Noumenon Infinity

by Marina J. Lostetter

  Did this mean . . . did it . . . ?

  What does this mean?

  Putting that aside—the question just too large to tackle at the moment—she now understood why Carmen had rushed to get a better look.

  Each table had been etched with its corresponding convoy number on one of the legs. They needed to know which convoy this belonged to.

  With the stolen bobble tucked firmly, if uncomfortably, between her legs, she rushed to help Mac, to keep Kali from getting to Carmen for as long as possible.

  But there was no time to be had.

  Four, then five, then a sixth small spotlight came on to their left, highlighting the entrance of a half-dozen more aliens. Each was decked out—not in the robotic suits, but in something more closely resembling riot gear.

  One dashed for Mac, pulling him off Kali as he kicked and screamed. Three more sprinted after Carmen, and another wrapped Kali in their arms, as though shielding them from a rabid animal attack. And one, of course, came at Justice.

  She tried to run, though she knew there was no point.

  She swatted at the spotlight above her head. If she could put out the light, it might buy her a few more minutes to . . . to what? The lamp darted away like an annoyed horsefly, but would not leave her side. It was an accusation all on its own, screaming, Here she is. Take her. Take her!

  The illuminated globes swirled in every direction, some now distant dots in the vast space. It was like running at night in a field of fireflies and birthday balloons. Under different circumstances, it would have been magical.

  But now her heart thumped like hooves in her chest, and her thighs rubbed against the stolen artifact, and her arms pumped like a combustion engine’s pistons as she ran, trying to propel her forward to a safety that did not exist.

  And then she felt it. That dreaded whump.

  Shit.

  There was no hiding from the deep vibrations. No outrunning it.

  This time it’ll liquefy my brain and that’ll be it.

  She tripped over her own feet and fell to her knees, hands outstretched to catch her.

  Shit, shit, shit. They’d messed up. What if all it took was this simple infraction? Maybe the humans were just too much trouble and weren’t worth the effort . . .

  Whump.

  Was this it? Had she been born in a trailer park in Iowa, only to die on an alien spacecraft thousands of light-years from Earth? Like this was some morbid, futuristic Comedy of Errors, and she was some sort of object lesson in cosmic extremes?

  Don’t panic, she told herself. Don’t panic! she insisted, her head buzzing, guts screaming, and lungs stuttering.

  She squeezed her legs, felt the globe roll against them. Once again, she had the distinct impression that the cases were really eggs—full of potential, full of life.

  We’re going to make it. We’re going to make it and I’m going to keep this, damn it!

  She crawled off into the dark, tried to ignore the figures coming for her, the claws lifting her off the ground, hoisting her into the air.

  Whump.

  No matter how hard she willed the static to leave her vision, it continued to invade. The darkness was coming for her. She could not stop it.

  Justice wasn’t just surprised when she woke up, she was ecstatic. She felt like utter crap—not just crap, like the stomped-on, caked-on, mixed-with-hay crap in the cracks of a horse stall. But any level above death was a distinct improvement on her expectations.

  In the millisecond that seemed to pass between unconsciousness and wakefulness, she’d been transported somewhere much more cramped than the museum, though it was still pitch black. And there were bodies all around her. Warm bodies. Groaning bodies. And there were windows, through which she could see stars, and ships, and—

  And a shuttle. One of their shuttles.

  Yellow emergency lights flickered on along the floorboards. They were back in their own shuttle—everyone, the entire away team. It seemed they had been stacked inside like kindling, their spacesuits shoved in after in one giant heap. Then, apparently, they’d been thrust out the airlock.

  Even the pilot was in the main bay with them. He moaned, scratching the back of his head as he extricated himself from beneath Steve.

  Justice’s arm tingled as she pulled it out from under Carmen’s shoulder. Directly on top of her was Mac, drooling on her collar like a baby.

  She shifted, her legs tingling as she kicked free. There was a distinct heaviness between her legs—which she found both confusing and alarming for half an instant before she realized, somehow, she’d gotten away with her heist.

  The monkeys threw a temper tantrum so they stunned us and tossed us back in our cage.

  It was like they hadn’t known what to do, so they simply shoved the humans away.

  Would they even notice that one small case was missing? Would they care?

  Outside, a second shuttle was preparing to intercept. The door opened—someone in a spacesuit leaned out, extending the emergency umbilical.

  Carmen sat up suddenly, just as startled to find herself elsewhere as Justice.

  Getting her hands free, Justice quickly signed, [Did you see? Did you see the table’s convoy number?]

  Carmen nodded, her face grim. Flexing the sleep tingles from her hands, she paused, then signed simply: [Seven.]

  Captain Tan was not happy.

  He had the meager away team lined up in his ready room. They all stood at firm attention, faces stoic. Twinkle stood beside him, translating as he berated them.

  “What happened?” he demanded. “The Lùhng ships have widened their net, like they’re expecting an attack. No one is answering my hails, and they set my away team adrift. I’d like to believe this is some bizarre behavior on their behalf, but I expect someone disobeyed my direct orders.”

  “Captain, if I may,” Justice said. “We were shown artifacts in a Lùhng museum, and the contents were disturbing. They had human artifacts, sir. Well, one at least. And I think it’s fair to assume, now, that they have in fact encountered our species before.”

  Carmen recalled the visit’s events for him, laying out exactly what she’d seen and why she’d acted so rashly. “I’m sorry, Captain. My conduct was unbecoming, but I feared Kali would lead us away from the table if I asked about it directly. I’m surer now that we’re being contained, given the brush-off.”

  “I was able to retrieve this,” Justice said, holding up the orb. “It’s not proof of Lùhng-human relations, but Kali did tell us it contains Lùhng genetic material. When we started asking medical questions, Kali became agitated, and was hypersensitive to the possibility of contamination. If they think our biologies can interact in such a way, maybe their modifications can work for us as well. This might hold the key to addressing Dr. Kapoor’s condition . . . and any other genetic problems we might encounter.” She’d only recently suggested to the captain that the entire crew could be infertile. They still needed to do more research to be sure, but she didn’t doubt the information would be made public soon.

  Tan eyed the orb, expression still as stern as before. “As soon as we’re through with the debriefing, you should begin analysis. Whatever you need, let me know.”

  “Thank you.”

  “But this table—I don’t want to jump to conclusions. You’re sure it’s from Convoy Seven?”

  “Yes,” Carmen insisted.

  “Let’s first assume, then,” Tan said, “that the Lùhng have not encountered humans before us. Is there another way they might have acquired the table?”

  “It’s been a hundred thousand years,” Mac said.

  “Exactly.”

  “It might have been salvaged,” said Mac. “Buddies of mine used to go treasure hunting—there was a shipwreck off Fagamalo they liked especially. They came home with all kinds of trinkets. Put them out in their sheds or on the mantel. Lots of it was rusted-over junk. Table could be like that.”

  “Yes, but where did they salvage it from, then?” Justice ask
ed. “Did they get it directly from a Convoy Seven ship, or from a garbage heap—natural or otherwise? In a shoal of space trash, like a galactic version of a Pacific garbage patch?” Was that possible? Could gravitational waves create similar convergence zones in space? “If they salvaged it from the convoy itself, doesn’t that mean they would have recognized Pulse, since it’s the same basic design as Convoy Seven’s habitat ship—Mira? Which means, even if they haven’t met live humans before, they still hid that recognition on purpose.”

  “That assumes the Lùhng aboard their fleet now are the same ones who found the table,” Tan said. “We have no way of pinpointing when they acquired it.”

  “Which means they might not even know it’s a human artifact,” Carmen said, nodding to herself. “Which would explain their reaction to our reaction, wouldn’t it? They might have no idea what set us off. Might have seen my running around as entirely irrational.”

  “We’re being very generous in our assumptions here,” Justice said. “What if it’s a trophy, acquired in battle? If they’ve met humans before, it would explain a lot—they’re lack of interest in studying us, for one. Why poke the frog if you already know how all of its innards work? They learned our language remarkably quickly, they had no qualms contacting our home planet—or so they say.”

  “I see no reason to jump to hostile conclusions,” Tan said.

  “And I see no reason to stick our heads in the sand and ignore the possibility,” she countered. “If they’ve met humans, why wouldn’t they say so, unless those interactions went poorly?”

  “If previous interactions with humans were negative, why wouldn’t they just let us go? Or kill us outright?” Tan asked.

  “I don’t know. We’re a science convoy, with no weaponry to speak of. Maybe they’re the same. If you find a rabid animal in your backyard, are you just going to let it go?”

  “I’d call an exterminator,” Mac said.

  “Exactly,” Justice said.

  “Exactly,” Tan echoed. “You don’t feed it. You don’t keep it alive.” Tan took a deep breath. “We’re getting ourselves worked up. Over a table. Truth of the matter is, all we know is that they have it.”

  “And that they won’t let us go,” Justice mumbled. “Hopefully it’s not because they blew our home planet out of the sky, leaving nothing but a table.”

  Tan abruptly moved into her space, pointing sternly. “I never want to hear that again. I will not tolerate rumors that Earth is gone. We have enough harsh realities aboard without suggesting that we are the last of our kind and that our . . . hosts mean to eliminate us. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yessir,” she said somberly.

  “Good. Now—” he tossed the orb at her “—you have an egg to crack.”

  It didn’t take her long to cut open the orb. The substance was tough, but nothing a bit of circular saw action couldn’t handle.

  The orb’s content was clearly organic. It faded from greenish to black and was well preserved. She thought it might be a portion of a hand, or paw, whatever. Treating the sample with care, she cut several pieces away and deposited them in various solutions for dissolving. “We’ll figure you out yet,” she promised, loading each test tube into her centrifuge.

  Sitting back, waiting for the machine to do its work, she tried to keep her mind as far away from doomsday scenarios as possible. But it was a struggle.

  What if the reason Kali had so quickly agreed to contact Earth was because they couldn’t? Maybe Earth was gone. Maybe humanity was gone.

  And if everyone aboard Convoy Twelve proved to be infertile . . .

  But, dear god, how—how could all of humanity be gone? Why was her brain leaping to complete annihilation? What would it take to completely destroy a multiplanet, star-faring species? A slow decay into nothingness was one thing. But an extinction-level event across multiple heavenly bodies would take a perfectly timed gamma ray burst . . .

  . . . or a very advanced weapon.

  What, exactly, were they building out there?

  When she got her results, she checked them again. And again. And once more. She would have given her right arm for a qualified professional who could do an independent study, but she wasn’t getting that kind of outside verification anytime soon.

  I can’t . . . how?

  She had to go straight to Captain Tan.

  Heart pounding, breaths coming quick and deep, she ran all the way to the bridge as soon as she’d compiled her evidence.

  Tan stood just within the door, wide-eyed and flabbergasted when she burst in. Everyone behind him shifted at their stations.

  “Can I see you in your ready room?” she demanded, holding up crumpled holoflex-sheets. “We have to talk. This—this changes everything.”

  With a curt nod he led the way, keeping silent until he was sure the door was secure behind them.

  “They’re human,” she blurted, giddy with the revelation. “They. Are. Human.”

  “You mean the organic sample in the ball wasn’t alien? It was just another human artifact?”

  Justice slapped the sheets down on his desk. She felt high, elated, and scared. The situation suddenly seemed clearer and completely clouded all at once. “No,” she said excitedly. Her face hurt from smiling. Knowing felt so freeing, she couldn’t contain herself. “My samples weren’t contaminated, and I’m sure this comes from the Lùhng. The material is base-human. But not totally human, you get me? The chromosomes were wild, okay, and even though I found twenty-three pairs in what I’m sure are somatic cells, the chromatids in the autosomes are shaped superfunky, so I was pretty surprised when I unraveled them and they were so familiar. They’ve been spliced all to hell, and there’s a triple helix instead of a double, which I think explains all the variations—they’ve got to have some way of activating only certain traits, though I think this one—”

  Tan put a hand on her shoulder. “Slow down. Breathe.”

  She gulped and realized her fingers had gone all tingly. And she was talking with her hands like she never had before, waving them wildly. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I just can’t believe . . . It’s so weird.”

  “You’re telling me those aliens, out there, that we’ve been in communication with for nearly two years, are actually human?” He said it slowly, as though once she heard it for herself she would recant everything she’d just said.

  Instead, she stood taller, looked him straight in the eye and said, “Yep.”

  “No,” he said with a shrug of denial and a flick of the hand.

  “Yes. How they started down this path, or when, I can’t say. I can’t imagine what would drive them to modify themselves so dramatically.”

  “I can’t accept this,” he said with a baffled sigh. “We can’t prove whose—what’s—DNA is in that sample. If they were . . . were . . . post-human, why wouldn’t they tell us? They would tell us.”

  “Do you think they have the capacity to tell us in a way we would have understood? Would have accepted? Shit, I’m giving you hard evidence right now and you’re looking at me like I’m peddling crystals.”

  He glared and she demurred.

  “Like I’m peddling crystals, sir,” she added. “What I can’t figure is why they’d trap us. They had to know we’d react negatively to being hemmed in. I mean, we ran and everything.”

  Tan palmed at his mouth before saying gruffly, “If you found a group of human ancestors from a hundred thousand years before our time, would you let them wander off?”

  “No. I’d probably try to keep them safe until I could track down someone who knew what to do with them.”

  They shared a wide-eyed look.

  “Do you think,” Justice started, “that means someone’s coming?”

  Chapter Eight

  Michael: We’re All Mad Here

  Convoy Seven

  Thirty-Four Years Since the Web Began to Move

  June 15, 1113 Relaunch

  6992 CE

  We didn’t want to be rig
ht. We wanted to be wrong. Needed to be wrong.

  He’d thought, Maybe.

  Maybe they’d been too hasty in their assumptions, too panicked after watching the Web behave in ways they’d never dreamed—

  But it’s there on my monitor now, clear as glass, evident as the single Revealer patch on my uniform.

  Captain Michael Nwosu glanced over at his cycle partner and first officer. Joanna Straifer’s gaze was narrowed, her jawline stiff, head bowed like a ram’s, ready to run straight at the problem.

  They’d risen from SD travel only moments previous, and already the truth of their fears was manifest.

  The long lines of the Web’s tentacles retracted as they watched, its nodes having performed their vile act once more. Stellar murder was not something anyone wished to see, and Nwosu had seen it twice. Here was the killer gulping down the last of its victim, as it had done before.

  But before he could so much as give an order, the tentacles coiled up—as they had when he was young—and the megastructure, in all its cephalopod-like grotesqueness, jetted off, leaving only swirling exhaust trails in its wake.

  Did it travel by means of subdimensional access? If so, it didn’t form a type of SD bubble he recognized.

  Truth was, they didn’t have enough information to really grasp anything about the Web. They’d arrived too late, and now all they knew for sure was they had a killer on their hands.

  The entire bridge was quiet. Not a stunned silence, but a mournful one. They’d known the Web was dangerous; not a single soul aboard had had any doubt.

  “I want samples of those trails taken ASAP,” he said gravely, as though ordering an autopsy on his own family member. “And I need its new trajectory, now. We can’t waste a minute mo—”

  “Sir!” cried his lieutenant at the navigation console. “I.C.C. is detecting an SD bubble bursting less than three astronomical units aft of the convoy.”

  “Show me.” By the iterations, what now?

  All of the convoy’s past assumptions—their fears—came flooding into the forefront of his mind.