by Barry Kirwan
The kelp-green walls sucked in sound. Initially he’d found it peaceful after the inescapable noise of city life back on Earth. That was until, like many others, he’d had recurring nightmares about waking up to find himself alone, deserted in the warren-like ship. He’d be running, lost forever inside the belly of the Q’Roth transport, slipping and sliding in the sweat the ship’s walls exuded every twelve hours. The scientists said it was harmless, and it got sucked back into the walls within an hour, but still… He reached his small quarters and pulled closed the curtain that didn’t quite fit. The lack of privacy did nothing for his insomnia. Still, having landed, having escaped the Q’Roth and the Alicians, he couldn’t help but feel upbeat, like those rare Sundays his parents had taken him to Venice beach before the War. He grinned.
He laid out his crumpled clothes on the cot and sprayed them with Bio-Revite. Thank goodness someone had had the presence of mind to stock it before they’d quit Earth. Washing clothes regularly was out of the question until they found a stable water supply. He glanced at the label – maximum seven days use before washing. He shook the can and sprayed his clothes a second time.
Micah arrived late at the meeting. He wanted to sit next to Sandy, but on the one side sat Vince, uncompromising and tightly-wrapped, his bald head inclined back as he surveyed the gathering like a hilltop lion checking out the other animals on the savannah below. On the other side Ramires perched on the edge of his seat, as if about to get up and leave. He was the last living Sentinel – slick with sinewy muscles like a free-climber, his whole life dedicated to fighting a secret war against the Alicians. The black-haired Mexican had permanent six o’clock shadow under a thin moustache, and hooded eyes: whenever he looked into them, Micah wondered how many had seen nothing else after that face.
He gazed around the ivy-green oblong room situated in the ship’s conning tower. It was one of only three rooms that possessed windows – four oval portals, one on each side, letting violet light stream in above their heads. He wasn’t sure where the polished oak board-room table and straight-backed chairs had come from, guessing they had travelled along with the former IVS Chief Exec Shakirvasta, together with, so he’d heard, a container-full of tobacco. This well-groomed, lank-haired and oil-skinned mogul, one of the most powerful people on former Earth, should have been on Rashid’s missing ship, but he’d joined Blake’s instead, no doubt to build alliances during the voyage here.
Here, he thought: Ourshiwann, another planet, and not empty like Eden. He corrected himself – Eden had never been empty, instead proving to be a terraformed trap, its subterranean caverns brimming with Q’Roth hatchlings.
But it had been a relief to arrive on Ourshiwann. He longed to set foot outside where there was no roof above his head, to tread on firm ground that didn’t ooze green mucus, making his shoes slurp when he walked, even if every photo he’d seen so far suggested this planet was barren. The ground looked arid, scattered bushes so dry they made eucalyptus look lush. He was no farmer, but he questioned if any of the crops they had brought would grow here.
Then there was the sky. Completely cloudless, it changed air-brushed colours at least four times a day, lending a surreal touch to the place, as if they were trapped inside a featureless painting. But he knew they had to make it work here, with no idea of where other habitable worlds might lie. Besides, another few months and they’d run out of food completely. Then it would get really ugly.
He drew himself back to the present. Blake looked up, noticing him, and flicked his eyes to the empty seat to his left. Zack already occupied the seat on the right, propping himself up on his dark forearms. Micah couldn’t help but turn around to see if Blake had been indicating the spare chair to someone behind him, but there was no one else standing. He skirted around the table, all eyes following him, and sat next to Blake. The only limelight he craved was the glow of a computer screen. He did his best to merge with the chair.
Blake rapped the table top three times with his bare knuckles. “Let’s get started.”
He noticed how Blake’s gravel-like voice drew everyone’s attention. He considered his own voice, how uncommanding it was, inviting interruption.
“I declare the first meeting of the Eden Council open.”
There were murmurs of surprise. The immaculately manicured Senator Josefsson, in a dark suit and tie no less, cleared his throat. He brushed a strand of his wavy greying hair that hadn’t been out of place back to where it had been all along. “Excuse me, Commander, did you say Eden? Was that a joke? If so it was in remarkably poor taste.” His mature good looks, hollowed out by three weeks of emergency rations, made him look like a well-groomed predator.
Micah regarded the only other suit around the table, the mogul Shakirvasta. The Indistani didn’t miss a beat. He already knew – he and Blake must have planned this.
“So we never forget,” Blake replied. “Eden was our name, not the Q’Roth name for that planet. We considered ‘War Council’, but there are mostly civilians on this planet now.”
Josefsson’s nose twitched. “And who is ‘we’ exactly?”
“Fair point,” Blake replied. “From now on, ‘we’ are this council. All significant decisions will be made here.”
A diminutive, mousy-haired girl with a ski-jump nose and bottle-green eyes joined in from the corner of the table. Micah hadn’t actually met her yet, but he knew she must be Jennifer, with the burly, bearded Greek genius, Professor Dimitri Kostakis beside her. Funny, he thought, they didn’t look like lovers.
“I’m not sure democracy is what we need right now,” she said, her voice slightly too loud, not quite steady. Brave, but inexperienced, thought Micah.
She continued, manufacturing self-confidence along the way. “The Q’Roth may still be hunting us, or the Alicians. After all, we’re still missing our fourth ship.”
The room temperature plummeted. All eyes shifted to Blake – this is what everyone wanted to discuss, but no one wanted to raise. Micah peered past Blake and Zack to Antonia, whose lover Katrina was on the missing ship. Looking at her porcelain, ballerina’s face, strafed his heart again. She didn’t meet his gaze. Just as well; his feelings for her were a one-way street, but he couldn’t seem to dodge the oncoming traffic. He leaned back heavily against his chair-rest, finding Sandy’s level gaze upon him. He almost missed what Blake was saying.
“– remain at war, for the foreseeable future. But we have other pressing matters to attend to. Mr. Carlson?”
A man Micah didn’t know rose heavily, as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders. Carlson had greasy hair, a straggly beard and a paunch shrivelled by rations. He leaned on the table, using plump fists for support, his forearms like two masts supporting a burgeoning sail-like chest. “My name is Julian Carlson, I am – that is, I was – Eden Mission’s chief psychologist.”
Micah noticed Zack fold his bushy black arms, and detected an almost subliminal snort. Blake remained steadfast.
“At Commander Blake’s request, I’ve been taking stock of what you might call the collective state of our people on this new world since we arrived.” He looked at each face, one by one, all around the table. Micah somehow felt at ease with this man, though he hated shrinks.
“Ladies and gentlemen, three words sum up that state: shock, grief, and displacement. Most are still deep in denial. That’s the easy one, relatively speaking. Now that we’ve arrived and, well, this planet is not quite what we had all hoped for, anger will follow shortly, then depression. We’ve already had fourteen suicides in the past two weeks, the most recent two since we arrived here two days ago. Some of you are military, trained to be resilient. Most people we saved are not. They are trying to come to terms with –”
“Please, spare us the lecture, Mr. Carlson,” Shakirvasta said, leaning forward in his collarless, jet-black suit. “None of us here are blind or inept. Your point?”
Carlson glanced from the Indistani to Blake, then continued, his voice less blustery, the wind knoc
ked out of his sails. “They need a home, security and stability, and most of all, leadership.” He sank back down into his chair.
Vince’s voice sliced across the room before anyone else could react. “The first three are luxuries they can’t afford. We’re sitting ducks here. The Q’Roth know the whereabouts of this planet, and we stole four of their transports, which undoubtedly have transponders hidden aboard. They might just decide to have an after-dinner snack, or clean their plates. The only reason we’re not yet dead is that they don’t know that we know of this place.” His eyes burned like a gas flame.
In the past month, Micah had come to admire Vince’s directness.
Blake nodded, holding up a hand before anyone else could chime in. “Which is why we’re here. We have several priorities, and we need to assign teams to execute them.”
“And who exactly put you in charge?” Josefsson jabbed a chiselled fore-finger in Blake’s direction. “You got us here, and we’re thankful, but we need a government here on this God-forsaken planet!” He spread his hands, his eyes hawking for support around the table. Vultures like company, Micah reflected.
He expected Zack to spring to Blake’s defence. But it was Shakirvasta who attracted attention by tapping a platinum cigarette box on the table, extracting a smokeless filter-tip. He lit it with restrained grace. He inhaled, eyes closed, then exhaled a halo of heat haze into the air. Micah smiled at the theatrics.
“My dear Senator,” Shakirvasta addressed Josefsson, “I ran the only Titan corporation that survived the Third World War, so permit me a small indulgence in thinking I know when to opt for military rather than democratic control of a situation. There will be a government – the roots of it are here today – but right now, we need fast and precise decision-making that won’t be second-guessed. And I believe that when Mr Carlson spoke of leadership, he meant our good Commander here, not a hastily-concocted committee to lead our people into a race between famine and annihilation, with a dead heat as the most likely outcome.”
Micah was impressed. This scenario had been well-prepared by Blake and Shakirvasta. Blake was known as a leader and a man of action, but Micah hadn’t figured him for political acumen, particularly in this case – he had the feeling Blake disliked everything Shakirvasta stood for.
Josefsson masked his indignation with a cough, and appeared to have enough political savvy to realise he’d over-reached. He shot Shakirvasta a searing glare before continuing. “I see. Then I bow to your judgement, this time. So, Commander, what are your instructions to us humble citizens of this new planet, whose name I have difficulty pronouncing?”
Blake folded his hands into a steeple, surveying everyone over the summit. “Our – she – wan. Ourshiwann. Don’t anyone forget, they lost more than we did. None of them survived their Q’Roth incursion.”
Micah knew Blake had witnessed the invasion of Ourshiwann, via the Hohash who replayed the events when it first made contact with Kat on Eden. Apparently Blake had been moved close to tears at the razing of this pacifist spider-world. Micah privately wondered if they were really all dead. Spiders lay eggs…
Blake stood up. “Currently, we have four sling-jets scouting the entire region, looking for any signs of life, food and shelter. We have four teams on the ground in the nearby spider city, making sure it’s secure. Half of our scientists are already exploring soil-crop compatibility here on Ourshiwann, the other half on better weapons delivery systems in case the Q’Roth or our Alician cousins come looking for us. An engineering team from Jennifer’s ship is trying to determine if there is a transponder in the Q’Roth ships, though progress is slow, since we still can’t cut through Q’Roth metal. The remaining military are helping keep order inside the ships, which isn’t easy, and frankly not what they’re trained for.” He paused, and then perused every face around the table – Micah felt he was being enlisted.
“Out there is a lost civilisation, a depleted one, but possibly far in advance of our own. Our good fortune today is that the spiders didn’t fight back, so there was little collateral damage to their infrastructure. We know that in a straight fight with the Q’Roth, and even the Alicians…” Blake paused, appearing to chew on the next part, and then spat it out. “We’ll lose. That’s an honest tactical assessment, and you all know it, though it doesn’t go outside these walls. So, ladies and gentlemen, I’m allocating resources here, that is, you people, to seek advantages from the deceased spider race, to learn from what we don’t know, to give us an edge, even if it’s just an outside chance.”
Micah hadn’t realised how much he’d needed to hear this bleak evaluation, and some of the tension locked up in his chest eased off. Blake was a good leader, he thought, decisive and smart too, unafraid to face reality. During the past few weeks when nobody had dared state their situation so candidly, fear had lurked in the shadows, draining his own and everyone else’s energy and morale. But now it was out in the open, they could work on it, fight it, and fight together.
Vince leaned forward on honed forearms. “With due respect, Commander, this is no time for pussy-talk. Most likely assessment is the Alicians or Q’Roth or both intercepted Rashid’s ship and either destroyed it or culled its passengers and crew. Pisses me off as much as any of you, I had twenty of my best people on that ship, but we have to move on fast. They will find us. It’s a question of when, and most likely when is soon, in the next few days. The only priority is security, because we are so very not secure right now. Three days, people, and all of us could be taken out like that.” He snapped his forefinger and thumb together.
Blake waited, as if counting to ten. He continued. “Vince, Ramires – you’ll work with Zack on new defences and weapons. Try communicating with the Hohash – we could do with finding another of their phase-shifting scout ships if there are any left intact. Micah, Sandy, Professor Kostakis, and Jennifer – I need you to organise teams to explore the Ourshiwann city to see what we can use from there – including the possibility of shelter and… somewhere to hide. I don’t think anyone sleeps easy in these Q’Roth slime-buckets.”
Whispers started in several quarters around the table. Blake slammed his fist down hard on the table, stunning everyone into silence. He glared at it a while. “I’ll be damned if we perish here!” He uncurled his fist. “Now, food. It’s still a priority. We have three months to find new food sources or reap a harvest. Otherwise the Alicians don’t need to lift a finger, we’ll starve to death. Senator Josefsson, Mr Shakirvasta, Antonia – I’d like you to work with Carlson on organising a social infrastructure that will keep all our people from going over the edge – dealing with lodging, food allocation, and tasks to keep people busy, as well as medical issues, and grievances, of which there’ll be plenty. Questions?”
Micah raised an eyebrow. Blake didn’t miss it. “Mr. Sanderson, you have something to add?”
He reddened. “Rashid’s ship,” he said. “I know maybe it’s gone, but we don’t know for sure. Are we going to look for it?”
Blake spoke in a quieter voice. “Needle in a haystack, son, and we have no way to look for them. The codes in your head only give vectors, not distances travelled – we’d never find them. There are three empty chairs waiting for Rashid, Pierre and Kat in this council, as soon as they arrive.”
Micah watched Antonia’s face turn to desert rock, bereft of hope. It summed up everything – they’d all been through too much, and the three-week trip had only served to make tensions chronic. The psychologist hadn’t just been talking about the other people in the ships – he’d been talking about everyone, including all the people here in this room, even the military. Micah knew all too well how easy it was to let despair subdue action. Reluctantly he recalled one of his father’s famous aphorisms – when you hit rock bottom, kick hard. He shot to his feet. “Well, what are we waiting for?” He strode around the table and grabbed Sandy’s hand, to the sound of scraping chairs.
Out in the corridor, as they waited for Jennifer and Kostakis, Sandy tugged hi
s wrist. “Was that balls or bravado back there?”
“My Dad, I guess. Hated him all my life, even after he was killed in the War, but these days he seems to be the only role model that matches up to these shitty situations.”
She cocked an eyebrow, a wan smile spreading across her lips. “Must be balls then. I’m told they’re hereditary.”
Micah was relieved to see Jennifer and Kostakis heading their way, which would save him from any further repartee with Sandy; it was a game he always lost. But as the scientist couple approached, his eye was caught by Antonia heading in the opposite direction. She didn’t look his way. He felt a squeeze on his elbow from Sandy.
“That’s the trouble with balls,” she said. “No intelligence.”
Micah glanced down at her belly, concealing the foetus growing inside her, the legacy of her fleeting encounter with the legendary Alician assassin Gabriel. He caught Sandy’s eye and raised an eyebrow.
Her grin shrank to a pencil-thin line. “Don’t even think about saying it.”
He shrugged, and held out his hand as Professor Kostakis’ beaming, curly-haired, goatee-bearded face loomed in front of him.
* * *
Blake asked Zack to stay behind for a few minutes. Once the room had emptied and the door sealed, cocooning them in the gloomy, dank silence that pervaded the Q’Roth ships, Zack finally spoke.
“Don’t know if you feel out of your depth, Skip, but I sure as hell do. Meetings? Fucking meetings with civilians? Glad you took charge back there. Vince was –”
