Decker, breathing heavily, absorbed in battle mode, raced after them until Con’s voice broke into her fugue state. “Deck, let ‘em go. This isn’t the mission right now.” She took a deep breath, nodded, and swung back towards their planned landing spot.
Within minutes, the shuttle was sailing over the downed ship they had noted from orbit. The L3 crew were close enough to see several distinctly human figures emerge from the hatch. Lindstrom pointed towards the group. “That’s our mission.”
***
Deciding it was best to initially investigate the damaged ship with a small team, Lindstrom brought with him only Lateef, Kennedy, and Decker, who was accompanied by Kay. As they got within sight of the ship, a small group of people moved towards them. Rather than uniforms, they were all dressed in sturdy, utilitarian outfits in a rainbow of colors; the effect was rather startling. Lindstrom was about to issue a friendly greeting – until he noticed the weapons pointed at them.
A short, stocky, gray-haired woman yelled, “Don’t come any closer!”
Lindstrom motioned his team to stop, while slowly advancing alone. “We mean you no harm. We’re here to—”
“Didn’t you hear her?” screamed a tall blond man, pushing to the front and boldly brandishing his weapon.
Standing behind the armed contingent, a young woman studying a small instrument caused a slight commotion by calling out, “I’m reading them as human!”
Kennedy and Decker took full advantage of the momentary distraction, slinging their particle rifles up and moving smoothly into a firing stance. “Drop your weapons,” Kennedy ordered.
The older woman, apparently recognizing Lindstrom as the one in charge, shouted to him, “It seems we’re at an impasse.”
Nils easily read the nervousness and uncertainty of the armed humans facing them. “Not really. Have your people ever shot anyone?”
His counterpart hesitated before admitting, “No.”
“They have,” Lindstrom warned, gesturing behind him, towards his Tactical team. His voice low and steady, he urged, “Please, put your weapons away. We’re here in response to your distress call. We’d like to offer our help.”
After a fraught moment, the woman said to her people, “I think we shall be safe,” and their weapons were holstered.
Lindstrom glanced behind him and nodded to Kennedy and Decker, indicating they, too, should stand down. He extended his hand. “I’m Commander Nils Lindstrom, of the Uniterrae Defense Corps.”
The woman shook it, saying, “I’m Captain Abigale Maddox.” She stared at the Lovelace crew while Lindstrom introduced them one-by-one. “You really are human – aren’t you?” She looked down at Kay. “Except for this one. This is a…fox? From ancient times?”
Lindstrom had to admire her composure as Decker answered evenly, “This is Corpsman Kayatennae. He’s a dog.”
“Ah, like in the stories of Earth. It’s good to know that some of them survived as well.” While Lindstrom was trying to parse that sentence, Maddox offered, “I’m sorry for greeting you with threats of violence. You see, we thought this was some kind of an alien trick. We never realized any other humans had escaped.”
Lateef asked, “Escaped? From what?”
“From Earth.”
Lindstrom hesitated before saying, “I’m afraid we don’t understand. We’ve recently come from Uniterrae…Earth, as you call it – but there was no need to—”
“Are you telling us Earth is livable?” A rumble of shock and agitation arose from Maddox’s people. Her face reddened as she demanded, “Then why did the Valiant go out to distant stars, if it wasn’t in search of a new home?”
“Oh.” Lindstrom exchanged a long look of befuddlement with Lateef before turning back to Maddox. “Perhaps there is somewhere we can sit and talk?”
“Yes, yes. Come to our gathering room.” Maddox gestured towards the ship’s hatch. “All of you, come aboard the Aurora.”
***
A short while later they were collected around a gleaming table in the dazzling conference room of the Aurora. The technology was beyond anything the UDC possessed and Lindstrom couldn’t help but be impressed. The holographic relay was so good that if he hadn’t known better, Nils would have sworn Captain Ricci was sitting beside him rather than simply being a projection of light.
Maddox introduced the tall blond hot-head as her first mate, Prince Croker. No one else seemed to have a formal title – though also present was the ship’s engineer, Felix Yang, as well as the dark-haired young woman who had pronounced them human, Sanaa Jallow, who appeared to specialize in matters scientific.
Croker evidently fancied himself a ladies’ man and had already managed to annoy Lateef and Brodie with his oily attempts at charm, issuing boorish comments on Lateef’s “bedroom eyes” and Brodie’s purple hair. With Decker he stumbled even more badly. When Croker archly apologized for scaring her, she’d coolly retorted that her only fear had been possibly needing to kill them all. Though Lindstrom had directed a scowl at the errant lieutenant for that response, privately, he didn’t blame her.
Once general pleasantries and basic information had been exchanged, Ricci got down to business. “Can you explain for us, your exact relationship with the crew of the Valiant?”
“We are all Children of the Valiant,” Maddox responded. “Some of us, are people from the Valiant….” indicating herself and Yang. “While others, are those who came after,” she continued, pointing at Croker and Jallow. “Our descendants.”
Lateef asked, “Do you actually remember being on the Valiant?”
Yang brushed his straight, graying hair out of his eyes, stating, “No, no one remembers the before times – except the Lignatians.”
“Who are?” Ricci prodded.
“The all-knowing givers,” Maddox explained. “They rescued the people of the Valiant in our time of need, brought us to Jileesa, and imparted the ways of our distant ancestors. Now they give us the means to find a new home.” Maddox waved a hand around. “This ship and all you see.”
“I don’t know how to tell you this,” Lateef said, “but everyone on the Valiant died. Their bodies were brought back to Uniter— umm, Earth, that is.” Aqila paused and glanced at her hand-held computer. “You and Yang somehow share the name and general appearance of two of the people who died – but they are dead. And have been so for hundreds of years.”
Slamming her hands on the table, Maddox insisted, “That’s impossible! You are mistaken.”
“I was there…on the Valiant. I saw the dead.” Lateef hesitated before adding, “I even worked on the team that helped to ID the remains.” Slowly shaking her head, she finished, “There is no mistake.”
“Perhaps we can table this mystery for now and attend to more pressing matters,” Ricci broke in. “What are you doing here on Tolu? Is it a candidate for this ‘new home’ of yours?”
Maddox stammered, “Well…not exactly. You see, we were returning from the planet the Lignatians had designated for us as New Earth. It proved…unsuitable.” She described the world that would have taken years of back-breaking work to terraform and then explained that they had scanned Tolu in passing and it seemed like a much better option.
“But there’s already an indigenous civilization here,” Decker said. “Did you miss those signs?”
Jallow said, “Yes, in part. Our initial scans detected only the uncloaked inhabitants, so Tolu’s population seemed extremely…sparse.”
Lindstrom turned to stare at Maddox. “However sparse it might be, an indigenous civilization should have precluded any thoughts of colonizing this moon. That was most definitely an element of the Valiant’s mission statement. Did that understanding erode over time?”
“Not really.” Maddox bit her lip and cast her eyes slightly downward; her team mirrored her guilty expression. “It’s just that we…we thought it couldn’t hurt – to take a look around.”
Ricci expelled an exasperated sigh and massaged his forehead. “It did hurt
, though. Your message mentioned an attack?”
“Yes, when we attempted to land on Tolu, our ship was attacked by fearsome beasts, which the natives call peerazu.” She gestured at Croker. “Understandably, Prince – our pilot – lost control and we crashed.”
“The white winged-monsters?” Kennedy confirmed. “They attacked us, too. Three of them.”
“How were you able to land!?” Yang asked.
With a tiny shrug, Decker answered, “We fought them off.”
“They cannot have been the same thing,” Croker announced. Leaning back in his chair with his hands clasped behind his head, he expounded, “No one could fight three peerazu. Especially not in so small a ship as yours.”
As Decker turned towards Croker, Lindstrom prepared for her response with an equal mix of alarm and anticipation. He was never to learn what she intended to say, since Kennedy broke in, “Croker – you couldn’t be more wrong. Deck is one of the best battle pilots in the UDC. She not only could fight them off – she did it rather handily.”
“Ah…this I did not know,” Croker said. He grinned at Decker with arched eyebrows. “We pilots should get together and exchange….” He paused and leaned closer to her, huskily continuing, “…tales of our exploits.”
“Yeah,” Decker drawled, “let’s schedule that for the day after hel—”
“The day after we get you all home,” Ricci interrupted. He aimed a warning glance at his daughter, adding, “Knowing her as well as I do, that’s what Lieutenant Decker was about to say.”
“I see you share my appreciation for beautiful women, eh, Captain?” Croker asked Ricci.
From the look on Matt’s face, Nils was certain they were about learn if holograms could burst into flames.
Through gritted teeth, Ricci finally replied, “What I share with you, I’m sure, is a keen desire to return to the business at hand.” He looked at Maddox. “How is it that you know that the natives call these things peerazu? You’ve made contact?”
“Yes, with two of the communities – neither very friendly, I’m afraid. The people of the nearby hidden city, Maykah, are known as the Maykure; they blame us for attracting peerazu to this region. But at least they didn’t attack us. Unlike the people of the valley, who the Maykure tell us are called the Featay.”
Lindstrom asked, “How are you able to communicate with the Maykure?”
Maddox pointed to a metal bar clipped to her shoulder. “We have the ‘Silver Tongues’ that the Lignatians provided us. They facilitate communication by translating alien speech – after a fashion.”
“That’s amazing,” Brodie exclaimed. “How do they work? Do they use translation algorithms or speech pattern analyzers? Oh, I bet it’s a combination of the two. Right?”
After Maddox glanced at Jallow, the scientist said, “They are simple to use and require no in-depth knowledge in order to—”
“You don’t actually know – do you?” Lateef asked. Jallow sheepishly admitted that was true.
“These Featay people, they attacked your ship after it crashed?” Kennedy asked.
“No, they attacked the scouting party I sent out. Our people escaped unharmed – but just barely,” Maddox explained. “According to the Maykure, the Featay are beyond reason.”
Maddox went on to give the sad history of Tolu as gleaned from the Maykure. Their world had faced a disastrous gamma ray burst hundreds of years before. To save their civilization, they had retreated under cover; the Maykure and Featay to domed cities and the Intabet deep inside the mountains. After the disaster passed, word came from the Intabet that the once rare and peaceful peerazu had turned savage as a result of the gamma ray exposure. The Maykure and Featay had no choice but to remain in their cities, hiding from the expanding population of peerazu with cloaking technology that the Intabet had provided.
“What happened to the Featay?” Ricci asked.
“They were struck by a disease which caused some kind of madness, turning them feral and even cannibalistic. The Maykure were forced to cut off all contact from them. Since then, all three civilizations have lived asunder.” Maddox looked towards Ricci and Lindstrom. “The Maykure insist on seeing us gone. They claim the longer we stay, the greater the possibility of attracting additional peerazu and exposing their city to notice. So far, we’ve been unable to enact repairs on the Aurora. That’s why we called for help.”
Ricci waved a hand at Avery, saying, “One of our best engineers is on Tolu; he can take a look at the damage.”
“Thank you.” Yang nodded at Avery. “We appreciate any assistance you can offer.”
Leaning forward, Maddox slid her clasped hands across the transparent table. “An even more pressing concern is our missing people. The scouting party which was scattered by the Featay became stranded on the other side of a chasm by quake activity. They are trapped in their present location due to peerazu sightings and fear of additional Featay attacks.” She sat up straight, continuing, “Since the Maykure are so anxious to see the back of us, we thought they might help us; we told them we will not leave until the rest of our crew returns.”
“What did they say?” Kennedy asked.
“That they don’t go into the wilderness. They rarely leave their city surroundings if they can help it. They advise giving our missing crew up for dead, saying that if the peerazu don’t get them, the Featay will.”
“What charming people,” Lindstrom observed.
Decker mused, “We could take the shuttle over the chasm to get them. But that would probably draw the attention—”
“—of more peerazu,” Maddox said. “Most certainly it would. We have small crafts ourselves, but we’ve promised the Maykure to refrain from employing them. We haven’t yet found another safe means of getting to them.”
Ricci said, “I’ll leave that matter in Commander Kennedy’s capable hands. I’m sure he can find a way.”
After Con agreed that the Tactical team would dive into the rescue efforts, Lateef and Uddin stated their intention to examine the body of the peerazu Decker had killed. They wanted to see if a weakness could be identified; Jallow offered them the use of her laboratory for that endeavor and the meeting adjourned.
Chapter 5
Secret Destinations
“But also all journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.” Martin Buber, Hasidism and Modern Man
As soon as possible, Ricci scheduled a private conference with the senior officers of the landing party. Lindstrom, Lateef, and Uddin reported in from the shuttle. Lindstrom first apologized for Kennedy’s absence, explaining that he and Decker were still assessing the rescue operation, before relaying the rest of the team’s whereabouts. Avery was already at work with Yang, while Brodie, Kapoor, and Quan had gone out to retrieve the peerazu corpse – with some muscular help and an anti-gravity sled from the Aurora.
From his office, Ricci addressed the holographic figures of his crew. “Okay, you met these people in person – do you have any idea what’s going on? Where they really came from?”
“I don’t think they’re lying,” Lateef responded.
Lindstrom exclaimed, “What? You were the one demonstrating why they cannot possibly be who they claim to be.”
“I meant that they seem to sincerely believe they were on the Valiant – not that it was true.”
Uddin suggested, “Could they somehow be clones of the Valiant crew?”
Aqila said, “I was wondering the same thing – it’s the simplest explanation.” She shook her head, adding, “But if that’s the case, it raises so many more questions. Even if we assume that these…Lignatian aliens are the ones who did the cloning – when and how did they get the genetic starting material? And more importantly, why clone humans in the first place?”
“Scientific curiosity? Slave labor? Weird hobby?” Lindstrom supplied.
Ignoring his first officer’s sardonic explanations, Ricci said, “Well, there’s only one way to find out – ask them. Directly. And I think
that’s a conversation best had in person.”
Lateef replied, “There’s a problem with that plan, sir. As far as we can tell, Maddox’s people don’t know the precise coordinates of Jileesa themselves. When I asked her, she said such knowledge was unnecessary since it was pre-programmed into the Nav-unit. We’d have to find a way to extract it from that.”
“Such an attempt is going to go over…rather poorly, in my opinion,” Lindstrom countered. “I don’t see Maddox reacting well to any suggestion that we’re checking up on them.” He looked at Ricci. “I think it best if that request come from you. Captain to captain, as it were.”
“I whole-heartedly agree with your assessment, Commander, so I think it best if we find the planet without their assistance,” Ricci answered. “I anticipated this difficulty and already put Ramsey to work figuring out a way to triangulate the location of Jileesa from the original message. She seems to think she’ll have an answer soon so—”
Ricci was interrupted by a hail from Brodie to Lateef telling her that they had portions of the peerazu in Jallow’s lab. After securing his permission, Lateef and Uddin hurried off to start the analysis, leaving Lindstrom and Ricci alone.
“What I was going to say,” Ricci continued, “is that if Jileesa turns out to be within a few day’s journey, I’d like to head there immediately. I don’t want to risk sending down another shuttle – so why have the Lovelace hanging around like an over-sized ornament when we could be doing something useful instead?”
“That is an eminently reasonable position, Captain.”
“Then you’re comfortable being alone here for up to a week?”
“I think we can handle rounding up some wayward humans and cutting up a monstrous bird in Lovelace’s absence. I have to admit, the Aurora is outfitted rather splendidly and should supply anything not to be found on the shuttle.”
The Risks of Dead Reckoning Page 5
