“Will the Ouder have a landing deck for us?”
“Do you really want to meet them on their ship?” she replied while she removed the first suit from the chamber.
I did not reply but did as she asked and set the coordinates as near the fluttering light as I dared. The ship began its downward trajectory, and I helped her with her suit before donning the second suit myself. The first layer was soft and flexible, but the second layer was more rigid. While the suits allowed for a full range of movement, we left the face helmets for last.
We both sat next to each other silently while we watched the light near the surface get larger. We strapped in for the final descent, but we stopped long before we came anywhere near the hot gaseous surface.
A black platform appeared, which periodically vanished in the bluish haze. I checked to make sure our ship was stabilized in its position and orbit. Then we finished prepping the suits by loading up the oxygen packs that would still allow us to breathe in the thin, toxic atmosphere.
Then the impossible happened. The ship shifted at the same time proximity alarms blasted through it. Kore had the ship’s oculus in her hand and grabbed my arm with her other. “They have created a walking platform for us to take to their ship.”
I sneered at that. I did not like that they were showing some decency when all I wanted was for them to remain the villain. "What is it made of?"
“Jett, they simply want us to be safe in our preferred mode of movement.”
“They want you to be safe.”
She allowed her hand to slide down my arm, and then she laced her hand in mine. "I can go alone."
“Absolutely not.”
“Then let us meet the Ouders.”
Chapter 26
The path outside the ship was more of an ice shelf than anything. With our current elevation from the planet, it nearly matched the pressure at ground level on Icharus, making it only a little harder to walk. It actually helped to have the increased pressure when walking on the ice bridge they made for us so we would not slip.
I managed to persuade her that we needed to wear our grav-packs, even though they weighed us down an additional fifteen veks. She allowed me to go first, but the path to their ship was farther than I had thought, and before long she was walking beside me. I watched as eddies of almost every shade of white, blue, and aquamarine flitted by us creating dangerous mists that obstructed our view at times. Grayish blue and green ice crystals formed on our suits, certainly a mix of methane with other things I did not know since I was never in the science trek. But these were only momentary distractions from the enormous ship looming ahead on our path.
I tried to evaluate what I could see of the silhouetted ship before us, but I only saw a vague outline of it, but it appeared to be the same size as the one we had seen back on Icharus. I had expected to hear some sort of engine noises, but I heard nothing but our own breathing.
"Are they sitting on this artificial platform too?" I asked her.
“What makes you think that?”
“No sound.”
“I thought the suits might have dampened the noise level.”
“Not this much.”
“Then I think that is a logical conclusion,” she evaded, neither confirming nor denying my conclusion.
“Unless their engines produce no noise,” I countered.
“Does it matter now?” She had me there. I was merely distracting myself from the unknown.
We walked about an eighth of a k-lo, and then a low pitched sound blasted from the ship. I felt it more in my gut than I could hear it. Suddenly, something silvery and amorphous drifted up from the ice path and hovered in front of us. It was about twice as large as we were and was slightly transparent. It seemed to take shape into something that I had never seen in real life, but might have been imagined from a nightmare. Then, just as quickly, it would fall apart and reform into something else, equally disturbing.
Next I felt it speak to us. I whispered over the internal comm in our suits to Kore, “I don’t understand it.” She ignored me and stared at the entity. I brushed her arm and asked, “Do you?”
She turned to face me. I saw tears streaming down her face. I took an involuntary step back, and then my protective instinct took over. I lashed out at the entity, not exactly sure what I would meet when I crashed into it. It did not matter because it had somehow hurt Kore. But I never reached it, because Kore grabbed my arm and jerked me back before I could make contact with it. My feet slipped out from underneath me, and I fell onto the platform, bumping my head. In one real, the memory of our journey smeared white in my field of vision, and then all I saw was black.
• ѻ ● Ѻ • ○ ☼
In the darkness, it was cold and filled with nothingness. Then there was a pinpoint of white, and I started walking to it. I picked up the pace and began running to it. The white point grew larger, and then I broke through it, which was definitely like ripping through a film or sheet of something cold and wet. Then I was face to face with… Kore.
“What is going on here?” I asked. I was in a pocket of blistering white space. If I concentrated long enough, I could see Urania wavering on the other side of the bubble.
“This form was the only one we could pull from your memories that we could use to talk to you through.” The voice had that same duality I heard when Cage showed me the recording back at Malik’s Aokian compound.
“Where is Kore?”
"She is right where you left her." I looked around but did not see her.
“Who are you and why do you want Kore?”
“Kore was only a small part of our experiment with humans. She is the culmination of a melding of our species and yours. Your scientists accomplished this portion of the test with great success.”
“What do you mean? I know you want her badly. She couldn’t simply be a test.”
“What you do not understand is that we do want her, but not for the reasons you suspect.”
“Why then?” I asked.
"This test of your science has proven to us that you are a species to be reckoned with; however, this is also the problem. Your people can accomplish so much when they set their minds to it, but something has happened to your humanity over time. You are willing to create something new and wonderful and then sell it, rather than treasure it."
I thought about what it said and heard a kernel of truth in it, but there had to be more. Why else would it ask for Kore? “You want to inhabit her body, don’t you?”
“No. We have no need of human bodies.”
“What will you do with her?” I asked again.
“She will be taken care of. The other portion of the test, your people failed. Your species disappoints us. You kill the weak and treasure the killers. You would sell her into slavery to gain freedom. That is intolerable to us. She cannot be allowed to walk amongst your kind any longer.”
“But that is not how I feel about her. I tried to save her from those who would abuse her.” Then I thought about it for a real and asked, “So you never wanted her for any other ulterior purpose other than to test our own morality?”
Kore's face slipped out of view, and I was stuck with a discombobulated voice when it answered, "Again, let me state that we have no need for bodies. We needed to retrieve her in case your people decided to breed her. It would make things more difficult for us if she were to remain with your kind."
“Are you going to kill her?” I asked allowing hate to taint my tone.
"You are so full of emotions, and then you use them to do deplorable things like killing your own."
I allowed the venom to show through again when I replied, “But emotions are what make us special.”
“Anger and hate are tools that continue your survival, but at what cost?”
“I don’t feel that way about Kore!”
“Remember that we could crush you with a thought. Do not seek retaliation.”
“What do you want to do to her?”
“What wou
ld you have us do?”
“Let us both go.”
“Go where?”
“You could take us to another habitable planet.” Now I was allowing hope to color my words.
"Your life form requirements limit our options."
“You found a planet for ARC.”
"Based on your actions alone, we have decided to monitor the ARC mother ship for a time, rather than immediately destroy it. We have decided to let you live too, and we can bring you to that ship."
What did they want me to say? “What about Kore… and me?”
“I thought we had already told you, Kore is not allowed to rejoin your people.”
“So us sharing another planet is not going to happen?”
“No.”
“What about if we stayed on Sepia?”
"The other planet’s moon?" There was a pause, and I held my breath. "Tell us why you protected and cared for her when you were supposed to kill her."
I thought back as to why and there were so many reasons. I wanted to rebel against the ludicrousness of the Council and ARC. I wanted to stop killing people because it was starting to feel… wrong, even with all the packs they could give me. When Kore stepped into my life, I was ready to make a change, but I was having difficulty voicing this to the Ouder. All I managed to say was, "She is special."
“It is all right Jett. We have accepted that your species does not communicate well. We know what you know.” What the frack?
“What do you know about how I feel?”
“Can you tell us why you love her?” Love. I took a step back and said nothing. “If you could, would you come with us to our realm?”
“Your realm? What are you talking about?”
“We first met your species several ratuses ago. It was no coincidence that the planet in this system was small with limited resources. Only a few of the ARC would be allowed to leave it, trapping most of the ship’s inhabitants permanently. We wanted those few who were the most intelligent scientists to inhabit your Icharus. They would be racing to solve the riddle of your species evolution with the hints we left for them.” They waited for me to try to make some sort of deduction from what they had said. But I had not a clue as to where this conversation was going.
“Your ARC is corrupt.” It appeared to shrug which came off as more of a sigh. Were they tolerating me, and if so, how much longer would that last?
A face emerged from the amorphous gas, and it was not too much unlike my own, except the proportions were slightly off, and my features kept shifting around, almost as if it were trying to find the right combination to settle on. Finally, it asked, "What will happen to you if we take Kore and you are alone?"
I impulsively said, “I’ll kill myself.”
“We will give you what Kore really is then. We will give you what you need.”
Chapter 27
I woke up back on the floor of The Beven. The window was lit with Aka's light, which was illuminating the aquamarine swirls of Urania, but I could not see the moon. It must have been on the other side of the planet. The only other objects sharing this side of the planet were a few straggler ships looking for entry onto the ARC, and in the distance, I could see a very large object coming my way, most likely the ARC.
My ship was hovering above the atmosphere of the planet, dispelled from it like a d-pack from a dispensary. The entire interior of the control room could be clearly seen in the reflected light, and it appeared that the control panel was set on autopilot. I left the oculus sitting on the comm panel, for now.
I knew Kore was gone. This ship was larger than the research vessel we had flown to Sepia in, with over fifteen other rooms to be searched, but the silence on board was infinite. I got up and checked the small sleeping quarters and found four empty bunks. I next checked the washroom, nothing was there either. The common room had four chairs, and only three suits hanging up for space exploration. That was more than enough to confirm that the Ouder did not stay true to their word. They had not returned her to me, because hers was still missing.
I thought about all the time I had spent with Kore. One thing the Ouder were right about. I loved her. I loved her like a synth addict loves his d-packs or a smuggler loves their dira. Her hair was so beautiful when Aka’s light haloed it. I loved her beautiful gray eyes, which reminded me of the metal used in making ships. I loved how she always surprised me when I least suspected it. I knew that if I had only enough time with her, she would have returned those feelings for me too. Now I would never know what it would have been like to wake up with her in my arms. Frack, I would have killed and died for her. Now she was gone, but it felt like I was the one that was gone.
I went to the control panel, and I saw a flight plan had been set, but not for Sepia. The coordinates were for somewhere out of the solar system. The comm panel lit up in a blaze of blinking lights. Someone was hailing me. I reached down and flipped on the panel.
Suddenly a voice exploded from the speaker, “Jett, is that you?”
I sat down abruptly in the seat, and cautiously replied, “Is that you Kore?”
“Yes!”
I took a deep breath and allowed shaky hands to attempt to locate the source of her voice.
While I worked, I listened to her chatter, “Jett, it is amazing here. I would never have thought this could happen. You would be astonished by how easy it is to exist here.”
My heart was racing. The more I searched, the more confusing the numbers were returning to me. It appeared she was right under my nose. “Kore, where are you?”
“I’m right here,” she replied quietly.
“Right where? I don’t see you. I want to touch you.”
She did not reply.
“Where, Kore, where?” What I really wanted to do was crush her to me and never let her go.
“The Ouder,” she finally said, “Do not have bodies like I had, Jett.”
“What do you mean?”
There was a pause and then, “It took them only a short time to explain what I needed to do to be with you.”
“What did they teach you Kore?”
“They can inhabit technology.”
Suddenly, my world crashed down upon me. Emotion overwhelmed my senses, and I dipped my head into my hands. Tears flowed out of my eyes, and my voice sounded like a dying animal. The Ouder had kept their word. They had returned Kore to me… in the ship's technology.
“Can you re-inhabit your old body?”
“Why? This feels so much better. I feel free here.”
“Don’t you want to be with me?”
"I am, Jett. You'll never be alone again. I do not even need to sleep anymore like I had in that prison of a body."
“But I love you.”
“I love you too, but do you not want me to be happy?”
I had a moment of stark clarity. My existential crisis was that of solitude in a crowded place. I wanted a deeper connection. Sex was empty. The Ouder gave me exactly what I needed: Kore.
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Icharus_ARC Series Page 20
