by PJ McDermott
This was her third visit, and she still found the scale overwhelming. The door closed behind them, and they walked across a suspended pathway to reach the first of an array of interconnected platforms arranged like a three-dimensional chess board.
In every direction they looked, the walls appeared to go on for eternity. “Optical illusion caused by the curvature,” she explained. “The shape of this top section is actually a tri-axial ellipsoid. The length from end to end is just under three point two miles, the width is two point four, and the shortest distance,” she pointed up and down, “is about one and a half miles. And this is only the top level. The techs have christened it ‘The Ark.'”
They stood at the edge of a translucent, milky-white honeycomb of interconnected platforms, each of which held a cell, some the size of an Earth skyscraper, others as small as a shoe box, and everything in between. A membrane of waxy threads clung to the walls, linking the cells as far as the eye could see.
Technicians recorded everything they could find; others took samples for analysis. A raft of sensor equipment surrounded one of the largest boxes. “The scientists are hopeful this one houses the operating systems,” Hickory said. “We’ve explored only a small part of the top section, but each compartment we’ve investigated contains a unique feature. We’re speculating, but we think this place is a museum, built to preserve the most important facets of an advanced alien civilization.”
The admiral’s eyes were wide as he absorbed the scope and alienness of the structure. He nodded slowly. “Or an ark, as the techs so presciently named it. But why build such a thing, and what happened to the builders?”
Markhov joined them. “Well George, the original Ark was created to preserve life on Earth from a natural disaster. Perhaps this was built for a similar reason. I’m hoping the answers to your questions can be found in one of these cells.” He gestured vaguely behind him.
The admiral clasped his hands behind his back and jutted his chin forward. “What exactly have you found, Professor?”
“Little more than Hickory has already told you, I’m afraid.” He smiled and nodded to her. “There are some items we’ve been able to identify as works of art and others I’d guess are machines of some sort. I feel as though we should be able to switch them on but I can’t figure out how to. I don’t know if the power source is missing or if we upset things by blasting a hole in the hull.” He shrugged. “Probably the later. We’ve only cataloged five percent of what’s here and we’ve analyzed a fraction of those.”
The admiral’s top lip curled upwards. “How long until you’ve seen it all?”
“Seriously, it could take years. I’d like to figure out a way to dismantle it and take it all back to Earth. We don’t have the resources here.”
“You know you can’t go back to Earth, Markhov.”
The professor moved forward until he stood only inches from the admiral. His voice became icy cold. “You don’t need to remind me, George. I’m well aware of the consequences. Just get me some more bloody researchers! This is too valuable a find to abandon here.”
Hickory glanced from one man to the other. They glared at each other, chins jutting forward, fists clenched and faces red. What is going on with these two? Her forehead wrinkled.
Abruptly the admiral broke off and stalked away. Jess looked at Hickory, who signaled for her and Gareth to follow.
Markhov grinned inanely at the admiral’s departing back. He saw Hickory studying him and shrugged. “Don’t worry about that. It’s how we communicate these days. He’ll get over it.” He smiled at her.
“You must have known him a long time,” she said.
“George and I go back a long way.”
“Uh huh?” She encouraged him with a smile.
“Yeah. We were in the same class at the Academy.”
“Really? What did he mean that you can’t go home?”
He clicked his tongue against his teeth and said brusquely, “Sorry, that’s personal. Let’s just say I’m not welcome on Earth and leave it at that.”
But she didn’t want to leave it at that. She had an itchy feeling something wasn’t as it seemed, something that affected her. She considered reaching out to Markhov with her empathic sense. It wasn’t strictly ethical. She had only ever used this capability on an enemy, or when she sensed someone being deliberately and maliciously evasive. Neither of these circumstances applied and she would never use it on a friend or simply to satisfy her curiosity. But the itch persisted, and she reached out tentatively.
“Hey! Stop that!”
She blushed furiously and stared at her feet.
“You’re a neoteric?” He stared at her incredulously. “Don’t you know it’s wrong to read another human without permission?”
“I’m sorry. I know there’s a connection between us, and I wanted to find out what. I couldn’t help myself. I’m sorry, it won’t happen again.”
“You’re damn right it won’t. When I say it’s personal, it means I don’t want to share. Period. Especially with another neoteric. Good God!”
Hickory felt her skin tingle. In her twenty-three years, she had only met two others with talents similar to her own—one of them the Teacher. She looked up at him inquisitively.
His frown smoothed out. He glanced at her, and a grin transformed his face. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to snap. You gave me a turn. It’s been a long time since I’ve come across another like me.”
“Me too,” said Hickory. She had only made contact for an instant, but the connection had been two-way and disturbingly intimate.
He shrugged. “I guess it won’t do any harm if I tell you, but no linking of minds, okay? I’d need to get to know you a lot better before I’d consider that.” He took a deep breath and continued. “It all happened a long time ago. George and I shared a room, chased the same girls, that sort of thing. The admiral was the serious type. I was a troublemaker, a rebel, hell-bent on stretching the rules. Funnily enough, we got on really well together.”
Hickory’s thoughts whirled. Same girl…did he know my mother?
Markhov didn’t seem to notice. His memories absorbed him. “One day I went too far and found myself in trouble with the law. I would have ended up in jail, but George helped me get away, smuggled me off Earth. Years later we met up again, and he offered me a job. He’s been good to me, the old admiral. Kept my secret all these years.”
Hickory desperately wanted to ask him more about his life on Earth but didn’t want to disrupt his thoughts.
“And then I found out he married my girl…” Markhov gripped the banister so forcefully his knuckles went white. He stared into the middle of the Ark, his eyes rimmed with red.
Hickory almost couldn’t speak from the shock. The blood drained from her face, and she felt as though her knees would give way. She tugged his arm. “What…what’s your name? Your real name?”
He was still lost in his past. “Angela seemed an angel come to Earth.”
*
“Do you want to tell me what the problem is, or are you going to keep it to yourself until you burst?” Jess gazed at Hickory, her brow wrinkled with concern.
Hickory’s eyes flickered. “What do you mean?” she faltered.
“You know very well what I mean. You’ve been stomping around the camp for the last couple of days, hardly speaking to anyone except to give an order. Poor Gareth thinks he must have upset you. You’ve obviously got something on your mind. Are you going to tell me what it is or do I have to beat it out of you?”
Hickory threw her head back and let out an explosive exhalation. “Oh, God. Is it that obvious?” A flush crept across her cheeks. “It’s personal, and ridiculous. Are you sure you want to hear it?”
Jess nodded. “Spill it.”
“Okay, but you won’t believe it, I can hardly believe it myself. You know that the admiral is actually my adoptive father? And I told you what he said about my real father, Jack Manson—that he died in a car accident in New York when I was on
ly two?”
Jess also knew how devastated her friend had been when she found this out, and the lengths to which she’d gone to verify the facts. Many things had clicked into place for Hickory then—the admiral’s less than loving concern for her; the gift she’d inherited from her real father. She nodded.
“Jack Manson isn’t dead. He’s here on Prosperine.”
Jess looked at her blankly.
Hickory’s throat felt so constricted she could hardly squeeze the words out. “Professor Markhov is Jack Manson. Professor Markhov is my father.”
“No, wait.” Jess raised a hand and shook her head slowly. She looked at the ground, before raising her eyes to meet Hickory’s. “You’re telling me that your natural father is alive and that he’s here in the person of Professor Markhov? Hickory! That’s marvelous.” She jumped up and grabbed Hickory by the hands.
“It’s staggering, I don’t know how good it is.”
“Of course it’s good, you stupid girl.” Tears formed in Jess’s eyes. “I’m so pleased for you. What did he say, what did you say when you found out?”
“He didn’t say anything because I didn’t tell him. How could I?”
“Hickory, what do you mean? You have to tell him, otherwise…otherwise, oh otherwise you won’t be happy.”
“It’s more complicated than that. I have a horrible feeling the admiral may have set him up all those years ago so he could marry Mom. The professor’s already devastated knowing they did marry eventually. He doesn’t know about me. Imagine what would happen if he thought the admiral had deliberately...oh, God. It’s terrible.”
Jess placed an arm around Hickory’s shoulder. “If you don’t want to tell him, that’s your choice. But it might not be what you think. You should at least confront the admiral. See what he has to say.” She looked up into Hickory’s face and smiled. “Hickory, you have a father!”
Blue Eyes
Hickory’s head swam, and beads of sweat broke out on her forehead. Struggling from her bed, she stumbled away from the camp. After a few yards, she could hold onto her stomach no longer. She retched, and the contents spewed onto the ground. She wiped her eyes and mouth and inhaled deeply. Something she’d eaten at dinner didn’t agree with her. Perhaps she’d unknowingly swallowed a worm or a beetle.
That was the problem with her maquillage-modified digestive system. The Avanauri diet of mostly vegetables sustained her, but red meat in any quantity felt uncomfortable. It wasn’t poisonous to her in the way it affected the locals, but her stomach rebelled at the taste of it.
She decided to take a stroll to clear her head and passed the camp perimeter. Five minutes later, she heard something scurry away through the long goldengrass. Her eyes flitted here and there. The only animals they’d encountered on the island so far were small and herbivorous, but that didn’t mean there weren’t carnivores around. Probably come to drink at the pool. She searched the vicinity for tell-tale tracks, then knelt to examine a mark in the soft ground.
Her heartbeat hammered, adding to the discomfort of her nausea. A footprint? Hickory glanced around quickly, then examined the impression more closely. Five toes! These were small, like a child’s, which meant they didn’t belong to any of the researchers. And not Avanauri either, whose feet had four forward-pointing toes. Her mind raced. The footprint looked human. She remembered the Lonilki, the strange people she had met in Erlach. They were human-like in their body shape, but they had the same avian-inherited feet as all Erlachi and Avanauri peoples.
Water seeped slowly into the depression. Soon it would be obliterated, and there would be nothing to show she hadn’t been dreaming. She searched further from the waterside and discovered a faint trail of tracks leading away.
Hickory hurried back to the campsite and crammed her backpack with food rations, bottles of water, a hat, her spyglass, some rope and a box of matches. She picked up the belt holding her knife and snapped it to her waist.
“What time is it?” Jess struggled to sit up in her sleeping bag and rubbed her eyes. Abruptly she came fully awake. “Are you going somewhere? What’s the bag for?”
“Go back to sleep, Jess. It’s two in the morning. I’m going to have a look at something. I’ll be back for breakfast. I’ll tell you all about it when I return.”
“Sounds very mysterious. You sure you don’t want some company?” Jess looked at her obliquely.
She thinks I’m meeting a man. “God, no. But thanks for asking.” She gave Jess a wide grin and left the cabin.
Hickory hurried back to the pool, praying that the prints would still be visible. Prosperine’s moons were partially hidden by clouds, but there was enough light for her to pick up the trail again.
She followed the clues of the creature’s passage through dense bush and across the flat land for about a mile, frequently stopping to check the direction. Then the tracks led up a hill covered in long goldengrass, and she lost all signs of her quarry. She climbed to the top and searched the next valley through her spyglass with no result.
El Toro loomed before her. She decided to walk down the other side of the hill before turning back to camp. At the base, she spotted a heel-mark in a patch of damp turf. The print pointed to El Toro. The lower slopes of the mountain were rocky and mostly bare of plant life. It was unlikely there would be more tracks. She knew she should really turn back, but couldn’t resist the urge to persist just a little longer.
Half an hour later, she paused to take a breath. As she raised the water bottle to her mouth, she spied movement about two hundred yards ahead. Her heartbeat raced, and she scrabbled to find her eyeglass. She scoured the slope above her, desperately adjusting the focus. There! Part of a shadowy head peeped out at her from behind a rock. It ducked away, then came into view again. A hand, half a face, and some hair was enough to get excited about. The clouds cleared, and she saw the creature’s eye was large and blue, and its face and hair white.
Hickory sat and spread out her provisions. Blue Eyes, as she decided to call the hominid, had already shown itself to be timid but inquisitive. She hoped the sight of some edible fungi and dried fruits would tempt it to come closer. Then again, perhaps the hominid was carnivorous and wouldn’t be attracted to her offering.
She nibbled on a mushroom and avoided looking towards the creature’s hiding place. The indigo night sky was tinged with green on the horizon, signaling that daylight wasn’t far behind. From the little she had seen of Blue Eyes, she guessed that it must be nocturnal. The paleness of its skin and hair indicated a lack of melanin, usually caused by avoiding sunlight, which meant she didn’t have long before it would disappear.
The hominid was too far away to touch with her empathic sense. In the past, she had used her SIM to remove the blocks, patches, and barriers that had been placed in her brain when she was sixteen. This had allowed her to reach out over vast distances and even control the minds of some lesser beasts such as the Charakai. Hickory turned her focus inward and sought out her empathic receptors.
She sensed the power build within. As she closed her eyes and concentrated, electrical impulses began to swirl around her brain, speeding through her SIM and back to the nerve centers. Her head buzzed, and lights flashed in front of her eyes like a migraine, but she delved deeper until the electrical energy crackled behind her eyes and assaulted her ears and nostrils. A white burst of power surged through her, and she reached out.
The contact was hazy, but it was there. Excitement, fear, agitation, and curiosity; images of others like himself, all white, all blue-eyed, in small family groups. Blue Eyes was a young male, eager for adventure, keen to journey further and further from his clan to discover new things. A garbled picture of a Bikashi, the most fearsome and intriguing monster he had ever seen, two legged like him but much taller and with a head, ugly and malformed, unfathomable, unlike any other. Except for the one he watched now. Elongated arms and legs; dark face with flashes of purple color; light feathery down like a bird on its head; its whole body covered wi
th strange skins.
Hickory broke off the contact and wiped the perspiration from her face. She reached into her pack, pulled out the analgesics she kept handy and swallowed two. Her head pounded from the pain. How ironic that this boy should consider her in her guise as a Castilian to be the alien.
Blue Eyes’ appearance puzzled her. The indigenous people of Prosperine didn’t fall neatly into the species classification system of Earth. Avanauri were mammals, but they had characteristics of egg-layers like monotremes as well as birds and herbivorous dinosaurs. The Castilieni had a similar genetic makeup, she knew, except that primate genes were present too. Blue Eyes and his family had more pronounced simian features than either.
She wanted desperately to know more, but the sun would be up soon, and Blue Eyes would be gone. She stood slowly, placed several pieces of fruit on top of a nearby rock, then walked deliberately away and back down the mountain.
*
“You are troubled?” The Teacher glanced over his shoulder as he crouched behind a rock.
“Not really. Not unless you call your whole life being turned upside down being troubled,” Hickory muttered. It was the evening after she’d seen the primitive and they’d been waiting in the shadows for hours—too much time for her not to contemplate her personal problems. She held back her emotion with difficulty. She couldn’t honestly believe Professor Markhov was Jack Manson, her natural father. Her father was officially dead. Hickory had seen the death certificate in the central office of records with her own eyes.
To be fair, the professor hadn’t actually admitted to being her father, but the story he told about himself, the admiral, and a girl named Angela was too much of a coincidence. Previously the admiral had told her he had married her mother and adopted her after her father’s death. Had he lied? Had the records somehow been falsified?
When Markhov mentioned her mother by name, Hickory’s mind had frozen, and she’d fled. It was too much for her to take in. She’d gone through twenty years thinking her father was dead. She couldn’t just drop it casually into a conversation that she was the daughter he’d left behind. “Hi, Dad. Nice to meet you after all this time.” Evidently, he didn’t recognize her. As far as he knew, she was the admiral’s daughter.
