. What astounded him was th
e similarity with his own invention, in use here on this distant, alien world.

  Now that Karic was looking for it, he could see it. Each machine was surrounded by a ghostly energy field that gave off a faint whitish glow. “Stasis fields.”

  They wandered for hours through the ranks of alien equipment, spellbound. Each becoming separated from the others. The cavern was huge and stretched for kilometers. Scores of machines, some smaller than a personal vehicle, others as large as the lander, filled the expanse in irregular rows. As intriguing as they were, they remained untouchable, like exhibits trapped behind the glass of an alien museum. The frustration was unbearable. Karic had hoped that perhaps there was some central control unit that he could access to cut the protective fields, but whatever controlled the stasis fields was inside each machine. He could not begin to guess at how he might disable them. Reluctantly, he accepted that these preserved remnants of Cru’s ancient technology would continue on through the centuries, unreachable, until whatever powered the stasis fields failed.

  “Karic!” Mara.

  The engineer looked up from a huge tractor-shaped machine in alarm. He ran toward the sound of her voice. He and Andrai arrived together, both out of breath, but ready for anything.

  Mara turned to show them a rack of glistening, cylindrical objects, hefting one from its mountings.

  “Careful,” said Karic, wary of the ubiquitous stasis fields, but then realized there was no field here. A power failure? Or had these strange artifacts never been encased by a stasis field?

  Mara smiled as she handed it to Karic. He took the heavy object in his hands, feeling the cool metal, unsure of its precise shape in the gloom. He moved it into the white light from a floor strip and drew in a sharp breath.

  It was a twin of the Awakener’s weapon.

  CHAPTER 13

  The Awakener sat alone, slumped on his throne.

  Even the First had been sent from his presence. The torches had been extinguished, and the ragged rent in the top of the Tree sealed with woven mats. Only the dull red glow of incense bowls could be seen in the darkness.

  The Awakener’s life with the Imbirri had revolved around Union, the fulfilling joining of spirit the Imbirri could achieve through their telepathic abilities, most fully developed in the First. It seemed as though he drifted further from that life with each passing hour, each act of revenge.

  The Imbirri who had survived the attack on the human’s camp, those who could walk, had returned with the Awakener from the site of destruction. So many had not returned …

  He had sought to obliterate the craft of the aliens with fire, and so heal them all, but the attack on the human artifact had taken a terrible toll. How many Imbirri now lay dead? How many First? He did not have the will to count. Over half of those that had returned with him had fallen, consumed by the onset of the Changes. The milling groups of the Imbirri, those who had remained in the encampment, watched with strange fascination, drawn toward the bodies. The Awakener had not waited as before. He had incinerated each as they fell and scattered those who gathered to watch, knowing they were in danger of succumbing to the Changes.

  The scarred and bleeding faces of the First he had burned crowded into his mind.

  “Why?” he cried in discordant anguish.

  They had all tasted the Elixir. Never before had this act failed to banish the specter of the Changes. Yet now, it was as though an avalanche had begun.

  After he had dealt with the fallen First, he had rushed to the punishment pit, only to find it empty. He stood there — covered with the ashy remains of Imbirri — consumed with impotent rage. How he had longed to kill the humans, as though by destroying them the loss of the First would be lessened. Instead, he had been cheated. He guessed immediately the humans had been released by the same agents who had stolen the body of Utar, and that the small alien craft he had failed to destroy had carried them to safety.

  To think he had them in his power for so long, yet failed to act!

  He had remained above the empty pit for hours, the other Imbirri too frightened to approach. Eventually, even the rage had seeped away. A dark miasma of hate settled on him, like a caustic shadow beneath the shroud of dark ash smeared on his skin.

  Time passed beneath the Tree. The images of destruction faded, leaving him empty of pain, yet incapable of joy.

  He would never allow the Changes to take the Imbirri. He was determined to rebuild the life they had known. He would appoint a new Deepwatch to replace his beloved Utar and let the scars heal.

  A sharp wedge of light cut through the dark as one of the First entered the Tree’s living dome.

  “Awakener …?”

  He lifted his head. “Speak.”

  Hesitantly, the Imbirri messenger stepped forward through the gloom. “The scouting party has returned from the place of destruction. Part of the alien’s craft survived the fire and lays near the strange barrier, concealed in the forest. We have tried to enter it but it will not yield to us.”

  His attack on the main craft had not been complete. In the massive convulsion that followed the initial burst of heat, it had been difficult to be sure. His first instinct was to vaporize the fragment, then swiftly seek out the remaining aliens on the planet and reduce them to ashes as well. He rose to his feet, but then paused. The Awakener had lived countless years. For most of that time he had been lost in a dream. Not so now. His vast sentience was focused solely on the destruction of the humans, who had taken so much … But no, there would be no swift action this time. The Awakener turned back to his throne and sat down.

  “We will use this to our advantage.” The messenger backed away, frightened by the cold light that shone from the Awakener’s eyes. “Gather those who remain. We will conceal ourselves near the artifact and await the intruders.”

  The messenger fled.

  The humans would return. Now that they had the smaller craft at their disposal they would seek out everything that remained of the larger vessel. When they did that, he would finish them, and end this dark chapter of Imbirri history.

  Only then would he find peace.

  ***

  Deep in the thicket, a black cocoon stirred. The walls were like wet leather, and they bulged and rippled as the occupant writhed within. A sudden split disgorged a spurt of sticky fluid. A single, golden limb slipped through the gap, its edges razor sharp. It paused, then it flashed against the black, working in a frenzy to widen the fissure and reduce the imprisoning sheath to ragged strips.

  A figure of glistening gold emerged from the discarded cocoon.

  The dark green juices of birth clung to her skin. She flexed her slender limbs then stood motionless in the small clearing. Although roughly humanoid in shape, her body was lean, thorax and abdomen elegantly tapered, head elongated, her eyes multifaceted. She took a breath, savoring the moment. The green of the deep forest filled her mind.

  She cleaned the stuff of birth from her limbs with small, graceful movements, then she tensed the huge muscles across her upper back and extended her powerful wings. They quivered, held in check like a new breath. Slowly, she moved them, gradually drying them in the humid air. They beast faster, until the copse stirred in a gale of wind.

  Then she lifted into the misted sky.

  Higher she climbed, reveling in the freedom of flight. She longed to soar and dive within the currents, to taste and test this new form, yet she did not: she was driven onward by an aching desire. The need pulsed within her, and the absence was as stifling as suffocation. She spurned the cool air that swirled around her, seeking heat. Fire. She sped to the crystal range. Soon she was above the massive monolith, yet its white light was not enough to satisfy her. Frustration fuelled her passion.

  She rose above the glowing mountain and extended her senses. They flowed out across the surface of the planet. With excitement, she sensed warmer air and swam into it. She felt the air heat and knew her course. She folded her legs, streamlining herself for rushing speed.

  Time
fled. Lost in rising warmth, she was alone with the winds, the open sky, the heavy clouds. She drank in sight, sound, sensation, her mind hungry for it all. There was no memory within her, only thought. Only an intense sense of being — and rising slowly from this core of sentience like the first note of a song — her name. Asthel.

  At last, the golden face of the planet lay before her. She sped toward the terminator with a burst of speed, driven forward by instinct.

  For the first time, Asthel gave voice.

  To the wind she sang. To the many who must follow, she burst fully, into voice exultant. Yet there was none to hear, and no song answered her. Undeterred she sped on into the flashing brilliance of the bright side.

  Calling.

  CHAPTER 14

  Mara looked past the harsh glare of the pod’s lamps into the still, empty darkness. It was such a strange planet. The presence of life, yet the absence of any natural rhythm. Always the same sky, bereft of sun and moon. No dawn. No dusk.

  On the dark side of Cru light came only from the crystal mountains, which were positioned across the dark hemisphere in a pattern so regular it could only be the result of terraforming on a vast scale, created by a culture with technology so advanced she could hardly conceive it. The climate churned against these artificial confines, driven by the resulting patterns of heat and cold. Everywhere around her was a sense of … tension. Life held in abeyance. Mara longed for the familiar beauty of distant, turning Earth, so often glimpsed by her through the oil-streaked viewports of the Davis Industries Platform. Throughout a childhood spent in dank, artificial environments, Earth was always there. Day and night, winter and summer, flood and drought, each following the other like an unspoken promise. Here, on Cru, there was something fundamentally unsettling about the lack of change. And her feeling of unease was growing.

  Karic, Mara and Andrai sat together in silence on dark, moist soil with a patchy cover of grass-like fungi. Light from the pod’s external lamps flooded the small clearing. Around them, faint noises announced the presence of tiny creatures, evolved over time to live within the shadowed regions of the planet’s night side. Above, the sky was a deep, deep blue, lit occasionally by the flashes of faraway storms.