by mikel evins
“Why don’t we request communion with the Cold Ones? I think that would benefit both us and them. We can exchange information we’ve gathered thus far, and with the added processing power they offer us, we may be able not only to consider this information more quickly, but to make better tactical decisions concerning our next steps.”
“That sounds like a good idea,” I said.
“Yes,” said Chief Verge. “Please speak to the Captain about it at once.”
“Oh, good,” said Kestrel. I’m glad you all agree.”
“Oh boy,” said Yarrow. “Back on the magic bus.”
8.
A few seconds with a five-digit IQ can solve a lot of problems.
The first thing we did after our latest communion with the Cold Ones was to lie around inert, blinking and wondering aloud whether there were likely to be any long-term side-effects of mistreating our brains in this way.
The second thing was to transcribe the designs that we came up with for portable quarantine membranes and customized creche protocols to could get rid of the engineered viruses and spores.
Chief Verge, Py, Yarrow, and I went through the customized creche protocols right away, just in case. That took all of a shift and most of another, but it left us confident that we didn’t have any hostile code running in our bodies.
The next order of business was another attempt at rescue, this time with rescuers made of flesh.
“I could remain on Kestrel,” I said. We were back in the Captain’s mess, orbiting his table. “In case Oleh Itzal objects to the presence of a mech. Burrell is as capable as I when it comes to field maintenance.”
Burrell sniffed, “My specialty is ship operations, not field medicine.”
“You have substantially the same training that I do,” I said.
“But not the same experience.”
The Captain sighed.
“Don’t everyone volunteer at once,” he said.
Jaemon shrugged. “You know I’ll go.”
“I don’t mind going,” I said. “I’m just thinking of Oleh Itzal and his delicate sensibilities.”
“I’ll go,” said Mai.
The Captain turned slowly and looked at her.
“You’d jump out the cargo bay into the atmosphere of the sun if we told you that’s what we were planning to do,” said the Captain.
Mai cocked her head at him curiously.
“Nuh unh,” she said uncertainly.
“Okay, Jaemon and Mai,” said the Captain. “I’d sure like to have at least one person on the team who went the first time.”
I said, “I already said I’d go.”
“Okay,” said the Captain. “Jaemon, Mai, and Lev. Who else?”
“I’ll go,” said Zang. “Let’s do it.”
Able Spacer Erszbet Zang was nearly as tall as Jaemon and just as muscular. She was a Jovian woman with bronze skin and turquoise hair. Like Burrell’s, her hair grew into feathery clumps that tapered to points. Unlike Burrell’s, her hair was cut close along the sides and grew long on the top and down her back. It looked like the crest of some colorful tropical bird. Her eyes were a deeper turquoise, dark enough that you might think they were brown or black at first glance.
The Captain said, “Jaemon, Lev, Mai, and Zang. It’s your baby this time, Jaemon.”
Mai said, “Do you think Oleh Itzal will be angry if I come?”
“We’re bringing a mech,” I said.
Jaemon said, “If two humans isn’t enough for him, we’ll just have to come back and try again. It’s like a guessing game. We should get a betting pool going.”
The Captain sighed.
“Like that’s not already happening,” he said.
We assembled once again in the quarantine bay. Since the environment aboard Angel of Cygnus had seemed a little more hostile than we initially expected, this time we all carried protocol sidearms and over-the-shoulder shotguns.
Mai had on a hard carapace that covered her chest and back, and provided mount points for her shoulder guns. One gun was a high-speed slug thrower. The other was a multipurpose self-propelled drone launcher. I carried a mister. I had a good supply of passive telemetry fog for it, but I also had more aggressive things in my kit.
Zang had a compact, high-pressure flamethrower.
“Where the hell did you get that?” said Jaemon.
“Oh, this old thing?” said Zang, lifting its blunt muzzle. “I’ve had it for years. My grandmother made it for me.”
Jaemon offered me a raised eyebrow.
“Well,” said Jaemon, “I’m not complaining, but if you burn my face off with that thing we’re going to have words.”
“Anyone for marshmallows?” Zang said.
“Now I wish I was going again,” said Yarrow.
“No you don’t,” said Py. “Sewer-flavored marshmallows?”
“No I don’t,” said Yarrow.
We ran through our gear checks and gathered at the gasherd. Jaemon pushed through and sat on the outside of the membrane waiting for us. One-by-one we followed him and sat there together, looking over at Angel of Cygnus. Our special new vac membranes with Cold quarantine technology automatically inflated when we got outside.
It was different this time. This time it wasn’t the stars that made me uneasy.
9.
“Let’s skip the park,” said Jaemon. No one objected.
We took the same kind of diamond-shaped formation that our first team had, with Jaemon on point. As before, we popped our jets and pushed away from the gasherd, falling across the gap between ships.
We passed the first habitat without regret. I looked down at the murk as we flew over it, remembering the grit and muck that I had wiped from my eyes. The blurred vista of the dead park looked worse than it had when I’d seen it before. One visit and the murky images were already colored with unpleasant memories.
After we passed the first module we veered toward the near end of the second. We thumped against the top of the habitat and our armor stuck there. We peeled our hands loose and stood, then walked awkwardly down to the curve of the end, peeling a foot loose with each step.
“Lev,” said Jaemon, “You were here before. You can get us in, right?”
“I think so,” I said.
I kneeled and stuck one hand to the end of the habitat above the hatch, then swung myself down to the vestibule. I had to poke around a bit to find the right sequence of commands, but the process was simple enough. In a few seconds the outer hatch slid open.
“We’re in,” I said.
“Great,” said Jaemon. “Everybody in.”
Mai, master of the manipulators, flew down and into the vestibule as smoothly as if she were still aboard Kestrel. The rest of us followed more cautiously. I drifted forward to the interior hatch and banged around on the control surface until I got the outer hatch to close and the airlock to pressurize.
“Oh!” said Jaemon, his face crumpling into a mask of disgust. Zang’s face looked much the same, and she waved a hand rapidly in front of her nose. Mai sneezed three times, then floated in place panting, with her eyes watering.
“I take it the odor is unpleasant?” I said.
“Oh, man,” said Jaemon vehemently.
“I should have warned you,” I said. “The Cold membranes have some way to allow odor through without breaching quarantine.”
“Can you turn it off?” said Zang. She looked deeply unhappy. She was scowling and her eyes were squinted into slits.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t think of that. If it’s any consolation, the smell will abate within an hour or so. Strong odors don’t stay strong for long.”
“Ye gods,” said Jaemon, “I hope we’re not still in here in an hour. I hope I don’t lose my lunch in this membrane.”
“That would be bad,” I said. “Perhaps we should return to Kestrel until I can work out a way to disable the scent pass-through?”
Jaemon shook his head. His eyes were watering, too.
“No, we can grit our teeth and get the job done. You owe us big time for this one, though.”
The ship said, “Welcome to Angel of Cygnus. Have you come to help?”
Jaemon said, “Hi. I’m Jaemon Rayleigh from Kestrel. We’re here to talk to Oleh Itzal.”
“Oh yes,” said Angel. “I remember. Shall I tell him you’re here?”
“Please,” Jaemon said.
A moment later the hatch slid open.
Angel said, “He said to come to the same place. He’ll be waiting. I hope you can help him this time. I’m afraid of what will happen to him if he has to stay aboard very much longer.”
“What will happen to him?” Jaemon said.
“I’m sorry,” said the ship. “I can’t talk about that. It’s not allowed.”
Jaemon looked at me sidelong.
We floated into the habitat. It didn’t look any better the second time around. It was still dark. There was still dust and debris in the air.
“How does he live in this?” said Zang.
“I guess it beats the alternative,” said Jaemon.
“Barely,” said Zang.
We flew over the empty neighborhoods again. Zang looked down at them the whole way. As we neared the taller buildings she said, “It’s so sad to see a whole world whose people have all died. Their great adventure got them all killed.”
“They launched four thousand years ago,” I said. “Most of them would have been dead by now, anyway, even if they hadn’t gone on their adventure.”
Zang cuffed me on the shoulder and I banged into Jaemon.
“Hey!” Jaemon said.
“You’re just as sad about it as I am, and you know it,” said Zang crossly.
“True,” I said.
We sailed through the air toward the clock tower on the town hall. We could see Oleh Itzal out on the balcony again, waiting for us. Once again he was flanked by arbeiters decorated with corpses, shapeless lumps in the darkness.
He called out to us as we approached, “Come in close where I can see you.”
He pointed at me.
“I remember you. I asked for real human beings, not robots.”
He turned and squinted at the others.
“What’s that?” he said, pointing at Mai. “Is that—?”
His voice changed, grew softer.
“—a dog? A real dog? Come closer!”
He beckoned eagerly at Mai. She looked at us with her ears down.
“Go ahead,” Jaemon said softly. “We’ve got you.”
Mai popped her jets and eased closer to the railing of the balcony. Oleh Itzal reached out over the rail and put his hand on her shoulder. She flinched back, but then jetted toward him again and allowed him to touch her. His eyes were wide.
He frowned.
“She feels wrong. Slippery,” he said.
“It’s these membranes,” Jaemon said, jetting a little closer. Oleh Itzal eyed him warily, but stayed where he was, gently patting Mai’s back. She watched Jaemon closely, ears down, panting nervously.
“They keep the air in and the microbes out.”
“You look human enough,” said Oleh, scowling at Jaemon.
“Born and bred,” Jaemon said, grinning. He stuck out his right hand and held it open. Oleh Itzal hesitantly reached out and gripped it, then quickly let go.
“You feel slippery, too,” he said.
“Membrane again,” said Jaemon.
Oleh Itzal squinted at Zang, who drifted closer to him.
“You look pretty human, too,” he said to her.
“Gee, thanks,” she said.
“Who are you people?” he said, looking from one of us to another. “Do you take your dogs everywhere with you?”
“I’m not a dog,” Mai said. “I’m a Canine.”
Oleh Itzal’s hand jerked away from her as if he had been burned.
“It talked!”
“What do you mean, ‘it?’” said Mai.
“Did they not have Canines when Angel launched?” Jaemon said.
I shrugged. “Maybe not.”
Jaemon said, “Mai’s a person, just like you. Her ancestors were dogs. Don’t call her a dog unless you want her to call you a monkey.”
Oleh lost his suspicious frown for the first time.
“Really?” he said. His face was transformed. Although he was covered in filth, with ragged hair and the wrinkles of a very old man, he looked like a child.
“There are really talking dogs?” he said.
“Hey!” said Mai. “You’re starting to tick me off.”
His eyebrows went up.
“I’m sorry, I never—”
He looked at Jaemon and then at me and swallowed.
“Apology accepted,” Mai said gruffly.
“Hey,” Zang said, “He called Lev a robot.”
“It’s all right,” I said. “I’m sure he didn’t mean anything by it.”
He frowned at me.
“What are you, if you’re not a robot?”
“I’m a person,” I said. “The polite term is ‘mech.’ Robots are not people.”
His eyebrows went up again.
“Who are you people?” he said again.
Jaemon said, “I’m Jaemon Rayleigh. This—” he laid a hand on Mai’s shoulder—“is Mai Greenhill. That’s Ixion Eleven Chrysotile—we call him Lev—and that’s Erszbet Zang. We’re from Rayleigh Scientific. The Cold Ones hired us to come and rescue you.”
Jaemon tipped his head forward and eyed Oleh Itzal meaningfully. “You called us. Remember?”
“Called you?” He seemed confused.
“You told the Cold Ones you wanted human beings to rescue you. Well, here we are.”
“But—”
He pointed at me and at Mai, but this time he seemed confused rather than hostile.
“They’re part of our crew,” said Jaemon. “You got a problem with that?”
Oleh Itzal stared for a few seconds, then shook his head in tiny little motions.
“No, no. No problem. I just. I didn’t expect—”
“What did you expect?” said Jaemon. “You know about time dilation, right?”
Jaemon turned and winked at me, then looked back at Oleh Itzal.
“Time dilation? You’ve heard of it, right?”
Oleh Itzal said, “Yes, yes. Of course, I just…I didn’t know what to expect, I guess.”
The anger seemed to have left him. He looked beaten.
“Hey,” said Zang. “It’s all right. Don’t worry. We’re here to help.”
She jetted forward and reached out a hand. Oleh Itzal jerked back another half meter.
“Easy,” said Zang, lifting both hands in front of her. “We’re not here to harm you.”
“You really came to rescue me?” Oleh said. There was a note of desperation. He sounded like it was too good to be true. A little of the anger came back. “How do I know it’s not a trick?”
“What kind of trick?” Jaemon said. “Why would we want to trick you?”
Oleh Itzal stared for a moment at Jaemon. He opened his mouth, froze that way for a second, then closed it and shook his head.
“I don’t know what to think,” he said.
“You’ve been through some bad stuff,” Jaemon said. “That kind of thing will mess with you. Do you want us to go away and come back later?”
Oleh stared at each of us in turn, lingering on Mai, who regarded him uneasily, with her head held low.
“You’d come back?” he said. “If I said to go away?”
“Sure,” said Jaemon, shrugging. “Only don’t count on us doing it forever. At some point we’ll have to give up and tell the Cold Ones we failed our mission.”
Oleh Itzal looked interested.
“What are the Cold Ones, anyway?” he said.
“That’s hard to explain,” said Jaemon. “Did you see them?”
He shook his head.
“Not exactly,” he said. “I—it’s hard to explain. It was like
a dream.”
“Yeah, that sounds familiar,” said Jaemon. “I guess the nearest I can say is they’re some kind of superintelligent hive mind. They live on Pluto.”
“They have an excellent credit rating,” I said.
Oleh looked at me like I had just turned into a decorative shrub.
“So,” he said to Jaemon. “They hired you to rescue me?”
“That’s about the size of it,” Jaemon said. “They said they wanted to take you off Angel of Cygnus, but you said you wouldn’t go unless human beings came to get you. So they got us to do it.”
“Really?” he said. “I can’t believe it. I thought it was a pipe dream. I thought the Enemy—”
His eyes went wide and he clamped his mouth shut. His eyes flickered to each of ours.
“What was that?” Jaemon said casually. “You mentioned a—what was it?—an ‘enemy?’”
Oleh shook his head, eyes wide.
One of the arbeiters next to Oleh Iztal turned toward him so that the dead face attached to its framework was facing him. It spoke to him in Angel’s voice.
