Burnt Worlds

by S. J. Madill

  He shook his head. “On their meal break.”

  Black nodded. “Good, good.” She hesitated, glancing down at her boots. “Look, Sap. Maybe we haven’t gotten off on the right foot. There have been some misunderstandings between us.”

  “Ah,” said the Mechanic, breathing in. “Like the misunderstanding of you telling me inaccurate things about human culture. The Captain thought I was insane when I said that ‘proletariat’ was a seasoning.”

  “Yeah,” said the Chief, a smirk drawing across her lips. “He had the strangest look when he told me about that.” She looked into the Dosh’s green eyes. “There was also the misunderstanding right after that, when you rigged the shower in my cabin.”

  “Indeed,” said Saparun. “You froze for days, thinking there was no hot water on the ship. How regrettable.”

  “Cold,” she replied thoughtfully.

  “I also recall,” said the Mechanic, “the misunderstanding that happened after that. My inventory was thrown into disarray by the insertion of a false equipment record.”

  Black smiled. “Yeah. You spent a week of evenings looking for the ‘binnacle calibration tool’. An oldie but a goodie. If I recall, it was right after that, there was a misunderstanding with my hair dye.”

  Saparun shrugged. “Pink is a pleasant colour.”

  “Yeah, it was hilarious,” she mumbled.

  “Was it not after that,” he said, “that you provided the wardroom with a new flavour of coffee, just for me?”

  “‘Sackville Blend’? Did you like it? It had gin.” The Chief smiled. “A lot of gin. You hallucinated, said you could see your pores talking to each other.”

  “I forgot my name for an hour,” said the Mechanic.

  “You did? Outstanding,” said the Chief. She hesitated, then added, “I mean, what a tragic misunderstanding.”

  Saparun nodded. “Indeed. So, what else shall we reminisce about?” His green eyes looked at her meaningfully. He raised his eyebrow ridge.

  “Well,” she began, glancing back down at her boots. “I came to ask if we could have a truce for a few minutes.”

  The Mechanic was genuinely surprised. “A truce?” He quickly warmed to the thought. “Are you nervous, Chief Black? Afraid that my next misunderstanding to you will involve an airlock? Because it does.” He smiled sweetly.

  “What? You wouldn’t.”

  “Of course not,” he said, “as far as you know.”

  “Oh.” She thought for a moment. “Anyway, just for a few minutes? I need to ask you something serious.”

  Saparun nodded, his grin abruptly disappearing. “Serious? Of course, Chief. A truce, then, until you leave the room. What do you need to ask?”

  “Well,” she said, “I need to know if you’re recruiting Atwell to mess with me.”

  The Mechanic was taken aback, his eyes widening. “Chief Black, I have standards. I do not enlist others for my misunderstandings. And...” he raised a red-skinned finger for emphasis, “so we are clear: Lieutenant Cho is completely off limits. “

  The Chief quickly nodded, raising her palms in surrender. “I know, I know. I get it, Sap, no problem. No messing with Cho or it’s the airlock for me.”

  Saparun relaxed, lowering his finger. “Very well. I take you at your word. And no, I have not recruited anyone in any way.”

  Black’s shoulders dropped slightly. “Oh. Okay, good.”

  “Why do you ask, Chief Black? You would have preferred if I had?”

  “Well, she asked me something that’s been bothering me.”

  The Mechanic grinned broadly. “Ah, so naturally you assumed I had sent her. I am flattered, Chief Black. Thank you.”

  She looked up at him, making a face. “Yeah. Anyway, between you and me…”

  Saparun nodded enthusiastically.

  “...she said she’s interested in a female crew member, but I don’t know who.”

  “Interested?”

  The Chief waggled her eyebrows.

  “Oh,” said the Dosh. “Interested.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Able Seaman Currie?”

  “No, she’s taken.”

  “Oh. Pakinova?”

  “Also taken.”

  “I did not know that. Perhaps Belanger?”

  “Wrong team.”

  “What? Oh. How about Singh?”

  The Chief squinted at him. “I don’t know. Maybe. What team is she—”

  Saparun shook his head. “I have no idea.”

  “Oh.”

  The Mechanic began to chuckle, a soft gurgle in his throat.

  “What’s so funny?” asked the Chief.

  “I like this,” he said. “It bothers you, not knowing who she’s interested in.”

  “No,” said Black defensively.

  Saparun raised his eyebrow ridge again.

  “Okay,” she amended. “Yes. A lot. But we have a truce.”

  The Dosh nodded sagely. “We do. Until you leave the room.”

  “Bastard. No fair.”

  “Fair, Chief Black? Really?”

  The Chief shook her head slowly, giving a small laugh. “Very well, Sap. If you find out, will you let me know?”

  He nodded again. “Without a truce, it will cost you. A lot. But I will let you know.”

  “I know,” she said, mocking a whine. “Thank you, Sap. I appreciate it.”

  Saparun nodded. “You are most welcome. Do be careful when you leave.”

  “Yeah,” she said to herself. “Especially around airlocks.”

  The Head Mechanic’s eyes followed the Chief as she left the Engineering compartment, watching her as she stepped around the large case containing the portable scanner. It reminded him of something he’d been meaning to do.

  -----

  Half an hour later, Saparun stepped off the cargo elevator, leaning to one side as he lugged the heavy scanner case. For the last few days, he'd spent his spare time going through the video Atwell’s team had recorded inside the cylinder ship. It had taken a while to piece together the different views into a single, coherent picture of what they'd seen when the cylinder activated. He was particularly interested in the DNA diagram; analysing it had given him an idea, but he wasn’t ready to take it to the Captain. Not yet, not until he was convinced. Especially because of what it would mean if he was right.

  Stepping sideways through the double hatches of the hangar bay, he turned left toward the starboard hangar, where the wreckage lay. A few minutes with the scanner would confirm or disprove his theory. If he could find traces of—

  He stopped, half a step into the hangar. Someone was already here.

  “Tassali Yenaara,” said Saparun.

  The Palani stood next to the largest piece of wreckage from the strange multi-layered ship, her hands at her sides. Her body was rigid with tension, which showed clearly on her face as she turned to look at him. Pausing as if remembering something, she relaxed. A weak smile appeared. “Head Mechanic,” she said quietly.

  Saparun took another step into the hangar, and stooped to put down the scanner case. He straightened up, brushing unseen dust from his work coat. “I came to do some scans on that wreckage.”

  “I see,” she said.

  He wasn’t sure if he should say what he was thinking, but did anyway. “I noticed something very interesting in the video the crew recorded, and I’m working on a theory.”

  The Tassali’s thin smile faded. “I see,” she said again.

  He was nervous now, and his mind was loudly telling him to keep quiet. But he didn’t. “Inside the cylinder ship, that display we saw… the DNA… it wasn’t human. It was Palani.”

  The Tassali said nothing, not even blinking at him.

  “Did you touch Lieutenant Atwell’s left shoulder that day? Without your gloves? A blessing, perhaps?”

  A silent nod. There was no emotion on the white face that watched him.

  Against his better judgement, he forged ahead. “Six humans entered the cylinder ship, the
ir suits covered with human DNA, and the ship took no notice. But it detected one handprint of Palani DNA, and immediately drove itself into the sun.”

  He noticed her pale white cheeks becoming flushed with blue, and decided he ought to change direction. “Tassali Yenaara,” he said gently. “I do not intend to interrogate you. I do not wish to make you uncomfortable. But I feel there is something much larger going on.”

  She sighed audibly. “There is.”

  The Mechanic nodded slowly. “The cylinder ship detected Palani DNA, and destroyed itself. And this mysterious second ship…,” he gestured at the twisted, multi-layered wreckage on the deck.

  The Palani held his gaze. When she spoke, her voice had lost its harmony. “It is not mysterious. It is Horlan.”

  Saparun looked down at the deck. “I am sorry.”

  “As am I.”

  He licked his thin lips, running his tongue over his teeth. “I have always wondered something…” He looked up at her; her blue eyes looked tired. He continued. “When your people won — when the Horlan suddenly left — you went into seclusion. For two hundred years, your people shunned all contact with the rest of the galaxy. Violently, I might add. All who tried to approach your worlds were destroyed without warning. Including several Dosh ambassadors. Two hundred years.”

  She looked away from him, her voice distant. “We had lost a trillion people. We were in disarray. We were in mourning—”

  “No,” he interrupted. “You were infected.”

  The Tassali’s eyes leapt up to meet his. She quickly drew a deep breath, her body becoming tense. Saparun’s stomach sank and he flinched, stepping back. “Please,” he said quickly, showing his empty hands. “I do not mean to provoke. I have seen up close what your people can do. I do not wish to see it again.”

  The deep furrows in Amba’s brow smoothed over, and she relaxed a little. “You have encountered Urlahel before.” It was not a question.

  The Mechanic tried to calm himself. “A century ago,” he ventured. “In the Burnt Worlds, I was with a crew stealing artifacts from a dead Palani city. A team of temple commandoes chased us down. The Tassali was…” He swallowed, not taking his eyes from hers. “I am not ashamed to say I was afraid. My friends suddenly began to kill each other, then the Tassali and his commandoes attacked. I do not wish to see that again.”

  “They let you live,” she said quietly.

  “I was spared, to warn others.” He licked his lips again. “I did. I warned a lot of people.”

  Tassali Yenaara nodded at him, the tension draining from her. “I know,” she said. “I researched you, after I arrived on this ship.” She tried to smile. “You have always been accepting and kind — and honest — with me. I could only begin to tell you how much I value honesty right now.”

  Saparun nodded slightly. “Thank you, Tassali Yenaara.”

  She looked away from him, toward the Horlan wreckage. She nudged a piece of it with her boot. “My people went to a lot of effort to keep a secret. It was only when I was with the Urlahel, spending years beyond the Burnt Worlds, that I even learned that a secret existed. I began to piece together what was being hidden. For that,” she said softly, her eyes distant, “my own people intend to kill me. Eventually they will succeed.”

  The Tassali looked around the room, absently pushing a stray blue hair away from her face. “My people were unable to defeat the Horlan in battle. We destroyed thousands of their ships, and they kept coming. Their ships are living things. They breed.”

  She sighed heavily, shuddering. “My people are skilled geneticists. We began a decade-long project to create a weapon against them. Eleven unique, innocuous viruses that spread throughout their fleet, each completely harmless. On our signal, the viruses combined into a weapon: a voracious bacteria that consumed all organic material, alive or dead, and produced perfect copies of itself. It kept consuming until it ate everything available, whereupon it all fell to dust.”

  “Like the planets we have found here.”

  “At first, I did not think so. But now I am convinced that yes, our weapon did this.”

  “So, your people — your ancestors — in the name of survival and desperation, created a biologic weapon. A weapon to wipe out an entire civilisation: the Horlan.”

  “Yes.”

  “And now, it appears that the Horlan spread it to their other victims, the cylinder ships. Two entire civilisations wiped out: one on purpose, the other by accident. A heavy price.”

  A brief flash of anger from the Tassali. “Should we have died? Would that have been better? Would the Horlan have stopped then? What else could we have done? We had to… had to...” She stopped, deflated. Her eyes went to the wreckage at her feet, watching it as if expecting a reply. When she finally looked back at the Mechanic, the whites of her eyes were tinged with blue. “You won’t tell the Captain?”

  “No,” said Saparun, shaking his head. “You will.”

  She stared at him a few long moments, despair on her face; her shoulders were slumped, resigned. When she spoke she was quiet, her voice sad and without harmony. “I will tell the humans,” she whispered. “Though I do not know how they will respond to me.”

  Saparun’s eyebrow ridge raised again. “You are correct. You don’t know.”

  “Tell me,” she said. “You know a lot about the Palani, and about Tassali like me. You know so much that you could have shared with the humans. You could have told them not to trust me, perhaps even to lock me up. You kept quiet. Why?”

  Saparun nodded. “You are correct, Tassali. I knew much more than I told the humans. The Guild of Mechanics specifically forbade me from saying anything. They want the humans to find out about your people on their own, without Dosh help.” He shrugged. “Besides, it wouldn't have been fair to you. You showed you weren't like other Palani. I thought you deserved a chance.”

  The Tassali managed a thin smile. “Whatever happens, Saparun Vish, I have enjoyed being on this ship with you. You have been accepting of me, while it lasted.”

  “Thank you, Tassali Yenaara. You have been pleasant and kind to me. But I do not fear for your fate. I believe the humans are not yet done surprising you.”

  40

  A cup of coffee was growing cold on Dillon’s desk. His left elbow was on the desktop, his hand propping up his chin as he lazily poked at the terminal.

  Cho had been keeping detailed records of everything they'd mapped during their travels, along with the results of attempts to match what they saw with known features of the galaxy. The result was the same as always: nothing. Based on where their jump had landed them weeks ago, and the course they had taken since then, they should have been well into the Burnt Worlds by now. They should have been able to reconcile the stars they saw with the known galactic map. Even if they were on the wrong side of the galaxy, something should match up. But they still found nothing. A nagging doubt lingered in the back of Dillon’s head: some of what they saw looked familiar. He shrugged it off; after looking at countless stars and systems, it wouldn’t be a surprise for some of it to look familiar.

  He was relieved when the door console chirped at him, and he quickly reached out and poked a button without taking his eyes from the screen.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw an elegant, white-clad figure step into his cabin, the door closing behind. He thought it odd she didn’t say anything. “I’m glad you’re here,” he said, lifting his head off his hand. “I’m getting pretty bored looking at these—”

  He trailed off into silence as he saw the look in those blue eyes. She was standing stiff and tense, her hands held in front of her. Her chin was lifted slightly, as if in grim determination. But it was the intensity in her eyes that struck him the most. Was that — he wondered — fear?

  Shoving against the desk, pushing the chair back, he rose to his feet. “Amba?” he asked, stepping around the end of the desk. “What is it?” He stepped closer to her.

  Putting both her white-gloved hands out in front o
f her, she stopped him at arm’s length. “Captain,” she said calmly, her eyes not leaving his. “I need to tell you something.”

  “Oh,” he said, feeling dread gather in his chest. He nodded soberly, his brow furrowing. “Of course, Tassali. Go ahead.”

  A hint of a smile flickered on her face, then was gone. She looked away from him, toward the window. “Whatever happens,” she said, “I want you to know how much I have appreciated all that you and your crew have done for me. And especially you: your kindness, your acceptance, your… warmth.” She looked back into his eyes. “Please believe me, my feelings for you have been completely sincere.”

  Swallowing, she continued. “I did not say anything before because I was not certain, but now I am.” She paused to take a breath. “All these dead worlds we have found, all the destroyed life: my people, the Palani, are responsible for it.”

  One of Dillon’s eyebrows crept upward, but he said nothing. He wanted her to say whatever she needed to say, in her own time.

  “When we fought the Horlan,” she said, “we could not defeat them in battle. Their ships were living beings, and they bred too fast for our fleets to keep up.”

  She paused for another breath, then continued. She kept her eyes focused on his, and he heard the desperation creeping into her voice as she told him about the viruses, the biologic weapon they formed, and the devastating effects it had. Entire worlds full of life, all of it quickly consumed, leaving only dust.

  The Captain said nothing as the Tassali paused. She cleared her throat, her cheeks and eyes beginning to flush with blue as she continued. “I have seen the wreckage of the second ship in the hangar; it is from a Horlan ship. The Horlan must have spread the virus to these worlds here, and to the cylinder ships. My people killed not only the Horlan, but a second entire civilisation. We created something that put at risk all life in the galaxy. My people have spent centuries — and countless lives — to keep this crime a secret. To bury all knowledge of this genocide. I submit myself to your judgement, Captain. I will not resist, whatever you decide to do with me.”

  Dillon stood silently a moment, his eyes narrowing. This had all started with a morning cruise to test a new jump drive. It was difficult to wrap his head around the scale of the problem, around the hundreds of questions that came to mind. After what seemed an eternity, he nodded. “Okay,” he said quietly. “Is the virus still active?”