Sunrise Destiny

by Mark Terence Chapman

  “Guacamole and steak? No I don’t imagine you’d find those “in the wild” anywhere. And looking as you do, without money or credit, I guess it would be difficult to walk into a convenience store to buy beer and pretzels. So…what, you scrounged around in people’s yards for the fruit and other stuff?”

  [That is correct.]

  “But how are you able to access the Internet? How does your computer understand the communication protocols? And pardon me for saying so, but as far as I can tell you don’t have eyes, so…how do you even see what’s on the Internet to read it or look at the images?”

  “The organic network you would call our computer system, is extremely sophisticated. It was able to analyze your protocols and decipher their meanings after a time. We were able to use what we learned of human thought patterns through individual contact to interpret the meaning of what we found on the Internet.]

  Interesting. “Individual contact” with humans. Whatever that meant.

  [As for vision, we do not have discrete visual organs, as you do. Our entire skin surface is light sensitive. Any given section of skin is not as sensitive as one of your eyes; however the overall area of light-gathering surface is significantly greater. Much as a large telescope is able to gather more starlight than a small telescope and provide higher resolution images, our skin, combined with what you would call our “sixth sense” affords us much greater visual acuity than your eyes do.]

  “So you see three-hundred-sixty degrees at once?

  [Correct.]

  Wow. Talk about eyes in the back of your head! Forget trying to sneak up on these guys. It also explained the dimness of the cell. Evidently it was plenty of light for them.

  “All things considered, you did a good job on the food. I don’t imagine I’d have any idea what you eat on your planet, or where to find any of it. You do come from another planet, right? You’re not time travelers from our distant future, or interdimensional explorers, or anything ridiculous like that.”

  Ridiculous “like that.” Sure.

  [Once again, you are correct.]

  “So why are you here?”

  This was the $64,000 question. If they weren’t kidnapping women, why the hell were they here?

  [We need your females.]

  Ouch. I didn’t know whether to be relieved that I had “solved” the case and found the perpetrators, or horrified at the implications.

  I decided to dive in head first. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as it sounded. “Our females? Why our females?”

  [We need their blood.]

  Shit.

  “Their blood? Why do you need their blood? Is this a religious practice? Some sort of sacrifice? Are you interstellar vampires or something?”

  Where a moment ago I had begun to relax, now I was thoroughly worried. What had I gotten myself into, and how was I going to get out of it?

  [It appears I may have overstated the accuracy of our communications. I fail to understand the questions about religious practices and…what was the other thought? Vampires?]

  “Do you understand our concept of religion? That many people believe in one or more supreme beings that created the Earth and the universe and everything else in it?”

  [I understand that many humans believe this, yes. However, we Azarti do not ascribe to this belief.]

  Azarti. Another item for future reference.

  “Okay, that’s fine. My point is that some humans, not so much now as in the past, believed in killing an animal or another human as a ritual sacrifice to the god or gods they worshipped. I take it from your previous comment that this is not something your people do.”

  [Of course not! That is barbaric!]

  “I’m glad to hear you say that.” I relaxed fractionally. Maybe this meant I wouldn’t find nearly thirty young women somewhere nearby, splayed open with their hearts or livers cut out.

  “My other question, about vampires, refers to ancient myths about creatures, once human, that preyed on other humans by sucking the blood out of them for sustenance. In the process, they turned their victims into vampires themselves, to prey on still other victims. I take it you’re not vampires. So…what do you need the blood for?”

  I expected a quick response along the lines of needing blood samples for a galactic gene pool study or something.

  Instead, I got silence.

  “You’re not here to suck our blood, right?”

  [Not…not in the sense of ingesting it, no. However we are consuming it.]

  “Well that’s as clear as mud. I don’t get the distinction.”

  I sensed exasperation.

  [I am doing a poor job of explaining myself.]

  “Maybe you should start at the beginning. How did you get here, and why? Why do you need blood? Why only from young women? What happened to them? Are they dead?”

  [The subjects are aboard this vessel.]

  “All of them?”

  [Some.]

  Some—not all. That wasn’t encouraging. Were the rest dead or simply kept elsewhere?

  “Can I see them?”

  [Very well. Follow me.]

  He still hadn’t answered most of my questions, but apparently he was about to take me to where the girls were. That was the most important thing to me right then. Maybe it would turn out all right. I crossed my fingers. If they were in another cell, maybe I could negotiate their release, or find a way for all of us to escape.

  Karsh turned toward the far wall. The tube extruded. There was nothing new about that. What was new was that I was about to go through it. What was on the other side?

  [You will need this.] Karsh had turned back to me and stood there, arm outstretched, palm upward.

  I squinted, but in the dim light, I couldn’t make out anything in his hand. I moved closer and bent over to see better. There was something nearly transparent crumpled there. I reached for it. It was warm and rubbery and extremely thin. It had a sticky-oily feel that seemed familiar.

  Of course! The mysterious droplets! Was this, then, the source? I held it up spread before my eyes like a damp washcloth and looked closer. It had filaments running through it in a web-like pattern.

  “What is this?”

  It had a faint aroma I couldn’t quite identify. I sniffed harder and brought the thing closer. It briefly touched the tip of my nose. Instantly, it jumped out of my hand and plastered itself to my face. I couldn’t see, I couldn’t breathe.

  Adrenaline kicked in. My heartbeat raced and my pulse pounded in my ears. What kind of trap had I fallen into? I worked my mouth. Air. I needed air!

  Then it got worse, much worse. Tiny tendrils penetrated my eyes, snaked into my nostrils and ears, extended down my throat, penetrated my skin. I gagged. My eyes throbbed and burned. I was blacking out. This was it—I was about to die. I tried to rip the thing off my face, but I couldn’t find an edge to grip. It had molded itself to the contours of my face. I struggled to no avail.

  It had me and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.

  Chapter Four

  I found that I was more angry than scared. Not because I was about to take the big dirt nap, but because I’d never find out what happened to the girls. How crazy is that?

  A few more seconds and it would all be over. My legs grew numb and my knees wobbled, threatening to buckle. And then…I gasped as a rush of air flowed into my lungs. A second deep breath and strength returned to my legs.

  What the hell happened?

  I ran my fingers over my face and head, only to find that I was covered in a slick, jellylike membrane from throat to crown. It covered my mouth, nose, ears, and eyes. Yet I was breathing and I could see and hear, although with some distortion.

  “Wa thel goanon?”

  [Do not try to speak with the threl on. You must focus your thoughts. I will understand you.]

  [I said, ‘what the hell’s going on?’ What is this thing?]

  [Much better. To answer your question, the threl is an organic breathing apparatus. It extracts o
xygen from the outside environment and passes it through to your lungs. It also will protect your eyes and augment your hearing. You will need it where we are going.]

  [Why didn’t you warn me about what was going to happen?]

  [Would you have put the threl on your face had I told you what it would do?]

  [Hmm. Maybe not. Still, you almost scared me to death. Don’t do that again.]

  [Very well.] I sensed amusement. [Are you ready to go?]

  [I guess so. Lead on, MacDuff.] Now I sensed puzzlement. [It’s a literary reference. Never mind. Let’s go.]

  Karsh parted the end of the tube with his hands and began pushing himself through. As soon as his feet cleared the end, I followed. It was tough going—like trying to crawl through the neck of a balloon. My hands and clothes tended to stick to the sides of the tube. Only my head slid through with ease, undoubtedly due to the slickness of the threl. Fortunately, the tube was short and seemed to pulse to help me along. Strong arms pulled me through the other side.

  I emerged inside a swimming pool. At least, that was my first impression. I was in water, and the soft reddish glow reminded me of a pool with underwater lights. The water was warm—bathtub warm, far warmer than the water in the bay. At least I wouldn’t get chilled. It took me a moment to realize that I was breathing. Air. Underwater. So that’s what Karsh meant by “You will need it where we are going.”

  I glanced over at him, in time to see him remove his own threl. I hadn’t realized he was wearing one. Of course, I didn’t know what the hell a threl was before, either. Clearly, he didn’t need it anymore. By now it was pretty obvious that the Azarti were aquatic. The webbed fingers and toes should have told me that immediately. My only excuse was that I was somewhat distracted at the time.

  Several things clicked in my mind at once. Odd bits of data suddenly made sense: the wet footprints that Jefferson Lincoln remembered leading from the water at the dock; the mysterious dark figure that Johann Strauss witnessed coming out of the water before the attack on Janet Williams.

  The use of the extruded tube instead of a door now made sense as well, connecting a water-filled chamber and a dry one. Perhaps an airlock would have been more efficient. Still, if they rarely had a need for a dry chamber on their ship, an airlock would have been superfluous. Even their telepathy made sense in this context. Sure, dolphins and whales communicate via clicks and whistles, but how much more efficient would telepathy be for conveying complex ideas underwater?

  I took a closer look at Karsh and realized that the distortion the threl caused in air was in compensation for the density of water. I saw extremely clearly now. Karsh did indeed have a mouth previously hidden by the threl, a narrow, lipless slit lower on his face than on a human. Presumably the Azarti had to eat, so it was reassuring to discover that they didn’t absorb their nourishment through their skin. At least, I assumed that was true, otherwise what was the mouth for? Then I remembered leeches, tapeworms—and vampires—and my skin crawled.

  Karsh was not alone. There was another Azarti with him. My first thought was that it was another male. But then I noticed four slight bumps arranged vertically down the center of its abdomen, between chest and waist. Breasts? I really couldn’t be sure, but that’s what came to mind. If they were breasts, there were no nipples that I could see.

  [Welcome.] His/her mental voice was softer and somehow warmer than Karsh’s.

  [This is Allara, my daughter,] said the more familiar voice.

  [Pleased to meet you, Allara. I am Sunrise.]

  [That is a wonderful name! Sunrise is a lovely time of day.]

  Her voice grew wistful for a moment. I didn’t suppose they got to see many sunrises underwater. Then she cheered up again.

  [You have been granted a good name. How did you earn it?]

  [Earn it?] I had no idea what she was going on about.

  [Forgive my offspring,] Karsh said. [Her enthusiasm knows no bounds. Allara, go back to your duties. There will be time to socialize later.]

  More clues, and this time encouraging ones: Number one, I couldn’t imagine Karsh leading an invasion with his daughter at his side. Of course, number two, I knew absolutely nothing about Azarti customs. Perhaps invading with one’s kids at one’s side was normal and expected. On the other hand, number three, Karsh mentioned socializing later. That hardly sounded like a prelude to torture, invasion, or being eaten alive. Still, see number two.

  I watched Allara swim down the passageway. I was right in my initial assessment of Karsh’s knees. Allara’s flexed both backward and forward, giving her a legs-together up-and-down kicking motion much like a dolphin’s.

  Back to business. [You said you were going to take me to where the women are?]

  [Yes, of course. Allow me to show you some of the ship on the way.]

  Despite my concern for my well-being, and my desire to find out what had happened to the missing girls, I couldn’t wait to see more of the ship. So far I’d experienced little but my bare cell. The cylindrical passageway in which we floated was rather narrow, no more than five feet in diameter. Maybe it was all the talk of vampires and human sacrifice, but for a moment I saw myself as a red blood cell flowing down an artery.

  Our swim was short. Karsh, with his webbed hands and feet, had an easier go of it than I did. My street clothes weren’t exactly designed for swimming. The wall to our right split open to reveal a food-prep area. The cook was making some sort of fish dish, it looked like—raw, of course. It’s tough to fire up a grill underwater. What I found most fascinating was how the cook “juggled” the food in three dimensions. Some items rose in the water currents and others sank as he cut some things, added ingredients to others, and arranged everything in a serving cage, for want of a better term.

  Obviously, with the eddies caused by motion in the water, swimming with an open platter wouldn’t have been practical. Given his obvious skill, and the lack of actual cooking involved, perhaps “chef” was a better term than cook.

  Next, across the passageway, was a science lab. It was interesting to watch one of the Azarti conduct some sort of test inside a transparent tank full of air and containing a squirrel and a rabbit.

  Clearly, with the entire ship seemingly full of water, using electrical and electronic equipment would be impossible. As best I could understand the explanations, no piece of equipment, if that was even the correct term, was manufactured in a factory. Whether organic or crystalline, everything was grown in some way. I had a hard time conceptualizing an organic substance that could manipulate space/time to make interstellar flight possible, but, according to Karsh, that was indeed what they used. Of course, he could have shown me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and told me that was how they traveled between the stars. I wouldn’t have known the difference. My understanding of quantum physics rivals my ability to read Sanskrit.

  I got some quick looks at the interior of the mess hall and the control room that served as a bridge. At least one Azarti occupied each chamber. I was surprised by the size of the crew, given the tight quarters.

  On one hand, the ship was larger than I would have expected from the amount of phosphorescence I saw in the water of the bay before I was captured. On the other hand, I’d met fourteen Azarti so far and the ship hardly seemed large enough to transport them halfway across the galaxy in reasonable comfort.

  The Azarti couldn’t exactly stroll down Main Street on liberty, or hit the bars and whorehouses. They were essentially trapped within their ship. As I’d already proved, even cruising the bay underwater in the depth of night was risky for them. Did they have no sense of claustrophobia, no need to get out and stretch their legs, or was there some other explanation?

  Perhaps they could get out now and then and swim in the ocean, but even that had its risks. With the threl on, I couldn’t tell whether the water within their ship was salty or sweet. It didn’t feel abnormally acidic or alkaline to my skin, but I had no idea how sensitive their skin was to changes in pH factor. To them, differ
ences in water conditions had to be like different atmospheric conditions would be to humans.

  Lower the oxygen percentage, increase the carbon monoxide, or add a little chlorine gas and we’d be gasping in minutes. To them, perhaps a slight difference in salinity or pH had the same effect.

  Clearly, at least some of them had left their ship to snatch the girls. I had no idea how long they could survive out of water, even with a threl providing them with oxygen. Assuming the Azarti weren’t murderous psychopaths, they had to have a good reason to leave the safety of their ship.

  With any luck, I was about to find out what that reason was. With even more luck, I might survive long enough to tell someone else.

  Then it dawned on me that Scarpacci’s deadline had come and gone. I not only had to survive the Azarti, I needed a good answer for Scar as well. What had happened to Sara?

  * * * *

  Eventually we reached the medical bay. Karsh made the introductions.

  [Sunrise, this is Keldor, our healer. Keldor, this is our guest, Sunrise.] Keldor made a small knee-flex that I took to be some sort of bow. I guess it’s difficult to bow when you’re floating in water.

  I wish I could describe how he differed in appearance from Karsh; but, frankly, most of them looked alike to me. They all had roughly the same build and the same featureless faces. Other than the breast-like bumps the females had running down their torsos, there wasn’t much I could use to distinguish between one and other—except for their mental “voices,” which were as distinct as human voices. Keldor’s was rougher around the edges, somehow, than Karsh’s.

  It was Keldor who finally undertook the explanation of what was going on. [This will take a while.]

  [I’m not going anywhere.] Even if I’d had a choice, at this point I wasn’t about to leave until I got some answers to the skull-full of questions I’d accumulated. I briefly glanced around the room for a chair or stool to sit on, before it dawned on me how silly that was. I was suspended in the middle of a pool of water. What did I need a chair for?