by Doug Goodman
“I’m okay,” she called back.
Tiny strands like thin tentacles reached for her. On a whim, she gave them her gloved hand. The mass reached around her glove, then jerked away.
“Why do I bother?” Cole grumbled.
She looked down at Cole and the rest of her crew. “Stop. I’m going to try something. Don’t be afraid. Just…hold on a second.”
Cole remained on his perch halfway up the ladder.
Emily removed her helmet and inhaled deeply.
“No, not that!” her husband cried out.
Anna checked her bio readings. “No, it’s okay. We’ve been so excited we didn’t notice that the readings are fine here. The air is breathable.”
“How does it know what air we breathe?”
“It must have analyzed us when we first came in,” Mathieu said while removing his helmet.
While C.C. and Anna removed their helmets, the tentacles twisted and turned, like the ends of a sea anemone waving in the ocean waters. Emily twisted the cuff link to her glove and pulled it off. She held out her hand to the mass of tentacles while Cole cringed. The tentacles wrapped around her fingers, and then the mass extended over her hand.
11
Anger and pain rushed over her. A lonely, monstrous voice moaned in her head. She saw darkness, like living inside a giant sensory deprivation tank. After a moment, the moaning stopped, like something in the deprivation tank noticed her, and that notice made it stop its moaning long enough to try to understand the strange new creature in the tank.
“You are Renslot,” appeared in letters in front of her.
While the moaning had stopped, Emily could still feel the rage and pain.
“I am Emily Musgrove, Commander…”
“Field Commander.”
“Yes. My crew came to 51 Golgotha on an archaeological mission to seek out an alien civilization.”
“And colonize,” appeared in front of her.
“No! Well, maybe.”
More letters. “I am a colonizer, too.”
“Where are you from?”
A star chart appeared in front of her. A blinking green light showed 51 Golgotha. A blinking red light showed Renslot’s home planet. It had a ring around it.
“That’s far away.”
There was a pause. Then the letters appeared. “The Kroern are space explorers and colonists.”
“Your pilot told me.” And as she spoke, she knew it to be true. The alien she met outside had been Renslot’s pilot.
“Where am I? What am I seeing?”
“You are in my mind. This room is a representation of my mind, a construct to help bridge between pilot and Rentok.”
“Why don’t you talk to me?”
“I lack the vocal cords. I do not know what my voice would sound like. The pilots decided this would be a good way to communicate, though English is a much more cumbersome language.”
“You are in pain. I can feel it. How can I help?”
“Just by being here, you are helping. But I need rest, and I need more of you.”
“More of me?”
“More…contact…with you. My body was genetically engineered to deny me the ability to replicate and repair without a host. Without pilot contact. Your DNA will help fix my DNA. Your crew is hurting me.”
“What? We are peace-seekers by nature.”
“Then why are they stabbing at me?”
“They are probably scared for me. Return me to them, and I will find out.”
“I have lost one pilot. I will not lose another. You are marked by Rezzik. That makes you mine.”
Emily concentrated. She tried to return from the bridge. Renslot refused to let her go. She shook her head. “I must talk to my friends. I need to tell them what is happening and what the next steps are before I can help you. Please, Renslot. I want to help you, but I need to do this first.”
The darkness pulled over her eyes, and she realized her eyes had never been closed. The darkness was the mass of tentacles rolling over her head.
As the light returned, she found herself surrounded by her crew. They had taken tools from their belts and were stabbing at the tentacles and the flesh.
“Are you okay, baby?” Cole asked, hugging her tightly. “We’ve got to get out of here. That thing was all over your head.”
“Stop, baby. Everyone, I’m fine. I think it was supplying me with air. My eyes were open. Renslot got scared when you started attacking him. Funny to think of something so big frightened by what is, by comparison, so small.”
“Who is Renslot?”
“All of this is Renslot. This, what’d you call it, baby? Kaiju? His name is Renslot. He’s in pain, mostly because I shot him with our Ascent Vehicle. I wish I hadn’t done that now.”
“He would’ve killed us,” Cole said.
Emily pursed her lips. She wanted to say something, but they wouldn’t understand.
“To heal, Renslot needs more contact with my skin,” she said. “It helps him to repair his damage, and since I’m the one who hurt him, I’m going to do it.”
“More…skin?” Cole asked.
“Yes. I need everybody except my husband out of here.”
“Now,” she reiterated when they hadn’t moved.
C.C., Mathieu, and Anna climbed down the ladder.
“I don’t understand any of this,” Cole said.
“I don’t, either, and that makes me a little scared. We train to adapt, though, right? And part of adapting to the situation is making alliances to get us home. This has to be done.” She kissed him. As she did, she could sense something from the Rentok. Was it jealousy? She couldn’t be sure.
With the others downstairs, she climbed out of her AXES suit, then completely disrobed.
Cole said, “This feels weird.”
“You’re not the one standing completely naked inside an alien monster’s body. Believe me, this is a weird that hasn’t been invented yet.”
“You should watch more anime.”
She slapped him teasingly on the cheek. “Bad.”
She sat back down in the chair and held her hands out to her sides.
“Wish me luck.”
“How do I contact you?”
“I’m not real sure, but Renslot will keep an eye on you.”
She could feel the warm tentacles move over the back of her hands, and then up her arms. A thought suddenly dawned on her. She tapped two circles on the floor. They slid open, and two more masses of purple flesh reached for her feet. As they wrapped around her, she felt synapses exploding with connection. Somehow they were breaching her skin and fusing with her nerves. They were exploring her whole nervous system from the inside out. She leaned back. The tentacles were up past her thighs. They were moving quickly up her chest.
“If you want this to stop, just say so,” Cole said.
She shook her head.
The giant mass ran over the back of her head. The world went dark, and it stayed that way for a long time. She floated in a pool of black ink, with blue ripples that stretched into the horizon.
“Relax” appeared above her head. The letter seemed made of fireflies.
She could feel the Rentok feeding off her DNA. She was sure it was purely symbolic, or most likely hyperbole, but in that moment she felt closer to the Rentok than she’d felt to anyone in her life.
She saw her mother. Not the body and shape of her mother the way she remembered her, but the way she remembered her mother from the womb. Everything was dark and pink, and she was an extension of her mother. Her mother’s blood and nutrients were passing to her. She moved her fat little fingers and kicked in the womb.
“How is this happening?”
“You are unlocking memories you’d long forgotten. This is a byproduct of our bonding. You can stay here as long as you want while I repair us.”
“I’m not damaged.”
“So you say.”
“Tell me about the other Rentok I saw.”
“There are
at least three of us who survived. There may be more, but we have not been able to reconnect to them. One was captured by the Jedik. The Jedik call him the electric-eyed raven, K’t’chimigalpa-kiritikikikee k’tang. The other has no Jedik name, but they call him Zree because he is so disruptive. Zree has always been temperamental, but now he is in more pain and anger than I.”
“You don’t seem angry.”
“I am shielding my pilot from my anger because my emotions are transmittable. Besides, I am feeling better now. You are repairing me.”
“Renslot, I want to feel your pain and anger.”
“You are too new. Protocols protect you.”
“Well, I’m the pilot, aren’t I? So disable those protocols.”
Renslot did not respond. Within moments, though, she received what she’d been asking for. The rage was powerful and uncontrolled. Unmeasurable by human standards. Her body flexed in the seat as each wave of rage rippled over her.
She lost track of time in the rage. She lost all sense of the outside world. The anger was deep. It wasn’t just anger at the events of its life, it was anger at being born. She pitied the state of the creature, and her pity angered it even more. So she stopped pitying the creature and yelled with it, deep inside its brain.
“Snowman Mountain,” a voice said.
“What was that?” She kicked in the womb.
The words came again, stronger. Emily kicked again. “How much time has passed, Renslot?”
“Two hours.”
“I need to wake.”
“Please don’t.”
“I will come back.”
The mass moved over her face, and she was back in the cockpit, completely naked with her husband, who wore a mask of alarm on his face.
“What’s happening? I heard you calling me.” She pecked him on the lips. “Snowman Mountain. That’s perfect.”
“The Jedik-ikik are approaching.”
“Do you have the book?”
“Yes?”
“And the opening dialogue?”
“Memorized like my wedding day.”
“Then we have everything we need. Let’s go meet them.”
Chapter 7: Those Who Take
1
The rest of the crew were already in the access room at Renslot’s foot. As Cole and Emily descended, this time strapped in so they weren’t flung around pell-mell, Emily said, “Renslot is an amazing biological entity. Anna is going to flip out when she gets the chance to study him.”
“He’s an alien species.”
“It’s not just that, dear. He’s a biomechanical entity. For instance, we’re essentially traveling down a kind of an esophageal tract. We are moved up and down it by the tract. There is a sphincter above and below us. The Kroern must have surgically built a door in the tract that allows us to travel up and down the creature’s body.”
“Them. You mean it allows them to travel up and down the creature’s body.”
“Well, since we’re the ones doing it, it becomes us, right?”
“Yes, but I don’t like the way you say ‘us.’ You sound like you’re including these monsters in the same group as your crew.”
She reached for his hand. “Sorry, baby. Guess I’m getting carried away.”
The door spiraled open.
“How far away are they?” Emily asked.
“They’re already outside,” C.C. said.
“That is less than ideal.”
“They might think we are the Kroern. There is no guarantee that the Jedik-ikik and the Kroern have ever actually met except through these Rentok.”
“That was our train of thought, too,” Anna said.
“We need to communicate first that we are not Kroern but people from Earth, and then that we are here in peace,” C.C. said.
Emily thought about it for a second. “First that we are not Kroern, but second that we are here to study and learn from the Jedik-ikik.”
“Here to cooperate with the Jedik-ikik,” Cole suggested.
“Good. Here to cooperate with the Jedik-ikik.” She donned her helmet like everyone else, then said, “Renslot, please open the door.”
Light flooded the access room as the door slid open.
Emily stepped out of the foot first, then waited for the others to stand at her side. Two hundred Jedik-ikik warriors surrounded the astronauts. They carried blunt spears and wore capes and jewelry, but nothing else.
A larger Jedik-ikik stepped forward. He was wider than the others, and his mandibles were like oddly-places bull’s horns, they were so big. He studied the humans from behind his compound eyes.
Cole stepped forward. He said in the Jedik-ikik language, “Mighty Jedik-ikik, we are not the Kroern pilots of the Rentok behind us. My name is Cole-ikik. We are from the planet Earth, and we happened upon these creatures. We are here to explore this world and learn from its people, and to cooperate with its people.”
The Jedik-ikik chittered their mandibles, especially the leader. He barked something at Cole angrily. “Krktlkknk.”
Cole spoke slowly, saying, “Please slow down. I am still learning your language. We are having a hard time understanding.”
“Trtz?” The leader said.
“Trtz,” C.C. said. “Does he understand us?”
“The language is off somehow. There are fewer vowels than we thought. Give me some time with this. We weren’t preparing for the aliens to come back to life and talk.”
The Jedik-ikik pointed their blunt-edged spears at the astronauts.
“Slee! Slee!” Cole shouted. Wait! Wait!
“We don’t have time for this,” Mathieu said. “Here, try this.” He bolted the translating collar around Emily’s neck.
Emily repeated Cole’s opening lines, though slightly modified: “Mighty Jedik-ikik, we are not the Kroern pilots of the Rentok behind us. My name is Emily-ikik. We are from the planet Earth, and we happened upon these creatures. We are here to explore this world and learn from its people, and to cooperate with its people.”
The leader took a step back. “You understand us?” Because of the translator, she understood him perfectly. A quick glance to her fellow astronauts showed that they were not following the conversation as well as her.
“Yes,” Emily said.
“I am formally known as T’tlit-klipfritchitipi-t’tltritz. I am a leader of these troops. How do we know you are not Kroern?”
“We come from over their mountains. Well, graves, I guess. We thought they were mountains, but they were really burial mounds. They tried to destroy our facilities, too.”
T’tlit eyed the astronauts suspiciously. “You come from a far-star?”
“Yes. We come from a planet we call Earth.”
“Only two types of people live here: conquerors and the conquered. Which are you?”
“Neither.”
His mandibles twitched with frustration. The Jedik-ikik warrior didn’t like this answer. In his world, it didn’t make sense. He tried again.
“The land is conquered, the animals and plants are conquered. The zree Kroern are conquerors. Which are you?”
Cole, who was quickly picking up on the language changes, stepped forward and said the Jedik-ikik word for “friend.”
The leader looked at Cole sharply. “You are conquerors from another planet. Seize them.”
Several Jedik-ikik warriors had snuck up behind them while Emily talked to the leader. They knocked C.C. and Mathieu down. When Emily cried out, the mountain began to rumble.
“Cole, what’d you say?” C.C. snapped as he fell down.
“Conquerors! Friends of the invaders!” the leader shouted. They quickly cuffed the astronauts in stick-braces.
“Wait,” Emily said. “You misunderstand us. We are not Kroern. The Kroern are all dead.”
“All dead? How do you know?” T’tlit’s second asked.
“He told us,” Emily said, nodding to the dead Kroern pilot.
“The Kroern are liars. How do we know they did not send
a message to more Kroern? I will tell you how. We do not know. And we do not know if you are friends of those zree Kroern.”
“What if we can prove they are all dead?” Cole asked in Jedik-ikik.
“I would like to see that.”
Cole turned to C.C. and said, “Show him the satellite photos, the ones showing the burial mounds with the metal skeletons.”
“I would need my hands,” C.C. said. Emily repeated this for the leader. The leader nodded, and C.C.’s cuffs were removed.
“He has a machine that shows pictures,” Cole said in Jedik-ikik. “Those pictures will show the skeletons of the Kroern, and it will show that only the bones of their Rentok remain.”
“They are called Rentok riders,” T’tlit said. In his language, he used the phrase Rentok Reitritz.
Cole said. “Reitritz. I thought that meant another word in my language. Raider. It means people who sneak into a place and kill off the people there.”
T’tlit sneered. “I think in my language, rider and raider means the same. Nobody rides who does not raid.”
“Here,” C.C. said. “Can you explain Emily or Cole? I think my language skills are a little below what’s needed here.”
The geo maps appeared as a 3D hologram of the mountains, with the metal skeletons inside. The Jedik-ikik warriors shouted when the image materialized. They had never seen 3D imaging before.
T’tlit reached for the image. When his hand moved through it, he reached back in shock. “How did you do that?”
“You come from a scientific society,” Emily said, and the collar translated. “You can create automatons and projectiles and great structures. Maybe one day we will teach you how to create images like this. We used programs, similar to the ones you have in your automatons, but much more complicated.”
The Jedik-ikik’s mouth was an open rictus behind his mandibles. The nearest warriors cried out in dismay, as if a stage magician had just levitated the astronauts off the ground.
“This image shows geological structures, but it would also show living creatures under the mountain,” Emily said. “Since there are no living creatures shown, the only conclusion is that all Kroern are dead, as the pilot over there said.”
T’tlit walked away from the astronauts to confer with other Jedik-ikik. The crewmembers assumed this was a council of his highest-ranking officers.
