by Barry Kirwan
“Wait,” Micah said. “Remember what Angel told us about Grid society level hierarchy, and how we mustn’t address any more than two levels above our station?”
They nodded, wearily.
Zack grunted. “Institutionalised racism.”
“Yep, but we have to respect it. Still, the good news is that every vendor I’ve checked out so far is Level Five or Six.”
“Makes sense,” Sandy said, “biggest market opportunity that way.”
Micah continued. “Those levels are probably also agrarian, farmers, and we’re here for food, so it’s a good match.”
Zack grinned. “You mean you can tell which is merchandise and which is alien, because, truth is, a few times I wasn’t really sure.”
Micah shook his head. “I know. We’re in Wonderland here, and we have almost no idea of the rules, but a pretty good idea that punishment can be terminal. So, given I’ve got the resident, I’ll do the talking.”
“Business as usual there, Micah,” Sandy quipped.
He shrugged, and let it go. Her sarcasm he could handle, indifference and the silent treatment, that was a different matter entirely. He caught up with Ramires, narrowly avoiding a sucker-like frond which tried to land on his head.
They passed a couple of tall saffron-caped mantas, and tried not to stare. Most of the merchandise was laid out on lawns of blue grass, with a vendor seated, hanging, or hovering in its midst. Micah’s eyes tugged in the direction of pulsing fluorescent elliptoids which kept elongating and shrinking, changing airbrushed colours at an almost subliminal rate. His resident confirmed it was nutritional, but appended the name with a red cross – not suitable for his physiology. Thanks, Angel, we really owe you one.
He decided to follow Ramires’ lead, and proceeded straight ahead to the Mannekhi’s stall. The white-bearded, bald man with the same all-black eyes as Starkel, rose from his stool to greet them. He spoke in fluent Mannekhi, and Micah’s resident translated. Micah relaxed, and spoke back naturally, knowing the resident would perform the requisite gymnastics with his vocal chords.
“Fine thank you…Yes, that’s right, human, not Mannekhi, though we met one recently, name of Starkel… Ah, yes, the Games. Yes, the same one… Food, mainly, we have water… Payment, yes, hold on a minute, please.’
He turned to the others. Zack was looking at him sideways, Sandy found something interesting to stare at on the grass, while Ramires kept lookout.
“Pleasantries so far,” he told them, “we’re just getting down to business.” He coughed, and tapped his wristcom. “Hannah? It’s Micah; the subject of payment has come up.”
“Thought it would. I’m zapping you the Q’Roth’s name and a credit account cipher. The vendor must have some kind of optical reader, just put your wristcom next to it, it should work.”
Sandy nudged Zack. “Remind me why he brought us along?”
Zack jabbed her back gently in the ribs. “Micah brought Ramires for his fighting skills, me for my good humour, and you because he was afraid of what you might do to Hannah.” He tickled her ribs and they both packed out laughing. Micah frowned and turned back to the vendor, and completed the purchase.
“Okay guys, I’ve just bought us … two hundred plaktars, four cubic metres of Zentbread, a nushell of Qimbari beans, and ten assorted eshnibar snacks. My resident says they’re all nutritional and a good balanced diet for our needs. It’s being sent back to the ship as we speak.”
“So,” Sandy said, “are we going to take a look around?”
Ramires cut in. “We must go now.”
“What’s the –” She paled as she glimpsed what Ramires had seen.
Micah twisted around, then wished he hadn’t. A tall Q’Roth warrior was heading straight for them. “Okay, no running, let’s just leave quietly.” Zack tripped over a root on the ground, and stumbled into Ramires. He gathered himself, muttered an apology, and they all walked as fast as they could without breaking into a run, back the way they’d come, towards the tube. As they rounded a bend, Micah risked a glance backwards – the Q’Roth wasn’t there. He prayed their luck would hold, but as they turned the final corner to reach the exit tube, they found the warrior half-crouching on four of its six legs, blocking their way. The Mannekhi vendor arrived by its side, out of breath. He spoke Q’Roth. This time Micah’s resident translated for him – Micah guessed it had a learning mechanism, and had now heard enough to develop translation algorithms: “Yes, ambassador, these are the ones who just spent some of your credit.” With that, the Mannekhi vendor left, not meeting Micah’s glare.
The Q’Roth rose upright on its hind legs, a good three and a half metres in height, its two other pairs of legs spread wide. Its armour-plated torso shone like a beetle’s wings in the hazy light, the six vermillion slits on its head waxing and waning. The ambassador’s broad gash of a mouth yawned open, the Q’Roth words easing out like barbed-wire pulled through flesh, in serrated English. “Leaving so soon?”
Micah tapped his wristcom. He presumed the Q’Roth had some kind of translation device too. “Hannah, we’ve met the good ambassador. We may be dining early.”
Courtesy of the resident, he spoke a halting Q’Roth. “My dear ambassador, we were merely attending to our needs for provisions. We will be honoured to meet you for dinner later.”
His mid-claws pounded into the ground, causing a sputter of dust. He reverted to Q’Roth. “Do not insult my intelligence! You think an ambassador would be unaware of events in the Q’Roth line, including the recent destruction of two vessels chasing a ship with your registration? I merely wanted you off-ship, to be sure you could not escape again. As soon as you spent my credit, I knew where to find you. You will indeed join me for dinner, all of you, including the Alician traitor onboard your stolen vessel, which is now locked down and targeted by my own flagship. But first,” it turned to Ramires, “this one has something of interest, detected when you left the ship, classed as a medical tool, but I believe it is a weapon.”
Micah swallowed. The Q’Roth faced Ramires, dropping into an aggressive stance: its two back legs bent behind it, ready to launch forwards, while its mid legs clawed the ground, and its upper legs folded in two, projecting out horizontally in Ramires’ direction. Its body slanted forward, its head statue-still. Micah had seen a praying mantis once, and knew the forelegs, when folded like this, could whip out faster than a man could blink, catching or shredding its prey. Ramires did not waver. Zack backed away from it, moving to its side.
“Ramires,” Sandy whispered.
“Do not fear,” he said. “All my life I have trained for this moment.” He stood tall, and reached around with his left hand to his back pocket – and found it empty. A puzzle framed his normally serene brow, and then his eyes darted sideways at Zack. Micah followed his gaze just in time to see Zack’s arms raised high as his large frame leapt silently forward and upward toward the Q’Roth, a shimmering violet line rising from the metal tube he gripped in both hands.
Chapter 22
Arjuna
Blake detected blue flashes at the end of the tunnel, and drew his pulse pistol. “Rashid, I go in, you brake.” He breached the cave mouth, dived and rolled to the opposite wall, ready to fire. Rashid skidded to the lip of the entrance, pistol also raised. The only sound was their laboured breathing. Blake holstered his weapon and surveyed the scene.
Kostakis held Jennifer’s limp but still breathing body in his arms, and there was a Hohash, though it looked very different to the ones they’d encountered so far. Instead of a pristine golden frame, it had copper vines twisted around it like rusted cabled steel, some of it frayed. The mirror surface was also different – it was fractured into eight uneven sections, each one bordered by a rusted gold ridge, reminding him of rice paddies he’d seen in Borneo during the War.
“What happened, Professor?”
“Dimitri, Commander, please. I tire of that particular anachronism, it has no meaning anymore.”
“Dimitri, then.” He
noticed he did not seem to tire of holding her.
“I arrived and Jen was facing that thing. I imagine it accessed her node, and was communicating directly with her. She was screaming for it to stop; I felt so helpless, so I shouted too, and kicked it, or tried to – it can move very fast when it wishes to. You have some experience of this, I understand.”
“Only second hand, but it made Kat black out more than once, till they established a rapport.” He noticed Rashid tilting his head toward the floor.
Dimitri laid Jennifer on the ground. “So peaceful.”
Blake frowned. Rashid now appeared to be praying, with his head bowed to the floor. “Rashid, what the hell are you doing? You introduced us to these damned artefacts in the first place. Can we focus on the problem?”
Rashid didn’t budge. “That is what I am doing, Commander. I believe this Hohash, which I imagine is far older than the others, judging by its condition, is guarding something precious.” He placed his visor against the ground, rocking his head side-to-side slowly. “Something miraculous,” he whispered.
Dimitri, unangered like Blake, joined Rashid. “Tell us, what do you see, or rather, hear?”
Rashid lifted his head, and sat on the ground. “Professor – and I call you that because I was also a man of science, and I respect your work back on Earth a great deal – you never really explained why you were here.”
“Well,” Dimitri beamed, “I joined Vasquez’ mission just to get out of the city, away from the politics, but I had no enthusiasm to go on an engineering mission. I suppose I am still a scientist.”
“But why here?”
Dimitri studied his feet, like an overgrown schoolboy trying to explain his missing homework. “I overheard Antonia talking about these caves. She confided in me that if I was ever in trouble, to come here.”
Rashid stuck to his thread. “That was convenient, but not why you really came here, nor why you stayed here, was it?”
Blake stated the obvious. “The eggs, Rashid, he found the eggs.”
Rashid stood up, amidst Dimitri’s silence. “Professor Kostakis is not a biologist, Commander. He is a Gaiologist, one who studied the interconnectedness of Earth’s ecology as if it was a single being, but first and foremost he is an oceanographer.”
Blake shook his head. “But there are no…” He paused. “Wait a minute, you’re not telling me –”
“An underground ocean!” Dimitri interjected, unable to contain himself any longer, his arms taking off. “Huge, as big as the Atlantic, underneath the first crust.”
Blake’s brow furrowed. “Does that have anything to do with the eggs?”
Dimitri looked to Rashid, who answered, “No, I don’t believe so. I suspect the ocean is ancient. You found a way in, didn’t you, Professor?”
He nodded. “Far below, a glass wall, a platform, and I trekked for days above a roiling ocean, smooth perfect waves, never breaking, uniform as the planet’s rotation.”
Blake felt out of his depth, never at ease in the company of scientists. But he tried to get with the game. “Did the spiders somehow sink the ocean, or is this natural?”
“Ah, now we turn to my speciality,’ Rashid said, “terraforming theory.”
Dimitri tugged at his beard. “Really! Why didn’t you tell me?”
Rashid addressed Blake. “It is certainly not natural, and I believe beyond the spider’s technological ability. My sonar can detect the ocean, and I see how deep it is, but also that the second crust beneath this one, underlying the ocean, is smooth and of an impermeable, synthetic material, not rock as we’d expect.”
Dimitri placed two fingers delicately, as if touching a butterfly’s wings, on the rim of Rashid’s dolphin. “Amazing, almost worth losing one’s sight for. Such an instrument!”
Blake sighed. He knelt down next to Jennifer, and noticed the first signs of stirring. Although not fond of her, he wanted a more military mind to balance the odds. A cheek muscle twitched, a tremor skidded down her forearm. He addressed Dimitri: “So, why the secrecy?”
Now Dimitri stared hard at Rashid, and shook his head very lightly.
Blake hadn’t missed the covert signal, scientist to scientist. “What? What is it? What’s so important about finding an ocean? I don’t see how that alone has geopolitical magnitude right now, given our predicament.”
Rashid patted Dimitri’s arm. “I am sorry, but Blake is our rightful leader on this planet. He needs to know. We must trust in him.”
Dimitri met Blake’s eyes, with something approaching a look of pity. “But he is … a soldier. Where you and I see scientific wonder, he sees weapons.”
Blake stared back, but didn’t know what to reply. He’d heard it before, but now, for the first time, it cut deep. Was it true?
“It’s not the ocean, Commander,” Rashid said, “but what’s in it.”
“Wrong,” Jennifer said, prizing herself up on her elbows. With Blake’s help, she sat up, held her head, massaging her temples. “It’s not what’s in it,” she said, “but who is in it.”
She accepted Dimitri’s outstretched arm as he helped her up. “Come on,” she said, “the Hohash is going to show us the way.”
They continued ever downwards, tracking behind the blue glow of the Hohash along narrow paths spiralling around an abyssal crevasse. They travelled so deep Blake wondered if he’d ever see sunlight again. And then he heard it, the unmistakable swelling of waves, water moving, the salty smell of the sea. It triggered such a strong feeling of homesickness that he had to stop to catch his breath, thinking of all that had been lost. The salt water odour flooded back memories of sailing in San Francisco Bay, scuba diving off Point Lobos near Monterey, and sunbathing with Glenda and Robert on Venice Beach. He felt a shard of guilt for having left so many on Earth to perish at the hands of the Q’Roth. He leant against the crevasse wall, steadied himself, and then continued walking.
“Yes,” Rashid said, in front, “the smell of an ocean takes your breath away doesn’t it? When we get there, please describe it to me, because despite what Dimitri said, I’d trade almost anything to have my eyes back, to see the things and people I love and care about.”
He knew Rashid meant Sonja. His mind made the inevitable connection. Where are you Zack? I need you, dammit. I can lead, but I need a strong second; that was always you.
Dimitri’s voice boomed out. “The oxygen is very heavy down here, it may make you feel light-headed, emotional even.”
Yep, that must be it, Blake said to himself, not believing it for an instant, but then he of all people understood that soldiers are trained to follow orders, whether or not they believed in them. He battened down the emotional hatches, and regained his rhythm.
Blake stepped onto the glass gingerly, like a cat, despite having seen Jennifer and the Professor clatter down onto it. Beneath his feet, some thirty metres or so, dimly lit from the cave’s light source which he couldn’t pinpoint, was a black sea, wave crests rolling past every thirty seconds; they were massive.
“So, what exactly is in the ocean?”
Rashid’s boots thumped onto the glass behind him. “A ship, but a ship like no other we have ever encountered.”
He turned to see where Rashid was staring, but only saw the dark sheen of the ocean reflecting from the domed cavern’s glows. “I don’t get it, Rashid – your sonar shouldn’t be able to detect a ship through glass, air and then water. The dolphin’s just not that good.”
Dimitri spoke while turning on a small apparatus lying in the centre of the glass floor. “Yes, Rashid, you must tell us – I am also intrigued. I only found it when using this ultra-low frequency scanner.”
“It is breathing,” he replied, “very slowly.”
Blake stared first at him, and then glanced down again through the glass floor. Dimitri focused instead on the screen illuminating his face in green. “Come, Commander, take a look.”
Blake saw fuzz at first, then a figure emerged. He made out a triangular section like a
n arrowhead jutting out from a narrow neck, joined to the body of the ship, which was shaped like a semi-circle at the top, tapering down at the bottom. The ship resembled an elongated crossbow, pointing straight upwards out of the ocean.
“Arjuna,” Rashid said quietly, gazing through the floor, since he could not observe two-dimensional displays. “The mythical archer from the Bhagavad Gita. This is a noble ship, if ever there was one to behold.”
Blake had to admit its symmetry was elegant. He smiled – Zack would go nuts over this. “What’s the scale, Professor? I think Rashid is right. You’ve earned the title, and God knows we need to research and learn if we’re going to survive on this planet.” He detected a blush beneath Dimitri’s shroud of a beard, though it was hard to be sure in the grey light.
“The vessel is ten kilometres long. The top section alone is half a kilometre in length.”
Blake turned to Jennifer. “Now it’s your turn. What, or who, is inside the ship?”
She nodded to the Hohash. “The creators of these artefacts.”
Dimitri got there first. “So the spiders –”
“Are a relatively new species. The one in the ship is very, very old. It came here aeons ago, with a number of Hohash. It terraformed the planet to create an underground ocean where it and its ship could hide. The spiders were barely sentient at that time, but the Hohash interacted with them, and educated them.”
No one spoke for a while, as they digested this information, re-writing their basic assumptions about the spider race, and the Hohash. Blake cleared his throat. “Why did you scream, Jennifer? I heard Kat scream the first time, but she cried out in pain – forgive me, but your cry was one of fear.”
“My Jen is not afraid of anything,” Dimitri exclaimed.
She narrowed her eyes, then relaxed. Blake wasn’t sure on whose account, his or Dimitri’s. “You’re right, Commander. It showed me something, an image, and conveyed an intense emotion of fear; actually, more like dread of pure evil matched with unstoppable power. Something has happened out in the galaxy, something much bigger than us or our petty problems. The seeds of a galactic catastrophe have been sewn.”
