Eugene transferred the call into his study, after pinching a snifter of single-malt whiskey.
Jeffery’s face coalesced in the air. “Grizzly Bear?”
Eugene regarded him coolly. “It would be better for your career if that didn’t find itself floating around the office.”
“Your secret is safe with me, Grizzly Bear.”
“You were saying, Jeffery?”
“Right. Aerial drones have confirmed five human settlements on the surface, so far.”
“So far?”
“Yeah. Orbital scans hint at another”—Jeffery glanced at his pad—“eleven possible sites. We’re sending drones to confirm which are abandoned and which are still active. And those are just the permanent settlements. Who knows about nomadic tribes.”
Eugene tried to rub the lingering sleep out of his eyes. “The question is, how in the world did they get there? We’ve lost dozens of ships without a trace over the decades. Maybe they’re descended from an expedition that went missing?”
“I already thought of that, but Felix says no. He, Harris, and Captain Ridgeway are still surveying the first settlement. The people speak the dead language of an Amazonian tribe that was supposed to have gone extinct centuries ago. There’s been some drift in the syntax, and there’s a smattering of Spanish in the mix, but it’s verified.”
“How in the world did they figure that out?”
“They used the advanced QERs to send audio samples back here. Our linguists compared it against the Endangered Language Archive and got a hit almost immediately.”
“So, not descendants of marooned spacers, then.”
“No, sir. Not unless an Amazonian tribe had a space program we missed.”
Eugene put the snifter to his nose and drew in the complex aroma of oak mingled with vanilla. “That leaves only one possibility. They were abducted.”
“It would appear so.”
“Wonderful.” Eugene lifted the glass and let the contents burn down his throat. “As if the damned fence wasn’t provocative enough. The advisory board is going to have a meltdown. We’ll be lucky if the president isn’t signing a declaration of war by week’s end.”
“On who, though? We haven’t even met any new races, much less figured out who’s responsible.”
“Panicked reactionaries aren’t going to let a minor detail like that stop them. I can hardly wait to see what that idiot Hackman has to say. You can be sure phrases like ‘mass alien abductions’ and ‘human breeding programs’ will feature prominently in tomorrow’s news cycle.”
Jeffery’s face became solemn. “You know, Professor, the QER messages still bottleneck through here. I could always … massage Mr. Buttercup’s reports, before G. Libby Hackman or any other self-styled ‘journalist’ get to see them.”
Eugene’s face was marble. “I wish you hadn’t said that.”
“I’m sorry. It was just a suggestion.”
“No, it’s all right. I wish you hadn’t said it because I’ve been thinking along the same lines. It was easy to ignore the idea when it sat alone in a corner, but now it has company.”
Eugene spun his glass around and watched the swirling remnants of his drink as he considered his decision.
“No,” he said with conviction. “No. We will not play the part of censors and propagandists. Hackman is a monster of our own creation, after all. He wouldn’t have been involved at all if we hadn’t tried to be so clever about controlling the narrative.”
Jeffery’s face sank.
“Oh, Jeffery, that’s not an admonishment of you. I approved the plan, after all. We were overconfident and got burned by one of the people we were trying to manipulate. It’s a mistake we should learn from, not double down on. Mr. Buttercup’s dispatches will remain unaltered. We still get to read them first, which gives us the time to adjust our messaging to anticipate and counter whatever meme the press decides to push. Are we agreed?”
“Completely, sir.”
“Good. Now, how the hell are we going to spin this to the board?”
* * *
Felix sat cross-legged on the dirt floor of a thatch hut, nibbling on a plate of some indigenous animal the locals referred to as kuluk, their word for “chicken.” This was notable only because kuluk, unlike everything else, didn’t taste even remotely like chicken.
Felix pored over notes in his data pad from the previous two days. He didn’t have a single credit of anthropology education, and his experience studying other cultures was limited to Irish pubs and a semipro soccer game he attended once. But Ridgeway’s survey team was shorthanded, and he’d stepped into the role with enthusiasm. Whether he knew it consciously or not, his drive to perfect new technology was merely a means to an end. Felix was slowly realizing he was an explorer at heart.
The survey team had set up base camp in the village of the Pirikura, at the behest of their chief. Felix still had trouble with his name, which seemed to be comprised of eighteen randomly arranged vowels with a popping sound somewhere near the middle. While he had issues with their language, no one could fault their hospitality. Their reasoning skills, on the other hand, were another matter entirely.
The Pirikura had a very tenuous understanding of gravity. They believed that when someone fell, the ground took the opportunity to run up and smack them like a drunken soccer hooligan.
This led to the odd conclusion that when falling, the best defense was a good offense. So from childhood, the Pirikura were taught to roll around and meet the charging ground with a mighty swing of the fist, just to let it know they didn’t intend to take any guff just because it was bigger than they were.
This of course led to arguments among the men about who could intimidate the ground the most and therefore safely fall the farthest. So was born the annual Ground Pounder’s Competition and Aged Berry Juice Festival.
Their unique theory of gravity had one advantageous side effect. When the Pirikura asked where the strangers had come from, the closest translation Allison could come up with for orbital reentry was, “We fell from the sky.” That’s quite a long way to fall, and probably explained the extreme deference the Pirikura were showing to their guests. It would probably last until someone asked how the visitors got up into the sky in the first place.
Felix was busy filing the myriad of holos he’d taken of the tribe and their mode of dress, or lack thereof. He was so engrossed in organizing that he didn’t hear the hushed footsteps creeping up behind him. Nor did he see the crouched forms encircle him. Only when prodded with a spear did he finally notice, and only then on the third poke.
After a moment of careful reflection, Felix realized that no matter how anachronistic, the ring of spears was still lethal to a man in a T-shirt, so he threw his hands in the air. His data pad hit the dirt with a thud. They didn’t look like any of the Pirikura Felix had studied. They were taller, for one, and their skin was adorned in black spots like a jaguar’s coat.
But the most prominent thing about the aggressors was their ears. Well, not their ears exactly, more the shriveled ears on cords hanging around their necks.
“Ah, hi?” Felix awaited a response.
He received it in the form of a rock to the back of the head.
CHAPTER 27
A gaggle of curious, naked children seemed to follow Allison everywhere she went. They took every opportunity to run their fingers through her blond hair, by far the fairest they’d ever seen. Allison sat in the shade of the large hut that acted as a meeting place and banquet hall.
The village was awash in excitement as the Pirikura made preparations for the Ground Pounder’s festival. At the center of the village, a fifteen-meter tower built of three beard-tree trunks had risen. Sturdy, it was not. The only thing preventing its total collapse was that no two pillars could agree on a direction to fall.
It was this rickety structure the men of the tribe would soon ascend to challenge the ground by heedlessly flinging themselves at it. The women of the tribe seemed content with danci
ng, drinking, and festively decorating their huts.
Jacqueline came striding down the main path. A retinue of village youth trailed behind her.
“Afternoon, Jackie. Sit down and take a load off.”
“Thanks, Captain. I needed to talk to you anyway.” Jacqueline sat down as requested.
Up close, Allison noticed that Jacqueline’s hair had been tightly braided into hundreds of delicate rows, each with tiny, iridescent beads regularly spaced throughout.
“What did you do with your hair?”
Jacqueline smiled and ran a hand through the braids. “Do you like it? The kids here did it while I was uploading reports to Maggie. It’s the children’s job to braid all the women’s hair, on account of their tiny fingers.”
“It’s cute, Jackie.” Allison looked at the data pad in the young woman’s hands. “Is that what you wanted to talk to me about?”
“Sort of. I borrowed this from Mr. Fletcher yesterday. It’s loaded with schematics and tutorials. I wanted to familiarize myself with his new hyperdrive equipment. I have questions I want to ask him, but I can’t seem to find him anywhere.”
“I haven’t seen him today. We’ll ask Harris. They’re good friends. He can call him on that implanted com their crew has. He can’t ignore a phone ringing inside his head.”
Allison dug through a deep pocket on her thigh until her fingers found the earbud com. She stuck it in her ear. “Lieutenant Harris?”
“Go ahead for Harris,” came the prompt reply.
“It’s Ridgeway. I’m here with Dorsett; she’s looking for Felix. Have you seen him?”
“Not since I woke up for watch this morning.”
“When was that?”
“Seventeen thirty.”
Allison grimaced. Solonis B had a twenty-nine-hour day. Since they didn’t intend to be planet-side for more than a few days, the teams had remained on shipboard time instead of switching to the local cycle. It did mean, however, that sunrise and sunset kept changing schedules on them like an absent-minded wedding planner. It was playing merry hell on their sleep cycles.
“Could you call him on your internal com? Dorsett has some questions to ask him.”
“Sure. Just a minute.”
Jacqueline sat listening quietly to Allison’s half of the conversation.
Allison smiled at her. “He’s calling him now, Jackie. It should just be a minute.”
Harris’s voice returned. “I can’t raise him, ma’am.”
Allison’s concern ratcheted up from green to yellow. “That’s not encouraging.”
“It could be nothing, ma’am. He may have just dozed off. The daylight disparity’s messing with everyone’s circadian.”
“Maybe you’re right, Harris, but we should still find him. Falling asleep in an alien jungle is probably a good way to get eaten.”
“Hang on, ma’am. I can locate him by his com.”
Allison sat tensely while the silence stretched out like a rubber band.
Harris’s voice snapped the silence. “Ah, ma’am?”
“Don’t tell me. You can’t track his com either.”
“No, ma’am.”
“Is there any plausible reason for that?”
“Well … if we suspect an enemy has hacked our encryption and is tracking squad movements, we can disable the auto locator.”
“And the odds that Felix knows how to do that?”
“They’re not encouraging,” Harris said, mirroring Allison’s own words.
Yellow gave way to orange. “Recall your squad, Lieutenant, and meet me at the banquet hall.”
“Aye-aye, ma’am.”
“Jackie, round up the rest of the survey team and bring them here.”
Jacqueline’s eyes were as big as ripe plums. “What’s wrong, Captain?”
“We have a missing man to find.”
A little over twenty minutes later, the members of both teams sat in a circle on the floor of the Pirikura’s largest building. Just beyond them, the villagers had halted their festival preparations and watched the proceedings intently.
A holographic image of the village and the surrounding forest spun slowly in the air.
“Here’s what we know.” Allison pointed to one of the huts in the display and twisted her wrist, leaving a red dot. “Mr. Fletcher was in the sleeping hut until 1947 today, about an hour after sunrise. Then he got up and made a beeline for the forest.” She dragged her finger through the air, leaving a red path behind her on the map.
“Once past the tree line, he slowed down and started moving along a more erratic path for almost six kilometers, until his com signal faded and was lost around here.” She twisted her wrist again, and the line terminated in another big red dot.
“What could cause that?” asked one of the survey group.
“We don’t know; some sort of interference.”
“Wait,” one of the marines, Devor, interjected. “The coms are built to filter natural interference. So what are you saying, that people who are still knapping flint have signal jammers?”
“Not at all. I’m saying it’s an open question.”
Whispers ran through the semicircle of villagers, but Allison couldn’t understand them. Magellan had a translator running that fed English approximations of their speech into her ear com, but it could only work on one speaker at a time. One of the children walked past the seated crewmen and tried to grasp the hologram with an outstretched hand, but came away empty. The whispers grew more alarmed.
Allison tried to gently push the child back toward her waiting parents. “Not right now, sweetie.”
The girl was unfazed. She looked intently at the images, especially the aerial shot of the village.
Harris cleared his throat. “Maybe we should turn off the holo, ma’am.”
“Good idea.” Allison knelt down and was about to shut down the portable projector when the little girl started shouting excitedly. Her face had the wide smile of accomplishment, minus a few baby teeth.
“What’s she saying?” Harris asked.
“Something about her home, the village, the river. I think she’s figured out it’s a map. Smart kid.”
The child thrust a finger at the forest, past where Felix’s trail had run cold, and started talking rapidly, too fast for the translation to keep up. Her mother strode up to retrieve her, bending to pick her up, despite the girl’s protests.
Allison put up a hand. “No, just wait a second. She was saying something about a ‘Cave of the Creators.’ What does she mean?”
The mother paused to listen to Allison, but she was uncomprehending.
“Jackie, give me your earbud.” Jacqueline obliged. “Maggie, are you there?”
“Yes, Captain Ridgeway. How may I help?”
“I want you to run the translation backward and feed it into Lieutenant Dorsett’s com.”
“You wish it to run from English to Pirikura?”
“Yes, exactly.”
“That will take some time.”
“That’s fine, just let me know as soon as you’re fin—”
“I’ve finished.”
Allison rubbed a temple. “Maggie, remind me later that we need to talk about human time perception.” With the earbud com sitting in her upturned palm, Allison held out her hand to the mother.
Cautiously, the woman took it. Unsure of the purpose of the gift, she smelled it, and then held it to her tongue. Allison waved her hand and pulled her hair back to expose her own earbud. The mother turned the bud around in her fingers, then placed it snugly in her ear.
“Good. Can you understand me?”
There was a delay of a heartbeat as Allison’s voice was transmitted to one of the Gargoyle platforms in orbit, which were pulling double duty as communication relays, passed around to Magellan on the far side of the planet, translated into Pirikura, then sent back around the world, down to the surface, and into the earbud.
The woman looked sharply to her right, but when she realized there was no
one there, she threw the bud to the ground in a panic. She raised a foot to crush the cursed object, but Allison crouched and grabbed it in time.
“It’s okay,” Allison remained as calm as she could manage. “She probably thought it was jewelry.”
Allison pulled the earbud out of her own ear and spoke slowly and deliberately. “When you”—she pointed at the mother—“speak”—she made a talking gesture with her hand and pointed at the earbud—“this lets me”—Allison pointed at her own ear and smiled warmly—“understand you.”
The mother leaned away from Allison and frowned, but her daughter was not so suspicious. The child jumped up and snatched the earbud from Allison’s hand and stuffed it into her ear.
Sensing an opportunity, Allison spoke. “Can you understand me?”
“Sae,” came from the girl’s mouth.
“Yes,” said the earbud.
“Hello. My name is Allison. What is your name?”
“Piya.”
“Hello, Piya. You are a very smart little girl.”
“Thank you, Al-lee-son.” She smiled bashfully as she struggled with the foreign name.
“Can you tell your mother that the earring is safe and will let us talk?”
Piya grabbed her mother’s skirt and tugged. They conferred. Eventually, Piya’s mother took the earbud and placed it back in her own ear.
“Thank you,” Allison said with sincerity. “Can you understand me?”
“Yes. What magic/sorcery?”
“No magic.” Allison tried to sound reassuring. “Just a tool. Like a knife or a hammer.”
“Hammers don’t talk.”
“True, but you don’t need them to.” Allison patted Piya on the head. “Your daughter is very clever. When she looked at our map, she said, ‘Cave of the Creators.’ What is that?”
“Sacred place. Where gods sleep. Pirikura no go there. Forbidden.”
“You don’t visit your gods? Why not?”
“Protected by phantoms/monsters.”
There was a rumbling from the ring of villagers. The survey team also heard the translation, save Jacqueline, and perked up at the mention of phantoms.
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