The merchant reached out and touched Foster’s hand, she felt a warm wave of energy transfer from his hand onto her, then travel up into her head. Before she could react and let go that same energy force travelled back down her arm and back into its hand.
“Ah much better,” the creature said . . . in English!
Foster asked wide-eyed, “You speak our language?”
“I got the basis of it now, English you call it, yes, yes?”
She crossed her arms. “Now that’s what I call a quick study.”
The creature began to circle around the five, examining them closely from head to toe, stroking the material of their equipment. “I scanned your nervous system and absorbed your language into my mind. It’s an advanced form of a skill your people refer to as psionics.”
Psionics, proof that it didn’t originate from Radiance gods, they gonna be mighty pissed once we report this. “Where are we?” she asked next.
The creature faced the bustling marketplace with its arms wide open. “This is Togi-toki, central trade and travel hub on this world. You are not from around here I presume, yes, yes?”
A snickering sound left Foster’s mouth. “What gave that away?”
“Excellent!” The creature yelled and began to rub its hands together as if some sort of lucrative deal was about to me made. “I will be your guide here then, yes, yes?”
Foster shrugged and scratched her head. “Uh thanks, mister?”
“Norauk,” he replied. “Remember that name whenever you have a need to purchase something.”
“We’ll keep that in mind.”
“Come, come, let’s exchange stories,” Norauk said, grabbing hold of Foster’s arm as he led her toward a large multistory building. “Perhaps we can exchange business, yes, yes?”
Foster walked along with him, the rest of her team followed behind. “Business, huh?”
“That is the reason you travelled here? To sell and purchase? And I assure you I have the finest bargains in the city.”
Norauk lead the group into a three-story building which he described as a place where travelers and wanderers stayed as they conducted business. Basically, an inn. The main floor was elaborately decorated with crystalline sculptures of lizard-like creatures asleep and plants from the outside alien world. Further in, they arrived at a small dinner table. It was so small all of them would have to sit on the floor in order to utilize it.
Norauk insisted they all gathered around the table and sit as he walked out of sight into a back room for several minutes. Foster and her entourage exchanged odd looks with one another as they sat at the tiny table, the Hammerhead folks especially. If Foster didn’t know any better, it would appear they had become guests of honor at some kind of dinner. Guests that were still wearing combat armor or EVA suits.
Norauk returned with a large plate of cooked meats and fresh vegetables in his furry hands. At least that’s what it looked and smelt like. Alongside him were nine other people. Some were of his race, others were of the humanoid-looking people that made up most of the population of the city. The humanoid folks wore robes similar in design to the two they met in the forest.
The meal that was prepared and delivered was laid on the table for their human guests. Foster leaned in to sniff the spicy aroma of the seared golden-brown roast in front of her. For a world and civilization cut off from the rest of the galaxy, the smells did seem to be . . . familiar.
“All of this for us?” Pierce asked Norauk.
“It was the best they could provide on such a short notice, we seldom have guests.”
Norauk sat with them while he waved away his associates to return to the back, the kitchen. They all bowed in unison and took their leave, many of them gazing back at the five humans in awe and wonder. The humans were the alien visitors here.
“This gonna cost us anything?” Foster asked.
“Nothing, nothing at all, it is after all your first time here,” Norauk said as he reached over for a bowl of vegetables. “Eat my friends; you must be hungry from your travels, yes, yes?”
The five looked at the strange meals before them, none of them were willing to take the plunge and try it out, expect for Chevallier being the ‘I make my own rules’ person she was. Eating Radiance food was one thing as they studied humans for years before they made contact. Radiance knew exactly which foods they had that humans could eat, and which humans should avoid. But this? There was no telling if an off-world bacterium was festering in it which the locals would have developed a resistance to.
Pierce’s thinking was on the same level as everyone else’s as he used his EAD to take a long scan of the food. “We good, Pierce?” Foster asked him.
“I hope so,” he said, and looked at Chevallier chewing away at a piece of meat.
“This better be safe,” Chevallier said to him. “’cause I’m fucking starving.”
Pierce put his EAD way and picked off a thin strip of meat from the roast. “I think we’re good.”
Chevallier and Pierce’s eating eventually lead everyone else to dig in and fill their empty bellies. Foster couldn’t help but shake the feeling that she ate food very similar to this in the past. The smells, flavor profile, texture, and seasoning, it couldn’t have been a coincidence. She ate enough Linl foods to know that ingredients from other planets tasted and smelled different. The meat tasted like lamb and the salads tasted like something she had just recently.
Norauk excused himself and went into the back room to check up on the workers inside. Perfect timing, she thought and went to address her team. “I’ve had this before.”
“Just because food came from another world doesn’t mean it has to taste different,” McDowell said.
“Have you had a chance to dine in the mess on the Carl Sagan?”
“I went straight into cryo after boarding and was revived later, so no.”
“Chef Bailey had a unique way of blending human and Radiance food together, a technique he’s usin’ for all our meals,” Foster said, and looked down at their food. “I reckon this is the same deal.”
McDowell’s face cringed. “How do you figure?”
Foster offered him a bowl of her salad. “Taste this.”
“I’m not a salad eater.”
“Still, look at its shape,” she said pointing to it. “Looks like Hayco leaf, right? Those are only found on the Javnis home world and typically used for salads.” She took back her bowl and jammed her thumb toward the meat she was gnawing on. “That there is lamb, don’t care what anyone has to say. This is a combination of Earth, Javnis, and Linl cookin’.”
Foster’s discovery prompted Pierce to take more scans with his EAD. “Once we have access to the Carl Sagan’s database, I’ll run a cross check on these analyses. Perhaps the chemical compositions will shed some light on your theory.”
“Hey!” Chevallier mumbled with a mouth partly full of food. “Didn’t your mother tell you not to scan your food?”
Norauk returned five minutes later, rubbing his hands again. Foster suspected he was up to something. The food, offering to be a guide, he wanted something, the question was what?
“You two are married, yes?” Norauk said to Foster and Pierce.
“What? Us?” Foster said as the two of them began to flush.
“Yes, yes!” Norauk said, smiling, then faced Chevallier and McDowell who happened to be sitting next to each other. “And you two, husband and wife?”
“No!” They both shouted at the same time.
“Nope,” was the reply Pierce added.
“Oh my, this won’t do at all,” Norauk said, examining McDowell, Kingston, and Pierce. “What type of women do you like?”
“Ain’t nobody here to get hitched!” Foster bellowed at Norauk. We’re explorers damn it, not travelling bachelors.
“Surely you must know it is against the law for men to be without a wife?” Norauk said.
“Well, this is awkward,” McDowell said.
Norauk wagged his tails in a troubled manner
. “You didn’t know?”
“We’re, uh, from another city,” Foster exaggerated for she wasn’t ready to reveal the presence of the Carl Sagan somewhere in the system. Or that they came from Earth.
“All cities on this planet have the same laws,” Norauk said. “Oh, you must be the others, from another planet, yes?”
“Another planet?” Foster said. “Yeah, you could say that.”
“Ah, I didn’t think there was more of your kind left!” Norauk’s tone changed to a more pleasant and excited one. “Well then, I shall find temporary wives for you all, unless you two females want to marry them?”
“Oh, poor Kingston,” McDowell said, laughing at him. “You’re going to be the odd one out.”
Foster shook her head. “We’re not marrying each other, even temporarily!”
“Ah, temporary wives it is,” Norauk said.
“No!”
Foster’s pleas went unanswered as Norauk ran off into the back rooms. As she recalled some of the people that brought out food were women. She dreaded the thought of them rolling out of the kitchen with a wedding gown on with Norauk at their side to perform a quick Las Vegas style wedding, back when Las Vegas still existed that was.
Kingston bit into a fruit that resembled an apple and put in his two cents on the predicament at hand. “She better be hot.”
10 FOSTER
Togi-toki, inn, third floor
SA-115, Sirius A system
May 20, 2050, 12:56 SST (Sol Standard Time)
The planet SA-115 was littered with multiple dome-shaped barriers across its surface protecting its inhabitants as well as its eco-system from the star it orbited. For thousands of years the people known only as the Poniga made the planet their home and lived a simple life of hunting, gathering, and trading with other members of their society. Each dome was connected via a network of wormholes, some of which were also linked to wormholes that existed on other worlds.
It was long believed that the Poniga originally arrived at SA-115 from one of these worlds and established it as their home. Legends had told that there were other members of their civilization on other planets, though contact with them had been long lost in the aftermath of a great cataclysm. A being, known only as the Architect, allegedly created the domes as a means for the Poniga people to live on a planet, that by rights, shouldn’t be able to support life. Most Poniga believe that it was the Architect that guided their early ancestors to the planet to survive. It went without saying, that the being known as the Architect quickly became a subject of worship and devotion as the Poniga people enthusiastically believed they owed their existence to it.
At least that’s what Foster’s interpretation was as Norauk spent most of the previous night and the early hours of the morning bringing her and her team up to speed. An act Foster wished he had saved for later her body needed sleep, sleep that was denied due to Norauk’s storytelling. The heat and white sun light didn’t help as the sun stayed in the skies long after they retired. Air-conditioning clearly didn’t exist with such a low-tech civilization and the barriers, as strong as they were, didn’t filter out all of the heat and light that baked the surface. According to her and Pierce’s EAD scans, the estimated day length on the planet, based on how slowly the sun moved through the skies, was approximately seventy hours.
She rolled out of the bed amongst the dry heat and looked at her EVA suit that rested on the floor and then at the clothes she was wearing, glad that she chose to bend the rules and not wear her IESA uniform. She peeked out the window and partly shielded her eyes from the brutal light above and looked at the Poniga people below as they went about their day, speaking a language none of her team understood.
Her gazing on, and observation of, the alien society came to an end as the wooden door to her room slid open, Norauk had arrived, his tails wagging on seeing Foster up and about. “Howdy, just the person I wanted to see,” she said to him.
“Oh? You want to buy something, yes, yes?”
“We need directions to the edge of the barrier we talked about.”
“Oh,” he replied with disappointment. “You wish to leave?”
“Like I said last night we’s passin’ through. Just wanna contact our ship—” Shit. You weren’t supposed to mention a ship Rebecca!
“A ship? You are from the stars then?”
Foster stepped away from the window and its searing light and debated if she should get on with it and spill the whole truth. After a slight pause she revealed a frown that appeared on her face. “We ain’t from these parts.”
“A ship, this is good.” Norauk rubbed his hands together, Foster began to wonder if he was planning something else, or was in a dire need of some hand lotion. “My people are known as the Qirak, we too are from the stars!”
Norauk’s reveal wasn’t exactly surprising per se. It was clear that there was no intelligent life on the planet that evolved naturally. The Poniga came from elsewhere and so Norauk’s people, the Qirak, must have come from another world as well.
“Is that so? How’d you get here?”
“We are traders, we travel the stars seeking fine wares and profit. We saw great opportunities here and brokered a deal with the Architect.”
“The Architect,” she mumbled to herself. She remembered him tossing that name out, but never did get around to asking follow-up questions. “Who is that?”
Norauk stepped in front of the window unaffected by the intense heat and light. Following behind, Foster saw him point down below into a courtyard where a bronze display took center stage. It looked like four spikes coming out from the ground forming almost a ‘W’ shape as they crossed with each other.
“That is the mark of the Architect,” Norauk said pointing to the sculpture. “People here consider him to be a deity. But me? He’s just a business partner.”
The Architect is a business partner, a ‘he’ at that. Must be some sort of advanced alien living in this region of space. Foster thanked Norauk for his time and gathered the rest of her team from their adjacent rooms, and out into the halls. She gave them the rundown on the situation and the game plan for them to leave and travel to the edge of the barrier.
Norauk chimed in during their talk. “You wish to travel beyond the barrier? It is dangerous there; you will not live long enough to contact your ship.”
“What do you think, Pierce?” Foster asked.
Pierce eyed the three Hammerhead personnel and their combat armor. “Combat armor with max shields should last a few minutes outside of the barrier before bad things happen.”
Foster nodded then addressed McDowell. “Commander?”
“Yeah, yeah, I know the sound of voluntold.”
“One of us should stay,” Pierce said. “There is still much to learn about these people and this Architect.”
Foster concurred. “I’ll stay, Dr. Pierce, you head out with them.”
His jaw dropped, and he began to protest. “Captain! You can’t be serious?”
“I got a feelin’ this planet and possibly this city is the center for all activity in the system,” Foster said. “If we’s gonna live here in this system then we best iron out a deal and make sure we ain’t building homes in someone’s backyard.”
“Ah, you wish to meet the Architect then? Yes, yes?” Norauk said.
“If he’s in charge, yeah.”
“I can have my wife arrange a meeting,” Norauk said. “But . . . payment.” Foster rolled her eyes, she had a feeling there was a catch coming sooner rather than later. “I take your friends to the barrier limit and arrange for you to meet the Architect. Two jobs, two payments yes, yes?”
“We ain’t from here remember? We ain’t gots your currency.”
“What do your people use?”
“Credit chits, and I’m pretty sure I left mine in my quarters.”
“Gems perhaps?” Foster shook her head no. “Jewels? Gold?”
“None of that sorry, mister.”
“Something from your sh
ip perhaps? Technology is not common here unless it came from the Architect, or underground in which case it’s given to the Architect as tribute.”
Architect has high tech, good to know. “What about your people?”
“Ah, that’s a long story.”
“Tell ya what.” Foster showed Norauk her EAD. “There’s more of these, perhaps you want a few?”
“A scanning tool, very useful,” Norauk said looking at her EAD up and down. “Yes, yes this will do.”
It was a deal. Foster faced her team, all of them looked ready to embark, except Pierce. But that was OK, he’d be best for the job with his knowledge of science should they run into issues. And best part of all? No local laws get broken, Pierce, Kingston, and McDowell won’t be forced into marriage. “Well then, y’all ready to head out?”
“MC, stay with the Captain,” McDowell said to Chevallier.
Foster didn’t object, having an extra body to watch her back helped put her mind at ease while she prepared herself mentally to speak with this mythical Architect person. Norauk, McDowell, and Kingston left the city with Pierce dragging his feet like a moody child on his way to school. Prior to Norauk leaving he gave Foster the location where she could find his wife, who was out in the markets in the western edge of the city.
Foster and Chevallier took to the city streets and casually strolled through, trying their best to keep to the shadows the taller buildings cast. She had concerns about what the bright light from the skies was slowly doing to her vision. A full eye examination upon returning to the Carl Sagan was in order.
They turned the corner and arrived at a crowded marketplace. Some of the Poniga people were bartering with other members of Norauk’s race, while another large crowd was huddled around . . . something. Foster couldn’t see what had gripped the crowd’s attention, the blinding sunlight being the sole reason for that. They arrived at a kiosk where a solo Qirak female fitting the description of Norauk’s wife exchanged gold and jewels for . . . people?
Every Poniga that arrived at her kiosk dragged a small group of chained Poniga with them, made their exchange with her, then pushed the small chained-up group beyond the gathering crowd. Slave trading was the first thing that came to Foster’s mind, but Norauk mentioned nothing of that happening in this society.
The Siege of Sirius: A Splintered Galaxy Space Fantasy Novel Page 11
