Analog SFF, September 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Katerina gasped and nearly let the flashlight slip from her hand. There was now a rectangular opening in the previously solid wall large enough for her to enter comfortably. It opened into a corridor that slanted gently upward, its end unseen past the paltry range of her flashlight.

  For an instant she forgot the alien presence close to her. “Martin, come here! We have a way out!”

  He cannot help you.

  A twist of panic and fear knotted her stomach. Katerina ran toward the other side of the room—then stopped. She raced back and forth, swinging her flashlight wildly.

  A solid metal wall now cleaved the chamber in two from top to bottom—and she was the only human being on this side of it.

  You have a path. He has a path.

  Then she was alone except for the groans of her own breathing.

  * * * *

  Katerina walked slowly through the pitch-black corridor, carefully tracking how far she'd traveled from the entrance chamber by making each stride about a meter long. Though the floor kept its same gradual upward slope, the corridor angled sharply to the right or left every several meters like a labyrinth. Its bare metal walls gave no more than a meter's clearance above or on either side as her flashlight struggled to shine a path before her.

  After about sixty meters of twisting turns, Katerina rounded another corner and stopped. Points of light like a swarm of ghostly fireflies flickered five meters ahead of her. As she cautiously crept forward, the lights resolved into tiny tongues of fire that reminded her of votive candles burning in a darkened cathedral.

  Another step and she realized the flames did come from a compact set of stubby candles. They were stuck into the top of a brown cylindrical cake, as tall as a chef's hat, that was sitting atop a round waist-high stone pillar. Creamy white icing capped the cake and drizzled down its sides. Edging closer, she squinted through the miniature flames and saw pink frosting streaked across its top to form Cyrillic letters. She gasped at the words they formed.

  HAPPY BIRTHDAY KATERINA.

  But it wasn't just a birthday cake. Its shape and dark rich scent said it was a kulich. She could almost taste the candied fruit, rum, saffron, and almonds baked within this sugary sweet bread. Her mouth watered as she remembered those happy Easters of her childhood when her grandmother prepared the holiday feast. Her stomach, flat and empty from fasting, rumbled greedily and pined for this delicacy.

  Katerina transferred the flashlight to her left hand and eased closer to the kulich. The first three fingers of her right hand reached forward to scoop out a chunk of its floury flesh and bring it to her lips—

  She jerked her hand back, wiping the crumbs and icing from her fingernails onto the side of the medical supply bag she carried. Her stomach protested her decision, but she ignored its laments.

  Explain why you do not eat this food. It will not harm you.

  Katerina turned around, unsurprised by the scintillating entity's reappearance. “It's a tradition in my religion to fast at this time.”

  There is no need to fast if you are hungry and food is available. It is not intelligent to blindly obey rules that inflict unnecessary pain.

  Reflexively she clutched the cross hanging from the gold chain around her neck. “My obedience isn't blind. Fasting helps me practice self-control. We humans can be tempted to indulge desires that could cause unnecessary suffering later for ourselves and others. Eating this food now wouldn't directly injure me. But by not eating it I make it easier to resist temptation when it really could cause harm.”

  That explains why you do not mate with your companion though you strongly desire him.

  Katerina wondered if the aliens understood what a blush meant. “Yes, I want us to share our love in that way. But doing that now could put the new life we might create in danger. And if our unborn child or me died from a medical problem beyond our ability to deal with on this world, I know Martin would feel terrible pain too. As difficult as it's been to abstain, it might be far worse if we didn't.”

  Delayed gratification. An interesting concept.

  Katerina frowned. “I didn't say those words, I only thought them!”

  She gestured at the cake. “That tells me you must heard Martin's joke this morning. You must be able to eavesdrop on us and read our minds!”

  We can hear your words at any time. We can decipher the electrical impulses generated by your brain.

  “If you can tell what we're thinking, why are you even asking me these questions? Why are you playing these games with us?”

  Your thoughts do not necessarily tell us what you are. They only tell us what you think you are. We must know what you are.

  “Why?”

  We have a gift for you. It is easy to manipulate matter. We will give you control over matter far beyond your current power.

  “What do you mean?”

  With this power there need be no harm if you indulge your desires. You can create food and eat without fear of sickness. You can mate without injury to offspring. You will no longer need self-control.

  Katerina didn't answer for a long time. “No. That sounds like too much power for any human being to have. It could be corrupted so easily, even with the best intentions.”

  You are hungry. If you eat the food we offer, you will receive this power and may pass.

  “What do you mean, ‘pass'? Is this some kind of test?”

  There was no answer. The lights and voice were gone.

  Katerina turned around and gazed at the delicious festive cake beckoning to her. She shook herself free of its hypnotic flickering lights and tried walking past it—

  Suddenly the flames from the candles flared up in a curtain of fire that blocked her path. She stumbled backward from heat as searing as a dragon's breath.

  The prickling on her face gradually subsided. There was no mirror handy to show whether her eyebrows were singed. The wall of flames that held her back burned firm and steady. She suspected that a shout to the aliens that she'd eat their cake would make the fire disappear.

  But she wasn't going to find out. More than thinking it, she felt that accepting their gift of power was wrong. Even if the fire was consuming a limited supply of oxygen here in the pyramid, even if it meant she was trapped here forever, bowing to the aliens’ offer might be even worse.

  Still—despite all the danger they'd seemed to place Martin and her in, the aliens had never actually hurt them. Or at least she hoped so, praying fervently for a moment that somewhere else in the pyramid her beloved was still safe. But if there was any chance of seeing him again, she had to pass through those flames without yielding to the aliens.

  Then she remembered. We can decipher the electrical impulses generated by your brain. If they could do that and read her mind, maybe they could also stimulate her brain to make her see and feel things that weren't there. They could be playing the role of Descartes’ evil genie—deceiving her senses for their own purposes.

  But if she couldn't trust her own senses, how could she tell if the flames were real or not?

  Katerina fingered the cross hanging from her neck, meditating on that question. Then, as if by divine inspiration, an idea came to her. She set the medical bag on the floor and opened it. Extracting several wooden tongue depressors from their paper wrappings, she tied them tightly together end-to-end using a roll of cloth tape to form a wandlike extension. Then she unfastened the braided gold chain around her neck and pulled it through the eyelet that secured it to her heavy golden cross. Finally she used more tape to bind the shorter end of her cross to the tip of one of the tongue depressors.

  Her impromptu testing device now resembled a child's short toy sword. Katerina held it at the end opposite where her cross formed the sword's point, hefting it carefully to make sure all the taped connections were secure. Extending her right arm, she positioned the device as far in front of her as possible and walked slowly toward the sheet of fire blocking her way. She winced as the fire tried to bake the flesh off her fingers while she hel
d the far end of her cross in the flames. A nervous laugh escaped her lips as she imagined that Martin was here, telling her he'd get a marshmallow for the end of her stick.

  After a minute Katerina retreated to the cooler end of the corridor and carefully examined the cross with her flashlight. The relic seemed unchanged—neither glowing from the heat it'd been exposed to nor melted. She knelt down and placed the flashlight on the floor so that its beam shone in front of her. Then she lowered the cross enough to keep it illuminated and cautiously brought her free hand closer and closer to its golden surface. Finally she grasped the cross itself with her fingertips.

  “It must be a trick,” she whispered. “Gold is too good a conductor of heat for the cross not to have become hot no matter what temperature those flames are, even if they weren't hot enough to make the tongue depressor burn.”

  She disassembled her device, placed the tongue depressors back in the medical bag, then fastened her gold chain and cross around her neck. “If the cross had been hot, I would have to assume the flames are real. The fact it was cool implies the fire is really an illusion. Unless the aliens made me only think the cross wasn't hot or that I even put it in the flames—”

  Katerina sighed. Relying on her reason and senses alone might not be enough to outsmart the evil genie. Then, perhaps remembering how her device had resembled a sword, she thought of Joan of Arc. The teenage heroine said one of the voices that spoke to her was Katerina's own namesake, St. Catherine of Alexandria. Whether madness or miracle, the young French peasant girl's beliefs had led to the triumph of her cause, a flaming death as a heretic—and apotheosis as a saint.

  Six centuries later, another young woman wondered if her faith could be as strong.

  Katerina knelt another moment, her lips moving reverently. Then, standing erect with the strap of her medical bag slung over her shoulder and flashlight in hand—she ran through the flames.

  * * * *

  Martin coughed as he trotted up the twisting upsloping corridor, his flashlight's beam bouncing carelessly in front of him. His throat was still raspy from shouting Katerina's name and yelling imaginative invectives at the aliens after he'd discovered the impenetrable metal barrier that separated the two of them in the entrance chamber. The new opening that mysteriously appeared in the far wall had only inspired him to ever more creative pejoratives about the aliens’ anatomy and personal hygiene.

  Stomping through the darkness, he didn't know or care how far he'd walked. Right now he was so worried about Katerina and angry at the aliens that he didn't care what happened to him. If any sneaky extraterrestrials jumped out at him from the shadows he'd demand she be restored to him immediately. And if they didn't like the tone of his voice, at least he'd leave them scratching their heads—if they had heads—about the meaning of the hand gesture he gave them before they zapped him.

  After turning yet another corner he halted, groaning at the flaming apparition in front of him at the far end of the short corridor. “Is that supposed to impress me? If you have something to tell me, say it without the special effects! They had a better one in The Ten Commandments!”

  Even if the burning bush in front of him had replied, he wouldn't have believed it was the voice of God. Those stories had thrilled him during his grade school religion classes, but as an adult he recognized them as simple myths. He snickered, remembering that incredibly bad Red Scare-era movie he'd shown Katerina during their space flight here about God broadcasting pious messages from Mars.

  Still—as he approached the burning but unconsumed bush blocking his upward advance, he felt its heat against his skin. Maybe it wasn't an illusion. He stepped back, frowning as he tried to figure out how to tell if it was real.

  Finally Martin pointed his video camera at the burning bush for a minute. He reviewed the recording—and laughed. As he walked toward the flames he muttered sarcastically, “If this were real, it would've shown up on the recording. So, no matter what I think I'm seeing or feeling, the aliens are just messing with my mind.”

  But as the blazing flames leapt toward him he hoped his lack of faith in this “miracle” was right.

  * * * *

  Katerina kept her measured pace as the zigzagging corridors led her steadily upward. The hand holding her flashlight had finally stopped trembling from her excursion through the kulich's flames. At least she knew a bit more about the aliens’ power and their willingness to try deceiving her with illusions. But if they tested her again, she wondered how she'd be able to tell what was real and what wasn't.

  She didn't have long to wait. For the last hundred meters she'd noticed the walls around her were becoming dimly visible, illuminated by a soft glow emanating from them. They were now almost bright enough for her to stop using her flashlight.

  Fortunately the device was still on and shining downward just in time to prevent her from falling into a trap. In the middle of the corridor she'd just entered, the floor was replaced by a pool filled to the top with clear liquid. It stretched across the entire width of the floor and was longer than a half dozen bathtubs laid end to end—far too large for her to jump across. While the liquid reflecting her flashlight's beam looked like water, she couldn't tell by its appearance exactly what it was or how deep down it went.

  “Well, what do they want me to do now?”

  There is a way to cross it. Watch.

  Before she could turn to see if the aliens were behind her again, Katerina's attention was caught by the change in the fluid before her. In seconds it turned opaque and solid—as if it had suddenly frozen hard enough for her to walk across.

  We can change the amount and location of energy as easily as we can manipulate matter. It is easy to manipulate matter and energy. These powers can be yours if you accept them.

  “Why do you want me to have them?”

  These powers will let you guide or rule your species as you wish. You will be able to control all natural forces on your world and render it safe and secure for every one of your kind. By altering the electrical impulses of their brains you could make them think and act the way you believe is right.

  “Are you suggesting I make the whole human race my slaves?”

  You would have that choice. If you do not desire their service or worship, you could help your fellow creatures by eliminating their willingness to harm each other. You could make them act in ways you deem most beneficial to them.

  “Any good that did would be at the expense of their free will. That would be too great a price to pay!”

  You could choose what you did with the power we offer you. You would still have what you call free will.

  “I don't want your power. I'm not wise or good enough to be a god. All I can do is try to be the best human being I can!”

  You could do great good.

  “I could also do great harm, even without meaning to!”

  You only wish to be what you are.

  “Yes!”

  Then you must be shown what you are.

  “What do you mean?”

  There was no answer and nothing behind her. Katerina cautiously reached out with her foot to try walking on the frozen liquid. But as her tennis shoe neared its surface the fluid suddenly bubbled and melted, once again blocking her path.

  Katerina scowled, wondering what to do next and why the aliens were treating her this way. Were they trying to help humanity through her—or destroy it? And as powerful as they were, why didn't they just assist or exterminate the human race themselves without all these tricks?

  She sighed. There was more going on than she could figure out for now. Best to deal with one problem at a time.

  The liquid in the pool was placid again. Though it looked like water, it could be acid or something equally dangerous. Perhaps the aliens were conducting an intelligence test, with her in the role of white mouse in a maze. If so, there must be some way she could safely cross this barrier—if she could figure out what it was. This liquid might be an illusion like the fire she'd confronted ear
lier. On the other hand, the aliens could be testing her to see if she was smart enough to realize that this time it was a real threat.

  Katerina squatted down and searched through her bag of medical supplies, thinking aloud, “There's nothing I could use to create a makeshift bridge. Even if the fluid itself isn't dangerous, it'd have to be buoyant enough for me to swim or float across it if the pool is deep.”

  The young cosmonaut frowned at the medkit and pile of bandages, splints, tape, and other first-aid supplies she'd placed on the floor. The only items that seemed promising were a glass pipette and the empty plastic vials identical to the ones she'd used to collect ocean water samples earlier today.

  Careful not to let any touch her skin or clothes, Katerina drew up several milliliters of fluid from the pool into the pipette, then she emptied it into a vial. In the dim light the clear odorless liquid looked like water. It didn't feel too hot or cold through the vial's walls. The fact it hadn't melted the glass pipette or plastic vial was an encouraging but inconclusive indication it wasn't too corrosive. Tiny drops of the fluid placed sequentially on small strips of paper tape, gauze, an alcohol pad, a wooden tongue depressor, and the back of one of her fingernails produced no noticeable reaction.

  After rubbing a small drop of the fluid harmlessly between her thumb and index finger, Katerina knelt and unclasped the gold chain around her neck. She placed the chain on the floor, refastened it, and tied one end of a roll of five-centimeter-wide white gauze to the loop formed by the closed chain. After walking to the edge of the pool, she held the heavy golden cross, still attached to her chain like the hook on an ice fisher's line, over the liquid. Then she slowly played out the length of gauze attached to the chain, lowering the cross at the far end of the chain's loop into the pool.

  The cross and chain had barely disappeared into the fluid when she felt the gauze strip slacken in her hand. She bobbed her line up and down a little to satisfy herself the cross was striking the bottom of the pool barely half a meter below the surface.

  Katerina retrieved her chain and cross from the liquid and examined them carefully. Satisfied they were undamaged, she dried them with the gauze and reattached the chain and cross around her neck. As she put her supplies back into the medical bag, she chuckled. Her grandmother in Russia had sent the three-barred golden cross, a sacred heirloom several hundred years old, to Katerina to protect her on this alien world. The cross really had helped keep her safe during these trials by fire and water the aliens had set for her.