by S. H. Jucha
Alex could hear the lift in Tatia’s thought. She needed something positive to focus on, just as he did.
“One more, Miranda,” Alex said.
“Ser is standing by, Alex,” Miranda replied. She connected him before he could comment.
Alex was wishing her well, when Renée severed the link. The ugly specter of survivor guilt rose to haunt Alex. This time was one of the worst. He’d been safe aboard the Toralian warships, while the Omnian fleet risked annihilation. He regretted that he’d hoped she could join him on the surface. Obviously, she was playing a crucial role in caring for the injured, which is what he should have suspected.
“The freighter’s traveler is overhead, Alex,” Julien said. “We must clear this wash and the cave.”
Julien could have hugged the traveler pilot for her timely arrival. He watched the pain fade from Alex’s eyes, as his friend focused on those around him. The Omnians ushered everyone back to where the Chistorlan tunnel met the cave.
Miranda stood at the rear of the group to allow the Toralians a better view. However, Miftra felt more comfortable next to Miranda, and Lipsit remained protective of the smaller male.
A pull on Miranda’s clothing caused her to glance down. Miftra held a digit in the air, and Miranda offered an arm, which he clambered up on. Lipsit’s eyes implored her too, and she gently sat Miftra on one broad shoulder and Lipsit on the other.
Alex heard contented croaks and glanced behind him. The Chistorlans sat happily atop Miranda, pleased with their views and comfortable perches.
The Chistorlans marveled at the Omnian fighter that hovered at the cave mouth.
The sister picked up Miranda and Julien’s comms. She reversed the ship and backed it into the cave stern first. Once inside the widest part of the interior, she swiveled the stern toward the tunnel, where she’d detected the SADEs.
The Toralians were tempted to back into the tunnel, as the cargo shuttle’s bulb-like stern swiveled toward them. Unfortunately for them, they had Alex and Miranda at their backs. It was a formidable barrier. As for the Chistorlans, they had no choice. Miranda did detect an absence of breath from the two diminutive individuals until the shuttle touched down.
“Astounding example of piloting,” Taralum remarked.
“Sister aboard,” Julien remarked to the Toralians, which produced a set of nodding heads, as understanding dawned.
The rear hatch dropped, and Chandra Khatri hurried around her cargo. She was about to greet Alex, when she caught sight of the unusual tableau, and the words died in her mouth. The silence was punctuated by a quiet croak, which issued from Miftra.
“Welcome to the Chistorlan home world, Chandra,” Alex greeted the pilot.
“Thank you, Alex,” Chandra replied, shaking off the jaw-dropping image she’d confronted. “Captain Tindleson sends his apology. He thought he came up with a clever idea, but our freighter didn’t have enough parts to make more than one of his inventions.”
Chandra hustled around the shuttle’s rear cargo area. She unsecured strapping and pulled off a cover.
Alex burst out laughing at the sight of six chairs stuck on top of a grav pallet.
Chandra grinned in reply, her bright white teeth a contrast to her warm brown skin. “We laid down a sheet of hull material and bonded it to the pallet’s base,” she explained. “Then we liberated half our galley chairs and used nanites paste to fix them to the hull sheeting. They’re secure, Alex. We wouldn’t want your … your friends to fall off.”
Chandra’s chagrin was mirrored in her face, and Alex sympathized with her. She thought she was delivering an inventive solution, only to realize that, in this case, size was an issue.
“As you can see, Chandra, we’ve already been making accommodations,” Alex said, sweeping a hand toward the Chistorlans who sat on Miranda’s shoulders.
Lipsit was intrigued by the pilot. She’d intuited that the Omnians had, at least, two sexes. Miranda’s construction was an example of one, and the pilot was similar in appearance, except for one thing. She croaked her question to Miranda, who offered a reply.
The Chistorlan walked up to Chandra and stared at the female’s face and hands. Then Lipsit touched a digit to her face and pointed to Chandra.
Chandra couldn’t understand the alien’s sounds, but she received Miranda’s translation in her implant, which was, “Have you camouflaged your face?”
Chandra laughed softly at the question and knelt on her knees. She touched a finger to her face and then waited. The green-skinned alien reached out a digit and stroked her cheek. Chandra unfastened the sleeve of her tunic and displayed her arm. When the alien spoke again, Chandra heard,
“I always thought so,” Chandra replied.
Lipsit heard Miranda’s translation of the dark-skinned Omnian’s words, and she croaked her pleasure. From Miranda’s shoulder, Miftra joined in the moment.
“We didn’t know you came in colors,” Taralum commented to Alex.
“Omnians are full of surprises, Commander,” Alex said, which Julien relayed. In Alex’s mind, he had an image of Killian, the plaid man, as Vivian called her favorite SADE. Wait until you see him, Alex thought.
Chandra offloaded the grav pallet, which floated down the ramp. “Captain Tindleson says to tell you, Alex, that a sister freighter is making another one of these for you. Estimated delivery is in a few more hours. Do we tell the pilot to drop it here?”
“Tell you what, Chandra,” Alex replied. “You pick up the pallet and deliver it. Drop it near the tunnel entrance. Admiral Tachenko and Shimada are inbound. I don’t want their traveler to have to navigate around a pallet in the middle of the cave floor.”
“That would be my pleasure, Alex,” Chandra said excitedly. She was tickled to have the opportunity to visit the surface again. She was a child of Méridien, and this world’s vast greenery and wide, flowing waterways fascinated her.
Chandra stood at the shuttle’s rear, as she signaled the ramp to close. Before it obscured her, she lofted a hand and waved to the strange assortment of sentients.
The Toralians and the Chistorlans imitated the mannerism. They could guess its meaning.
Miranda examined the captain’s invention. It presented some challenges, and she decided to assign seats.
“Alex, if you would take the front left seat,” she announced.
Alex cocked an eye at Julien, who kept a neutral expression, but he climbed aboard as directed.
Next, Miranda spoke to Lipsit and Miftra. The female climbed into the seat beside Alex, and Miftra crawled up to sit between her legs.
“Julien, please take the seat behind Alex,” Miranda requested. She sent to Alex and him,
Miranda motioned to the Toralians to choose the three remaining seats. Sargut sat next to Julien, and Taralum and Suntred occupied the two rear seats.
Julien dug his holo-vid out of the backpack, activated it, and leaned forward to show Lipsit. It displayed the Chistorlans’ tunnel diagram. “Where are we going, Lipsit?” he asked.
The observatory scientist examined the diagram, but she was unfamiliar with this area of the underground. When Miftra made a comment, Lipsit handed him to Julien.
Miftra sat on Julien’s leg, while he manipulated the display. When he had located their start and end points, he touched the cave and drew a digit along the required tunnels. He emitted various sounds of pleasure and chatted, as his finger created a yellow line. Then, when he reached the cavern with the digital sentients, he circled the cavern, which was displayed in blue. A final path in yellow ended at another blue circle.
Miranda waited for Miftra to return to his seat, but Julien had switched the display to the planet’s aerial view, and Miftra was fully engaged in studying the imagery. She signaled the pallet to unlock and grasped its handle. She’d chosen to pull it instead of push. In the event an obstacle was encountered, she intended to use her bulk to break through it. If nothing else, her avatar should lessen the impact on her passengers.
The route would be circuitous because they couldn’t use the more direct tunnels, which carried the maglev transports. Instead, they were restricted to a honeycomb of side tunnels. Julien had estimated the distance at about thirty-five point six kilometers.
Miranda started slowly, walking at a fast pace. Then she increased her speed, gliding the avatar along. At forty kilometers an hour, she measured the drain on her power cells and its charge rate.
Thanks to Mickey and his engineering team, every SADE carried a small grav shell device inside their avatar. It enabled SADEs to charge their kernels indefinitely, as long as they were near a substantial mass. In Miranda’s case, her grav shell was nearly three times the volume of the one inside Julien.
Satisfied that the grav shell was replacing the energy that was being drained to power her avatar, Miranda signaled to Alex that she could increase her speed.
Miranda used rear-facing sensors to collect a visual of the pallet. The three Toralians were standing and holding on to the seats in front of them. Their vestigial wings were spread wide. They were whistling to one another, relishing the sensations of the air filling their wings and relieving some of their weight.
Miftra had stopped his investigation of the holo-vid, and, like Lipsit, he was staring with his wide mouth open at the antics of the Toralians.
In Miranda’s visuals, Alex saw that Julien was wearing his spelunking helmet. The headpiece had a way of completing the picture, and Alex smiled to himself. It wiped a small amount of pain from his heart.
As Chandra’s shuttle shot skyward, she thought, Wait until the crew sees and hears this story.
-15-
Intentions
Miranda followed the diagram in her kernel’s memory. There were multiple tunnel intersections, and she slowed to cross each one.
Chistorlans, walking through the tunnels, gaped at their passing, and Alex noticed that the Toralians had adopted Chandra’s mannerism. They were waving hands at the passing citizens.
Alex shook his head at the absurdities that were emerging. A first contact had morphed into a dual alien contact. The thought struck him that the federacy represented the potential for hundreds of first contacts, possibly occurring in circumstances that presented multiple races in a single moment. It was enough to urge him to see to the neutralization of Artifice and race his own fleet back to Omnia.
Entering the cavern, which held the pairs of cases, Miranda brought the pallet to a stop. Lipsit hopped down and hastened to the central console. She used the comm system to call the development head, Tittra ona Hagra. She received a response, returned to her seat on the grav pallet, and announced to Miranda that the individual they needed was working at the rear of the cavern.
“Do you know where?” Miranda asked.
“It will be the latest pair,” Lipsit replied. “At the back,” she added, pointing toward the cavern’s left rear corner.
Miranda grasped the grav handle, checked to make sure that her passengers were ready, and strode off down a central aisle.
The cases were elevated on rows of pedestals, which appeared to carry the control and power conduits. The height of the cases had obscured the cavern’s depth, and the Omnians and the Toralians were awestruck by the parade of rows they passed.
Miranda reached the final row, slowed, and then turned left. At the row’s end, the group found five male Chistorlans working on a pair of cases.
“Wait,” Alex said, gently touching Lipsit’s arm before she could climb out of her chair.
Lipsit nodded her understanding and settled back to watch the proceedings.
Tittra conversed with his techs. Alex followed the conversation with difficulty. He understood most of the words, but many references were obscure. He queried Miranda for her thoughts, while Julien quietly informed the Toralians.
Miranda and those on the pallet could see the telltale display of orange liquid and bubbles that indicated the digital sentients were active.
The orange liquids behind the cases’ inlays boiled furiously, indicating accelerated activity rates. Then just as quickly as the action started, it calmed. The bubbling slowed in one case, and the other case went dark.
Tittra spoke to his techs and then walked briskly to Lipsit’s side of the pallet. She indicated with a hand wave that he was to join her, and he climbed aboard.
“Onward, faithful engine,” Alex called out.
Miranda stared at him, and said, “You would do well to remember, dear man, that your seat does not contain a safety harness.”
Alex grinned at Miranda, as she took up the grav handle and reversed course. Julien took delight in translating the exchange. The Chistorlans failed to grasp the nuances, but the Toralians wheezed and whistled. Having the better understanding of the relationship between SADEs and humans, they relished the banter.
Alex sent a vid of a fast-moving assembly line. A line of product whizzed p
ast Julien, who was responsible for counting the output. He sat on a stool, fast asleep.
Julien felt a lift in his emotional algorithms. His friend was centering himself. Julien returned the vid to Alex, which appeared to be the same one.
Alex watched and waited. He knew his friend would provide a twist. Slowly, the vid’s frame moved over Julien’s shoulder and zoomed in on a small device mounted on the side of the assembly line. It was shaped like a doll, and a digital counter in its forehead kept the product count. The frame moved toward the front of the doll and closed in. It was Alex’s face.
Miranda sent an image to Julien. It showed Alex smiling, and she added,
As a new passenger aboard the Miranda transport, Tittra went through the same reactions that others of his race had experienced. That Lipsit sat calmly, enjoying the breeze, gave him confidence that this odd, alien form of locomotion was safer than it appeared.
The distance to the monarch’s location was farther than the previous length Miranda had covered. When the opportunity presented itself, the Toralians returned to flying their wings, and Miftra continued perusing the holo-vid.
Eventually, the only sound heard above the passing of the air was the grumbling of Alex’s stomach.
Lipsit measured Alex’s frame and commented, and Julien replied. Then Lipsit gurgled, expressing her amusement.
The last tunnel entered a terminus, where a maglev transport also ended.
“We should consider our decorum, Commander,” Taralum said, folding her wings and sitting down.
Reluctantly, Sargut and Suntred complied with the suggestion.
Miranda parked the pallet and signaled it to lock. Lipsit led the way to a lift. It wasn’t any taller than the one at the outcrop, but it was wider to accommodate more Chistorlans at the same time.
After Lipsit’s quick comm call to announce their arrival, the Chistorlans went first. Then Miranda followed.
Gramab experienced acute embarrassment, while watching one of her planet’s first guests arriving on her side and having to crawl out of the lift into her presence. It wasn’t any better with the remaining guests. They came in pairs or singly, lying on their sides, and crawling out onto her floor.
