by Unknown
There was an immediate rumble of voices as everyone began speculating, aloud, as to what had happened and what needed to be done.
Keel rounded on them. "Clear the control room. You'll be notified once we have a better idea of what's happened and a plan has been formulated. Group leaders should plan to meet in the conference room at 2100 unless otherwise notified."
Dismissed, everyone simply gaped at him for several moments. Finally, a few of the scientists in the rear ambled toward the lift. When they did, it created a general exodus from the control room.
Kate lingered. "We aren't going to sterilize the Nostradamus, are we?"
Keel glanced at her a little absently, his mind obviously elsewhere. "You'll be notified once a decision is made," he said dismissively.
"Yes, but …."
Keel's lips tightened. "No one wants that."
Slightly appeased, Kate nodded and turned to follow everyone else from the control room. She was only minimally reassured, however. If they'd lost everything they'd collected it could have more disastrous repercussions than anyone wanted to think about. Teams had already been assembled to re-outfit the Nostradamus for the first colonist venture, at which time it would become Eden I-the first, hopefully, of many colony ships that would carry the children of Earth 'back to Eden'.
* * * *
As anxious as Kate had been to retrieve their specimens intact if possible, she was cold with fear as the airlock opened and she, Simmons, and Carter stepped cautiously into the Nostradamus, flashing their portable lights around to examine the Nostradamus' airlock before Simmons moved to the manual control to open the door to the ship's interior. To everyone's surprise, he didn't have to. As soon as he moved within range of the motion sensor, the door opened.
Simmons whipped a grim look in their direction and Kate felt the hair on the back of her neck prickle.
"Now that's just creepy," Terry 'Sissy' Carter muttered. "How would the door work if the computer's malfunctioning? It's almost like … we've been invited in."
Chill bumps crept up and down Kate's spine at her friend's comment.
"Obviously it's just some kind of short," Bill Simmons muttered, doubt threading his voice and making it clear he was trying to reassure himself as much, or more, than he was them. "Micro meteor damage?"
"The computer didn't detect any hull breaches," Kate pointed out.
Simmons sent her a tight lipped glance and turned to train his flashlight on the area beyond the airlock. Kate noticed he had his stun gun in his free hand, however, when he waved it in an attempt to activate the lights on the other side. Switching her own portable light to her other hand, she grappled to pull her own stun gun from its holster. Sissy dropped hers as she struggled to juggle her light and get her weapon out at the same time. The sound as the weapon struck the deck was like a gunshot in the eerily silent ship and both Kate and Simmons jumped, whipping around to search the area immediately around them for any kind of threat.
"Sorry," Sissy muttered, dropping to a crouch quickly to retrieve her weapon.
"You scared the shit out of me!" Simmons muttered sullenly. "It's for damned sure if there's anything in here we aren't going to surprise it now!"
"I said I was sorry!" Sissy snapped.
"Let's just get on with it, shall we?" Warner said testily over their com units.
Kate, Bill, and Sissy exchanged speaking looks.
"Easy for him to say when he's sitting all safe and comfy in there," Sissy muttered with a complete disregard for the fact that Warner was monitoring the conversation.
Amusement flickered through Kate. "Let's get to the bridge and see if we can get the lights on. I don't like the idea of stumbling around in the dark with nothing but a flashlight if I can help it."
"It's probably a waste of time, but you have a point," Bill agreed. "I'll take lead. Weapons ready-you two watch our backs. Let's keep it close until we know what we might be up against."
"We didn't pick up any higher life forms," Sissy pointed out shakily as they started down the corridor.
"That we know of," Bill retorted.
"There shouldn't be anything in here big enough to worry about," Kate said reassuringly.
"There could be a big difference between shouldn't and isn't," Bill pointed out.
"Are you trying to scare the piss out of us?" Sissy snapped, her flashlight wavering along the floor, walls, and ceiling and crisscrossing the beams from Kate's and Bill's lights as they made their way through the cave-like interior of the ship.
"I'm just saying we can't afford to make any assumptions. Keep your eyes open and your weapon ready-and quit walking on my damned heels, Sissy!"
"Sorry," she muttered, but she continued to follow him as closely as she could, bumping into him when he stopped to examine the controls on the lift.
Bill flicked a glare at her when she jostled him and then focused on the panel. "This is probably a waste of time, but I don't see taking the stairs without trying it."
It should've been reassuring when the lift doors opened instantly in response of Bill's touch on the screen. Instead, it sent another wave of uneasiness through Kate. When they'd carefully examined the cubicle, they stepped inside and Bill pressed the level the bridge was on.
Kate continued to flick her light around the compartment as the lift rose swiftly to the level they'd chosen, trying to convince herself that she was jousting windmills. The ship had responded to everything up until it docked with the space station. There was no reason to suppose the malfunctions they'd discovered were anything more than some sort of glitch with the onboard systems, possibly shorts due to some smaller life form getting into the electronics, or even nothing more than human error. And yet the anomalies almost seemed … premeditated. She couldn't shake the sense that something with intelligence had set a trap. The ship had docked without a hitch. All of the life support systems appeared to be functioning on par. The door to the airlock had responded as it should. The lift appeared to be working just fine. Why weren't the lights working? And why was it that only selective doors, those that should have contained the specimens, were malfunctioning?
The bridge was creepier than anything they'd encountered thus far. A vast room filled with equipment and consoles, it seemed empty of any kind of habitation and yet was cluttered enough that, with nothing but flashlights, there were deep shadows everywhere, creating 'caverns' of darkness where anything might be hiding. Struggling with her uneasiness, Kate flicked nervous glances at the shadows as she followed Bill and Sissy to the main control console. Once they'd reached it, she and Sissy took up guard positions while Bill focused on the console.
Kate had been trying her best to dismiss from her mind the fact that it had been she who'd argued for the retrieval of what had appeared to be eggs from the surface of Sirius. As unlikely as it seemed to her that they might actually have hatched, she knew it had to be a possibility that they had and knew also that those eggs represented an alien creature of a size substantial enough to be dangerous if they had hatched. The measurement and weight of the eggs suggested a creature roughly the size of a very large human baby and with animals of the Earth variety that could spell trouble.
If they actually were eggs and had hatched soon after the ship had left Sirius, how big might they be now? Twice as big? Four times? She would've liked to have been able to convince herself that they'd picked up something relatively harmless and that, even if they were eggs and had hatched, they were only going to find some small, weak baby something on the ship-or dead something. They hadn't actually detected any odors of decay, however.
And they were dealing with alien species. As closely as Sirius resembled Earth in many ways, they couldn't count on anything being like beasts they were familiar with.
"This looks like ...." Bill didn't complete the thought and Kate and Sissy both flicked a questioning look at him.
"What?" Warner barked impatiently.
"Well … the only thing I can see that's been tampered with is
the lights. Doesn't that seem … odd?"
"Tampered with?" Warner demanded. "You're saying it looks deliberate?"
"Oh it was definitely deliberate," Bill responded.
"As in … intelligence?" Sissy asked in a quavering voice.
"We didn't see anything," Warner said dismissively. "You're suggesting something of intelligence managed to bypass security and hitch a ride?"
"I'm saying it's damned strange that nothing else has been touched. Could be a fluke. Could be that whatever switched the lights to manual override didn't actually know what it was doing and it frightened it off when the lights went out."
He was tapping furiously at the key pad while he spoke and it still startled the hell out of Kate when the lights abruptly came on. Sissy sucked in a sharp breath and whipped a frantic look around the bridge, blinking against the sudden illumination. The lights dazzled Kate for several moments, as well, and her heart rate shot up as she struggled to adjust her vision. Her hand was shaking when she switched her portable light off and shoved it back into her utility belt.
"Well, now that we have some light it should make the search a little easier," Bill said with a touch of satisfaction. "I'm betting Kate's eggs really were eggs and they've hatched."
Kate glanced at him sharply, feeling guilt waft through her.
"It would be something reptilian or amphibious, though, most likely," Warner said pointedly. "Possibly bird-like--highly unlikely to be very intelligent-certainly not intelligent enough to have deliberately sabotaged the lights. Most likely, it was a fluke, as you said. Let's not jump to the conclusion that we've got anything dangerous on our hands."
"If it's reptilian, it could damned well be dangerous!" Sissy said testily.
"I'm not jumping to any conclusions," Bill responded almost at the same time. "I just pointed out that the eggs were the only thing that might have contained something that could present a physical threat-beyond something viral. We need to keep our eyes open for anything that might attack."
"It would still be a baby, whatever it is," Kate argued.
"Baby snakes, if they're venomous, are still deadly," Bill said pointedly.
"We aren't going to know anything until you find whatever was responsible for the breach," Warner reminded them.
Bill's lips tightened. "I say we set the stun a little higher. We don't know how it might affect … whatever it is."
"It could kill them!" Kate objected.
"Better them than us!" Sissy snapped.
"The idea was to capture whatever it is for study," Kate reminded her.
"So we fucking study the corpse!" Bill said tightly. "I think, since we're already here and we know something breached containment, we should work our way back to the specimen lab room by room, closing it off."
"I think we should stick together," Sissy whined as Bill left them.
"It'll take less time if we split up," Bill responded pointedly.
"It won't be as safe, however," Warner countermanded him.
"Fine! Let's just get this done!"
Kate followed Bill and Sissy, torn between the fear that Bill or Sissy would shoot the creatures on sight and eliminate any possibility of a true study of the species and the fear that it would turn out to be some kind of monsters and attack them. Images flickered through her mind as she searched the places where something might be hidden-beneath chairs and consoles-alternating between visions of cute, rounded babies with fluffy feathers, and monsters that bore no resemblance to anything in her experience. As it turned out, her fears weren't entirely unfounded.
* * * *
This is a very strange world, Rak said. It does not look at all like the things that we saw on their talking machine. Do you suppose it is like that inside?
Noo was frowning as he studied the thing the pod-no the space craft-carrying them had attached itself to. It is not their world. This is that thing they called a station-a space station.
This may be a problem, Dae said thoughtfully. There will be no escaping them from this place when it is not even on their world.
We do not want to escape, Noo told him, excitement underlying his thoughts. Clearly we were meant to be gatherers for the clan or we would not be here, so far from Ra. When the time comes we will breed with one of them and they will give our off-spring many things that we could not give them by breeding a female on Ra. The abilities the clan has culled from past cross-breedings will not begin to compare. We may gather things from them that are even more useful than our gift of flight.
Dae looked doubtful. We do not even know that they have gifts that will be desirable to pass to our kin.
Noo sent him a cool look. They made this thing and that thing out there. I will breed with one and bring their abilities into our clan. I am certain that I was meant to be a gatherer, but perhaps you and Rak were not. You two should wait until we return to Ra and find a queen to breed with. He could see that neither Dae nor Rak were happy with his assessment, which was no great surprise. It was the gatherers that had brought their clan the greatest gifts, the ability to survive most anything that Mother Ra and her sister, Ne, who brought the storms, could throw at them. While others perished, their clan thrived-because they had gathered the best of all creatures great and small that Mother Ra had deemed worthy of life. And because the old ones had been clever enough to gather all the best that Mother Ra had to offer, they would have the chance to gather more gifts from this world. Or he would. He would have a place in the memory that they would not, because he was going to gather wondrous new gifts for the clan!
I do not see that this making things would better the breed, Dae argued. Ra provides all that we need. We have no use for these things these creatures make. What could they bring to the clan that would be of use?
Knowledge, Noo pointed out. Beyond that, I cannot say until I have had time to learn of them.
I think that we will have time to do that soon, Rak said a little uneasily. They are coming into our pod. They are afraid of us. The male one has decided that he will kill us as soon as he sees us.
Noo sent Rak a startled look, discomfited by the fact that he had been so focused on gathering when he was not even mature enough to breed yet that he had not been 'listening' for the approach of the creatures. Worse, he had distracted Dae, too. It was just as well that Rak was standing guard or they would have no opportunity for anything!
I cannot 'listen' well because of the stuff this pod-this craft-is made of, he lied, since he hadn't been 'listening' at all. I think we will have to get closer to them so that we can see them and hear their minds, then we will know what form will seem least threatening to them.
It would be better, Dae immediately argued, to find a form that would frighten them. Then they will run away.
After they slay us with those things they have! Noo told him sourly. The old ones would not think to challenge until they knew what they were up against, especially when they were young and weak as we are!
We may still be strong enough to overcome them, or have gifts that would make that possible, Rak pointed out.
We might, but we do not know that, Noo said! I am eldest and a gatherer. It is my decision and I say that it will be better to observe and learn and then make a decision.
They have strange skins, Rak pointed out as soon as they had found a place to watch the creatures.
Noo had noticed that and he was privately appalled, but of course he did not tell the others. I do not think it is their skin at all, he said after many moments of studying them. I think they are wearing the skin of another creature. They are so clever to protect themselves in such a way!
It does not seem clever to me, Dae argued. Think how many creatures they must have slain, only to take their skin for protection! If they were clever like us, they would have bred for it instead and it would be theirs to pass to their young!
Noo shrugged. He was also appalled, but he stubbornly refused to acknowledge it when he had been bragging that he would take their gifts for the cla
n. I did not expect their ways to be the same. There would be no point in breeding one if that was the case.
Dae snorted. You are obsessed with breeding and you will not even be able to for many more months!
It is the prime directive beyond survival, Noo pointed out irritably. You should be obsessed, as well.
We will none of us survive if the two of you do not focus on that, Rak observed.
Irritation flickered through Noo. He decided it was beneath him to argue with his second beta, however. It was beneath him to argue with Dae for that matter, since he was also beta, even if he was closer to being an equal. He would have to reach full maturity to establish himself firmly and indisputably as the alpha, though, and, as they kept pointing out, that was many months away.
Instead of belaboring the point, therefore, he turned to studying the strange creatures that had brought them from Ra. It was difficult to 'listen' to their minds, not because of the skins they wore, but because the images were of things that he had no understanding of. He had had the same trouble with their talking thing-mostly because it thought at amazing, disconcerting speed-faster than he could capture with his own mind. Thankfully, it also produced images-in the air-strange, wavering images like clouds, that his eyes could study or he would never have figured out how to make the lights go away.
They did not need them, but he knew because of the knowledge of the old ones, that many more creatures needed the light to see than did not. That meant that the odds were very much in their favor that they would have the advantage if there was no light for the creatures to see. They had brought light, though, in little sticks that shot narrow rays across the pods-the craft!-as it did when the light had come on before. Fortunately, those sticks could not seem to produce more than beams and that left many shadows for them.
There was one male and two females, he decided, once he had studied the images in their minds. He could feel the emotions attached to the images even when the images confused him and he knew the male by the sense of aggression that accompanied the smell of fear even if not for the images of violence. He dismissed one of the females right away. She was too fearful and that would make her as dangerous as the male, more dangerous. She would be far less predictable. The male was very predictable. He would attack if he felt threatened-instantly. The fearful female might, or she might run instead.
