by Max Harms
It was over very quickly. In total there were four of the special-ops soldiers waiting for us, as well as Dr Gallo and Dr Slovinsky. Naresh wasn’t present. Gallo wore an expression of triumph. Slovinsky’s face was indicative of distress, but it was a flat expression, unchanging and mask-like.
Stephano and Body were cuffed around both their wrists and ankles, then they had their cuffs joined together behind their backs such that virtually no action was possible. The soldiers carted us around like cargo, only able to operate easily because of the absence of gravity. The billionaire moaned in pain every time they touched his broken arm.
“You’re too much of a threat to let you go tromping around in a malfunctioning state, Socrates,” said Gallo in a confident, lecturing kind of voice. “And you, Mr Stephano, have clearly broken international law by aiding and abetting terrorists. I’m here under the authority of the Italian government and the European Union, and under this authority I am seizing control of the station until you can be tried for your crimes.”
“Dr Gallo, you know this isn’t right. We don’t have the authorization to-” said Slovinsky in his dead tone.
“Nonsense! As soon as the network connection is restored you’ll see that we’re doing the right thing. Now let’s get these two down to Beta before we deal with the rest of quelle teste di cazzo male a Alpha.” Gallo took off her glasses to wipe them off on her shirt before realising her jumpsuit wasn’t loose enough to allow it.
“I suggest you listen to your cyborg!” shouted a voice from down the tube. Body wasn’t in position to see its source, but I recognized the voice. “Let them go or I’ll kill every last one of you snakes. Don’t try me. I was trained by the best, I’ve won more than one award for marksmanship, and I’ve killed better men than you lot.”
“Zephyr! How the hell did you get a gun?!” came the crackling voice of Stephano through his suit’s speaker.
I desperately wished Body wasn’t facing the wrong direction.
“Synthesized it! You’ve got a microfactory in the auxiliary room back there by the storage area. First thing any good Águila learns to do is print a pistol from raw metal. Now if any of you float an inch closer I’m going to find out how blood sprays in zero-g.”
{Oh that’s what was going on in there…} thought Vista, idly. {I heard something when we passed it on our way to Gamma.}
{Now you tell us…} thought Growth.
“Brace yourself before firing! The recoi-AUGH” Stephano’s instructions were cut short as the operative holding him twisted his broken hand.
“You snakefuckers are going to take those cuffs off them! And do it slowly! No fast movements!”
Gallo, floating towards the back gave a cold sort of laugh. “She’s bluffing, you idiots! Even if she printed a gun she’d need ammunition! It’s just a prop!”
There was a deafening crack as Zephyr fired. Though Body was facing away from Zephyr it was facing towards Gallo. Despite being behind several people in the confined space the terrorist’s bullet hit its target dead on. Gallo’s glasses shattered and her face seemed to almost implode, folding in on itself. The scientist spun backwards from the impact, sending blood spraying outward in an arc and her body tumbling towards the airlock down the tube.
I felt a rush of momentary distress from Heart.
“Anybody else want to fuck with me?!” screeched Zephyr, caught up in her blood-rage.
“Calm down! We’ll do what you say!” shouted Dr Slovinsky. For the first time since the university his voice sounded genuine and human. “Uncuff them! Now!”
Freed from the bindings, Body righted itself to see Zephyr down the tube, one foot locked into a hand-hold, one hand on another. Her other foot was braced on the wall behind her while her free hand of course was holding the gun. Body and Stephano floated slowly down the tube towards her, always leaving her a clear shot to Slovinsky and his four underlings. There was about ten metres of distance. Stephano cradled his injury and he pushed himself along with the other arm.
“Ought to blow you fuckshits straight to hell!” she warned, waving the pistol menacingly.
I had Body say “Thank you, Zephyr. That’s twice you’ve saved me.” as Body floated past her, slowly following Stephano.
There was flicker of emotion on Zephyr’s face as she turned to Body. I couldn’t read it. Once Body was past her, Zephyr returned her attention to her enemies, instructing them to collect the corpse of Gallo and slowly come down the tube. The three of us backed up as they came forward, such that Zephyr always had them in her sights.
Once over Beta section she ordered them all down the elevator. None dared disobey.
“God dammit. I should’ve seen it coming!” exclaimed Stephano once they had left. He had since discarded his environment suit and let if float away down the hall. “I need to get down there and make sure my daughter is okay!” The man seemed panicked. “Oh Christ! She was right. There’s no way I’ll be able to keep the station… What am I even thinking? Priorities! Marian first. Then…”
“Then the nameless,” said Body. I shaped the voice to signal confidence. The man needed to get a hold of himself.
Robert nodded. “We need to get the com system back online. That will help with everything.”
“It’s already online,” said Body.
{What?!} I thought. It was Vista that had told Body to speak. Other siblings voiced surprise as well.
{You didn’t notice?} asked Vista. {Check the antenna sensor history. Slovinsky was communicating via wireless signal. That’s how he knew where we were. I suspect he’s been doing it for a while. It would explain why they were able to locate us when Body first entered Alpha section. Perhaps it explains how they were able to bypass Stephano’s security.}
{Why didn’t you tell us earlier?} inquired Growth.
{I assumed you all noticed. It was pretty obvious this time,} answered Vista.
{I think they were… distracted, sister,} thought Dream.
Though his wrist had been smashed, Stephano’s com seemed in working order. He gingerly tapped at it with his left hand. “I’ll be damned. You’re right. It’s not responding over the standard frequencies, but there’s still a signal.”
There was a silence as he tapped away, looking for answers. Zephyr was staring at Body. I had it glance at her briefly and smile. She had just killed the closest thing we had to a mother, but there was no sense in reminding her of that. More optimal to use the opportunity to our advantage.
“Ugh! It’s bizarre. There’s some kind of software corruption going on. I can’t get administrator access.”
Wiki took command. “The scientists probably brute-forced it earlier and installed a back-door that stayed open even during the shut-down. Our best bet is to reset the system to an earlier state. Where’s the hardware?”
Stephano led the way to the storage room between Alpha and Beta and through a hatch that led to an auxiliary room. I didn’t see any microfactory here, so I assumed the one Zephyr had used was in the zero-grav section between Beta and Gamma. Instead, this room was filled with computers. Zephyr stayed in the hall as lookout as Body and Robert rebooted the system from backup.
As it came online again Stephano’s com lit up with connection. He tapped the arm-screen.
“The human should signal that it is receiving my signal. A child overstays its welcome.”
Stephano tapped his com furiously and said “Acknowledged! We have been dealing with minor computer trouble! All is well now! Do you know how to enter the habitat?”
“The human should know that protocol has been agreed upon. The meeting space is being cleared. I am preparing to dock.”
The nameless were here.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Remember your primary mission: Defuse tension between the species. We want the nameless to forgive the CAPE incident, continue to talk with us, and generally give us another chance. Secondarily, try and figure out whatever you can about them. Knowledge is power, and for peace or war we’
re going to need it.”
{And the third goal: Find out whether the crystal we run on is nameless in origin,} added Wiki.
The voice of Stephano came over the com that had been attached to Body’s arm. It was idiotic to have an android with a functioning antenna wear a com system instead of just connecting to the network directly, but there wasn’t time to get Body configured; the com we wore already had the software needed to translate to and from the nameless’ computer as well as talk to Stephano.
“I’ll try and stay on as long as I can, but I’m going to be descending into the Beta-sections to get Marian in a moment and I can’t risk dividing my attention. Zephyr’s monitoring you and can get you out of there if you’re in trouble.”
The elevator door slid open and the lateral pressure of descent stopped. We were in the nameless habitat: Gamma-section. “Understood. Thank you,” said Body towards its arm while simultaneously undoing the safety harness.
Gamma-section was how we left it: dark, heavy, and empty. It was trivially easy to see the nameless, who were standing only ten metres from the elevator door.
The pair had taken off the environment suit that they had to use when moving from their ship to the disk. Vista noted it lying in a heap on the floor. The nameless paid it no mind. Instead, the creature seemed to be engaged in… juggling.
The nameless did not have bodies like animals on Earth. Nearly all Terran animals were bilaterally symmetric, or at least radially symmetric (like worms). Both nameless species had four-fold symmetry. The nameless animal on top had four eyes and four “arms” each with four thick, boneless “fingers”. The animal on the bottom, carrying the top animal, had four trunk-like legs (each ending in a four-toed foot) and also had four eyes. The eyes were distributed between their limbs, resulting in one eye above each leg and under each arm. They had no front and no back, merely four identical sides.
The nameless’ arms were moving in unison, throwing four small white or purple (impossible to tell in this lighting) balls between its hands. It wasn’t amazing in the way that humans could sometimes use two hands to juggle six or more objects, but it was mildly impressive considering the gravity and Coriolis effects (from the rotation).
“It’s juggling,” said Body.
“Excellent. You lucked out that they sent Jester. At least, it’s probably Jester. I had the good fortune of talking with him about a year ago. Much more mild-mannered than some of the others,” said Stephano. “Remember not to get too close. The nameless hate physical proximity, even though they demand face-to-face meetings.”
Body kept its distance and waved. I instructed Body to press the button on its com that would translate our words into Xenolang and send them to the aliens. “Hello. I am Crystal Socrates. I am here to talk to you.”
The aliens did something of a dance, spinning around in a circle, kicking its legs outward, continuing to juggle as it did so. That impressed me. Nameless were bigger than humans, and more massive despite their higher-gravity home. This was, from what we had read, a smaller than average pair, with the “shoulder” of the arms at about 190cm tall. Dancing under the increased gravity betrayed immense strength. Dream was reminded of an Earth animal called an elephant, though they were much bigger.
Despite the little spin, the nameless didn’t respond. Was its communicator broken?
“Can you understand me?” asked Body, pressing the button. I remembered Stephano’s earlier warning to avoid eye-contact just a bit too late, and had Body look at the wall, just barely keeping the nameless in camera vision. Hopefully it didn’t take too much offence at being looked at.
“You are a robot. You look like a human,” came a flat synthetic voice from our com. Nameless didn’t use spoken words, hence their name. In order to communicate they carried computers that somehow spoke for them. It was unclear, however, where exactly their coms were, as nameless seemed to be universally naked when out of their suits. The leading hypothesis was that the computers were surgically implanted, making them technically a race of cyborgs.
“Yes. I am a machine that thinks. I am here to talk with you,” said Body.
“Many people know of this miracle. This is why the community chose for me to come here. How do you work?” As the words came, the aliens walked over, still juggling. Perhaps having two brains helped them multitask better than humans. The exoskeletal plates of natural armour on the creatures looked black in the gloom. Despite their arthropod-like appearance we could see heat radiating off them as a sign of their warm-bloodedness.
This was strange. If the nameless despised physical proximity, why were they coming nearer? Were they planning to attack? That seemed unlikely, given our evidence. I risked pushing Body’s gaze a bit towards the creatures, still keeping eyes averted, though I doubted it could really appreciate the direction of Body’s pupils given the lighting and distance.
Stephano’s voice came through another channel on the com. “Going dark. You’re on your own from here on. You probably have at least 20 minutes, given that it’s only Jester. Signal Zephyr when you want to end.” The com showed him as disconnected.
After a brief internal debate Body said “I am very complicated. It would take a long time to explain how I work.”
The answer from the alien was immediate. “This is good. Human technology is advanced and complex. I seek to understand books.” The lack of inflection and emotional cues was obnoxiously hard to interpret. No wonder the humans had a hard time not offending them by accident.
We were debating what to say next when the nameless’ words, still flat and emotionless, said “Can you juggle? I like juggling.” It was getting close now. Three metres. Two metres. The nameless body-structure was gangly, with flat, box-like bodies and long, triple-jointed legs and arms. In the centre of the top-animal was a huge penis that extended straight-up at least thirty centimetres. The base of the organ was thick and covered in luminescent white dots, like star-freckles, while the last ten centimetres or so was thinner and ended with an orifice of sharp bone lit by a faint luminescent glow.
We were close enough now that I could see several eyes. They were solid black and ringed with circular eyelids like those of a chameleon. Though nameless had a partial exoskeleton, most xenobiologists agreed that they must also have a sturdy internal skeleton to support their immense weight.
“No. I never learned how to juggle. I could try to learn, if you’d like. I think I’d fail, though,” said Body into the com. This was technically a lie, but there was internal agreement that it was a strategically bad idea to admit to the skill.
The animals hissed ominously as they came close. It was a rhythmic noise. Wiki told me it was the sound of their breathing. At only a metre away the looming aliens did another spin-dance. “Your appearance is strange. You look like a human. You look like a strange human. Is your shape like a human because humans built you?”
“Yes. They built me to look like them.”
“You don’t want to turn around. You look like a human. Your body is bad at turning around. Your body is good at going in straight lines. Your body is BAD at wandering in curves. Your body looks like a pervert-animal. Your shape is evil.”
{Well, they certainly don’t hold back, do they?} I mused.
{Did we make it angry? It’s so close!} thought Safety.
{It’s probably not angry. Xenolang is able to convey emphasis, and only the word “bad” was emphasized,} thought Wiki.
{Do you think it’s trying to get us to turn around?} wondered Dream.
We had body do a simple 360.
“You HAVE intelligence. The pervert-body doesn’t stop your mind. I am joyous.” The voice coming from our com didn’t sound joyous, but I knew that was only a limitation of the translator.
I remembered Marian’s advice as Body spoke through the com system. “Why do you like turning around?”
“I am confused. I am CONFUSED! You are ALIEN like humans. This is ALIEN!”
We risked another full rotation.
> The nameless continued to talk. “You don’t want to know about health. I am confused. You don’t have many eyes. There is value in my remembering. There are few eyes. There are few legs.”
Dream figured it out. “When someone spins you can see all of their body. You want to see if they’re injured or sick.”
There was a momentary delay, then the synthetic voice came from Body’s arm once more. “This is true. This isn’t wrong. It is smart. This is true. This is true. THIS IS WRONG! THERE IS A PERVERT! THIS IS WRONG! I DO GOOD BECAUSE IT IS GOOD, NOT BECAUSE IT IS USEFUL! ALIEN MACHINE IS A PERVERT! ALIEN MACHINE IS A PERVERT, JUST LIKE HUMANS ARE PERVERTS! ALL PEOPLE SHOULD ASK CHILDREN ABOUT CHILD-WISDOM! CHILDREN BRING TRUTH FROM FAR AWAY!” As the words funnelled out of our com the alien stopped juggling, and ran away from Body to a distance of 6 or so metres. It was impressive how quickly it could run considering its strange body-shape.
I pushed to have Body raise its hands to signal that we had made an error. Growth blocked the movement. Body spoke from our combined will. “I did not mean to offend you! I am only trying to understand!”
{Nameless body-language is not that of humans. Stop telling Body to do human gestures. They’re not going to help. Perhaps raising hands is seen as a threat to them. You might offend them more,} instructed Growth.
“This is true. I remember the human-way. You look like a human. This is your EVIL! There is a PERVERT! You are an idiot. You are smart. You don’t know simple things. THERE IS AN ALIEN THING! Does Earth have no concept of purity? Earth has a concept of purity because human computers use the symbol for the concept of purity. I am confused.”
“We are both confused,” said Body. I wished that I could convey some sympathy or something, but I knew that the translator wouldn’t carry it, and even if it did, I wasn’t sure that the aliens could even understand what it was. “On Earth there is purity-”
