by Paul G White
“Is everyone ready? I have detected the first movement in the sleep unit, and the time of opening the capsule will be exactly as I predicted. All vital signs in my comrade, Shenna are nominal. She has responded well to the process and should regain consciousness within five minutes. Shortly afterwards, I will open the unit and she will breathe normal air for the first time in sixty-five million years. I must warn you that she may experience severe discomfort as her own nervous system assumes control of her respiration and circulation. This is normal, and will not require intervention by anyone attending her. Is this clear?”
All members of the medical team nodded.
Abe Herzog said, “We understand, but if you need help, we’re ready.”
“Thank you, Abe. For your information, Shenna is one of our astronomers. She is also trained as a medic, and once she is returned to optimal health, as she is my superior in the command hierarchy – as are all the Sha’lee aboard the Comora – she will doubtless lead the remaining resuscitations.”
A metalloid globe around twenty centimetres diameter, embellished with several projecting aerials and probes, drifted over their heads and settled into position above the foot of the sleep unit. The time crept to 13:40 – seven more minutes.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
In the cryo-environment, Shenna lay unmoving, cushioned in the unit’s mild antigravity field. Her eyes were closed, but her torpid mind was experiencing a series of chaotic images and snatches of thought, piled into a whirling kaleidoscope of unrelated words and sounds. She tried to close her mind shield against the cacophony of alien thoughts, and succeeded only in reducing the mental noise to a more bearable drone. She tried to identify individual elements of the offending mental wail without success, so she concentrated all her will on her shield and reduced the level to a murmur.
Thank all the gods of Sha’lee’an, she thought as she relaxed from the mental effort. Shenna knew she had to think her way through this strange and unknown situation. First question: was she dreaming a particularly potent dream? She dug her fingernails into her leg – or tried to; no movement in her fingers that she could discern, and no pain. She opened her eyes: a slight movement of her protective membrane allowed the ingress of a pale luminescence and the pain forced her to close the membrane at once. She tried once again, and through her discomfort, saw close above her face a dull silver, metalloid surface.
A tumult of thoughts and images immediately assailed her: a searing light tumbling through the sky; Erwe’s beautifully poignant mental goodbye to all her comrades on the ship and on far off Sha’lee’an. Captain Lessil lying gravely injured upon the floor of the Comora’s bridge. The Comora; her comrades; almost the whole crew wiped out by an immense meteor strike; cold sleep. She was in a cold sleep unit and she must now be in the process of awakening, the nature of which had induced the hallucinations. The realisation of where she was alerted her to the mild fluctuations in the antigravity field, which had been massaging her body since her awakening had first begun.
Shenna smiled inwardly and relaxed into the process, which enabled her to sense her body slowly coming alive once again. She felt a pang of impatience at the length of the procedure, but swiftly rejected the emotion as unhelpful in the circumstances. Awakening from cryogenic sleep was necessarily a lengthy operation, because experience of failure had proved that to accelerate an awakening would seriously endanger the health of the occupant of the unit. So, she lay still and waited whilst her mind and body regained their strength and vitality.
The cacophony of random external thoughts surrounding her had moderated to a distant, almost inaudible murmur as the effectiveness of her shield increased. Her mind was slowly rising from a well of black unconsciousness to its vibrant, colourful thought processes of the time before cold sleep. With her mind shield now more effective, Shenna decided to sample the thoughts of her Sha’lee rescuers, but as she raised the barrier, she was assailed by all manner of images and snatches of language that were utterly alien to her. In panic, she locked her mind shield tight against the invasion, and lay shivering in terror within the comfortable, safe environment of the cryo unit. Somehow, the astronomer knew she had to apply her Sha’lee intellect to the problem and reach a reasoned conclusion, but in her agitated state, her logical thought processes had temporarily deserted her. She waited – and whilst she waited, she used ancient Sha’lee techniques to regain control of her abused emotions.
If she had known how truly ancient the techniques had become during a sleep spanning sixty-five million years, she might have teetered on the edge of insanity, a condition almost unknown amongst the preceding hundreds of generations of her race.
The time, 13:45:42 glowed iridescent blue on all four vertical surfaces of a holographic cube, conjured almost magically by the AI into the air above the cryo unit, courtesy of the advanced Sha’lee technology. The movement and the gaudy blue numbers caught everyone’s eye as the seconds ticked onward remorselessly toward the target of 13:47. Everyone’s attention was on the overhead virtual clock, and the hissing sound of the breaking seal between the two halves of the cold sleep unit made the humans start nervously in surprise.
Slowly, the silver-grey lid of the ovoid rose towards the vertical on its hinge at the foot of the unit and the diagnostic globe realigned itself directly over its centre fifteen centimetres above the height of the rim.
Everyone moved forward to catch a glimpse of the Sha’lee inside, but Hela’s voice rang out softly. “Please remain well back from the sleep unit, because I detect that my comrade, Shenna is in severe emotional distress. I suspect that the absence of Sha’lee voices and thoughts amongst her rescuers has sent her mind and emotions into chaos. Please permit me to inform her of the situation, and I am certain she will soon recover. Meanwhile, it will help if no one speaks. Thank you, everyone.”
The AI proceeded to speak to the occupant of the unit in a language slightly reminiscent of Mandarin, occasionally pausing to allow Shenna to reply. The virtual clock counted away the seconds and the minutes until, the time reached 14:02:40, when Hela announced, “Shenna is now calm, and the readings on my monitors indicate that she is ready to exit the unit. Please remain where you are until she is able to interact with you.”
The plinth sank slowly until the rim of the sleep environment was no more than ten centimetres above floor level. The humans saw an adult alien from another star system for the first time since the ascent of mankind had begun almost four million years ago. At that same moment, an adult Sha’lee saw for the first time in the history of Sha’lee space exploration, intelligent creatures on a planet orbiting a star that was not her home.
Shenna shrank back into the antigravity field and gazed at her alien rescuers. Hela had apprised her of the events leading up to her awakening, leaving little out, not even the failed attempt to take over the site by force and the AI’s own dramatic intervention. What the AI had deliberately avoided mentioning was the immense period of time that had elapsed since Shenna and her comrades had entered cold sleep.
The astronomer knew that she was at the mercy of the giants surrounding her, but Hela had assured her that their intentions were akin to what the Sha’lee would demand of themselves in similar circumstances. Shenna found the AI’s confidence in the intentions of her rescuers to be immensely reassuring. She attempted to enter the mind of one of the smaller aliens, in order to elicit a sense of ‘self’, from which she would gain knowledge of what the creature looked like, but the images were so chaotic that she ceased her probe before she could be adversely affected by it.
“Hela,” she called, “can you show me images of our rescuers, devoid of their protective garments?”
Immediately, a procession of images of all the humans present filed past on one side of the unit. As each one passed, Hela enunciated their name and sex and added their specialty, employing a mixture of Sha’lee and English. Once an image had passed out of Shenna’s field of view it faded and disappeared.
Phil Makeman
felt compelled to comment, “That was really neat! I’ll bet the moviemakers would give their eye teeth to know how it was done.” Hela instantly translated the words, to the accompaniment of a few chuckles from the gathering of humans.
Shenna turned her head to stare at Makeman. “Hela, which of the humans spoke?”
Makeman’s image returned and stood beside the Sha’lee astronomer.
Keeping a tight rein on her shield, Shenna opened a small part of her mind to Phil Makeman. Carefully, for she had no knowledge of the level of sophistication of the alien creature’s mind, Shenna projected a moving image showing him taking one step towards her.
Makeman almost lost his balance when he felt the intrusion in his mind, but he recovered instantly and moved forward one pace.
Hendriksson said curtly, “Now, Phil, Hela asked us not to approach. We all need to wait until Hela tells us it’s OK.”
With his voice filled with wonder, Makeman told the site director, “I’m only following instructions, Lars. Shenna asked me to do it.”
There was a quick interchange between Shenna and the AI and Hela announced, “Shenna is attempting to establish communication with Philip Makeman, Director. Please allow the experiment to continue.”
Makeman saw another mental image, in which he was standing beside the cryo unit. He moved forward and waited. A short series of images, more vibrant this time as if taken with a rapid-shot SLR camera, showed him holding the alien’s hand and helping her to her feet. He leaned forward and a four-fingered hand, attached to a long, spidery arm grasped his gloved hand. Again, he waited, until he felt the pressure of Sha’lee fingers on his own, and then he helped Shenna to achieve a sitting position.
The astronomer was clearly lacking in strength as a consequence of an unimaginable spell of inactivity, but nevertheless, Makeman felt that vitality was beginning to flow into her. He couldn’t prevent the thought arising unbidden into his mind that the technology which had brought Shenna to this point, must be amazing indeed. The Sha’lee elicited a vague impression of Makeman’s thought process, and felt a sense of pride in her people. Simultaneously, she felt encouraged by the manner in which this alien, named Philip Makeman had coped with mental processes completely outside of his experience.
Shenna urged Makeman to ‘lift’ and he gently took hold of both hands and helped her to reach a standing position. Once erect, differences in her anatomy were even more apparent. Her arms were proportionately longer than human arms, but the major variation was in her lower limbs, which were jointed in three places. The upper two sections were bent at the Sha’lee analogue of a human knee, but instead of an ankle joint, the limbs continued at least twenty-five centimetres below the second joint to an almost human foot.
Shenna wore a dark blue, one-piece suit of flexible material, and around her slim waist, she wore a broad white belt, held in place by means of a black, highly-polished oval clasp. On her feet, she wore simple sandals. Emblazoned on her chest Makeman saw a triangular black logo, comprising a twenty-five millimetre white disc, surrounded within each point of the triangle by three three-millimetre white dots.
Makeman regarded the Sha’lee astronomer’s face. He saw a suggestion of a nose with two nostrils, and a small mouth, framed by a curved ridge on each side, a crown of closely-cropped fur and two elf-like ears. The overall impression was vaguely human, but also vaguely simian. But Shenna’s most striking feature was a pair of the most beautiful liquid black eyes, which shone with the light of intelligence. The normally testy geophysics expert was entranced.
“Hela,” Makeman asked, “do your scanners tell you if Shenna or myself carry any infection likely to damage or kill the other?”
Mike Carter didn’t like where the question was headed. “Don’t even think about it, Phil,” he warned.
Abe Hertzog repeated the warning. “Don’t do it,” he told Makeman. “The last thing we need is for one us to spread some kind of plague that’s harmless to the Sha’lee but deadly to humans. Nor do we want the reverse to happen. There are only eighteen of them, remember.”
Makeman reverted to his usual, obstinate persona. “I hear what you say,” he told them, “but I trust Hela and the Sha’lee technology. If Hela tells me it’s OK to take off my protective gear, then I’m happy to do it. What do you think, Hela, are there any bugs either of us should worry about?”
The humans waited impatiently for the AI to report. Finally, Hela announced simultaneously in English and in Sha’lee, “I have scanned you down to molecular level, Philip Makeman, and my examination has uncovered nothing of danger to either human or Sha’lee. The reverse is true of my all Sha’lee comrades.”
Makeman was already unfastening his helmet. Two minutes later, he stood beside Shenna, clad only in flimsy cotton clothing. He shivered; the ambient temperature had risen only slightly above eight degrees Celsius since they had first entered the cold sleep area
The AI’s sensors detected Makeman’s discomfort as variations from his previous readings. “Is there something wrong, Philip Makeman?”
Makeman grinned and replied, “I’m not dressed for the cold in here, that’s all.” He shivered again.
Hela gave an almost human chuckle. “My apologies. I should have foreseen your discomfort. This condition usually afflicts the Sha’lee when they first exit their cryogenic capsule, and I have already prepared emergency clothing for Shenna. Please visit the wall dispenser and I will provide a suit for each of you.” A light glowed on a nearby wall and a small section opened below it with a sigh. Makeman left Shenna for a moment and retrieved both suits; they were identical.
“Uh, Hela,” he grunted, “they’re both the same size. Can’t you find a bigger one?”
Makeman felt a sequence of images form in his mind. He was donning one of the garments and Shenna the second. With a shrug, he pushed one foot into the suit and then the other, and as he pulled it over his arms and around his broad shoulders, he sensed the garment moulding itself to his body. Shenna followed suit, and quickly completed the operation despite her physical weakness.
Ellie Merrill gave a wolf whistle within her hazard suit. “That outfit certainly shows what you’re made of, Phil,” she commented drily.
Before Makeman could reply, Hendriksson said, “Hela?”
“I am here, Doctor Hendriksson.”
“Can you run tests on all of us so that we can get out of these hazard suits?”
“It is already done, Director. Your Sha’lee garments are waiting in the receptacle beneath the flashing light.”
Someone commented, “I could use an AI to run my house for me.”
Another voice added, “Better still, let them run the damn country.” But no one admitted which country.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
If any vessel ever belied her fine, exotic name it was the Spirit of the Caribbean. She was little more than a dirty, rust-flaked coaster, and she plied the islands and Caribbean coast from La Cieba in Honduras, through Nicaragua, Panama, Colombia and Venezuela to Port-of-Spain in Trinidad and Tobago. Her captain, Josef Montez was a big man in many ways; he stood one metre ninety-three and was heavily built, and he often made the boast that nothing was too large or too small, too important or too insignificant for his vessel to carry. The good captain was uncertain, however, into which category his present cargo might be entered.
Two weeks ago, as his vessel was unloading at the oil port of Maracaibo, he had been approached by a broad, squat European who spoke English with an almost unfathomable accent. The stranger had made him an unusual proposition. If the captain was prepared to give all eight members of his crew a month’s immediate leave, each with an extremely generous bonus, and agree to carry eight crates on a journey of unspecified duration to an unspecified destination, one million US dollars would be paid into his ‘special’ bank account.
Suspicious of the strange offer, Captain Montez had demanded, “Is the cargo drugs, because if drugs are involved, I will not risk my ship or my reputation.”
“No,” the squat man had assured him, “no drugs are involved. The cargo you will carry is part of a high-tech, secret project that cannot be allowed to fall into the wrong hands.”
“Will there be danger?”
“Not if you do exactly what is required of you. For your full cooperation, I am prepared to transfer two-hundred and fifty thousand US dollars into your Cayman Island bank account within the next thirty minutes. The remaining seven-hundred and fifty thousand will follow immediately we deliver the cargo to its proper destination.”
Montez licked his lips. The offer seemed too good to be true. In his subconscious, he had nagging doubts about its legality, but one million dollars . . . he could retire and live the high life. “I am your man, Señor,” he eventually agreed. “My vessel is at your command. You have a crew?”
The squat man laughed, and to Montez it had a sinister ring. “I have a very competent crew, Captain Montez. I am informed that you know the Caribbean like the body of your lover, and all I require you to do is captain your ship as normal. Are we agreed?” He held out a meaty hand and Montez shook it.
“The down payment, Señor?”
“Of course.” The stranger took out a mobile phone and pressed a single, preselected key. “Two-hundred and fifty thousand US dollars to account number . . .” He reeled off a series of numbers, waited a few seconds, and then asked, “Is it done?” Then he nodded, “The transfer has been successful, Captain. You are now a quarter of a million dollars richer than you were moments ago. By all means telephone the bank to check . . . in fact, I insist. I would hate you to harbour doubts about the transaction.”
Captain Montez’s emotions were in turmoil. Uppermost in his mind were thoughts of being extremely rich, but in one dark corner, amongst his celebration, the question surfaced: how did his new employer know about the Cayman Islands bank account? And how in the name of the Blessed Mother had he acquired the number? A call to his bank confirmed the successful transfer, and from that moment onwards, Captain Josef Montez was completely hooked.
