“Excellent idea,” Weldon said, pointing to either side of them.
The exterior walls were moving now, too, shrinking the opening to a third its original width and two thirds its original height.
As a final touch, once the new exterior seemed to be settled, a doorlike covering swung into place, too. Unlike the other surfaces of the Temple—exteriors layered and textured, interiors flat and smooth—the door bore markings and irregular bumps. “Bas relief,” Sasha said to Harley.
Who said, loud enough for Xavier and the others to hear, “But carved by a crazy person.”
“Carved by an alien,” Jones said.
“What’s the difference?”
“How long do we wait before we go in?” Sasha Blaine had somehow managed to pick up the baby and was sitting next to Harley, rocking. It had been fifteen minutes, by Xavier’s best guess, since the shiftings and movements inside the Temple had stopped.
“Jones, Nayar, and Weldon are walking the perimeter,” Harley told her. “Let’s wait until they get back. Besides,” he said, indicating the new door, “we don’t have a key.”
Hearing this, Xavier rose from the ground and marched directly toward the door. Harley called, “Hey, friend, what’s the rush?” But Xavier was simply tired of waiting.
He was also quite curious.
He stopped in front of the door, which was still wider and taller than any door ought to be. The various protuberances made it look odd, too.
And there was no obvious handle.
Well, what the hell. He simply pushed on the right side, hoping the Temple had thought to create alien door hinges on the left.
Nothing. He only established that the door was solidly in place.
So he pushed on the left side, reasoning that alien beings might not share his particular preferences regarding right and left. Even some humans didn’t.
Nothing again.
“Xavier, what the hell are you doing over there?” Gabriel Jones and Shane Weldon had returned from their scout around the Temple.
Xavier was tired of the timidity.
“Trying to get the door open!”
More out of frustration than logic, he simply leaned forward and pressed in the middle.
The door divided itself in two from top to bottom, swinging open to reveal a ground floor that was smaller, but now internally lit.
“Xavier,” Jones said, still a good distance behind him, “before you enter...be sure there isn’t something nasty waiting for you.”
“Yes, Momma,” he said, but under his breath. Did the man think he was an idiot? Xavier stood in the opening and looked at the interior...which was now shorter, smaller, more normal looking.
There were lighted tubes all around the room, where the walls met the ceiling. They looked a little funny: too bright. When Xavier took a step inside, he noticed that the dust and who-knew-what-kind-of-fragments on his shirt gave off a glow, which reminded him of the black lights used in bars. His teeth were probably blinding.
And along the right side, rising to an obvious opening in the ceiling, was a long, gently sloped ramp.
“It’s okay,” he said.
As Sasha carried the baby in, right behind Harley in his wheelchair, she said, “So the aliens use French doors. Didn’t see that coming.”
“Yeah,” Harley said, “maybe Architects is the wrong name for them. Maybe we should call them the Interior Designers.”
Once the whole council, and a dozen HB bystanders, had reentered the Temple, human bravery had reestablished itself. Weldon and Nayar were the first to charge the ramp, disappearing through the opening for several moments.
Weldon returned with the breathless news, “There’s a second floor up here.”
Then Nayar returned with more interesting word. “There are some structures or facilities or machines on the second floor, and many more on the one above it.”
Sasha said, “It’s as if the Temple was in caretaker status.”
And Harley said, “You mean, waiting for us?”
“This habitat was. It’s got the right air, gravity close enough, temperatures—”
“Look at the light, both interior and exterior. And while the proportions of the building are still a little off, it’s pretty close to human standard, don’t you think?”
Other HBs slid past them, going up the ramp and likely higher.
Sasha and Harley noticed that Xavier wasn’t moving. “Don’t you want to see what’s up there?” Sasha asked.
“Time enough when the crowd dies down,” he said.
Xavier emerged from the Temple to find that the crowd had grown even larger. It was as if every one of the HBs wanted to climb to the top of the Temple now.
To Xavier, it just meant that it took him longer to edge his way through the throng, bumping up against a number of women with hair still damp from a dunking in Lake Ganges.
What the hell, he still had one more trash trip to make...just in time to get ready for the afternoon feed, whatever it was.
He gathered a final armful of greens and set off toward Lake Ganges and the dump, following his newly established path through the nearest trees.
He had gone only a few dozen meters when he heard laughter, and someone singing a song. Emerging into a clearing, he found Camilla dancing around, eyes closed, blissfully unaware of his presence.
She was the singer, something in Portuguese, he assumed. It sounded like a nursery rhyme, something about a “rato.” Rat?
“Hey, hi,” he said, not having much experience chatting with nine-year-olds even in normal circumstances. And this one, he knew, had been brought back to life by the alien Architects.
She ignored him. It was if she couldn’t even hear him.
Fine. He just kept going. Mindful of Camilla’s strange nature, Xavier did glance over his shoulder a couple of times. The first time showed Camilla still in mid-dance.
The second time she was gone.
Xavier dropped the final load of trash and was on his way back when he heard a scream. For a moment, he thought it might be Camilla, but it came from the direction of Lake Ganges.
It was only a few dozen meters. He sprinted through the rocks and field and emerged at the pond to find one of the Bangalores, a lady who was completely naked, pulling another woman, this one clothed but limp, out of the water.
He helped her get the limp woman completely out of the pond. She was young, another Bangalore, and not moving. Water flowed out of her nostrils.
The naked woman kept telling him something. He had no idea what she was saying, though he could make a good guess.
Xavier had no medical training except for what he’d seen on television. That was enough to give him the basic moves of CPR—pinching the nostrils, opening and clearing her mouth, breathing in.
He didn’t have time to think, which was good, because she tasted like cold and mud and something worse. He repeated the breathing several times, then did chest compressions.
At that moment the naked woman edged him aside and took over. It was quickly apparent that she was better at this than he was.
But neither seemed to be successful. After what seemed like half an hour—likely ten minutes—of pounding, breathing, compressing, both of them sat back, exhausted.
The limp woman was dead.
The naked woman had tears in her eyes. She spread her hands in a universal gesture of futility.
Only then did she stand up and start searching for her clothing.
Xavier realized that he needed help—if only to be able to communicate with the naked woman. He stood. “Wait here!” he said, adding a gesture he hoped would help her understand.
Then he ran for the Temple.
“Look at this,” Gabriel Jones said. He and Shane Weldon knelt over the body. Vikram Nayar was talking to the formerly naked woman.
Xavier could only stand there wishing he were somewhere else. He was still panting from the run to and from the Temple. “Xavier, come here,” Jones said.
&
nbsp; Now he really got nervous. Had he somehow hurt the limp woman? He was even more unhappy when, with Weldon moving to keep anyone else from seeing, Jones turned the dead woman’s head and pushed back her lank hair. “Look at this,” he said, so quietly that Xavier barely heard him.
There was a bloody, bruised lump on the side of the woman’s head, just above and behind her left ear. “Did you see that?”
“No,” Xavier said, feeling sick. “She was already in the water when I got here.” He nodded toward the formerly naked woman. “She had already pulled her out. We tried CPR....”
Jones and Weldon glanced at each other. Some kind of silent message passed between them. “It would have been easy to miss,” Jones said—
“Oh my God!” Sasha Blaine said. Xavier had not seen her arrival. Now she was right behind him, baby in her arms. “Oh my God, oh my God!” She was flat-out hysterical, something that surprised Xavier.
Weldon, too. He grabbed Sasha and turned her away from the body. “Settle down, Sasha. You must have seen a dead body before.”
“Goddammit, Shane, that’s not the problem. It’s just—” Xavier realized that Sasha wasn’t freaked out by death...she was angry. “It’s the mother, Shane.” She indicated the baby in her arms. “The baby’s mother!”
Gabriel Jones literally sat back on the dirt. “Holy fucking shit.”
Weldon wasn’t convinced. “Are you sure?”
“I actually spent time with her,” Sasha said. “Her name was Chitran. She was twenty-three. Her husband worked at BCC, okay?”
“Settle down,” Jones said. He was on his feet now, but still in quiet mode. “Did she have any obvious enemies? Was she fighting with anyone that you saw?”
“No. Why?”
Jones showed Sasha the bruise. “I think she got clobbered, then pushed into the water to drown.”
Sasha shook her head, careful to keep the sleeping baby calm. She whispered, “If you’d told me she walked into the water and drowned herself, I’d believe that, sure. She was in shock from the get-go. Barely able to speak.”
Jones and Weldon looked at each other again. Then Jones took Xavier aside. “So now we’ve got a murderer in our group. Don’t tell anyone about this,” he said. “Not a soul, you understand?”
Part Four
Zack!
It’s Tea.
Hi or hello...I never know how things like this are supposed to start. It won’t surprise you to hear that NASA public affairs has been no help at all.
I’ve been back in Houston for four days and in the middle of some pretty...serious debriefs.
I hope things are going well for you, you and Megan. The two of you. I hope the people who were taken are with you, too, including Rachel.
I miss you, baby. In spite of everything—your smile, your voice. And want you to know we’re trying to work something out here, some kind of rescue.
Come back. Come back safe and sound. All is forgiven, you know.
BROADCAST FROM HOUSTON MISSION CONTROL TO KEANU BY TEA NOWINSKI
SEPTEMBER 3, 2019
Have I made it clear that I hate this place? HATE, HATE, HATE. Want to go home.
KEANU-PEDIA BY PAV, ENTRY #3
THE PRISONER
The first rush of freedom was always sweet, reminding the Prisoner of its youth...the long swims juniors were permitted, before the time of dividing. Playful. Endless.
Cold.
The other residents shared stories—seven-times-removed memories—of such swims on the home world before they traveled to the warship. The distances frightened the Prisoner...in fact, they were not believable, no more so than any of the old ones’ seven-times-removed nonsense.
The Prisoner was happy to relate a freedom swim with its own direct experience, before division, five cycles gone.
It was enough.
On each of the three prior free swims to the warship’s exterior, the Prisoner had visited the shell. There had been little to find; the shell had been resting in the cold emptiness for seven times seven times seven cycles, and everything useful had already been harvested. (By other prisoners, the Prisoner wondered?)
Nevertheless, the shell had provided a destination, a place to rest and contemplate. To plot. To dream.
However, this fourth surface swim was different. The Prisoner had sensed vibrations in its chamber: several large events in a cluster, followed shortly by two smaller ones...then one large event that actually produced heat, and seemed to illuminate the thinner walls of the cell.
Given those startling signs, the Prisoner felt that an examination of the shell was required.
Ascending through the vent and into the open, the Prisoner noted little obvious damage. There was more open soil than seen on prior swims, but that might have been due to the warship’s rotation and exposure to external heat and light.
The Prisoner wondered whether that large event been caused by extremely close passage to a star. It seemed unlikely, given the short duration of the event.
There was more debris, too, as if a giant wave had washed over the surface of the warship. From the distribution, the Prisoner judged that the source of the event wave was beyond the shell.
The garment was good for an entire cycle. The Prisoner would swim for less than half a cycle before returning. Surely that would produce results.
This surface swim required only a seventh of a cycle before the Prisoner found evidence of a catastrophic event: an area of the surface that was freshly molten. The debris patterns extended outward from a point here, not far from the edge of another vent—one the Prisoner had suspected, but never swum far enough to locate.
There was wreckage, too. Fragments of one shell, the Prisoner suspected, and the toppled remnant of a second.
Had there been a battle here? Two shells blasting away at each other with star weapons? Surely not; using one star weapon at this range would mean the destruction of both...which must have been what happened.
The Prisoner’s people had used star weapons, though not for seven cycles. (At least, not the small group of people resident here within the warship. The Prisoner had no knowledge of events on the home world.)
The Prisoner knew that star weapons left behind residual effects, poison in the water, soil, and air that would result in death within seven cycles.
Nevertheless, seeing that the toppled shell was sufficiently intact, the Prisoner elected to risk further exposure.
The shell was fragile compared to the ancient one that had brought the Prisoner’s ancestors from the home world. Perhaps the star weapon had damaged it.
Yet it retained a common rounded, pointed shape—surely required when blasting out of the sea—and massive propulsion section.
The Prisoner’s first challenge was entering the shell. There was an obvious portal that, with a brief period of scratching and tugging, opened to reveal the chamber within.
But it was so small! The Prisoner could fit through the opening, but feared damaging the garment it wore.
And yet even a quick glance inside the ruined shell revealed it to be filled with treasure! Again, it was the next risk the Prisoner would have to assume.
Carefully, the Prisoner extended one, two, three fins through the opening. The first attempt to push through almost met with disaster—stuck!
The Prisoner gently rocked back and forth, each movement resulting in inward progress...and possibly damage to the garment. (The Prisoner knew that the garment had the ability to repair itself but did not prefer that mode. There would be heat and discomfort.)
In!
The habitation chamber was lit only by the starlight that entered through the opening. The Prisoner had to move forward carefully, almost blindly.
The first impression—intolerably small! The creatures who made this shell and swam it across the Great Emptiness must have been tiny! From the Prisoner’s youthful lessons about the home world, it knew that most small creatures lacked the capability for great intelligence.
Yet here was eviden
ce. Even if other, larger creatures had constructed this shell—small beings had operated it.
And, so the evidence suggested, destroyed it.
And themselves.
Since there were no bodies, there must have been survivors—or one survivor, to remove the others. Conversely, perhaps the survivor(s) also became prisoners like the Prisoner.
That seemed unlikely, given the vaporized state of the opposing shell. No, the crew of this shell must have won the battle. Then departed.
What would they leave behind that would have value? Metal. The Prisoner longed to rip away several pieces of hanging equipment. It had no tools to work metal, but brute strength often gave results—
The Prisoner discovered that the walls of the shell were lined with many smaller chambers that opened easily, after sufficient pressure and violence.
The contents were baffling. Fabrics. Shiny objects whose functions were mysterious. Containers with colored substances suspended in fluid or paste.
The Prisoner’s elation at discovering the shell, its satisfaction at gaining entry, began to fade. Perhaps the only item worth salvaging was metal.
A tentative tug at one hanging structure proved the flimsiness of the shell’s construction. It came away almost instantly—
Revealing another being!
The creature lashed out, driving the Prisoner back against the material it had torn away—
Screaming in pain and fear.
DALE
Dale Scott was reluctant to enter the Beehive. For one thing, the simple idea was not especially inviting. From Zack’s description on the trek from the former-vesicle tunnel, it sounded like an unholy mixture of animal womb and factory. Why would he want to stick his precious neck into that?
For another—
“There are a shitload of animal tracks here, have you noticed?” Dale said. “And they look fresh.”
He was with Valya, several steps behind Zack and Makali. Wade Williams was behind and off to one side. Dale didn’t know whether the man was just wandering or doddering. He had kept up, though, so it didn’t matter.
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