by Arthur C.
Johann did not smell the substance with which he was being covered until the rag was on his face. Then he thought he understood what was occurring. I am being perfumed, he guessed, with something very mild and delicate. He inhaled deeply, attempting to recognize the fragrance. It’s almost a gardenia smell, he thought, but very muted and subtle.
He had just started wondering about the purpose of the entire procedure when his branker pair took him again firmly in their talons and gently eased out into the center of the hollow cylinder. Emitting a carefully coordinated sequence of subdued branks, they flew slowly on a descending helical trajectory, down past the bottom of the alcoves and into the heart of the nest.
At the base of the cylinder, below the alcoves for the captives and twenty or so levels of branker apartments that extended vertically for roughly fifty meters, a virtual army of smaller, talonless brankers were scurrying about on either side of a raised doughnut structure. Inside this thick torus, sitting or floating in a colorless liquid pool underneath an array of torches providing superb illumination, was an enormous branker, at least twice the size of any that Johann had ever seen. Its elongated body was golden, not black, and its two pairs of wings were a lovely powder-blue. As Johann and his brankers approached, passing another pair carrying a goat-sized animal with six legs, the queen branker rose and placed its middle two legs, which also had talons, on one side of the torus. Johann watched as the queen accepted with her front talons a large piece of unknown meat from a dozen of her minions and ripped it to pieces with the teeth in her cavernous mouth. She then returned to her position in the center of her torus and focused her attention on Johann.
His brankers flew very slowly back and forth in front of her huge solitary eye, showing their prize from all directions. Johann thought he could see movement in the blackness behind the transparent membrane, but he wasn’t absolutely certain. What he did see was a surge of white drool that spilled out of the queen’s mouth when she issued her deeper, louder brank of approval.
Her response excited Johann’s pair of carriers, for they burst into a staccato sequence of branks and ascended rapidly, depositing Johann this time in a special, lighted room in the middle of the branker apartment complex. He dropped down on his side as soon as his pair was no longer holding him tightly, so that he would not be forced again to put weight on his injured hip and leg.
The two brankers stood on either side of him in the room. Soon there was a crescendo of noise from below and Johann heard the distinctive brank of the queen as she flew slowly upward in the cylinder. She stopped, all six talons deployed below her huge body; and then hovered just opposite Johann’s location. His branker pair became extremely agitated. The queen branked again, in Johann’s direction, and his pair flew out into the center of the cylinder, where they circled their queen twice with great deliberation. At this point the back third of the queen’s elongated body lifted up, from a joint at her rear, until this hood stood almost perpendicular to her body. With her interior parts exposed, each of Johann’s two brankers, one on either side of the queen, approached her very carefully, flying backward. They simultaneously placed their rears in her exposed area and an incredible, ear-shattering howl came from all three of them. This shocking noise was followed by a din of branks that resounded off the walls of the cylinder.
When they were finished, Johann’s brankers flew back to his side. The queen had now turned in his direction and opened her gaping mouth. Voluminous drool poured out, falling down toward the base of the cylinder. The brankers picked Johann up with their talons and flew toward their queen.
She’s going to eat me in one bite, Johann thought as the strongest terror he had ever known surged through his body. Just before he reached her open mouth he held his arms out in front of him and shouted defiantly with all his strength.
“I am Johann,” he bellowed.
FOUR
AS LONG AS any daylight remained, Siegfried, Rowen, and Franzi continued to trek back and forth from the entrance to the cave to the darkness of their selected hideout. Siegfried kept stressing the importance of memorizing the route completely, and knowing how many steps were between each major junction, since they would be in complete darkness and might have to move quickly.
They were making their final round trip and were halfway between their hiding place and the entrance when they heard the first brank. Without saying a word, they quickly retreated to where they intended to remain for the rest of the night.
Even deep in the cave they could still make out an occasional brank as the attack on their region began. Franzi’s fear for herself was overshadowed by her certain knowledge that her beloved uncle Johann would be helpless against the fearsome creatures. She started to say something but was grabbed forcefully by Siegfried.
The trio sat, motionless and in absolute silence as they had planned, for well over two hours. Franzi’s back was bothering her and she had an overwhelming desire to urinate. She touched Siegfried, who was sitting on her right in the dark, and whispered, in her lowest possible voice, “Is it safe now?”
His firm grip upon her forearm gave her the negative answer.
The threesome continued to sit until they were all sore and miserable. They were unaware that during the time they had been in the cave a solitary branker, discouraged by its inability to find any exciting prey, had been searching the entire area and had picked up the trace of their smell. It had then flown away, to find its partner, and this pair had subsequently canvassed all the cave openings until they had located where the humans had entered. The branker pair, silent except for an occasional exchange of their odd little squeals, had descended one level into the cave by the time Franzi whispered her question to Siegfried.
The brankers did not hear what she said, but they did know, from the strength of the response they were receiving from their olfactory equivalents, that they were growing closer and closer to something that was both alive and unusual. At each junction, the creatures carefully examined each of the pathways, checked the smells, and then continued deeper in the cave complex on a path that would ultimately lead them to the humans.
Siegfried heard the brankers first, their talons and four other jointed legs scraping on the cave floor. As planned, the trio were sitting just inside the door to their little room. They had discussed many times what they would do if a branker showed up. Siegfried, wielding the large club sitting beside him, would distract the creature by engaging it in battle. While he was fighting, Rowen and Franzi would slip out the door and escape from the cave.
The brankers made no attempt to hide their presence. Moving slowly in darkness so black that even their incredibly sensitive eyes could barely see, they moved relentlessly toward where the humans were hiding. When they were just outside the door of the small room, Siegfried picked up his club and moved over to the opposite wall. Franzi was so frightened that she could hardly breathe. The moment the first branker rounded the corner and saw Siegfried’s silhouette, it screamed a loud brank that was quickly repeated by its partner out in the cave hallway. Siegfried struck a monumental blow, directly on the lead branker’s eye, temporarily stunning the creature.
“Run,” he shouted, gathering his strength for a second strike. Franzi, adrenaline saturating her entire body, ducked quickly out the door and down the hallway before the second branker could react. Rowen was not so fortunate. When he raced into the hallway the other alien grabbed him with one talon and then penned him against the wall.
Meanwhile, Siegfried continued his heroic battle. Over and over he managed deftly to escape the lead branker’s talons and land another savage blow on its eye. The branker trying to capture him was now filling the cave area with its shrieks. Siegfried did not understand that the creature he was battling was trying to take him alive and was therefore trying not to injure him too seriously. But when the continuing series of blows from Siegfried’s club finally caused the lead branker’s eye membrane to split open, and some liquid to ooze out, the alien lost its temper.<
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Howling furiously, the branker attacked with both its talons and ripped Siegfried apart in a few seconds, breaking his body into three pieces in the process. The terrified Rowen, just outside the room, heard Siegfried’s death cries and fainted from fear. With Rowen lying motionless on the cave floor, the two brankers had a quick feast on Siegfried’s remains.
Franzi, meanwhile, reached the entrance to the cave after carefully counting her steps and making the correct turn at every junction. Outside she stopped momentarily, not certain of what to do, and checked behind her to see if Rowen was coming. She waited as long as she dared. When she heard some noise behind her in the cave, she started to run.
But where should she go? The fact that she could see so clearly in the twin moonlight also meant that a flying branker could see her as well. She glanced around and found a thick group of bushes not too far from the caves. Running at her top speed she approached these bushes, crawled in amongst them, and lay down on the ground. From where she was she could not see the sky. Franzi felt certain that no airborne branker could see her either.
The two brankers in the cave, one of them carrying Rowen, who had regained a sort of traumatized consciousness, proceeded at a deliberate pace to retrace their earlier steps. During their exit, they decided in their conversation of squeals that they would keep Rowen as their personal prey, and head west for home. However, first they would inform other members of their species that there was one more of these exotic animals loose somewhere in the region.
When they departed from the cave, the branker pair secured Rowen in their talons and lifted off in their tandem formation, soaring up several hundred meters before beginning a circular pattern that they repeated six or seven times. While they were flying in circles, both the brankers holding Rowen screamed a continuous string of branks, calling to all other members of their species that might be within earshot. One new branker showed up quickly, dove down to the ground to pick up Franzi’s smell, and then became airborne again in search of its partner. A few minutes later, after a second pair of their colleagues started flying in their direction, the two brankers carrying Rowen broke out of their circular pattern, increased their altitude, and headed toward the west.
Franzi, lying underneath the protective bushes, had no idea that at least three more of the loathsome creatures now knew of her existence. But she could hear the terrifying branks of one pair, who swooped hurriedly to the ground, eager to find her before the other branker returned with its partner. Her trail was fresh and easy to follow. The two new brankers located her hiding place in the bushes in only a matter of minutes. Lying on the ground and trembling, Franzi watched the pair between some twigs while they were deciding how to proceed. When the solo branker who had smelled her earlier returned with its partner, a territorial dispute among the four creatures ensued. Momentarily neglected, Franzi crawled out of the far side of the bushes and began to run.
Immediately there was a chorus of branks behind her. All four creatures were airborne and it was a race to see which branker could reach her first. As Franzi ran across a meadow, the fastest branker caught her from behind, placed its talons on either side of her waist, and lifted her off the ground with a triumphant trio of branks.
Franzi, her legs dangling in the air, screamed uselessly, her cry giving vent to her fear, as a second branker came up from behind and grabbed her thighs with its talons. The first branker walked its talons up her body, one at a time, until it was holding her under the armpits and the flying formation had stabilized.
Meanwhile the other branker pair, angry that they had not secured this unusual prize, continued to fly beside the creatures carrying Franzi and to voice their disapproval of her seizure with continuous branks. Suddenly one of the other pair rushed at the lead branker and it let go of Franzi. She tumbled forward, saw the ground more than a hundred meters below her, and thought she was going to fall
The back branker held her legs firmly, however, during the fierce midair battle between the others. For the entire two minutes of the raging fight, Franzi was hanging upside down, with her head facing the ground. Eventually the branker who had originally seized Franzi, although severely wounded, won the battle and returned to grasp the front of her body During the next several minutes of the flight, however, some kind of fluid from this lead branker dripped on the back of Franzi’s head.
The brankers carrying her turned left, affording her an exceptional view of the twin full moons, and began to increase their altitude. They rose over the western hills and headed for the snowcapped mountains. Although she was still frightened, Franzi was not uncomfortable. She had already begun to wonder where they were taking her when something extraordinary happened.
Franzi never saw it coming. From out across the ocean, traveling at a fantastic speed, came a glowing ribbon of particles that passed directly over the heads of the flying brankers, pirouetted, and then spread out to occupy the entire airspace toward which the creatures were flying. They brank’d, confused, and tried to dive down under this glowing whiteness, but the ribbon extended a part of itself as far as the head of the lead branker, touching it lightly The lead branker screamed immediately with pain. Moments later the ribbon had surrounded the pair of brankers and Franzi. In their confusion, they dropped her from their talons.
She began to fall. Franzi felt certain that she was going to die. After only a few seconds, however, the ribbon was underneath her as well and part of it had formed into a solid substance, like a cushion, upon which the amazed Franzi rode as the ribbon sped in the direction of their village, now reduced to rubble by the brankers. The ribbon deposited Franzi gently on the beach, next to a glowing bullet-shaped white object the size of a small house. While the ribbon hovered overhead a door opened in the vehicle and Franzi saw that Rowen was asleep in a chair in a small compartment with hundreds of miniature threads wrapped around most of the parts of his naked body.
Franzi glanced at the hovering ribbon and somehow knew that she was supposed to remove her shirt and shorts. When she was naked, a tiny finger of the ribbon extended in her direction and, to Franzi’s amazement, made a quick incision in her right buttock, inserted a silver cylinder the size of a small cigar, and closed up the wound, all in no more than one or two seconds, and without causing her any pain. The ribbon extension then gestured in the direction of the vehicle. The dazed Franzi, overwhelmed by what was happening to her, climbed into the other chair in the compartment and was quickly enwrapped by the miniature threads. She was asleep in seconds.
The bullet-shaped vehicle deployed its legs and wings, fired its smaller pair of thrusters, and took off from the beach. It flew in tandem with the ribbon of dancing, sparkling particles until both were well out over the ocean. Then the glowing white bullet turned upward, aimed at the stars, and its larger pair of thrusters roared into action. Once it was outside the atmosphere, and no longer accompanied by the ribbon, the drone vehicle switched to its advanced engine and accelerated into space at a breathtaking rate.
RESURRECTION
ONE
THE IMPOSING CREATURE, holding the small silver cylinder in its four-fingered hand, said good-bye to the woman, closed the door to her apartment, and walked down the cream-colored corridor to the nearest intersection. There the alien being, called the Eagle by the humans inhabiting the giant tetrahedral space station of extraterrestrial origin, hesitated for a few seconds. During those seconds an elaborate conversation occurred between the Eagle and the central intelligence governing the space station. This two-way communication took place in an advanced higher-level language at a phenomenal data rate. The precision and richness of the electronic discussion could not possibly be conveyed in any form as simple as a human language. It is possible, however, to summarize the fundamental information exchanged between the two artificial intelligences and mimic the flow of the conversation.
“The young human named Maria has given me the silver cylinder again,” the Eagle said. “She has entreated me to examine it a second
time to discover if it contains any information about her ancestors or personal history. She does not accept that I know nothing about the cylinder, or about the events that led to her discovery by Nicole in the octospider zoo inside Rama years ago, just prior to our intercession. Maria has learned, from those octospiders and humans that we have selected to survive, that her parents may not have come to Rama from Earth along with all the other humans. She insists that her life will continue to be meaningless if her origins remain completely unknown to her.
“Does there not exist some way that we can use her passionate obsession with her family background for our own purposes? She is an intelligent and compassionate human, possessing some of the best attributes of the species. Her ancestors had many detailed interactions with the particle beings whose evolution and sociology remain a partial mystery to us. Her silver cylinder may contain data that would be of interest to us, as well as her. It seems remiss on our part not to try to obtain this new data. We have added no new information to the encyclopedia entry for the particle beings for almost a hundred years.”
“We have encountered several similar silver cylinders over the past millennia,” the central intelligence replied, “and have never been successful decoding their programs, or preventing them from self-destructing when we used invasive techniques. Of all the spacefarers we have cataloged in this segment of the galaxy, only the particle beings have eluded our understanding. The probability that we will learn something new by exposing this insignificant human to the creatures who interacted with her ancestors and created the silver cylinder are vanishingly small, as we discussed several weeks ago when this Maria first gave you the object the particle beings inserted in her mother’s body. Nothing has happened since then to change the quantitative analysis that indicated we should not tell her anything.”
