by Frank Carey
“I think so,” he replied with a furrowed brow. “I just hope we don't insult anyone.”
“That would be good,” I said as I got up and walked over to the beverage service to get a couple of cups of coffee. I sat back down and slid one over to him. “You know you can just go and talk to her. She doesn’t bite.”
“Thanks, but I think I’ll pass. She’s probably more evolved than I’ll ever be, but artificial intelligences freak me out,” he said. “It looks like you’re making progress.”
“Hiram, I was wondering, what did you and Peter talk about, you know, before you were hurt?” Part of me did not want to have this conversation, but I knew I had to know for the sake of closure.
Hiram looked at me with the “awkward!” look as he squinted and smiled at the same time. “We talked about your wedding and how planning had taken a backseat to life.”
Right. Great cover story except it was a lie, at least in my case. “Anything else?”
Hiram went from cringing to wide-eyed curiosity. “I suggested the two of you elope and have a ceremony when you were less busy. That’s when he sat down on the stone head.”
Elope! Thank God, Peter had missed that. “Stone head? That wasn’t in the incident report.”
“At first, he thought it was a rock, but it turned out to be the lock mechanism for an underground temple. Shanna, what’s going on?”
Shit. “Nothing’s going on.”
“I’ll admit I can’t read souls, but I’m pretty good at reading body language and you’re tense enough to give a C# if I ran a bow over you. What was going on between you and Peter?”
I refrained from saying something to the effect of it being none of his business, because it was his business. Hiram and I used to be lovers, and he and Peter had been friends and colleagues for many years.
“Peter and I… No, I hit a rough patch in the relationship. I was having second thoughts about Peter and…”
“Me, right?”
Dammit. I sat back in my chair and sighed. “Yes. It seems, Mr. Jones, that I wasn’t quite as over you as I thought I was. You, on the other hand…”
“I ached every time I was with the two of you. I was seriously considering not coming to the wedding. That was why I was researching a career as a load handler on a rim freighter to eliminate any chance of seeing either of you ever again.”
Now it made sense. “That’s why you suggested Peter and I elope.”
“By the time you two got back I would be long gone. Facing a charging wombat is child’s play compared to coming to grips with you and my best friend getting married.”
I looked at Hiram and saw a completely different person. This Hiram was uncertain, his cockiness gone. He was vulnerable. Damn, I have no idea what to do with this new information.
An announcement over ship-wide spared us more discomfort. “This is Ramses. All teams report to the conference room immediately. Dr. Syron, please bring the logbook with you. Ramses out.”
“We should go,” I said as I closed and latched the logbook.
“Let me,” Hiram said as he picked it up off the table. “The damn thing is heavy.”
“Thanks,” I said. Funny, he did the same thing when we first met when he carried my books for me.
###
My commlink chirped, interrupting my reading. Scattered about the table in front of me were half-a-dozen references pertaining to the Venlanten history of our adopted home world of Earth, all of which were incomplete, at least in my humble opinion.
“Go for Syron,” I said as I flipped the comm open and set it to speaker.
“This is Prof. Henrikson. The committee has moved your talk up. You need to get up here right now.”
Dammit. There was no way I was going to… I stopped when someone reached over and carefully closed each book before stacking them in the middle of the table. My new helper even maintained the bookmarks. I looked up and saw a guy--a human guy to be precise--smiling at me as he brought order into my world.
“Shanna, are you there? Did you hear me?” Henrikson said from the commlink
“Yes, Professor. I’m on my way,” I replied as I closed the connection.
By now, the young man was standing there, holding a stack of books, which probably weighed forty pounds. In front of me was a perfect pile of my papers with my styluses in a neat row beside it. I checked the chrono on the wall and saw time was slipping away. I put the papers and styluses in my bag before reaching over to take the books when the young man stopped me.
“Let me,” he said. “The damn things are heavy.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Shanna Syron.” I turned and headed to the door with the young man following closely behind.
“Hiram Jones. Nice to meet you.”
We made it to the meeting room with time to spare.
###
The Tailtiu was not a small ship by any means. At over five hundred feet in length, it dwarfed all other League and Earth research vessels while its power plants--it had three---each dwarfed those found in medium sized cities.
On Deck Three--there were seven decks in total--was the Main Conference Room, which could host all of the ship’s crew and passengers for anything from a party to a formal presentation, as it did now. Hiram and I mingled with other team members while we waited for the meeting to start.
“Dr. Syron? Dr. James Stone, Genetics. Welcome to the Tailtiu. I understand your work with ancient Venlanten language structure was key to making this voyage possible. Tell me, what’s it like doing fieldwork? I have spent all of my academic life in a laboratory.”
Oh boy, I’m dealing with an expedition virgin. “Ever go camping?”
“No, never. Hate the outdoors. You think we’ll be spending a lot of time outside?”
Joshua walking to the podium and calling the meeting to order saved me. After everyone was seated and quiet, he began.
“Welcome all to the First Venlanta Expedition. You all know me and each other, so let me introduce you to our new head of security, Taliss,” he said as he stepped away from the podium. A collective gasp came from the group as Taliss walked up to the podium and stood silently as she surveyed the members of the expedition.
Now understand, I’m 99.9% straight and members of my own gender do not interest me on a romantic level, but Taliss was beautiful. She was Storen, mountain Storen to be exact. Maybe six feet tall with fine, dark brown fur covering every visible inch of her body. Her eyes were huge with golden irises and slit pupils. Unlike other members of her race I had met over the years, she wore her cranial hair long, almost waist length. To complete the look her ears were mostly straight, long, and pointed with a slight bend at the very tips. I could detect a hint of cocoa on the room air as her scent mingled with the breeze from the ventilators.
She smiled at the reaction. “It is good to meet you all. For your information, I am happily married...for life.”
I have never heard so many sighs of disappointment before. Hell, I felt a twinge myself. I looked over at Hiram and saw bemusement in his eyes.
“Joshua, what happened to Gail?” Hiram asked.
“She’s running things back on Earth. Oh, and she hates space travel of any kind. Taliss is more than a capable replacement.”
“I know,” Hiram replied. I looked up and was shocked to see her nodding at Hiram. Before I could say something pithy, Taliss stepped aside so Joshua could return to the podium.
“Okay, the question of the day is what did we find on the arkship important enough to get this expedition launched in record time? Lights!”
The room went dark as a small ceiling spot illuminated a table in front of Joshua. He placed the arkship's log in the pool of dim light and opened it to the page he showed me when we first met. A hushed murmur passed through the audience as the holoimage of Venlanta formed over the book. He then explained to them, as he did to me, about the Syndrome, and how its cure might be found on Venlanta.
He pressed a button on the podium and the image of a gir
l in a hospital bed, clutching a stuffed Alturan doll, filled the viewer. “This is Penny, my daughter, and she doesn't have a lot of time left. I have leveraged everything I have to find Venlanta, journey there, and find the cure. All other considerations are secondary.”
The group was silent as the image on the viewer shifted to something alien. “I would like you all to meet Warrior. This is what we are calling the life form for lack of anything better. We found it in a part of the arkship heavily damaged in the crash. It, and eleven others, was traveling in a cryotube, and we…”
“It’s a guardian,” I blurted out.
“How the hell do you know that?” one of the scientists asked.
“I'm sorry, Joshua, but I forgot to tell you. It was in the log. A small note that none of the guardians survived landing.”
“A guardian? A fitting name for a formidable creature. Did the log mention anything else about it?” Joshua asked.
“Not so far. Just a single note, almost an aside.”
“Well let me tell you about our guardian. She’s almost seven feet tall, armored, and has a musculature that puts the strongest Tralaskan to shame. Like Venlantens, she has retractile claws and fangs, but unlike Venlantens, she has four eyes and four ears that extend her hearing and eyesight into the ranges well outside what we call normal. Now here’s the kicker: she's engineered from Venlanten DNA.”
The group reacted first in disbelief, then curiosity. “How?” I asked.
“Unknown, but she contains a large number of Venlanten genes sprinkled with new ones that give her these unique traits. If the geneticists are correct, this lady can regrow limbs and regenerate nerve tissue. Only advanced genetic manipulation could produce a creature such as this one, techniques more advanced than even those found on Cora.”
He looked around the room before continuing.
“Six AI-enhanced probesats were sent on a mapping mission to Venlanta. Artificial intelligences were needed because of the sheer volume of data that was to be collected. Upon the probesat's return, we downloaded every scrap of data and analyzed it. This is what they found,” he said as he pressed another button, activating the holoprojector built into the ceiling above the table.
The image of a planet appeared above the center of the table. It resembled Earth with blue oceans and green to tan landmasses but it had only a single continent covering over twenty percent of the planet’s surface. “We’ve also detected two moon-size satellites in orbit.”
“Any signs of civilization?” one of the diggers asked.
“Sadly, no. All signs point to a total fall of civilization some time ago, possibly soon after the arkship launched. I am sorry to report that only ruins remain of the once mighty Venlanten civilization.”
He stopped and let that sink in for a moment before resuming.
“We have identified six landing sites that may hold clues to locating what we’re looking for. We’ll form teams and drop off a team at each of the six sites. The Tailtiu will then return to orbit where it will wait for a recall signal. Each team will have a rambler vehicle and a portable headquarters at their disposal. Your assignments are on the bulletin board in the commissary. Find your team and start preparing. We arrive in less than a day.” With that, he walked away from the podium as the rest of us went off to find our teams.
CHAPTER SEVEN
When I got down to the commissary, I saw a large sign with “Team Six” on it. I made my way over and found Hiram sitting at a table with two cups of coffee. He handed me one as I sat down. “Okay, spill it. How do you know Taliss?” I asked.
“I was his Sensei once,” Taliss said as she sat down next to me. “An experience I am unable to forget.”
I smiled at her. She was even more beautiful up close. “Hello, Taliss. Sensei? Wait a minute,” I said to her. “You're the one who kicked the shit out of Hiram on a regular basis?”
“Yes, that would be me,” Taliss said in a voice that could best be described as heavy grit sandpaper.
Hiram just rubbed his ribs and grimaced.
“What happened to your voice?” I asked. I must have looked shocked.
“That’s my ‘public speaking’ voice. This is my real one,” she said with a grin. I found the juxtaposition of the voice with the look to be disconcerting, but I immediately liked the Storen.
“I like her real one,” Hiram said. “I think it’s sexy.” He ducked as two paper cups flew at his head.
Men!
“I see you're all getting along,” Joshua said as he and the rest of Team Six sat down with us. Hiram got up and got everyone drinks as Joshua made introductions. When he finished, and Hiram had rejoined us, Joshua pulled out a portable holoprojector and placed it in the middle of the table. An image of Venlanta appeared, floating above the table like a green and blue balloon. Using a remote, Joshua brought up the six landing sites; five were coded red while the sixth was bright green. “This is our landing site. We've identified a complex of surface buildings that sit on top of a large underground structure.”
“How deep does the underground part go?” Sue, our team’s engineer, asked.
“Twenty stories,” Joshua replied as he switched the view to a diagram of the complex. “Scans indicate a high-capacity power distribution system once fed into the building. A facility capable of producing one or more guardians would require a great deal of power, or so we think.”
“What about the other teams? Where are they heading?” I asked.
“Large cities, industrial areas, population centers, and structures that seem to have no purpose. Team one is heading to what looks like a spaceport near the eastern coast.”
“And Tailtiu will be in orbit once we’re deployed?” Rex, the geneticist, asked.
“Yes. They can respond to any emergency within thirty minutes, but just in case, we have a medic assigned to each group. They will stay in the shelters until they are needed,” Joshua explained.
The plan sounded good. “I assume we have a pre-landing checklist?” I asked.
Joshua took a stack of datapads off the table and handed them out to us. “You only have a few hours.”
I grabbed Hiram and set off to get things ready.
###
The limo pulled up to the hospital entrance. Inside, Gail steeled herself for what was to come next. The driver walked around and opened the door for her, in some ways sealing her fate. “Rodney, I’ll call when I’m ready to leave,” she said to the Katalan Chauffeur.
“Yes, ma’am. Good luck, ma’am,” the humanoid feline said as he tipped his hat.
Straightening her skirt one last time, Gail walked into the hospital as Rodney looked on with a bemused smile. “This one’s a worrier,” he said quietly as he closed her door.
“May I help you?” the receptionist asked.
“My name is Gail Semtar, and I’m here to see Nadia and Penny Ramses on an urgent matter.”
“Are you a member of the immediate family?” the receptionist asked.
Gail pulled out a business card and handed it to the woman behind the desk. “No, but I am Head of Security for Pangaea Corporation, the company that owns this hospital. Does that count?”
The receptionist immediately ran the card through a security scanner and blanched when she saw the results on the device’s screen. “Sorry, ma’am,” she said as she pressed a button. A security guard appeared a moment later. “Alto, take Ms. Semtar to see Mrs. Ramses immediately!”
“Thank you,” Gail said as she retrieved her card.
“Aye, ma’am,” he said. “This way, Ms. Semtar.” He pointed to a bank of elevators. Once they were inside he said, “Pediatrics.” The lift's computer controller obliged by closing the doors and climbing up to the appropriate floor.
Gail looked at the guard. He (she?) was wearing black armor complete with helmet and a pulse-blaster rifle clipped to his/her chest plate.
“Rough neighborhood?” Gail asked.
“No. We dress to impress the VIPs,” the Guard replied.
“Well, it worked. I am very impressed,” Gail said as the elevator stopped at the assigned floor.
The Guard walked her over to the floor’s reception desk and handed her off to an Alturan nurse. “Nurse Tau will take it from here. Good night, ma’am.”
“Thank you, Alto. Give’em hell,” Gail replied.
“Thank you, ma’am,” he said as he entered the elevator and headed off to his other duties.
“Impressed, ma’am?” Nurse Tau asked as she walked Gail down the hallway.
“Very,” Gail replied.
“Good,” Tau said as she stopped at a door and lightly knocked.
“Come in,” a woman said from inside.
“Mrs. Ramses, a Ms. Semtar is here to see you.”
“Thank you, Tau. Come in, Gail,”
Seeing all was in order, Tau left, closing the door behind her.
“Where’s Joshua?” Nadia asked while staring at the sleeping teenager. The girl looked frail as she clutched a stuffed Alturan doll.
“He’s off-world. How is Penny?”
“Dying. The condition has accelerated.”
“What? I thought… Does Joshua know?”
“No, that’s why I called. Where is he?”
“Nadia…”
“Dammit to the hells of the ancients! Where. Is. My. Husband!?”
Gail looked at her wrist chrono. “About to land on Venlanta.”
“Excuse me? Did you say Venlanta? As in the home world of the Venlanten race?”
“Yes, and you can tell no one.”
Nadia sat down while the shock of the news spread through every fiber of her being. “Impossible. The location of the home world was lost to time.”
“Joshua found it and is heading there as we speak. He thinks he may have found a cure for Penny’s condition.”
Nadia turned and looked at Gail as if the Security Head had turned into a mountain goat and had asked for a cup of tea.
“Nadia, he leveraged every asset he has to fund this expedition. He’s like a man being chased by a hundred demons.”
“I need to talk to him. Now.”
“I’ll make some calls,” Gail said.
