The Search for Gram

by Chris Kennedy

  “I’m going back to the shuttle,” Calvin replied, “and I’m not saying another word to you two until you’re visible.”

  “Hey, Calvin,” said the second voice.

  “What?”

  “You just said another word to us.” Both of the voices giggled. The giggles quickly turned into laughter.

  “Look, Trella,” said the first voice, confirming his guess that she was Sella. “You made his face turn such a pretty shade of red. It’s almost like the double sunset on Qualifret.”

  “Just like that,” Trella agreed. “It’s redder now, though.”

  Calvin put his helmet on to block out their laughter, but it still seemed to come to him anyway, so he walked faster to try to leave them behind. The giggles stayed with him the rest of the way back to the shuttle.

  “Couldn’t find them?” asked Master Chief as Calvin stomped up the ramp. Master Chief was lying across the webbed combat seating, using his suit as a pillow. “See, that’s why the officer is supposed to go. That way you’re the one who looks stupid yelling at the top of your lungs and I’m not. I could hear you all the way in here; I’ll bet it was quite a scene.”

  Master Chief jumped up. “Hey! Something pinched me.” He looked back at the seating for a second, and then he spun and reached out behind him. “Ha!” he said. “Got ya!” Trella came into view behind him. He had hold of her left wrist.

  “How did you know where I was?” she asked.

  “Because that was exactly what I’d have done,” he replied. “Divide and conquer. I imagine Sella is sitting on the seating there.”

  “I am,” she said, coming into view.

  Master Chief looked at Calvin. “Sir, I’m afraid I’m going to have to do something I don’t do very often. I’m going to have to tell you I was wrong.”

  “You were wrong?” Calvin asked with a smile. It wasn’t often Master Chief admitted being wrong.

  “Yes, sir,” said Master Chief with an answering smile. “It turns out I’m a lot better at dealing with the spooky, creepy shit than you are after all.” He started laughing, and the women quickly joined in. Calvin could see he’d been had. He resisted the temptation to sigh again and sat down along one of the bulkheads. The back of the shuttle had combat seating down both sides and a central double row that faced the two outside sections.

  “Okay,” Calvin said when the three began to wind down, “if you have all had your laughs, perhaps we could get on with our mission?”

  “I guess,” said Sella, sitting down across the aisle from Calvin so she could see him. “What brings you back here?”

  “We need your help,” said Calvin. “Well, I think you may be able to help, anyway. We are trying to figure out some things so we can help another race. I’m hoping you can help us...but I don’t really know if you can.”

  “Well, that is certainly vague enough,” said Trella. “I think I may need to sit down too.” She sat down next to Calvin so she could look at Master Chief, who took a seat next to Sella. “Could you be a little more specific about the kind of help you’re looking for?”

  “Yes, I can,” Calvin said. “I need to know how you are able to go invisible, or immaterial, or whatever it is you do. A race allied with us is fighting an enemy that can do the same thing. I’m trying to figure out how they do it, so we can help our allies.”

  “We can’t tell you how we do it,” said Sella.

  “What?” asked Calvin. “You can’t tell me? Or you won’t tell me?”

  “We can’t tell you,” Sella said. “We aren’t allowed.”

  “So it is really a matter of you won’t tell us,” said Master Chief, joining the conversation. “Can you tell us why you can’t tell us?”

  “No,” said Sella. She didn’t say anything else, but looked instead at Trella. Calvin could tell they were communicating with each other somehow. As their conversation carried on, it appeared to get heated. Both began shaking their heads and gesturing at each other. Finally, Sella asked, “What is it worth to you to know?”

  “Do you mean in money?” Calvin asked. “I don’t know what you use for money, but I’m sure we have things you’d find valuable that we can give you for the knowledge.”

  “No, I meant exactly what I asked,” said Sella. “What is it worth to you? Is it worth your life?”

  “You want me to trade my life for the knowledge? Umm...will I be able to pass on the information to some of my friends so they can use it, or am I going to find out and then take the knowledge with me to the grave?”

  “I don’t want you to trade your life for that which you seek,” Sella replied. “In fact, I kind of like you and don’t want you to die. I would be quite happy if you didn’t risk your life in the quest for this answer. But the fact remains, you would have to be prepared to risk your life if you want to gain the answer to your question. Are you prepared to do that?”

  “The Aesir may be wiped out if we don’t find an answer,” said Calvin. “And then, once the Aesir are gone, it’s likely the enemy will keep coming and fight us next. If I don’t get the answer, I will still probably die, but it will be in combat with the enemy.” He shrugged. “I’m going to die somehow, some time. We all are. If I have the chance to get the information needed to save the Aesir, then yes, I would give my life for it.”

  “What about you?” asked Trella, looking at Master Chief. “Are you willing to risk your life too?”

  “This sounds a lot like the spooky, creepy shit I generally try to avoid,” Master Chief said, “but if it involves Lieutenant Commander Hobbs risking his life, he’s not going to do it by himself. I’m in.”

  “I knew you would say that,” Trella said with a smile. She turned to Calvin. “You will need to take off your suit.”

  “Take off my suit?” asked Calvin. “Why?”

  “Because it won’t work where we are going, and it will only give away your presence.”

  “Oh,” said Calvin. He took off his suit; Master Chief already had his off.

  Trella reached across the aisle, and put her hand on Master Chief’s arm. Sella reached across and did the same to Calvin. All four vanished.

  Asp 08, Unknown System, Unknown Date/Time

  “Asp 09, Asp 08, are you seeing what I’m seeing?” asked K-Mart.

  “If you’re seeing some sort of big space station in orbit over the planet, then yes, I’m seeing what you’re seeing,” replied Chomper.

  “It’s not that big. It can’t be more than about 80 feet long.”

  “No, it isn’t. I don’t see anything that looks like a weapon on it, either.”

  “Yeah, well we don’t really know what their weapons look like, do we?” asked K-Mart.

  “Should we call them on the radio, or should we just swoop in and blast them?”

  “What do you think?” K-Mart asked his pilot.

  “Well, we don’t have enough fuel to go to the surface of the planet and then return to space,” said Rock. “Once we’re down, we’re on the planet to stay, at least until we figure out a way to harvest some fuel. If we go down to the planet, I don’t want to leave any of them up here where they can drop rocks on us.”

  “No, me neither.”

  “So, we either need to destroy the station or take it away from them,” said Rock. “Personally, I don’t think the station could have more than 15 or 20 people on it, even if they’re really small. If one of us pulled up to the station while the other stayed back, the first crew could probably capture it. If things went badly, the second fighter could blast the station to pieces.”

  “Okay, so who goes in to clear the station?” asked K-Mart.

  Rock turned toward his WSO and smiled. “We do, of course.”

  Asp 08, Unknown Space Station, Unknown Date/Time

  “Got it,” said K-Mart, finally catching hold of the edge of the station. This was his least favorite part of the whole plan, standing on the outside of the space fighter, trying to get it latched onto the space station. They had tried to contact the inh
abitants of the station, but if the aliens’ radios functioned the same way as their Terran counterparts, whoever was in the station didn’t appear to have anything to say to them. Nothing was heard.

  Communications having failed, Asp 08 had approached the station while Asp 09 waited half a mile back. The second fighter was close enough to be seen, but far enough away to not get caught in the same explosion if the aliens chose to attack.

  The crew of Asp 08 found the docking collar, but unlike its round Terran counterparts, the alien access tube was square. There was no way to join the fighter to the station, aside from tying it on, like an old-time rider roping his horse to the hitching post. “That’s it,” said K-Mart as he secured the metal line to the station. “We’re tied up.”

  Rock turned off the motors and went to join his WSO, removing the ship’s laser pistol and rifle from their mounting brackets. He had always wondered what they were there for, as he had never expected to actually land on a planet where he would need them. That’s what the Marines were for. He also doubted the ship’s designers had envisioned the weapons being used by the crew to assault a space station. It was ludicrous…yet here they were, doing it.

  “Which do you want?” Rock asked K-Mart, giving him a choice of weapon.

  “I don’t care,” replied K-Mart.

  “Good, then I’ll take the rifle. I used to do a lot of hunting back home when I was younger.” He handed K-Mart the pistol and began walking toward the docking port.

  “How do you suppose we get in?” asked Rock. The access port had a circular wheel, and there were a variety of dials and switches to the left of the access port. His suit wouldn’t translate any of the writing that went with the dials and switches…if indeed it was writing. He could see a small room through the window that could be an air lock.

  “I don’t know,” replied K-Mart. “Maybe you should knock.”

  Although the WSO had been kidding, Rock shifted the rifle to his left hand so he could bang on the door with his right hand.

  After about 30 seconds of banging on the frame, a humanoid appeared. Its head was bald, and the being appeared nearly human, aside from the pale blue eyes that glowed so strongly they seemed to emit their own light. He was wearing a white full-body suit which covered most of his features, except for the ‘hands,’ which were two opposable talons on each side. The arms seemed longer and thinner than they would have been for a human, and the legs were also thin…and appeared to be backward-jointed like a bird. When the humanoid saw Rock, he jumped back in surprise, but then came closer, trying to determine what waited outside the window.

  Rock pointed at himself and then the inside of the station.

  The alien stood looking at him for a few moments, obviously trying to decide what to do with the stranger who had shown up, uninvited, at his door. His talons opened and closed repeatedly in distress. Finally, making a decision, he held up one claw and backed out of the room. He shut the other door, and the Terrans felt something mechanical operating through the soles of their boots. The vibration ceased, and a light on the panel next to Rock changed from yellow to blue.

  “Suppose we should try the wheel now?” asked Rock.

  “No, I think we should stand outside until we use up all of the oxygen in our suits,” K-Mart replied.

  “Eight billion people on our planet, and I get stuck with the king of sarcasm,” grumbled Rock. “Damn Yanks.” He magnetically locked his boots to the station and turned the handle. It opened outward. Holding the door open with one hand, Rock motioned to the interior with the other. “Be my guest,” he said. “Wouldn’t want you to die out here, or anything. It would be so much better to do it inside.”

  Leading with his pistol, K-Mart entered the station.

  Chapter 12

  Bridge, TSS Terra, Orbiting Keppler-22 ‘b,’ July 16, 2021

  “What the hell do you mean, ‘they just vanished and haven’t been heard from since?’” asked Captain Lorena Griffin. “Where the hell did they go?”

  “I don’t know,” said Trouble, the WSO of Shuttle 01, from the main screen. “One minute they were talking to two pretty women and then all of a sudden, all four of them just vanished. I don’t know where they went.” He played with something off screen. “Here’s the camera from the mission bay.”

  Trouble’s face was replaced with a view of the shuttle’s interior. Captain Griffin could see Calvin and Master Chief, as well as the two Sila Jinn she recognized from her last trip to the planet. She had seen them up close when they had materialized in front of her in the middle of a meeting. The two Jinn on the camera were Sella and Trella; she was sure of it. The two Jinn reached across the aisle to touch Calvin and Master Chief, and all four disappeared.

  “What about infrared or any of the other sensors?” asked Captain Griffin. “Did you look at them?”

  “Yes,” replied Trouble, “when they disappeared, I tried all the sensors. Nothing. They just vanished without a trace.”

  “Trouble checked,” added Canuck, the pilot of 01. “I saw him. Not only did he check, but he ran diagnostics on all the equipment immediately afterward. They’re gone.”

  “Roger that,” replied Captain Griffin. “Wait there for now, and let us know if you hear anything. Terra out.” The screen went blank. Captain Griffin turned to Steropes. “Well, Steropes, what do you think? Where did they go?”

  “I do not know,” he replied. “It can only be hypothesized they all went to wherever it is the Jinn live when they are not interacting with us. Whether that is another universe, another dimension or another reality entirely, I have no idea.”

  “Really?” asked Captain Griffin. The Psiclopes had lied to her enough times in the past she still didn’t believe the first answer she received from any of them.

  “Really,” replied Steropes. “This is completely outside my experience. I have known Jinn existed for thousands of years, but I have never communicated with them. I didn’t know the Jinn communicated with anyone who wasn’t a Jinn. I didn’t expect them to show up when the shuttle went to the planet, much less for them to converse with Lieutenant Commander Hobbs like we just saw them doing. No ma’am, I have no idea where they went.”

  Captain Griffin looked at Captain Nightsong. “What about you?”

  “I don’t know any more than Steropes,” he answered. “They appear similar to the creatures Wayland said live in a universe parallel to ours, but it is beyond my ability to prove whether they are the same race, or where exactly they have gone.”

  “So, I guess we just wait.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” replied Steropes. “It seems like that is the only thing we can do.”

  “Damn it,” Captain Griffin said. She hated waiting.

  Somewhere Else, Unknown Date/Time

  Master Chief and Calvin fell to the ground as the shuttle disappeared from underneath them.

  “What the hell?” asked Master Chief.

  Calvin felt nauseous and lay back to settle his stomach. Looking up, he saw everything was different. The shuttle? Gone. The pyramids? Gone. Even the sandy desert-like planet’s surface had changed. They were now lying in a forest with blue and red-leafed trees.

  The girls’ appearances had changed as well. Where before they had dressed like inhabitants of the planet Keppler-22 ‘b,’ now they looked like something out of 1,001 Arabian Nights. They wore brightly colored silks; Sella’s were mostly light blue with a touch of purple while Trella’s were mostly purple with a touch of light blue. Both had diamond-encrusted circlets on their heads, made from a reddish-colored metal. Silks flowed from the circlets to cover their faces. The only things he could see were their eyes, which glowed a solid light blue. Their hair cascaded in long pony tails behind them, reaching down to their waists.

  Fighting the urge to be sick, Calvin stared at Sella, who stood in front of him. She was still pretty, but she was now very, very foreign. She held a short, golden rod in her right ‘hand,’ but it wasn’t a hand like Calvin had ever seen; instead, it was
a claw with four talons. Two wrapped around the rod on each side like a bird on a perch. He couldn’t see her legs, but her arms appeared too long and thin to be human. He laughed to himself; he had intellectually known the Jinn weren’t human, but it had taken seeing them like this to really understand that they weren’t human.

  Sella’s hair matched her silks; it was mostly light blue with hints of purple. As he began to look around, the first thing he noticed was the sky was wrong. Where it had been blue on Keppler-22 ‘b,’ the sky here was a medium shade of green. Looking at it made him want to throw up again. He focused on Sella’s glowing eyes, instead. “Is this what you really look like?” he asked.

  “Yes,” said Sella, her voice a little deeper than what it had been on Keppler-22 ‘b.’ “Welcome to our universe.” She spun around once. “These are our natural forms. Do you like them?”

  “I do,” replied Calvin. “Umm...where are we?”

  “You are now in our universe, which we call the Jinn Universe.”

  “That’s interesting,” said Calvin. “Did you know we call you ‘Jinn?’”

  “Of course,” replied Sella. “You have it wrong though. We aren’t Jinn; we are from Jinn. Our race is the Sila; there are other races which exist in this universe, like the Efreet. This is our planet, Ashur.” Calvin didn’t answer; he simply sat looking at her with his mouth open, so she continued, “You said you would give your life to find out our secrets. We brought you here, to our world, so you could have that chance.”

  “To find out the information or to give our lives?” asked Master Chief.

  “That is up to you,” Trella said. He couldn’t see her face, but her voice sounded sad. “You may find the information you seek. You may not. You may die. Unfortunately, there is a very good chance of that happening. I kind of liked you, too, so that is a pity; however, it can’t be helped. You asked to come, so we brought you. What you do with this opportunity is up to you. We will go see my father, the caliph.”