Blackout

by Edward W. Robertson

  Walt's heart crashed. "That can't be." The alien stared at him; he'd spoken out loud. He repeated the words on paper.

  "I SEARCHED AND THAT IS WHAT I FOUND"

  "You were barely gone fifteen minutes. That's a little fast to check a ship this size, don't you think? You could have spent a little more effort trying to trick me."

  The Swimmer blinked at him. Bait tapped across his tablet, calling up a picture. A young woman lay in a gray cell. Carrie's face was pale. Her hair stringy. Her eyes were closed. Cuts scabbed her forehead and jaw.

  An alien entered the frame—it was a video, not a static picture. But Carrie hadn't moved the entire time it had been playing. Not so much as a breath. The Swimmer unfolded a bag eight feet square. Clearly intended for aliens. It lifted Carrie and put her in the bag, sealing its edge. Within the oversized carrier, she was little more than a lump. The alien hefted the body and hauled it away.

  Walt sank to the bench. His ears roared. His fingers tingled; he couldn't tell if he was touching the table. He might have passed out for a moment, but when he came to, he was still sitting upright.

  Bait was holding up the tablet. It was a moment before Walt bothered to read it. "WHO WAS SHE?"

  He stared at his notepad, then wrote, "My wife."

  "YOUR PAIR-PARTNER?"

  "Is that what you guys call them?"

  "WE DON'T HAVE PAIR-PARTNERS. THIS IS A HUMAN THING"

  "You don't have husbands and wives?" Walt wrote. His stomach cramped, but a portion of his mind remained clear, and it seemed to prefer to chat with Bait than to be left to itself. "So what, it's some kind of free love thing up in here?"

  "NO HUSBANDS NOR WIVES. WE THAT YOU CALL SWIMMERS ARE NOT 'MALE' OR 'FEMALE.' WE ARE BOTH"

  "That's weird. Or not. Maybe we're the weird ones."

  "THERE ARE MANY SPECIES. SOME ARE LIKE YOU IN THIS WAY, OTHERS ARE NOT"

  "But you guys do care about each other. You go nuts when somebody kills one of you. So what relationships do you have?"

  Bait wrote, "GUTBROTHERS"

  "Gutbrothers? In spite of the fact none of you are male?"

  "THIS IS YOUR CLOSEST WORD THAT FITS. IF IT IS WRONG, THEN BLAME THE WEAKNESS OF YOUR LANGUAGE"

  Insanely, Walt felt himself about to giggle. Then to cry. He hated the idea of letting an alien see him do that. Focusing, he wrote, "And what is a gutbrother?"

  Bait hesitated, then began to gesture, to the tablet and to the walls around him. "ON A SHIP SUCH AS THIS, ALL ARE RELATED. HENCE ALL ARE BROTHER/SISTERS, PROMISED TO AID EACH OTHER. BUT A GUTBROTHER IS MORE. ONE YOU TRUST WITH YOUR LIFE AND WILL FORFEIT YOUR LIFE TO PROTECT"

  "Doesn't sound that much different from a good spouse, actually." He was about to write more, but a wave of exhaustion hit him, capsizing his interest. "Anyway, we were going to kill somebody?"

  "FIRST, DO YOU HAVE ANOTHER REQUEST?"

  Walt's eyebrows twitched. He wrote, "For what?"

  "YOU WISHED FOR YOUR WIFE. I COULD NOT GIVE HER TO YOU. SO: IS THERE ANOTHER WISH?"

  Did Bait feel sorry for him? Or was this a ploy to cement his loyalty? In response, Walt began to write a joke, but the cold dark part inside him reached up from its coffin and throttled the part of him that had been operating on lighthearted autopilot since Bait's return.

  The cold part of him brought an idea with it, too.

  He tapped his pen against his teeth, pretending to think. He lit up his eyes and scribbled, "How does a ship this big fly?"

  "ENGINES. JUST AS ALL VEHICLES USE"

  "Is there an engine room?"

  "YES"

  "It must be the size of a town. Can I see it?"

  Bait regarded him for a long moment, bulbous eyes traveling down Walt's body, as if searching his skin for shades of treachery. "WHY?"

  "Because I bet it's totally crazy. Like nothing I've ever seen."

  "DO YOU THINK YOU ARE BEING CLEVER AGAIN?"

  "Hey, you asked me. What do you think I'm going to do? Fling myself into the gears to clog them with my bones?"

  Bait clicked his claws lightly. "WE WILL GO. BUT NOT NOW. TONIGHT OR THE NEXT NIGHT"

  Walt nodded. "So we're not killing anyone today, either?"

  "NOT TODAY. NOT READY. BUT SOON"

  "You were in such a hurry to get me up here."

  "AND YOU ARE BUT ONE TOOL OF MANY NEEDED FOR THE PROJECT. YOU STAY HERE. DO NOT TRY TO MOVE. IF YOU ARE SEEN, ALL IS RUINED"

  Bait did a bit of fussing around the room, then departed into the antechamber, leaving Walt fettered to the bench. After his stint as drunken Rambo, he was now as sober as a suffragette. He found it tiresome. Rather than a visit to the engine room, he wished very badly that he had asked Bait for a handle of bourbon.

  He found himself numbing to the revelation of Carrie's death. Before meeting Bait, he'd already accepted that she was definitely gone and almost certainly dead. His hopes otherwise had been as fleeting as mayflies. As dumb as them, too.

  With no real desire to be conscious, he did his best to sleep on the bench. Bait was gone several hours. Presumably setting things up for the counter-coup. Walt's bladder grew strained, then insistent. Just as he was about to get up and try to find something to relieve it in, he heard the outer door open, then close. Bait opened the door to the inner room. He'd brought Walt a container of paste and another of chopped seaweed he insisted was edible to humans. Walt explained his bladder situation. Bait took off his fetter and opened a wall panel equipped with a vacuum tube for liquid waste.

  The alien reattached Walt to the bench, then took off for hours more. When Bait returned, there was something like smugness in his eyes.

  "IS IT STILL YOUR LAST WISH TO SEE THE CORE?"

  "Yep," Walt wrote back. "Unless it's really boring."

  "BORING? IT IS MORE GLORIOUS THAN YOUR MIND ALLOWS ITSELF TO IMAGINE"

  "I don't know about that. I spent my entire teenage years imagining my hand was Kathy Ireland." His note was met with a blank stare. He added, "Does that mean we're going?"

  "YES WE ARE GOING." Bait bent and undid his fetter. "NOW GET IN YOUR BOX AND STAY IN YOUR BOX"

  Walt climbed into the box on the handcart, settling in for another ride. Bait pushed him out the two doors of his quarters. The wheels rumbled over the smooth floor. Bait's spiked feet clicked rhythmically. The footfalls of other Swimmers approached and receded. The inside of the box was pitch black. With no holes or crevices to peep through, Walt tried to jimmy up the lid just far enough to watch the route they were taking, but it was sealed fast.

  They stopped, waiting several seconds. Doors whisked open, shutting behind them. Acceleration pressed Walt gently down—they were in an elevator, going up. After a quick trip, they stopped and got out.

  The lower floor had had little background noise besides a distant hum. This level possessed a shrill note that drilled straight into Walt's brain. Actually, it was more like three notes, or four, oscillating irregularly, electronic and piercing. As the cart rolled on, the notes doubled in volume. They weren't always so harsh, either. Sometimes, they sounded like music.

  The cart stopped. Bait's straps rustled. A door opened with a ponderous metal murmur. Bait pushed the cart forward, stopping it a second later. The door murmured shut. Footsteps neared, stopping in front of them. Seconds ticked by—ten, then twenty—but that was a good sign. If they were going to be shot for trespassing, it probably would have happened already.

  The lid lifted. He blinked. Bait extended a tentacle, the tip rolled into a ball, then opened it, beckoning him out into a tight, white-walled foyer.

  Two Swimmers stared at him from across the room. Rather than the pink straps most of the aliens wore, these ones donned white bandoliers. Where the straps crossed at the top of their chests, each alien wore a circular brooch bearing a golden four-pointed star.

  Walt eyed the watching Swimmers, then wrote, "It's okay for them to see me?"

  "THEY ARE ALSO OF THE PLAN," Bait produced on his tablet. "MY GUTBROTHERS. AND THE
Y ARE PROUD OF THE WORK YOU ARE ABOUT TO SEE"

  Walt waved to them. They didn't wave back. Walt wrote, "Ready when you are."

  Bait gestured to the two Swimmers. With a haughty swish of tentacles, they turned and ushered their guests through a retracting door and into a bright, yawning space.

  Walt was struck with deja vu. He'd been in this room before—or one identical to it, anyway—while helping Karslaw clear the crashed first ship of Swimmers. But that room had been dead. Gray. Still.

  And this room glowed like nuclear Vegas.

  At the center of the space, a huge, transparent cylinder stretched from floor to ceiling. It was filled with light blue liquid and molten fire. This moved like it was alive, contorting like a Spanish dancer sea slug. At a glance, the cylinder looked like the world's largest lava lamp, but the light spilling from it felt as sturdy as a lance, capable of piercing Walt's body. When he closed his eyes, he could still see the flowing, looping flame through his lids. Yet despite its brightness and clarity, it wasn't painful or overpowering.

  It was just as Bait had promised. Beyond his imagination. Stunning. It had a stellar quality, like a living nebula, or a star contorted by a constant storm. He stared into it like the human who'd invented fire must have stared into their first. The two white-clad Swimmers clearly worked here, yet they were nearly as transfixed as he was, the shifting lights sparkling from their golden brooches.

  Sloppily, having difficulties prying his eyes away, Walt wrote, "What is that?"

  "A TRAPPED STAR," Bait replied.

  "So they're a little smaller than they told us in school."

  "THE REACTION IS SIMILAR TO FULL STARS. IT IS CALLED SUCH TO REMIND OURSELVES OF THE POWER IT TAKES TO MOVE SUCH A SHIP"

  "That must make you feel very strong."

  "IT IS NOT DONE SO WE FEEL STRONG. IT IS DONE SO WE FEEL HUMBLE. TO HAVE SUCH STRENGTH IS TO HAVE AN EQUAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR ITS USE"

  Walt refrained from writing something about Spider-Man. "Isn't it a little dangerous to hold a fusion reaction in the middle of the room? Shouldn't it be in a sturdier chamber of some kind?"

  "BUT IF WE COULD NOT SEE IT, WE COULD NOT MARVEL." Bait's typical teasing arrogance was nowhere to be found. "HOW CAN YOU HAVE SUCH A THING AND HIDE IT FROM SIGHT?"

  "But what if the chamber got damaged?"

  The alien shifted its eyes to him. "HAVING IDEAS?"

  "I'm looking at an alien space engine. I have nothing but questions."

  "DAMAGE CANNOT BE DONE. REPHRASE—DAMAGE SUFFICIENT TO HARM THE CHAMBER WOULD BE SO GREAT AS TO CRIPPLE THE SHIP BY ITSELF"

  Walt nodded, taking in the remainder of the room. Most of the floor was open space, allowing better appreciation of the glowing, protean Core. The circumference of the room held a number of workstations hosting the screens and control devices of Swimmer computers. Walt knew from experience these were virtually impossible for a human to operate; not only were the interfaces partially controlled through gestures, but he thought the computers relayed information using electromagnetic pulses the Swimmers could "hear" with their sense that detected motion. A human would have no way to even know the computer was talking to you, let alone what it was saying.

  On the ceiling, glossy metal pipes radiated away from the top of the cylinder. Decorative? Or functional? Some kind of exhaust—?

  "GROWING BORED?" Bait wrote.

  "Just taking it all in."

  "I THINK OUR TIME HERE IS DONE"

  "One more minute," Walt wrote. "After this, it's nothing but alien faces from here till the end of my life. This is the last beautiful thing I'll ever see."

  He turned back to the Core, because it was beautiful, looping and alight, and he was as close to a living star as any human had ever been. He forgot all his pain, the loss of Carrie, the knowledge they were fighting a war they wouldn't win. He didn't want to ever look away. To look away would be to return to what was.

  "Okay," he wrote. "Let's go."

  He got back in his box. The lid closed. He closed his eyes, too. The burn of the Core was still there, floating on his retinas. But by the time he was back in Bait's cabin, it was gone.

  * * *

  After their trip to the Core, Bait took no further chances with Walt, keeping him confined to the inner room of the cabin. The alien grew increasingly agitated and irritable, communicating constantly through his tablet, tentacle tips jerking around like a conductor's wand. Walt knew the feeling. With great effort, he kept his trap shut. Even if the assassination didn't lead to the revolution Bait promised, there was always a chance it would spark a Swimmer civil war. Nobody else was going to have a better shot at stopping or crippling the invaders.

  Roughly half a day after Walt's visit to the Core, Bait returned from an errand, eyes glinting with their old spirit. "IT IS READY"

  "Great," Walt wrote. "So where's the grassy knoll?"

  "HERE IS HOW IT IS TO HAPPEN. YOU ARE TO BE PUT IN THE BOX. THE BOX IS TO BE DELIVERED TO THE TRAITOR. THIS IS TO BE TAKEN WITH YOU." He held up a small disk of semi-translucent white matter. "WHEN THE TRAITOR COMES TO HIS CABIN, THE DISK WILL BE MADE BRIGHT." He twitched at his tablet. The disk lit with a pearly glow. "THIS IS THE SIGN THAT YOU ARE TO LEAVE THE BOX. AND DO WHAT YOU ARE THERE TO DO"

  "How will I know for sure it's him?"

  Bait pointed to his own brow and the large, blunt end that served as his chin. "HE HAS WHITE MARKS HERE AND ALSO HERE."

  "And what am I supposed to kill him with? My seaweed breath?"

  "THE WEAPON YOU HAD." He produced a laser pistol. Its butt was notched repeatedly. "YOU KNOW OF ITS USE, YES?"

  "I might have fired it once or twice," Walt said.

  "THEN YOU WILL FIRE IT ONCE MORE."

  Bait pointedly didn't offer him the laser. Walt stretched his legs until the tether went taut. "What's going to happen? After I gank this guy?"

  "IT IS AS I SAID," Bait wrote on his tablet. "I HAVE PREPARED SO AS THE FARSCHOOL WILL RECEIVE THE BLAME. THIS INFORMATION WILL BE FOUND WITHIN THE DAY. ONCE IT IS KNOWN, THE REBELLION WILL DISSOLVE AND THE FARSCHOOL WILL BE CAPTURED"

  "Sounds awfully simple."

  "THIS IS BECAUSE IT IS. IT IS NO MORE THAN THE CORRECTION OF A MISTAKE. A RETURN TO THAT WHICH WE CAME HERE TO DO"

  "So the old guard's restored, the original invaders are arrested, and our people go their separate ways." Walt tapped his pen against the pad. "What will happen to me?"

  "DO YOU WANT THE LIE THAT COMFORTS THE HEART? OR THE TRUTH THAT STINGS IT?"

  "How about we start with the lie?"

  "YOU WILL BE CARRIED AWAY TO SAFETY TO BE BRUSHED WITH OILS AND FED BREADS OF MANY KINDS"

  "Two-thirds of that sounds nice. Now how about the truth?"

  Bait rocked back on his feet. "EFFORT WILL BE MADE TO REMOVE YOU FROM HARM. BUT IT IS LIKELY THAT YOU WILL BE CAPTURED AND KILLED"

  "That blows." He smacked his thigh and wrote some more. "Well, you gotta do what you gotta do. Let's go kill us a rebel."

  "THE TIME IS NOT YET. HE IS TOO BUSY AND TOO PUBLIC. IN TWO DAYS, OUR CHANCE ARRIVES"

  Another two days tied to Bait's desk sounded nightmarish, but then again, "nightmarish" also described most of the last six months. And, come to think of it, the bulk of his adult life. So what was another 48 hours?

  "One last question," Walt wrote. "You guys got any tequila around here?"

  Bait didn't favor him with a response.

  After a bit of futzing around, Bait went into the antechamber, locking the inner door. Walt supposed he should reminisce about the good times or something, but too many of the good times were mixed with the bad. He rolled over and slept.

  A tentacle shook him awake. Forgetting where he was, Walt grabbed the outstretched limb, yanking the Swimmer close to him and cocking his fist to drive it into the alien's throat. Bait's face hardened. Walt relaxed.

  Bait held up his tablet. "THE TIME IS NOW"

  Walt rubbed grit from his eyes. He swept the pen and notepad across the desk toward himself. "
I can't have been asleep that long. You said two days."

  "THAT WAS BEFORE THIS DAY CHANGED. THERE IS A NEW REBELLION ON THE TIDE. WE MUST KILL THE FALSE COMMANDER NOW—OR ALL CHANCE OF PEACE WILL BE SWEPT OUT TO SEA"

  23

  "Tell him my name is Ness Hook," Ness signed. "And that I'm here to end the war."

  Sebastian relayed this to Commander Toru. The older Dovon bobbed his tentacles, gesturing in reply.

  "HE THANKS YOU FOR COMING," Sebastian told Ness. "IT IS BELIEVED THAT, TOGETHER, WE MAY REVERT THOSE WHO REBEL AND WITHDRAW THE FARSCHOOL FROM HUMAN LANDS. BUT TO DO THIS, HE MUST KNOW: WHAT DO YOU KNOW OF THE WAY?"

  "Everything you've told me."

  "HE WISHES TO HEAR IT IN YOUR OWN WORDS"

  Ness' mind went blank. Hot prickles crawled up his scalp. A moment ago, he could have rambled on about the Way for ten minutes straight. But with Sebastian beside him waiting, and the commander still standing on the ramp, towering over everyone—and all of this taking place inside the alien mothership with the future of humanity depending on him—Ness could barely remember his own name.

  He spread his palms and shook his head. "I don't know how to put it. Maybe you should just tell him what I've said about it before."

  "BUT YOU KNOW THIS," Sebastian signed. "SPEAK OF THE HEART AND YOUR WORDS WILL ALWAYS BE RIGHT"

  Ness closed his eyes. He thought of his brother Shawn, who'd died averting the meltdown at the nuclear power plant after the plague. He thought of the Council, the crew of aliens that had sent Sebastian to warn him about the meltdown and then allowed him to join them; they had died in the years-long battle against their fellow Dovon. He thought of Sam, who'd died to get him here.

  He opened his eyes.

  "All matter yearns to be life," he gestured. "Every speck of sand and every drop of water. We know this because of how much life there is. How it insists on growing in even the harshest places: burning deserts, frigid tundra, undersea volcanoes. But all life must struggle constantly to keep itself alive. Therefore, it's our duty to help and encourage it wherever we find it. In this manner, we serve the will of the universe itself. And that is the Way."