Confluence 2: Remanence

by Jennifer Foehner Wells

  Jesus, when he’d been six, his dad had brought home a mutt and told him she looked like the Soviet dog that had been the first animal to orbit the Earth. Alan had pored over grainy black-and-white photos from the 1950s in his books until he conceded his dad was right. He’d never given a thought to pets prior to that moment, but that dog, which of course he named Laika, had become his constant companion and playmate.

  How many EVAs had he and Laika embarked on in the backyard? Him bouncing slowly with his arms outstretched just like the astronauts in the moon footage, Laika trotting alongside…until she spotted a chipmunk. He smiled to himself. She would have been a much better astronaut if it hadn’t been for chipmunks.

  Years later his parents would admit that they’d worried about him because he’d been such a solitary and serious kid. A dog had seemed like a good idea to them, but they’d known it had to be the right dog. And they’d found him just the right one.

  When he was in college, he’d gotten a call from his mom on a Thursday night to tell him that Laika had died suddenly. He’d gone on a bender that lasted for days. He had no memories of that weekend, which, according to his friends’ accounts, sounded like it was for the best.

  Alan sighed and eased out of the cabin, clipping his first tether to the outside of the shuttle. “I’m secure,” he said to Ei’Brai, and the shuttle’s door closed instantly.

  Jane didn’t say anything, but he felt her yearning for him to be safe through the connection with the Squid. He flinched because the surge of emotion took him by surprise. Damn it. The rest of the NASA crew and Ryliuk were watching and now they all knew there’d been something going on between him and Jane.

  They’d probably suspected anyway, but he would’ve preferred it to remain at that level. It was bad enough she made eyes at him all the time. It was confusing and frustrating and he just couldn’t figure her out. It was so messed up. He was tired of thinking about it.

  He was sorely tempted to break the connection and just do his thing. She could watch him work over the external cameras and shit. She didn’t need to be jacked into his head. But he’d made a promise.

  He looked down. Atielle was a gray ball of storm clouds with layers of glowing gasses around the curve of her horizon—blue green at the leading edge fading to a haze of white with a second arc of gold just above it. Here and there glimpses of the oceans and land masses flickered as storms roiled over the surface of the moon. Beyond that, Sectilia looked like a giant Earth in the far distance with Atielle’s shadow obscuring about a third of the much-larger planet. Just hanging out down there, millions of kilometers away. It was an amazing sight to see. And all around him, the darkest dark with so many stars it was like someone had spilled glitter in the sky.

  Bleh. Enough of the pretty thoughts. Time to get to work.

  Just like the larger ship, this smaller one had plenty of swooping shapes extruding from its outer hull. These were sturdy and made great handholds, regardless of their true purpose of deflecting heat and redirecting airflow during reentry.

  His experience rock climbing had come in handy more than once since they’d shown up at the Target. He moved carefully over the outer surface of the shuttle until he reached the end of his tether. Then he secured a new line, clipped the first to the second, and kept moving until he reached the engine hatch.

  He’d quadruple-checked this engine before they left the Sten compound. He couldn’t imagine what had gone wrong, but he’d have them up and running in no time.

  He put himself into the best position he could, dangling on the line with a steadying hand and foot on the ship, gravity wanting to suck him straight down to the surface of Atielle. That wasn’t disconcerting at all.

  He focused his headlamp on the hatch and wedged the specialized tool into the slot that would open the compartment, grunting as he awkwardly lunged up into it with all the weight he could muster. He had to try three times, abs burning, swinging wildly a couple of those times, before the hatch sprang open in his face. He had a good grip though. He’d known that would happen. It didn’t surprise him.

  It was darker in there than it should have been. That wasn’t right. His eyes refocused. What the…

  “Oh, shit!” he blurted and lurched back. He lost a handhold and a foothold at the same time in his panic. Suddenly he found himself jerking at the end of the tether, flailing, arms and legs outstretched.

  “Alan!” he heard Jane shout in his head. He couldn’t tell if that was over the mic or through the squidnection.

  He couldn’t see her, but he could sense her through Ei’Brai. She’d risen from the pilot seat into a crouch inside the cockpit, her hands going to her decompression mask like she was ready to leap out the door to come rescue him.

  “For fuck’s sake, I’m fine!” he shouted into the mask’s mic, spittle flying in his fury at his own ineptitude. “Jesus, people. Calm down.”

  “You calm down!” she yelled right back. Her voice sounded angry, but also wavered.

  He sobered suddenly, staring down at the gray marble below him, and panted raggedly.

  She really was scared. The Squid wasn’t holding anything back. Her eyes were watering. She was holding her breath. Every muscle in her body was cramping with tension.

  He marveled at how this connection was going both ways. He hadn’t noticed that before, maybe because he’d been so mad at her.

  He swallowed. She was sorry, so sorry, and she cared about him. A lot.

  She… Crap…

  He shook his head.

  “Yes,” she said in his head, softly. “Against my better judgment, you idiot.”

  He shrugged uncomfortably. Everyone was watching this.

  “Can we please talk about this later?” he said out loud.

  He was all flustered and shit. He cursed some more for good measure then reached behind himself to grab the tether. He pulled himself up, hand over hand, until he could get ahold of a protrusion coming off the ship. He scrambled a bit until he got himself back into his original position. He set a third tether because he wasn’t dicking around anymore.

  “Is it really…?” Ajaya asked tentatively, through the Squid.

  “Yep,” Alan answered. “It’s goddamn nepatrox slugs. I can’t tell how many. Slimy bastards. I guess they crawled in there when we were working at the base of Atielle’s Ladder. I should have checked a fifth time before we started up, but I figured we were set by that point.”

  He shuddered a little as he looked into the engine compartment again and began to consider what tool to sacrifice to scrape them out of there. None of his options had much reach, and the inside of the compartment was slimy. He knew from experience that the slug slime was some caustic shit.

  “How much alkalinity can these suits take—anyone know offhand?” he said to everyone listening.

  “They aren’t rated for that,” Jane replied. “This is a pretty unusual situation.”

  “Surely they can’t be alive?” Ron asked. “In that environment they should just desiccate. Freeze-dry, really.”

  Alan sniffed with distaste and poked his head in a bit farther. He could see that Ron was right. The slugs were shrinking and turning a lighter color with the exposure to full vacuum. Butt-ugly bloated balls of goo. They must not have any bones. Probably just slid right into the compartment, disintegrating the seal as they slipped through the impossibly thin crack.

  “Yeah,” Alan replied. “I think they must have been somewhat protected until I opened the door. They seem to be dead now. Freeze-drying as we speak.”

  He considered his tools again and picked one of the larger ones, of which he had a duplicate inside the cabin. It had a flat edge. He didn’t know what it was called, only what it did. He tethered it to his suit.

  He shoved the boot of his good leg into one of the swooping extrusions until he felt it was really secure, then the other, legs splayed out a bit more than he’d really like, so that he could position himself just to the left side of the compartment door. His head f
elt full and heavy, like he’d been hanging upside down on a jungle gym for far too long. It throbbed with every heartbeat. He was getting really fucking tired of dangling there.

  EVAs were supposed to be fun, goddamn it.

  He hooked his left arm into a protrusion. It wasn’t made for this. It was holding all of his upper-body weight, and it dug into his arm painfully. It was going to leave a mark.

  With his right arm, he started running the flat edge of the sectilian tool over the inside surface of the door. Dried goo flaked away to fall down to Atielle. He scraped the walls as thoroughly as he could so that he wouldn’t expose himself to any more of the caustic material than he had to when he crawled more fully into the compartment.

  What he wouldn’t give for a power washer right now.

  He lunged, striking at the mass of larvae and swinging away as some bits flew free, hoping they would slide right past him. He poked his head in to see what was left.

  Oh, good grief. Rapidly freeze-drying piles of glop that had broken open. He coughed a little and clung to the outside for a few minutes to let the vacuum do its work.

  Lunge. Knock. Scrape. Swing back out of the way as the flakes and gobbets of goo fell down to the moon below.

  He was working up a sweat. His muscles were tiring. He was getting thirsty but these suits didn’t have any kind of water reservoir. That would be one point for NASA. Good to know sectilian tech wasn’t superior in every way to good old American ingenuity.

  Of course, he thought, frowning, NASA had never managed gloves that worked like these. These gloves were effing amazing…

  Finally he took a look inside, and the compartment was as clean as he thought he could get it. Now was the time for the coup de grace. He pulled a green plastic packet off his belt. He had a secret ingredient that he hoped would make it all better, or at the very least much better. Nanites. Beautiful, angelic little machines that were programmed to fix things at the molecular level.

  He pulled his entire body inside the compartment until he could reach the outer shell of the engine itself. It was all scarred up and deformed from the caustic exudate of the slugs cozying up to it. He pressed the packet up against it and squeezed until he felt the resistance give way.

  “Activate protocol 538–729,” he told Jane. She could do that from inside faster than he could out here. That would turn them on and get them working.

  He smiled as he eased out and closed the compartment. His first successful EVA was almost complete. Now he could get back inside the cabin and they’d be underway in a few hours.

  He disconnected the third tether and began to retrace his steps, finding handholds and footholds to pull himself back up to the side of the ship. He didn’t intend to waste a minute. He remembered the last time he’d been burned by nepatrox-slug slime. It was probably going to be days before they got back to the Speroancora. He had to get this suit off ASAP.

  “Mffft.” He hauled himself up, muscles screaming in protest. He was a little disgusted with himself, frankly. The gravity on Atielle was a fraction of Earth’s gravity. He’d gotten soft down there. This shouldn’t be so hard. He’d definitely put himself through harder workouts climbing in Tahquitz and Joshua Tree for fun.

  The Squid suddenly cut in to his musings. “Doctor Alan Bergen, it would be prudent to increase your rate of return.”

  Alan gritted his teeth and hauled himself up another foot. He huffed. “I’m busting my hump here, Mr. Brai. I’d appreciate it if you’d keep your opinions to yourself.”

  Then Jane was in his head. “Alan…” Immediately he was on high alert. He’d lost track of her thoughts while he’d been concentrating on the work. Now he seemed to zoom into her head like he was sucked there. But she was looking out through his eyes and focused on the face shield of his mask. And she was scared.

  That was when he saw it.

  Gunk on the upper part of the small domed area that covered his face. And the tiny display that showed the integrity of the face shield was falling like a stone.

  Fuck.

  He knew what that gunk was doing. That gunk was going to fucking kill him.

  He reached the end of the second tether and clipped himself to the first before unclipping the second, but he didn’t bother to mess with gathering up the length. Woe to anyone standing at the base of Atielle’s Ladder. He let it go and pulled his ass up another foot, simultaneously rubbing his face on his arm. That smeared it, rather than wiping it away. Great. Now a larger area of the face shield was disintegrating.

  He let out a roar as he heaved himself up some more. No one could hear you scream in space. He laughed. Unless you were psychically connected to the goddamn son of Cthulhu.

  “We’re here for you, man. You’ve got time. I’ll come out and bring you in if I have to. Even if the mask goes to hell. You’re okay. We got this.” That was Ron. He could feel them all scurrying around inside the cabin, getting ready to open the door. Someone was anchoring a cable inside.

  He pushed harder. Just a few more feet.

  He glanced at the readout. It was almost gone. Holy shit. He was not going out like this.

  Then Ron’s voice. “Get ready to exhale, man. You have to exhale. You’ll only be conscious about fifteen seconds. I’ll get you. I’m ready. Brace yourself. Do not let go.”

  He dragged himself up another couple feet. The closer he got to the door, the more likely he’d survive…

  He felt it go.

  There was no chance to exhale. He was breathing so hard from the exertion, the air just left him. He could almost reach the door if he stretched out his arm. He had the presence of mind not to do that. He just grabbed on where he was.

  Ron was coming.

  Alan saw the door open.

  His vision was closing in already. He couldn’t see anything but all that glitter on black.

  No way that was fifteen seconds. All those NASA bastards didn’t take exercise into account when they handed out tidy little numbers like fifteen seconds.

  Ron grabbed his arm. Ron had him. He trusted Ron.

  He let go.

  Everything went black.

  * * *

  He came to on the floor of the shuttle, coughing and sobbing and gulping air. He didn’t care.

  He was alive.

  And Jane was there, kneeling over him, tears wetting her cheeks. Her warm hand rested on his cheek. He turned into her caress and breathed.

  He just breathed.

  36

  Brai watched Jane and her colleagues carefully while his mind was occupied with other thoughts. After a break of some hours they resumed their journey up the cable. He could feel them pressed into their seats under acceleration, gaining speed with every passing moment.

  If there were no other complications, Jane would return to him very soon.

  Brai was sobered by the near miss on Atielle’s Ladder. His limbs drifted around him unheeded as he considered what he’d almost lost.

  He’d been so preoccupied with the atellan newcomers, and with brooding over his petty existential crisis, that he’d nearly forgotten what was really important.

  Jane. The entire human team. They were a new beginning. A new and better life.

  Jane could have given him up to her government and let them do what they would with him, but she respected him, valued him as a person, and had chosen to honor his request instead.

  She was not alone in this sentiment. All the remaining humans felt the same to varying degrees. This was something precious. If this journey to Atielle had taught him anything, it was that the humans saw him quite differently than the Sectilius ever had—more fully as a colleague rather than a servant, or a convenient living extension of the ship. This was novel and should not be taken for granted.

  And there was more to consider.

  Jane had a dear affection for Doctor Alan Bergen. The man was always in her thoughts. If this man was in danger, Jane hurt—she felt physical pain. That was a powerful connection.

  If Doctor Alan Ber
gen was important to Jane, he should, by extension, be important to Brai as well. This was not a binary situation. She did not care for one individual to the complete exclusion of any other as he’d sometimes seen sectilians do. Her sense of community was more complex than that—a spectrum, a matter of degrees for each individual at any given time. Even if Jane enjoyed a deep relationship with Dr. Alan Bergen, Brai was beginning to see, that would not preclude a deep relationship with himself. Jane was generous with her affection. He could see, even now, that attachments were growing between her and the sectilian strangers.

  He felt some shame. He had underestimated not only her, but her entire people, judging them based on his experience with the only people he’d ever known. He found himself with his limbs bunched protectively around his mantle. He consciously let them go again, shaking them out to release the tension.

  It was so quiet without her here now. Surely he could be forgiven for fearing the loss of such a precious individual. He’d been alone so long it had nearly driven him mad. He never wanted to feel that loss again.

  Affection was unusual and so valuable. He’d been greedy with Jane’s. Rageth had always said she guarded vigilantly against anyone knowing how deep her feelings for Brai ran because sectilians rarely felt such levels of intimacy even with each other. It was considered aberrant behavior to involve oneself to that extent with a kuboderan, to entwine one’s life with an alien’s. Rageth had thought she was different because she’d been a young mother and nearly lost her children when the Swarm had come to her colony world. It had made her value every moment, every individual in her life, more.

  She had said her life was richer because of Brai. The things they achieved together had more value because of all they shared. She’d believed strongly that it was worth the risk. It might have been injurious to her career if anyone had found out.

  He had kept the secret well. And they had been assigned to the most important job on the roster. When coordinates were discovered in an ancient Cunabalistic text that were believed to be those of Terra, it was the Speroancora that the Unified Sentient Races sent, one of the finest ships in the sectilian fleet. He couldn’t help but swell with pride at the memory of that time.