The Alien Element

by M. G. Herron

  Rakulo shook his head when Maatiaak began talking. And then he went still. His face burned with shame. How could I have been so foolish?

  Maatiaak stepped around him and glanced down into the water. Rakulo followed his gaze—the green glow seemed to have disappeared. But it was hard to see in the daylight, and from so far up. The canoe was nowhere in sight.

  Either they had done it, or they had given up. There was only one way to be certain. Rakulo had to jump now.

  But first he had to make sure Maatiaak would hold up his end of the bargain.

  “We had a deal, Maatiaak.”

  “How dare you question me?” Maatiaak said. “Do you think Xucha would have trusted me if I didn’t keep my word? Do you think these men would trust me?”

  The others had gathered around—sixteen young men and women loyal to Rakulo, plus his mother, surrounded by forty older men his father’s age loyal to Maatiaak.

  “I’ve kept our people safe despite your foolishness, Rakulo. But go ahead. Jump in and see what the gods decide. They will decide to devour you, just like they devoured those hermits I threw into the Well. Just like they devoured Ekel when he jumped.” Maatiaak leaned close and lowered his voice so that only Rakulo could hear him whisper. “Just like the gods will take your mother after you’re gone. Gladly.”

  Rakulo stared at Maatiaak until the man backed up and crossed his arms, waiting. Then he met the eyes of his mother, of Citlali and Yeli, and each of the warriors in turn—the ones loyal to him, and the ones loyal to Maatiaak now, and to his father, formerly. They were good men and women. This was not their fault. It was the fault of a system of sacrifice that had forced them into a position where they were obligated to kill their own people, unless they wanted to be killed themselves.

  That was no way to live. But what they were about to see would change everything.

  “This is not goodbye,” he said.

  His mother gasped and raised her hand to cover her mouth. Citlali clenched her jaw and nodded, lowering her center of gravity and adjusting her feet in case there was a fight. Yeli did the same, tensing automatically.

  All eyes were on Rakulo. He turned, and stepped off the edge.

  35

  Such a Fragile Vessel

  Aeons of alien culture flashed before her eyes.

  The chamber, the mound, the tentacled interface that was somehow injecting these visions directly into her cerebral cortex, came back into focus again. Eliana’s chest heaved. She pulled gasping lungfuls of ozone-scented air as sweat poured down her body.

  “What is this?” she said. “Make it stop. Please.”

  “Such a fragile vessel,” Xucha said. “But the worst is nearly over, child.”

  “Please, no. Oh, god. No, no, please.”

  The tiny tendrils stiffened in her ear, and once again, Eliana’s spine arched, her muscles knotted, and the next vision slammed into her like a truck, taking her breath away—consuming her mind and pushing out all other senses.

  In the space of a single breath, Eliana witnessed the evolution of a species of intelligent, four-fingered bipedal animals. The first two walked out of the ocean countless billions of years ago, on a planet much like her Earth, and took a similar path to her species’ own. Small relative to the predators of their home world, they were forced to rely on their brains and tools they created to survive. They traveled over long distances to track down swift game. They explored the farthest reaches of their planet, pushing themselves to find better foraging spots that would support their growing tribes.

  This traveling and foraging eventually led to farming, when a knowledge gathered over generations finally hit a breaking point. After that—again, much like her own people—a long settling down period came, a period of incredible growth. The next leap forward came with a kind of industrial technology that helped them break the bonds of their farming communities. Their population expanded rapidly, until they took over their world.

  It took longer—much longer—for these People to evolve than it took humanity, because they lived longer. With longer memories, traditions were easier to enforce, and change came slower. They had a central spine like humans, but were cold-blooded. Part of their longevity was owed to their reptilian heritage. They developed a carapace to protect themselves from the violent moods of their planet’s climate, and from the dangers of war. They, too, fought their way to dominance by killing off the cousins of their own species. When they ran out of cousins to kill, they turned to the large predators on their planet, until they were rendered extinct.

  Eliana blinked.

  Like humanity, minute variations among their species had far-reaching implications throughout the social hierarchy of their culture. Their mastery of technology developed, was wiped out by a natural disaster, and developed again. She witnessed the People’s journey off world to explore among the stars in their breathing generation ships. Their lifespans stretched out again as they introduced stasis pods to help them travel farther, this time by determined and slow manipulation of their genetics. As a result, their birth rate decreased. The sadness this caused among the People went deep, but it was not enough to overcome their hunger for exploration.

  Eliana inhaled.

  A great civil war rent their relatively peaceful intergalactic society of star explorers asunder. Once united by the desire to conquer space, they were now fighting for control over it, much like they had vied for dominance against their cousins on their home planet. At the same time, the star voyagers continued to make great discoveries. They found the star shards, and learned how to make more of them using the stars as a sort of galactic furnace. And then, perhaps by accident, someone discovered the rift travel technology and its terrible power.

  Eliana exhaled.

  She absorbed the story with a heavy heart, tears now coursing down her cheeks, as the civil war tore their home planet apart. It had become easier to make war than peace, easier to fight than find common ground among opposition parties. The only outcome of an all-consuming war was total annihilation. The planet that gave the People life was finally destroyed by the People themselves. Great generation ships carrying the survivors drifted off into the galaxy in a dozen different directions.

  Eliana blinked.

  The visions faded and the dim chamber came back. The tendrils snaked away from her ears, wrists, and ankles. Eliana was left physically exhausted and breathing hard on the mound, which cushioned her body and seemed to rise and fall in time with her heaving chest, as if it was conscious of her breathing patterns.

  Disgusted by the thought, she rolled off the mound and came to her feet as Xucha turned and began to walk slowly away, his head hanging. He must have been standing over her the whole time she had been plugged into that…that…brain thing. Had he experienced the visions with her? Certainly he had directed them. He had wanted her to see. Had the thoughts of his people’s long history and eventual self-destruction put him in a despondent mood?

  She reached out a hand to touch his armored shoulder. Xucha spun around. She raised her fingers slowly to his helmet, that smooth, sleek reflective mask that sometimes showed nothing, and other times a hissing snake. Was that his true form? When her hands were on the sides of the helmet, she thought he might slap her hands away. He raised his own hands, but slowly, and helped Eliana turn the helmet slightly to the left so it unlatched.

  He let her lift it off his head.

  Eliana let the helmet fall to her side, held by one hand, and walked slowly around until her back was to the meteorite suspended in the beam of blue light. The glow from the blue beam illuminated Xucha’s face.

  It was an ancient face, but not unkind. Deep, almond-colored eyes flecked with gold, like huge orbs, took up most of the face. The nose was only slightly raised from the skull, with a single slit where the nostrils would be in a human. The lips were made of tiny, hard scales, but formed a full half-moon mouth. The rest of the face was covered with small feathers, a thin band of forehead above the eyes, and then longer
feathers that stretched back into a full feathery mane of…hair?

  Eliana raised her hand and brushed the feathers lightly. They bristled, Xucha shivered, and the feathers raised up into a beautiful turquoise and orange fan that extended back from the head.

  “Your feathers are beautiful,” Eliana said.

  The bird-lizard creature inclined its head.

  “Is Xucha your real name?” Eliana asked.

  He shook his head, and his mouth did not move when he next spoke. The big eyes seemed to go into a distant focus, and the voice came from the walls of the chamber like it had before, the source unclear.

  “No. My name is Remethiakara Aba Carna Tualina.”

  “That’s a beautiful name. It sounds almost feminine. Do males and females both have the crown of feathers?”

  Xucha nodded. “Both do. Technically, in your terms, I am a male. But distinctions between the sexes of my species became unimportant millennia ago. Our children are hatched, not born, and both share in the child-rearing duties.”

  “Oh,” Eliana said. “We share child-rearing duties as well.”

  The alien grimaced and shook his head. Eliana nearly laughed at how human the gesture seemed.

  “Did that happen when the birthrate slowed?” she asked.

  “It has always been…but yes, the birthrate slowed when we began to modify our genes. Since we began to elongate our lifespans to explore the stars more fully, it has become nearly impossible for one of my people to fertilize an egg without the aid of our science.”

  Eliana felt within herself a deep well of empathy for this bird-lizard creature. She now understood the tragedy it had been living with. Eliana saw no signs of others here. He was one of a dying species, and he was all alone. Is this what Xucha—Remethiakara—wanted Eliana to feel? Was that why it showed her his history? Or had he just wanted to share it with someone?

  Eventually, her training overcame her personal feelings. She may never get a chance to ask these questions again. She must ask them now.

  “But why are you here? And how did the Kakuli people get here?”

  “I will show you.” Remethiakara turned and gestured back to the mound where Eliana had been secured by the tentacles just a few minutes before.

  Eliana forced a smile onto her face and nodded. The alien turned his back to her, walking toward the mound and gesturing with his fingers so that the tentacles emerged again from the wall. The mound dimpled and bent in the middle like a recliner.

  Instead of following him or sinking into the seat, Eliana seized the opportunity when his back was turned to cross to the center of the room, toward the glowing beam of blue light where the star shard was suspended. Eliana clenched her teeth and thrust her hand out, into the light, to grab the rock—

  She hissed when the light singed her hand. Puffy white welts stood up on her fingers immediately.

  Eliana looked down. The black helmet was still seized in one hand. She had seen the alien’s gloved fingers go into the light—the helmet was made of the same material.

  Eliana hauled back on the helmet—and was stopped by Xucha’s hand where he grabbed the helmet.

  She spit into his big brown and yellow eyes. He released the helmet with a snake-like hiss that made Eliana wince. The noise was high and piercing. But she was already swinging the helmet around in a full arc. The light of the beam flared up where the helmet came into contact with it. It struck the star shard and knocked it to the floor on the other side. The beam of light went out.

  When Eliana turned back, Remethiakara loomed over her, his half-moon mouth open and baring two rows of sharpened, tearing teeth. The hissing sound came louder now. Eliana dropped the helmet, clutched her ears, and fell to her knees.

  36

  Anonymous Tipster

  A text message alert on his phone startled Amon off the couch. He checked the phone in a frantic half-sleep, his heart pounding.

  “Amon, this is Lakshmi,” the message read. “Eliana gave me your number for emergencies. She’s not answering my messages or calls. Is everything okay?”

  Amon swallowed and closed the message as he fought down a wave of guilt. Better not to respond than try to explain. He left his office and greeted the FBI agents outside his room with an inhospitable grunt.

  He found Audrey in her own lab on the third floor, and by that time he was almost fully awake. The agents followed him closely. Normally he would have objected to their presence, but having them around reassured him now. They began to post up outside the door of Audrey’s lab when he went in, but Amon beckoned them inside with him.

  The floor of the lab had been swept clear of debris. The marks made by the bullet holes were still visible. Amon’s new bodyguards glanced at them, raised their eyebrows, but didn’t ask any questions.

  “Audrey, do you have any coffee?”

  “Instant coffee in that cabinet.” Audrey pointed, without looking, over her shoulder.

  Amon heated water in an electric kettle and shoveled three heaping scoops of instant coffee grounds into a battered mug. The bodyguards declined coffee and took up stations on opposite sides of the room. When the water boiled a minute later, Amon poured it over the brown powder and took the steaming mug with him to peek over Audrey’s shoulder. She was working with several soil samples and other fragments made of bone, clay, and wood, split out into clearly labeled groups—A2, B2, C2, and D2.

  “What are you working on?” Amon asked.

  “Samples that Eliana left here for me from her trip to Mexico. This is the first chance I’ve had to carbon-date this new set.”

  “Aren’t you worried about the wormhole?”

  “Of course I am. Why do you think I’m working?”

  Amon nodded. He understood the desire to cover over the fear with work. If he hadn’t needed sleep so badly, he’d be doing the same thing.

  “Anything interesting?”

  “I’m not sure what she’s looking for, to be honest. These ones date to the same time period as the previous set of samples she gave me—they’re from 800 AD to 1500 AD.”

  “That’s the Late Classic Maya era that she studied for her master’s degree. Do you think she found something? Is that why she’s having you date the samples?”

  “She must have. She said she wanted me to be discreet.”

  Amon sighed. “One of the women that’s been working with her in Mexico texted me while I was sleeping.”

  Audrey winced. “I bet she’s worried about Eliana.”

  His phone buzzed again. This time the message read, “Tell Eliana that we found another ruin. Have her call me.”

  Amon put the phone back in his pocket. “I know. I am, too. But I can’t risk telling them much at this point.”

  One of the FBI agents touched his ear and spoke softly into the cuff of his suit jacket. “Mr. Fisk? Agent Moreno is asking for you.”

  “Okay,” Amon said. “Tell him I’ll be down to the lobby in a minute.”

  “He says it’s urgent, sir.”

  “Everything is urgent right now,” Amon muttered, but he said goodbye to Audrey and followed the two men out the lab and into the elevator.

  As the elevator lowered, a worry that something had happened to the wormhole or the Translocator built up in his mind. But that wasn’t it, because Agent Moreno’s voice echoed from the Translocator lab as Amon picked up his pace down the long hall. His voice was raised, and he was definitely arguing with someone with a Texan accent. He walked past the armed guards and FBI agents at the entrance, who were all listening surreptitiously.

  Amon crossed the Translocator lab. The scientists were still there, but work had obviously slowed now that the cage was built around the wormhole. They worked on laptops and were digging through detailed graphs on the holodeck, but had paused to watch Wes and the FBI agents argue.

  “You have no right to do this!” Wes McManis said as an FBI agent cuffed his hands behind his back in the doorway that led to the warehouse side.

  “I have every ri
ght.”

  “I want my lawyer.”

  “What’s going on?” Amon demanded, walking up to them. Wes McManis, red-faced and fuming, looked down when Amon approached.

  “We subpoenaed phone and email records for your employees, and found that Wes McManis has been sending ‘anonymous tips’ to Reagan Gruber.”

  “That ain’t illegal!” Wes said. “And you got no right to go through my emails.”

  “The judge who issued the warrant says otherwise,” Agent Moreno said.

  “Wes, is this true?” Amon said.

  Wes lifted his chin. “Controversy makes good press. It’s good for business.”

  No wonder Wes was always the first to hear when Reagan Gruber began to spout off at the mouth.

  “If that jerk had his way, The Auriga Project would have been shut down years ago!” Amon said.

  “He doesn’t have that kind of power,” Wes sneered, his tone dripping with condescension. “But the Fisk Industries name on the radio sells the rest of our products. Sales have been up since I took over. I’m just trying to do my job, Amon.”

  Amon crossed his arms. “Were you feeding Lucas information, too?”

  “No,” Wes said, shaking his head. “You have to believe me, Amon, I would never.”

  “We’ll see about that,” Agent Moreno said. “Take him upstairs and keep a close eye on him.”

  The FBI agents hauled the unwilling Wes McManis down the long hall. He cussed at the agents all the way to the elevator.