“Well, I’m glad we had a young woman on board with the courage to help my engineers do their jobs. Ms. Williams, will you please escort Ms. Holloman back to her cabin and help her get cleaned up, if she needs help, which I doubt.” He nodded to me and left.
“I don’t think he’s too happy with us.” Sandy commented.
“The Captain can go–” Tobias glanced at me. “I don’t care what he thinks, he didn’t experience what we did.”
Sandy touched his cheek. “You’re not really mad, I can feel it. You’re just happy it’s over.” Sandy smiled at me. “You must think we’re crazy, claiming to be able to know what each other are feeling.”
We stepped out into the passageway and the hatch sealed behind us. The air felt cool and smelled clean after the hot machine oil smell of the engine room. “It’s a gift,” I told them. “You should be thankful for it.” I didn’t tell them about my parents and me, or that it was sometimes a curse as well.
When we reached my cabin I assured them that I didn’t need any help. The door closed behind me and all I wanted was to strip off the sweat-soaked coveralls that were clinging to me everywhere, take a shower, and then get on my display pad and politely ask my parents about another secret that they had been keeping from me. Except I wasn’t feeling very polite. It was really too bad that they were too far away to fully share what I was feeling.
I had calmed down some by the time I was clean and back into clothes that fit me. I sat at the small desk in my cabin, my long hair still dripping, and opened the display pad. I punched Dad’s name and waited. When it timed out I punched it again. On the third try Hannah answered, her hair dripping wet. We looked at each other for a moment and both started laughing. The last of my anger evaporated.
“We were in the pool,” Hannah explained. “Winona got here a little bit ago.”
“I was in the shower,” I answered, “because I got all sweaty.”
“How did you do that?”
“I was inside Wandering Star’s port aft engine for almost two hours fixing it. It gets warm in there.”
“Why you?” Dad had joined her now. When the screen adjusted to include him I could see Winn splashing around in the pool behind them. I felt a sharp pang of homesickness.
“Because the two engineers refused to go in until after I did an exorcism rite. They were convinced the engine room was possessed by the devil and Father Ryczek had told them that I’d serve as acting chaplain for the hop to Bodens Gate.”
Hannah’s head was tipping more and more to the right as I spoke. “You’ve only been on board a few hours and already… this?”
“Yeah,” I smiled. “I’ve been busy. Maybe tomorrow I’ll overthrow a government.”
Hannah didn’t smile, but Dad turned away for a moment so I wouldn’t see his.
“Keep going. Why did they think the engine room was possessed?”
“The engineers were in there a few days ago because the engine had gone to idle and they couldn’t restart it. They said it didn’t feel right in the engine room and then, all of a sudden, and even though they had worked together for years without any romantic interest in each other, they realized that they were deeply, passionately, in love. And, oh, they also noticed that they could feel each other’s emotions, like they knew what the other person was feeling. Really weird, huh?” I leaned closer to the screen to better see her reaction. I didn’t have long to wait.
“Those bastards!” At first I thought she meant Sandy and Tobias, but she didn’t. She was talking to Dad. “Two years of our lives we wasted chasing after them on Cleavus and in the Warrens and following every lead from every planet until RuComm got sick of it, pulled our funding, and tried to ruin our careers. They were probably hiding on Wandering Star the whole time, laughing at us with those stupid hooting noises.”
“Who are you talking about?” I asked.
“The damn Tarakana.”
“Those big six legged color changing animals from Cleavus you told me about? The ones with the tentacles growing out of their heads?” I waved my hands around by my head. “You told me they were like big friendly dogs.”
“Are you in a private location?” Dad asked.
“I’m in my cabin.”
He glanced over his shoulder at Winona and then at Hannah.
“I agree,” Hannah answered the question I hadn’t heard. “Winona should hear this too.”
Dad called to her and soon she was sitting with them wrapped in a towel and dripping water on the patio.
“Duse, why are you wet?”
I giggled. “Mom and Dad will fill you in later. Now hush, I think they’re about to reveal another deep family secret.”
“I have not fully recovered from the last one.” She looked from Dad to Hannah and back to me. “I was just now working on reintegrating my understanding of how planetary politics works.”
“While you were swimming in my pool?”
“Yes. I like your pool.”
“Winona,” Hannah said gently, “I ask that you not tell anyone what you are about to hear.”
“Of course. I already know who you are and what could be worse than–” She stopped. “Never mind, I can think of at least six things that could be worse. You have my word.”
Dad smiled softly. “OK, let’s see if this one is on your list.”
He thought about it for a moment and said, “Probably best to start at the beginning. You know what happened on Cleavus, how we thought we had found a lost settlement from the first Union, but that they turned out to be exiles from Bodens Gate. Well, there was more on Cleavus than just the Bovita clan. There was also a colony of large animals that the Bovita called Tarakana. They were about forty or forty-five kilos, had six legs and a couple of tentacles near their eyeless bump of a head. And they could change colors so well as to practically become invisible.”
“They were indigenous to Cleavus?” Winn asked. “That seems unlikely given the absence of other megafauna there.”
“That’s what my friend Jake thought too. He dissected a couple of them that the Bovita had killed. They have a distributed nervous system, evidence of high intelligence and a cellular structure that allows them to change shapes, not just colors.”
“Shape shifters,” Winona whispered. “How high of intelligence?”
“Very high. Language. Advanced technology, like power systems, refined metals, cities, maybe spaceflight. And the ability to hide it all from Wandering Star’s optical, thermal, and radar sensors.”
Winona was taking it better than me. I knew my mouth was open, but every time I closed it, it just opened again. Winn looked calmly at my dad and asked, “What else?”
“This is supposition, but they seem to establish colonies in close proximity to humans. They like to be around strong human emotions and they will manipulate us to get it. They seem to only want positive emotions like friendship and love–”
“And obsession and passion and lust,” Hannah added.
“Yes, but never fear or anger, at least not in our experience. Each colony is a single organism with individuals linked telepathically acting as one. We can communicate with them. I did a little the first time I was with them and I soon found out that the effect is greatly enhanced by physical contact. If two people touch a Tarakana at the same time they will be able to see into each other’s minds, feel their emotions, and literally read their thoughts.” He looked at Hannah and seemed very uncomfortable. “It’s, um, intimate and the effect is lasting. We haven’t been in contact with the Tarakana since leaving Bodens Gate, but I can still feel everything Hannah feels.”
“How did they get from Cleavus to Bodens Gate?” I asked.
Dad closed his eyes. “Alice and I brought one with us. We couldn’t say no. It had made itself look like a dog by taking the image and behavior of one from my memory. No one would suspect he was the intelligent
representative of a space-faring civilization. They had helped us survive on Cleavus, provided heat and power and food. We owed it to him, I suppose, but we didn’t have a choice. He made us feel like it was the right thing to do, maybe the only thing we could do. It’s hard to explain if you’ve never had one of them inside your head.”
“You helped him create a new colony, didn’t you? He started reproducing once you were there?” Winona was staring at my dad.
“Yes, he did.”
“So they are symbiotic with us.”
“Yes, that’s what I believe too. After the civil war had ended on Bodens Gate and the Confederation had taken over the Central Government, Hannah and I tried to find them again. We couldn’t. We convinced RuComm to provide funding to search for the Tarakana. We didn’t tell them everything in the grant request of course, just that they seemed fairly intelligent and that the dissections had shown a lot of unknown structures. But the Tarakana were gone. We couldn’t find them on Cleavus or Bodens Gate. We followed lead after lead until RuComm gave up on us and pulled our funding. Mala Dusa was getting too old to be drifting from planet to planet with us by then anyway, so we settled on Dulcinea. Hannah went back to work for the Bodens Gate commission and I did planetary research projects for RuComm. Now we don’t talk about the Tarakana. I think RuComm’s official position is that the Tarakana were never real, that Alice and I dreamed them up to keep us company when we were marooned on Cleavus, like an imaginary friend.”
He smiled at Winona, whose eyes had reached maximum size during his story. “So Winona, was this on your list of worse things?”
“I had ranked them by probability. Intelligent aliens was number five. Almost impossible.”
“I’m curious,” I asked, “what was number six?”
Her voice had dropped to a whisper. “That you and your whole family are aliens.”
Hannah held her hand out to her. “All too human, Winona. Take my hand, feel my pulse. The Tarakana scare the crap out of me. When you’re with them, they seem gentle and wise and you can’t imagine they would do anything to cause us harm. The longer I’m away from them the less I believe it. We searched for them for over two years and almost destroyed our professional reputations and our careers.”
She smiled at Dad, and I could see something coming into her eyes and Dad’s reflecting it, ready to join her on whatever wild campaign she was planning.
“Ted, we’ve got them now, on board Wandering Star. We know where they are and they can’t escape.” She turned toward me, eyes wild and that arrogant smile touching her lips. She looked like her statue. “They already have a colony on Bodens Gate, where was Wandering Star supposed to go next?”
“Nowhere,” I answered. “She’s being decommissioned and parted out at the shipyard there. The RuComm team is transferring to the new Vista-class ships. There’s like three of them on orbit around Bodens Gate. Buena Vista is bound for Dulcinea and Sierra Vista is going to Ratatoskr, I think. I’m not sure about the other one.”
“Your RuComm team isn’t going anywhere. Wandering Star is about to be impounded and quarantined by order of the Central Government, that is by me, since I am the CG… at least until the elections next month. No one leaves that ship until I have the Tarakana in a box and then let RuComm try to laugh at us. I don’t care what it takes or how long.”
“Um, I’m on board this ship, remember?”
“Yes, I know that. You’ll be fine,” she said dismissively. “I’m coming to Bodens Gate too. There’s a meeting with the election board that they wanted me to attend in person because of the time lag. Damn, this is going to be satisfying.” Her eyes were still wild when she looked at Dad. Winona had talked about how Dad was a catalyst for her and I had thought she meant the way they had worked together to rebuild the Central Government and create a society based on individual rights and freedom, or even how they plan adventurous family vacations together. Looking at them smiling at each other now, I knew he would reinforce whatever she wanted to do, good or bad, and I was thinking that this was going to turn out bad.
For the first time, I think I was experiencing Hannah the revolutionary, Hannah the folk hero, Hannah the killer. I hoped Hannah my mom was still in there somewhere, but I couldn’t see her and it scared me.
My best and only friend was sitting next to her taking it all in. The screen resolution was high enough that I could see Winona’s goosebumps and the look of hero worship in her eyes. It made me feel very far from home.
CHAPTER 5
TARAKANA
“Mom? We’re doing the jump through the first Deep Space Hole tonight at 2200. After that, comms will be delayed almost twelve hours each way. What should I do? I’m–” I almost said it, but caught myself and reversed. “I am not scared, I just don’t know what to do.”
Her face softened and I could see Mom looking back at me again. The tightness in my chest relaxed just a bit.
“It’s OK to feel afraid, Mala Dusa. Like I said earlier, the Tarakana scare the crap out of me too, but you should be safe. Your dad and Alice were alone with them for over three months and they were never harmed physically.”
I saw Dad smirk at Hannah’s careful choice of words. Hannah and my dad were more in love than any couple I knew, but nothing is perfect. The love I had heard in Dad’s voice when he was telling me stories about my real mom didn’t diminish his love for Hannah, but I’m sure she knew it was still there and it must hurt.
Hannah sighed before continuing, trying on the fly to come up with rules for living with a Tarakana. “OK, first off, don’t go exploring on your own, try to stay with the rest of the tech team when you’re not in your cabin.”
Dad added, “The Tarakana weigh about forty kilos and can look like anything or nothing at all if they’re hiding.”
“If you see any dogs that size don’t touch them.”
“And don’t let yourself be alone with any one person.”
“Especially not Sam.”
“Sam?” Winn asked, “Who is Sam?”
“A boy,” Hannah answered.
“A man,” Dad corrected, “on his first hop with RuComm.”
“What’s he like, Duse? Cute?”
“No! Maybe, I don’t know. He’s a lot older than me and mostly he’s just annoying. I have zero interest in him.”
Hannah sighed. “That’s how it always starts.”
“So,” I said, “I should stay in my cabin, and when I’m not, I should stay in the main parts of the ship, always be with a crowd, and never be alone with any male-type person.”
“As your father, I endorse that plan.”
“And we’ll meet you on Bodens Gate,” Hannah promised. “It will take me a couple of days to arrange, but we shouldn’t be more than three or four days behind you.”
“You and Dad are both coming?”
“All three of us,” she answered. “Unless Winona wants to stay here and go back to her house.”
“No, please no. I promised Mala Dusa that I would keep her safe.” She was looking in Hannah’s eyes, pleading. “I wish I was there with her now.”
“All three of us, then. Be brave Mala Dusa and we’ll see you soon.”
After they disconnected I opened my cabin door and looked out into the passageway, half expecting to see a pair of Tarakana waiting for me. There was nothing, or at least nothing I could see. I closed the door and thought about it for a minute. What I really, really wanted to do was go exploring. I wanted to see more of the ship’s internals, like what I had seen in the engine room. The beauty of industrial design had never impacted me like that before. I wanted to see the engines again, to touch the warm metal and feel the rapid vibrations shaking the floor and the walls. Maybe Tobias and Sandy would be willing to show me.
“Star, where is Ms. Williams?”
“Ms. Williams is in hydroponics.”
Hydroponi
cs. I wanted to see that too, I wanted to see everything. “Can you guide me to her?”
“I can, but that area is restricted to crew.”
“Can you ask her if I can come anyway?”
There was a pause, then Star answered, “How about tomorrow after breakfast?”
“OK. Thank her for me.”
I paced around the cabin. “Star, what time is dinner?”
“Dinner is served from 1730 to 1830, but there is always food available through the printers if you’re hungry.”
“No, just restless.”
“Perhaps a run in the outer ring corridor? Your father was fond of the Sonoran Desert simulation. He made several modifications that are still available.”
“Yes, I’ll try it. Can you guide me there?”
“Follow the green ball, Mala Dusa.”
I followed. The outer ring corridor was a passage around the fattest part of the ship used for access during refueling and resupply. At just over two kilometers in circumference, Dad had told me that it made a nice place to run laps. When I first entered all I could see were grey metal plates; floor, ceiling and walls.
“This is the standard Sonoran Desert simulation,” Star told me. Everything wavered and then it looked like I was standing on a desert trail. I stomped my foot. It still felt like deck plate. “This illusion is only optical and auditory. Let me add your father’s modifications.”
The scene changed subtly. The colors were more natural and there were smells now. It felt like it was early morning before the dew had evaporated. What had been an empty sky now had cumulus clouds in the distance trying to form up into a thunderstorm.
“I love my dad.”
“I have always enjoyed working with him,” Star answered.
As I started to run I realized that I was violating Hannah’s rule number one; I was alone. But it didn’t feel like I was alone with Star there with me.
Wandering Soul Page 6
