Titan Encounter

by Kyle Pratt

  “Here.” She handed him a light and commlink then reached out and took his hand. “I tried to say something to you on the Titan ship, but…well, I need to say this—just in case.” She paused and her countenance filled with determination. “I have loved you since the first time we met.”

  He smiled at the words he had longed to hear. Stepping close to her, he grasped both her hands and grinned. “The first time we met?”

  “Yes.”

  “That would have been when you swung that steel bar at my head?”

  She smiled. “Well, maybe not the very first moment, but not long afterwards.”

  “I guess you know because of that mind probe thing that I love you too.”

  Her face flushed as she smiled coyly.

  Slowly he moved closer as her eyes fluttered and closed. He wrapped his arms about her and together they stumbled against the control panel.

  Raging wind and snow buffeted the two as the outer door slid open. Justin raised his arm against the torrent outside.

  Naomi pressed the button to close the door. Brushing snow off, she asked, “Are you sure about this? The storm is awful.” Looking out the portal she shivered. “Perhaps it will be better in the morning.”

  He walked to the portal. The blizzard and the low sun limited visibility. This may be a nice day on this world. “By daybreak the skiff will be out of power. We need to find shelter.”

  He opened the door and stepped out into blowing snow. The feeble light cast a blue hue over the snowy landscape, but he had only an instant to take in the view. Immediately every centimeter of exposed skin numbed. Even his eyes ached as cold wind hit them.

  He ran across the runway to a large group of buildings. The first structure had been bombed or burned or both. When he touched the metal wall, cold seemed to scorch his fingers. Coming to an intact building he tried the door. Finding it locked he kicked it in and held up his light, but found a collapsed roof and snow and ice .

  In the fading sunlight, he saw a line of hangers ahead, but all were in varying degrees of ruin. Snow swirled out from between the buildings and piled into corners.

  One reasonably intact building—that’s all I need.

  Shadows stirred at the edge of his vision. He wondered if animals or people could be lurking amongst the buildings, but dismissed it all as an illusion of the cold and wind. I’m probably the only living thing in a thousand kilometers. The thought numbed him as much as the cold that soaked deep into him.

  Unable to move his fingers he turned back toward the ship hoping to warm up and try again. The sun was but a bright spot low in a dark sky. It gave no useful light and would soon drop below the hills. Then the darkness would be total. Intently he looked through the falling snow for the skiff, but could not see it. He walked on, unsure of his direction then stopped as the full realization hit him—he was lost. He reached for the commlink in his pocket, but could hardly hold it in his numb fingers, much less use it. He stumbled, then fell, losing the device in the snow.

  His light glowed, just out of reach, through the billowy whiteness. He tried to stand, but the angry wind threw him down. His frozen fingers lost their grip and the blanket flew away. Silent shadows darted at the edge of his light. He crawled for several feet, then stood, stumbled and fell again.

  If I don’t get up I’m going to freeze to death. For several moments, he watched his breath swirl the snow before him. In a day or two we’ll all be dead. His thoughts drifted to Naomi and the kiss that almost happened just moments ago. The snow swirled over him. I should have kissed her. An icy tear rolled down his cheek, but not for him. I’m sorry Naomi. I’m sorry Mara. I’ve failed you both.

  Snowflakes knit a shroud that nearly covered him when a feeble shaft of light pierced the darkness. The ship. Like a lighthouse beacon, he could follow it home. Thank you, Naomi. Painfully he stood and, like a drunk, stumbled toward it. Eyes fixed on the beam he ignored the pain that each step brought. An eternity later, he realized the guiding light came not from Surfeit, but from a window. Two intact hangers stood before him connected by a smaller building. Whoever they are, I have a better chance with them than out here. Through the howling wind, he stumbled toward the door. As he neared, it opened and a gust of warm air greeted him.

  He stepped forward as five large animals trotted out a doorway. Four legged creatures, covered in black and brown hair, they had long jaws filled with huge carnivorous teeth. Snarling, they moved slowly at the edge of the shadows. Their eyes, reflecting the twilight, looked like red orbs as they moved cautiously into a semi-circle about him. He had seen images of such creatures from Earth. Wolves.

  He stumbled backward and fell into a snow bank. His eyes locked on the lead beast. One ear stood up and forward, the other hung limp and tattered. A ragged scar ran from its forehead across the face and down to the cheek. From the creature’s mind, a single word burst upon Justin’s consciousness.

  Stay.

  Chapter 14

  Justin wasn’t about to stay. He rolled to his side, leapt to his feet, then stumbled several steps in retreat. Dark figures appeared at the edge of the light. He stopped. More wolves? No. These moved on two feet. “Help!”

  A light flashed. Electricity shot through his body. Justin convulsed and fell to his knees as darkness engulfed him.

  * * *

  He was flat on his back. The tips of his fingers, ears, nose and toes tingled, but the rest of him was comfortable and warm. He opened his eyes. Without a move he determined he was on a bed under white sheets. Above him were lights on a white ceiling. Moving just his eyes up and then to the right, he discovered a bare, faded, pink wall. With a slight movement of his head to the left he saw a sink and cabinet in the corner and a small table with three chairs nearby. A closed door stood three meters from his feet. Otherwise the room was bare.

  Without a sound, he pulled his arms from under the sheets and examined his carefully bandaged fingers. Who brought me here? The thought resounded in his mind. All his life he had a sense of people around him. At a distance, he might not be able to sense their emotions or motives, but he knew they were there, in the next room or down the hall, but now he felt like a man alone in a lifepod drifting in deep space. He glanced around the empty room. Someone saved my life. Who? In one quick motion, he threw back the sheets and swung a leg to the floor.

  A black wolf, or was it a large dog, trotted around the foot of the bed and eyed him carefully. A tattered ear hung limp and a ragged scar crossed the beast’s face.

  Justin froze. It was the same animal.

  The beast turned and looked at him.

  An image flashed through Justin’s mind. As if from the animal’s eyes, he saw himself sitting on the edge of the bed in his underwear with one foot on the floor. As the image faded from his mind he realized the colors were wrong. The pinkish walls were cool blue and his skin grayish. Again, a single word came to his mind. Stay.

  The door opened and the animal walked briskly out.

  Wolves? Could this be a race of intelligent wolves? The idea seemed unlikely. There were bipeds at the edge of the shadow before…. What had they done? He remembered a flash of light followed by an electric shock. He looked down at his chest. A red spot remained. They stunned me.

  Before Justin decided on a course of action the wolf returned. Immediately behind the beast three uniformed men burst into his room with guns drawn.

  “Sit down.” One of the soldiers scowled and gestured toward the chair with his gun.

  “I want to get dressed.”

  Three red targeting dots appeared on Justin’s chest.

  The wolf turned and growled at the guards.

  Confused, Justin raised his hands. “Okay. Okay.” He moved to the chair.

  The two silent guards stood several meters to either side, while the one who spoke stationed himself directly behind him. Justin turned to look at those who guarded him, but he could sense only the wolf with his mind, the humans he sensed only with his eyes. It was as if they we
re holograms and he desperately wanted to reach out and touch them to be reassured that they were real. Glancing from side to side at the guns, he remained seated.

  Three or four minutes later two older men, one in a green uniform, the other in blue, entered the room and the soldiers stiffened. Even the wolf stood as if to acknowledge the rank of the pair. From the reaction of the guards and the bearing of the older men, Justin guessed they were officers. Where have I seen uniforms like that?

  They took seats across from him. The man in blue spoke. “If you attack you will be stunned. Do you understand?”

  His accent was strange, but Justin understood him. “Me? Attack you? You attacked me with wolves and stun guns.” He pointed to the red mark on his chest.

  “They’re dogs,” Green said turning to look at the animal seated against the far wall. “His name is Thor and none of his pack assaulted you.” Fixing his gaze on Justin, he continued. “But one of your friends attacked our people like a berserker.”

  “Naomi? Is she okay?”

  Officer Blue leaned slightly forward. “We need answers and we need them quickly,”

  “What about Mara? She was wounded.”

  Mr. Blue leaned back and stared at him without a word.

  “We’d like to answer all your questions,” Green said with just the faintest hint of a smile, “but we need answers first.”

  Justin eyes shot back and forth between them. “What do you want to know?”

  “Are you Nephilim?” Green asked.

  “Nephilim? Me?” He shook his head. “No. Do I look like some ancient warrior deity?”

  “We could ask you questions all day and perhaps, get honest and complete answers,” Blue said coolly, “but what we want to do is search your mind.”

  “You can do that? Are you Titans?”

  “We will ask the questions,” Mr. Blue said sternly.

  “If you can search my mind why don’t you just do it?”

  Blue started to speak but Green interrupted. “It is a disturbing procedure, sometimes painful. Some call it torture. Our rules do not permit it on civilians without their permission.”

  Justin recalled how, just before they fled from the microworld, Liberty, Naomi had searched his mind. The process was weird, perhaps unsettling, but not painful or torturous. His eyes drifted between the two men. Who are these guys and what do they really want to know? Are they Titans? What do I have to hide? What can I hide if they are Titans? They say they want my permission, but do I really have a choice? He sighed. “Do what you need to do.”

  “Relax,” Green said, “and do not resist.”

  Within moments, it was as if he had fallen asleep, but he had not. Three minds spun in a whirlpool of thought, spiraling closer, but always deeper into the dark depths of his mind. Fear welled up in him as the last threads of rational thought told him, this was not the technique Naomi had used.

  Relax.

  Like a light that slowly grows brighter, revealing the surrounding terrain, he gradually became aware of two, very disciplined minds searching his memories.

  Why were you on Lepanto?

  Lepanto? As he asked the question, the knowledge came to him. The frozen world where they had landed was Lepanto. In that instant the memories of his feeble, frigid, attempt to find refuge flashed through his mind.

  The two minds were not interested in those thoughts. Why were you on Lepanto?

  Like a missile honing in on a target the interrogators raced until Justin found himself crouching at the edge of the docking bay watching his sister and Naomi fight. Anger grew within as he relived the events of that night. Someone grabbed his sister from behind. She head-butted him and Justin fired his gun, killing the man. No, I didn’t kill them, it’s just a memory.

  Relax.

  On the far side of the bay, Naomi performed her dance of death, pirouetting from one man and slamming into another. He saw Ferren moving toward Naomi. He fired his weapon as anger flared red hot within him. He fired repeatedly as he raced toward the man who attacked her. You’re the cause of this!

  Memories that had been lost in the rage now roared to the surface. He emptied his gun and threw it aside. He ran toward Ferren, intending to choke the life out of him. Coming near, Justin thrust his arm toward the pirate’s throat. The fat man struggled to breath and flailed at his neck. Justin slowly, but effortlessly, moved his arm higher. The pirate kicked vainly as he lifted into the air. But, Justin never touched him, he had done it all with his mind.

  The memory of Ferren hanging in the air froze, reversed, raced forward and back as the minds of Mr. Blue and Green lingered in the background like fascinated mental voyeurs.

  One of the minds smiled with a thought. Some of our vanguard did survive.

  The other mind was less impressed. The Nephilim have fooled us before. The mind refocused on him. If you are Titan, what is your rank and genome designation?

  With laser-like precision, his interrogators target the needed memories which came back vivid and clear. Once again he stood on the bridge of the ancient Titan ship.

  The sentinel announced, “There is another person on the bridge. Come forward and be identified.”

  He placed his hand in the outline. “Ouch.” The prick of the finger stung just as it did then. He looked at his finger. Was it real or was this a memory? A single drop of blood formed and his DNA sequence scrolled on the ancient ship’s screen.

  The two minds fixed on the last line of the display, genome designation: 133-37. Specialty: Naval Line Officer.

  From his interrogators Justin sensed a mixture of emotions: confusion, wonder, and from one mind, a sense of awe. Who are your parents?

  No! Not there. Not that memory. I won’t. But he did and watched his mother die again.

  Chapter 15

  Justin opened his eyes. Canine teeth and warm breath greeted him. Mouth hanging open, Thor stood beside him. Frightened and realizing he was on his floor, Justin flailed his arms, striking the dog on the snout.

  The beast yelped.

  Heart racing, he struggled to his feet as the dog silently stepped back.

  A voice came from one side. “Thor will not harm you.” A silver-haired man with a close-cropped beard patted pressed, and folded, items on the table beside him. “Here are your clothes.”

  Justin stumbled and fell against the wall as he rose. “Who are you?”

  As the dog retreated to the far side of the room, the man spoke. “My name is Leo. Are you hungry? Get dressed and I’ll explain what I can over breakfast.”

  Justin stared at the old man in civilian clothes for a moment then walked to the basin and splashed water on his face. “Where are the two who interrogated me? I…we have unfinished business.” The emotions of the relived events remained vivid and raw in his mind. He wanted to strangle the two, just as he had Ferren, but thought better of actually saying it.

  “They will not disturb you again.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “They are recovering from the ordeal of your interrogation.”

  Justin shot the man an angry glance. “Yeah, so am I.”

  The older man nodded. “But you have had a lifetime to deal with your actions and the resulting feelings.”

  He shook his head slowly and tried to bury the resurrected memories.

  “For them it is as if just yesterday their mother died, they were abandoned, enslaved, struggled to survive, and killed people.” He held up an antique slate. “I read the report while I waited for you to wake.”

  Justin stared at him trying to understand. “They feel everything from my life as if it happened to them just yesterday?”

  The old man nodded. “For them it all did happen yesterday.”

  It was hard for Justin to feel empathy for his interrogators, but they had paid a price for what they had done to him. He had spent a lifetime building dark corners in his mind that he rarely visited. He sighed and no longer wished to add to their pain.

  “We will watch them for a
time to ensure they do no harm to themselves.”

  Putting on his shirt, he pushed the grilling from his mind. He turned and faced Leo. “Who are you? Where is Naomi? Is Mara okay?”

  “Mara is recovering. Naomi is well and the people looking after her are fine—as long as they keep their distance.”

  Justin grinned as he remembered his own first moments struggling with Naomi. “Where are they? I want to see them.” He paused. “Where am I?”

  Leo motioned for him to follow. “I need some breakfast.”

  “I need some answers,” he growled.

  Standing at the door, the older man looked back at Justin with a grin. “And you shall have them, but patience is a virtue.”

  Answers would only come, Justin realized, when Leo was willing to give them and that appeared to be during breakfast. Frustrated, he followed the older man out the door with the dog close behind. They stepped into a large, well equipped, but nearly empty, medical ward. The gleaming pastel walls, polished floors, and shining equipment, seemed to announce the care of the staff.

  Justin turned and smiled at a young, very pregnant, woman. She smiled back and returned to caring for one of the few patients. The two men continued down the length of the room toward large double doors. Only as they neared the exit did he realize he had sensed the woman’s presence before turning to see her. While ahead of him, leading the way out, Leo remained a blank slate, like a holographic image.

  Desperately he wanted to know who these people were. The two interrogators, with their incredible mental powers, seemed to be Titans, but Leo’s mind didn’t register with Justin at all. How would I phrase it? “I’m curious, are all of you the criminal traitors who committed genocide against the human race? Just wondering.”

  Leo looked over his shoulder with a quizzical grin at Justin. The doors before him opened and he stepped through.

  As Justin exited, he decided just to ask. “Are you a Ti…?” He stopped and stared out the window before him. Slowly he stepped forward. The arch of a giant microworld stretched out in the dim morning light before him. From his left the great oval rose high above. There, hanging over him, were great bodies of water, farms and forests. Then on his right the arc continued down until it disappeared beyond a hill. He looked straight ahead trying to gauge the length of the vessel. The far end disappeared in the mist. Obviously, it was many times larger than Liberty, the microworld he had so recently fled. I’m not on that frozen planet, Lepanto.