by S. L. Viehl
We weren’t completely trapped, but after several abortive attempts to free the bay doors, it became apparent that we weren’t going to be permitted to send our launches to the planet’s surface.
Although the ship’s transceiver was thoroughly tested, none of the signals we transmitted were answered, nor could we monitor any other transceiver activity. Long-range scans of the space surrounding us revealed only two populated worlds in the vicinity: Jxinok and another, smaller civilization on a planet in a neighboring system. Neither planet responded to our distress calls or otherwise acknowledged our presence.
We had enough supplies to keep the crew alive for two years, longer if we instituted rationing, so we weren’t in immediate danger. At the same time, we couldn’t hang in orbit above Jxinok forever.
Everyone showed some signs of stress from our predicament, but Shon especially seemed to grow more distant with every passing day. I tried more than once to talk to him about it, but he would simply claim he was tired or preoccupied. We didn’t have a psychologist among the medical staff, but when ChoVa and I were alone discussing charts as we prepared to change shifts, I asked her what she thought of the oKiaf’s withdrawn, remote behavior.
“You are kin with these Jorenians, and I have PyrsVar and our delegates,” she said. “The oKiaf has no one.”
“He and I are friends,” I said.
“Healer Valtas is also protective of you,” she pointed out. “Perhaps he does not wish to worry you with his fears.”
“I don’t think so. He’s never been shy about confiding in me in the past.” I finished my notations before passing back one of the delegates’ charts to her. “I know he’s the strong, silent type. Maybe I’m reading into it too much.”
“No, the change has been noticeable,” she disagreed. “Many times I have approached him to discuss treatment, and before we came here, he was always forthright with his opinions. Now he merely listens and agrees unilaterally with my suggestions.”
“You are our resident expert on Hsktskt physiology,” I said, “and he’s never treated a member of your species before this trip. Maybe he’s simply deferring to you.”
“I would agree, but I have been monitoring some of the Jorenian patients, as well, and he has far more experience with their species than I.” She gave me a long look. “Do you believe he is experiencing some sort of emotional disturbance, and is attempting to hide it from us?”
“I haven’t observed anything to make me think that.” I turned around and accessed the medsysbank, pulling up the data we had on the oKiaf species, and searched for emotional disorders. “His people do experience some mental illness, most in the realm of phobias and reactive depressions. It could be a form of post-traumatic stress disorder.”
“We should examine him and run a full neurological series.” When I frowned at her, she added, “The oKiaf is supervising the fourth shift. If he may soon present a danger to himself, the staff, or the patients, we must know now and remove him from duty.”
I checked the time on my wristcom. “He’s been off since yesterday, and won’t be reporting for duty until tonight. Maybe I’ll go by his quarters for a friendly visit. See if I can coax it out of him.”
“Take a scanner with you,” was ChoVa’s advice.
Shon’s quarters were located on the same level as my own, so before I went to check on him, I stopped to cleanse and change out of my uniform tunic. Wearing my civilian garments might allay some tension and make it easier to convince him to be more forthcoming with me.
He opened the door panel before I had a chance to touch the panel. He looked a little better than he had yesterday, although his dark eyes remained wary. “Cherijo.”
“Good morning, Shon.” I smiled. “I thought I’d stop by and get your opinion on something. Got a minute to talk?”
He stepped aside in silent invitation.
I had never bothered to visit Shon’s quarters, so at first I was startled to see how empty the rooms were. He’d removed all the conventional Jorenian furnishings and wall hangings and had disabled more than half the light emitters. The effect was a little like walking into a cave.
Instead of bare deck or a woven floor covering, Shon had spread out a patchy layer of dried leaves, stems, and flower petals, which crunched a little under my footgear. Four wide, flat stones formed a loose rectangle around a portable thermal generator that had been modified to cast off flickering light as well as heat. A few furs lay in neat bundles near the walls, and a primitive-looking tapestry had been hung to conceal the prep unit.
“Very Spartan,” I said, breathing in the chilly air, which I guessed to be about twenty degrees colder than the rest of the ship’s atmosphere. I caught a trace of what smelled like burned bone and greenery, which alarmed me until I saw a discreetly placed olfactory unit. Shon must have programmed it to produce the smells that reminded him of home. “Is this what it’s like on oKia?”
“No. It is only pretense.” His voice sounded flat and uninterested. “Why have you come here?”
“As I said, I thought we’d talk.” I sat down gingerly on one of the flat stones and patted another beside me. “Sit down, Shon.”
He came over, his movements a little uncertain, and crouched in front of me. He studied me as if I were a slide under a scope. “You are not like the others.”
“Neither are you, even if you can’t use this right now.” I tapped the place on his tunic that hid the parallel marks in his fur. “I know not having access to your ability is upsetting you, but I’m sure it’s temporary. The way we were jerked through that rift, we’re lucky our minds didn’t get a little scrambled, too.”
“Minds are strange. Cut off from the others. Alone.” He rose and moved away, going to stand with his back against the wall. “This is not as it should be.”
“ChoVa and I compared notes,” I said carefully. “We both think it would be a good idea to run some tests on you, see if there was any fallout from the transition. You haven’t been yourself since we came here.”
“I am not myself,” he agreed. “You are afraid. Of this, of me.”
The way he was acting was seriously starting to spook me. “Our patients depend on you to look after them. I don’t think you can do that anymore, not until we find out what’s bothering you. You need some help, Shon.”
He watched my face. “That is why you came here. To help. To stop this. But it is too late. You came too late.”
The disjointed, unfamiliar patterns in his speech had me deeply concerned. He almost stumbled through each sentence, terse as they were. I couldn’t hear an ounce of emotion in his voice or see a glimmer of response in his eyes. It was like having a conversation with a drone instead of my friend.
Suddenly I knew I wasn’t talking to Shon anymore. “Who are you?”
He pushed off the wall and walked toward me. “You have said the words to this one.”
I got to my feet and backed away. “What words?”
“Infinity? Eternity?” Something shimmered in his eyes, icy and frightening. “These are not names. There are no names.”
I turned and ran for the door panel, but got only a few steps before he seized me from behind. He turned me around and held me up to his face. There I could see what had caused the glitter in his gaze—tiny three-sided crystals, dancing inside his pupils.
“You know.”
“I know you aren’t Shon Valtas,” I said tightly. “Please stop doing this and release him. We won’t hurt you.”
“You cannot hurt. You can see.” He put an arm across my throat and dragged me to the door panel. “You must see.”
Fighting him wasn’t working; his grip was too strong. Hoping cooperation would win me a measure of trust, I stopped struggling and went along with him. “What do I have to see?”
“Them.”
The corridor was empty. I could shout for help and someone would come running. They’d also attack Shon and probably try to kill him, if the protocrystal hadn’t already.
&
nbsp; “How did you take over Healer Valtas’s body like this?” I asked.
“Caught inside.” He touched the center of his chest. “This one save.”
“The pilot. You were trapped inside the pilot’s body.” When he inclined his head, I thought quickly. “Did you come through the rift with us?”
He gestured toward his face. “This is rift.” He made a gesture toward a viewport. “Rift is this.”
“Then you were in the rift.” He didn’t say anything as he guided me around a corner. “I don’t understand. Are you saying that you are part of the rift? You made it?”
“No. You made rift.”
My blood ran cold. “How could I have done that?”
“You made it,” he insisted, and then he said one more word that made my blood run cold. “Soon.”
He didn’t touch the controls to the lift; he only glanced at them, and the entry slid open. He kept hold of me as he took me down several levels and then walked me to the launch bay.
Dozens of crew members filled the bay; some were working on the damages to the launches, while others were inspecting the inside of the hull doors that remained inoperable.
“You tell them to go,” Shon said, and nodded toward the main air lock. “I open.”
After witnessing him operating a lift simply by looking at it, I had no doubt he could do the same with any other mechanical system on the ship. “Why?”
“We go.” He nodded toward one of the launches.
It was clear that he intended to take me off the ship, which meant opening the outer hull doors, too. The moment he disengaged the air lock, the entire bay would vent into space. “You’ll kill everyone here if you do that.”
“You tell them to go,” he repeated.
He wasn’t going to back down. “You must let me talk to them first, or they won’t leave.”
He released me. “Talk quickly.”
I gestured to the chief of the bay, who looked puzzled as he came over to us. “How may I assist you, Healer Cherijo?”
“I’m ordering an immediate evacuation of the bay, Chief,” I said, keeping my expression blank. “Tell your people to stop working and leave at once.”
His eyes widened. “Why say you this? What is the matter?”
“There is a dangerous organism present that poses a threat to the crew.” I just didn’t say it was standing right next to me. “Healer Valtas and I will deal with it. Please, order your people out of here.”
“As you say, Healer.” The chief went to his console and gave the order, and a few minutes later the bay was empty.
“We don’t have to leave the ship,” I said as Shon marched me over to one of the launches. “We could stay here and discuss what you want me to know.”
“Words are insufficient.” He tugged me up the ramp and into the launch, guiding me to the copilot’s seat before clipping me into the harness. “You must see.”
“See what? Who?” I demanded as he took the pilot’s position and I heard the engines engage. “Where are you taking me?”
“To them,” was all he said.
He glanced out at the hull doors, and a visible gap appeared between them, causing an instant, explosive decompression. The bay’s atmosphere along with everything that wasn’t nailed down or held by a docking clamp flew out as the maneuvering thrusters came online and slowly guided the launch out into space.
The pilot’s console lit up as it received multiple signals from the Sunlace. Shon ignored them, and when I reached for my console, he eyed me. “No.”
“My friends will be worried about us,” I said. “Let me tell them that I’m all right, or they will try to follow us.”
“They cannot follow.” He watched the front view panel as the launch dropped down out of the orbital path of the Sunlace and began a diagonal approach to the planet’s upper atmosphere.
I checked the display and saw that he had closed the hull doors, which made me feel a little better, at least until I saw what happened next.
The seams of the launch bay’s air lock sparkled as they were engulfed and sealed by the protocrystal enveloping the ship.
The protocrystal occupying Shon’s mind and body seemed to have no difficulty piloting the launch, although he never once touched the controls. The ship flew as smoothly as if it were on autopilot toward the planet’s surface.
“What do I have to see on the planet?” I asked, and quickly added, “I know you said them before, but who are they? More like you?”
“Not like this,” he said. “This one calls them the tribe.”
“So they are not like you.”
“Not like this,” he agreed.
He seemed to have trouble identifying himself with personal pronouns. Of course, with all the billions of crystals making up the stasis matrix, he might not think of himself as an individual at all. “How many are you?”
“Not many,”he corrected. “All.”
“Do all of you share the same consciousness?”
“Not consciousness. All consciousness.”
I was becoming frustrated with the limitations of speech. “I want to understand what you are. I can’t help you if I don’t know what you need from me.”
“Need.” He glanced at me. “This you need.”
I jumped on that. “All right, then, why do I need to go to the planet? To see the tribe? To see the Jxin? Can they help us?”
He shook his head. “They do not help.”
“Can I do something to help them?”
“You are them.” He moved his shoulders. “You are not them.”
I felt like screaming. “Do you know how frustrating it is, trying to communicate with you?”
“Yes.” He gave me a direct look as he repeated my exact words back to me. “Do you know how frustrating it is, trying to communicate with you?”
I got the message. “I’m sorry. I know you’re trying. I’m afraid because I don’t understand you, I won’t do what you want, and then you’ll hurt my friend Shon because of it.”
“No hurt.” He turned back to watch through the viewer.
The launch landed in a small clearing bordered on three sides by dense, lush green forests. At the northern edge a wide path had been cleared and paved with immense disks cut from pale wood of tree trunks, and fitted together with diamond-shaped insets of golden brown stone. Over the path more botanicals floated, tethered to the ground by fine- linked wooden chains and providing shade from the bright yellow sun’s light.
I looked for the shining towers I had seen in a vision during one of my many Maggie-induced hallucinations, but they were nowhere in sight. Neither were the ruins we had discovered when we’d actually found and landed on Jxinok during my investigation into the terrible age plagues inflicted by the black crystal on the Oenrallians and the Taercal.
“Where are they?” I asked Shon as he powered down the engines.
He nodded toward the north. “Coming.”
Since the Jxin hadn’t bothered to acknowledge or respond to our signals, I wasn’t expecting a welcoming party to meet our launch. Shon gestured for me to disembark, and followed me down the ramp as it lowered to the soil. I watched the path leading out of the clearing, expecting the Jxin equivalent of a security patrol to appear at any moment.
I heard their laughter first: high, soft, and pretty. Then I saw four figures moving toward us, all dressed in sleeveless ground-length light blue robes.
They moved effortlessly, their limbs fluid and their gait unhurried. Their long, narrow skulls had slits rather than ears, and their eyes were tilted in an angular slant, but their blunted noses and small mouths weren’t all that different from my own. From the subtle contrasts in their bone structures and the arrangement of their long hair, I guessed them to be two males and two females.
They halted a short distance from me and Shon and regarded us in silence. Now and then they glanced at one another as if they were having a conversation we couldn’t hear, and since over the years Maggie had demonstrated vast tel
epathic abilities, I guessed they didn’t need to use their mouths to communicate.
“Am I supposed to talk to them,” I asked Shon, “or just look at them?”
“You may speak to us, primitive,” one of the males said in flawless Terran.
“I’m Dr. Cherijo Torin. This is Dr. Shon Valtas.” I thought trying to explain that Shon was possessed and had abducted me might not be a good idea right off the bat. “Have you received the signals sent to you from the ship in orbit?”
“We have heard them,” one of the females said, sounding bored. To the others, she said, “We should return. The circle will be forming soon.”
“Excuse me,” I said in a louder voice when the four started to turn back. “Why didn’t you answer our signals?”
Three kept going, but the second male remained long enough to say, “We had no wish to” before he followed the others.
I turned to Shon. “All right, I’ve seen them, and I’ve talked to them, and they’re not interested in us. Can we go back to the ship?”
“See more.” Shon pointed at the departing Jxin. “Talk more.”
“I already don’t like them,” I mentioned as we started after them. “I don’t think my opinion is going to improve on closer acquaintance.”
Either the four Jxin weren’t aware that we were tailing them, or they didn’t care. From their complete lack of reaction to discovering that we’d landed without permission on their world, I was voting for the second. By now Xonea and the rest of the crew must have been frantic about me and Shon leaving on a launch; I wanted to get back to the ship before the Jorenians found a way to send down some launches, invade Jxinok, and begin disemboweling these people.
The walk from the clearing to the Jxin settlement took only a few minutes, and as soon as I saw the first of their dwellings, I realized why I hadn’t spotted them as we landed. The shining crystal towers Maggie had shown me were nowhere to be seen; these Jxin had built their much more modest homes out of opaque white-gold and ivory stone that reflected the colors around them, allowing the dwellings to blend in perfectly with the surrounding forest.
