Trixie & Me

by Peter Cawdron

  The thinkers may have taken charge of his mind, but Trixie could see Berry was choosing his memories, steering his thoughts, trying to tell her something, but she wasn't sure what.

  ::It is their storehouse, their vault.

  ::They consume some, they admire others.

  ::The diversity is vast. Our Masters suspect there must have been billions of permutations to reach this time.

  ::We will harvest. We will trace and rebuild and explore the branches of their evolution.

  Trixie blinked and found herself sitting in the cockpit of the Swift , at least, she thought she'd blinked. She wasn't sure, but the cockpit looked as real around her as it had just an hour before.

  The photo of Berry and his cat was in a different spot, squished up against a control panel to the left.

  The Bonsai was smaller.

  The screen wrapping around the cockpit showed the image of a comet, its frozen tail breaking up the darkness, flaring behind it in a stream of white and pastel blues, soft greens and browns.

  Berry adjusted the image, examining the comet at various wavelengths. In some, the comet appeared almost transparent, a rocky core with jets of gas streaming from its sunlit surface before peeling off behind it in the tail. In others, the blur of different colored overlays meant nothing to her.

  As quickly as that thought had occurred to her, she'd understood what she was looking at. Images ranging from ultra-violet to infra-red. Somehow, she understood these concepts, concepts she had no previous understanding of were now clear.

  Trixie perceived the notion of wavelengths, of the small band that dominated the visible spectrum, of the emission lines that indicated different chemicals and molecules.

  The comet was composed of water ice and frozen carbon dioxide. There were trace elements of fundamental organic compounds, basic sugars used in the formation of DNA, like Ribose and Glycolaldehyde. She understood all this, but she wasn't sure how, and yet, in her mind there lay an unbroken chain of realizations linking these carbon molecules to the instructions for life. It didn't mean there was life, but it meant the building blocks were present. This was Berry’s understanding, and now she perceived it too, admiring the comet for far more than its aesthetic beauty.

  Music played in the background, but it sounded muffled and distorted.

  Berry bit into a protein bar. She recognized the taste, but the lack of sound alarmed her. On the Rift , she couldn't hear Anderson speaking even though he was barely a foot or two away. In the garden, the cat never meowed or purred, even though she could feel its skull resonating beneath her fingers. The bird, taking flight, had done so in silence. And onboard the Swift , the music was dull, barely recognizable.

  ::She sees how he fights.

  ::She knows the value of oscillations and waves in transmitting ideas between them.

  ::She sees him blocking all. Let them talk. Let us learn.

  And Trixie found herself again in the cold dark of the alien craft. Again, the stench flooded her nose. She blinked, her eyes adjusting to the darkness. Her pupils had contracted with the memories, having involuntarily adjusted to a bright light she had never seen. Berry still floated in the force-field.

  The thinkers retreated, watching them.

  “We were never going anywhere, babe,” Berry said with blood running from the corner of his lip. “It was a ruse, a con. Our escape was never real. They played me for a fool.”

  Trixie bit her lip, fighting back more tears.

  “Don't be afraid of dying, Trix. We all die. It is the lot of man. Run as we may, there are some things from which we cannot escape.”

  Trixie sank to her knees.

  “They're going to kill us, Trixie. Oh, I am so sorry I brought you into all this.”

  “No,” she wailed, the corners of her mouth pulled down in anguish. She was barely able to speak. Her lips quivered.

  “I'm not afraid of dying, Bellatrix, my beautiful star. Everyone dies, each star fades at some point. At least I get to choose how. I get to choose to die protecting those I love. I will not betray the Rift .”

  “I don't want to die,” she said, surprised by the coherence in her voice. The mind-tunnel between them had flooded her perception with so many concepts. Death was a waste, of that she was sure.

  “You smell that?” Berry asked. “That smell. It’s the smell of fear, the smell of death.”

  The thinkers edged closer, wanting to know what had been said.

  “That smell, Trix. Do you remember the smell?”

  Trixie barely moved as the thinker's razor-like claws dug into her spine and neck. She was numb to the pain.

  “Remember, Trix,” said Berry, as a thinker loomed over him. “I'm ready to die.”

  Her sight faded as her body fell limp, unable to fight the mind control.

  ::They talk about detecting trace-chemicals in suspension within the atmosphere, but why?

  ::They have sensory organs for this, but they are almost vestigial.

  ::The broad sinus cavity inside their skull functions, but only in a rudimentary way, at a fraction of what we calculate for other allied species from their planet.

  ::This smell is not a means of communication.

  ::Their primary communication is through the oscillations in the air, then through sight, what can this mean?

  ::It is more lies.

  ::We shall make him suffer, force him to reveal all.

  ::He wants to die, but we shall keep him alive, even at the extreme.

  ::What about the breeder?

  ::This female?

  ::She is a joke. She is harmless. Without him, she is nothing.

  ::She is for our sport. We shall play with her.

  ::We will feast on her before our Masters.

  Trixie found herself flung to the ground. She felt weak, drained of energy. Beside her lay a couple of cylinders, the welding torch, the rivet gun and the backpack.

  Several other cylinders were scattered haphazardly beside the platform. The acetylene cylinder that had been screwed into the torch hissed softly beside her. The valve was damaged, the cylinder was leaking.

  “It's the smell, Trix. The smell of death.”

  And then she finally knew what he meant, but she couldn't do it. She couldn't kill him. Her hands were trembling.

  A thinker straddled his body, reaching out with its claws through the force-field. It made a small incision at the base of his neck, cutting down to his groin.

  Berry screamed in pain.

  With meticulous care, the thinker cut beneath the skin, separating the subcutaneous flesh from his rib cage, and opening up his abdomen.

  Berry howled.

  Behind him, another thinker cradled his head in its claws.

  Berry moaned, fading in and out of consciousness as they tormented him, probing his mind and his body. He was reeling in shock.

  Trixie whimpered.

  The thinker leaning over Berry peeled back his skin. It seemed particularly interested in the defunct arteries leading to his severed belly button, examining them closely.

  Berry trembled, calling out incoherently.

  Sweat broke out on his forehead despite the cold. He was panting, struggling.

  The thinker standing over him probed his exposed diaphragm, observing how it controlled his breathing.

  Berry screamed.

  “TRIXIE... TR...IX... IE...”

  Trixie curled up in a ball, paralyzed with fear, unable to move. She wanted this to end, for the nightmare to go away, but it wouldn't. She could close her eyes, but she couldn't shut out the noise, the screams as Berry called for her.

  He was hyperventilating, unable to break through the pain. Blood dripped on the floor with a constant rhythm. He steadied his breathing, puffing his cheeks to catch the outbound air and slow down his distress and panic. His eyes stared straight ahead, as though he were looking past the thinker blocking his view, peering through the dark creature at something in the distance. He fought to compose himself, fighting to b
lock out what was happening to him.

  “Trixie... please...” he pleaded, his head turning toward her. “Please, Honey. You know what to do.”

  His voice was calm, almost soothing amidst the cruelty. She looked into his eyes and started crawling forward, over near the vivisection platform.

  “Thank you, Trix.”

  The thinkers were preoccupied, examining Berry's kidneys and liver in close detail. The principle thinker leaned back, his claws grasping Berry's side, opening up the view.

  Trixie hadn't noticed it before, but there were hundreds of thinkers in the chamber, lining all four walls, each one aligned by local gravity so they could watch what was unfolding on the platform as though they were staring at something on a distant wall. The pyramid-like shape of the chamber afforded four equally advantageous viewpoints above the operation. Tapping and clicking resounded through the chamber, but it was resonating through the roots and branches more than the open air. She could feel the micro-pulses beneath her fingertips as she crept forward.

  Trixie opened the valve on the cylinder leaning against the platform. Without a regulator, the viscous acetylene flowed out as a liquid, seething and bubbling as the gas came out of suspension. A fine mist hung low to the ground, drifting among the roots.

  Workers streaming past along one of the main roots became agitated. They swarmed in, trying to clean up the spill, capturing it in silken bubbles extending from their abdomens before carrying it away.

  As they scurried off, Trixie noticed some of the transport bubbles contained rich, red blood, cleaned off the floor above her.

  The workers seemed incoherent, spreading out through the chamber rather than all heading in a single direction.

  Berry was panting, chanting over and over again under his breath, “Do it, Trixie. Do it. Set me free, babe. Set me free.”

  Trixie looked up at the thinkers on the platform, keeping her gaze on them as she backed away, over to another cylinder lying to one side. They ignored her. Without breaking her eye contact, she reached down, feeling with her hands and twisting the valve on the cylinder. Liquid acetylene began to flow slowly.

  Again, workers streamed in, trying to contain the liquid as it seeped out on the ground and vaporized into a gas. The heavy acetylene soaked into the gaps beneath the roots, following the course of least resistance. A fine fog spread across the dark ground.

  Moving slowly, stepping backwards over the tangle of vines and roots, Trixie made her way to the backpack, keeping her eyes firmly on the vivisection platform. Berry was unconscious. The thinkers were excited. They tapped in unison. The pulses through the roots held a steady rhythm, like a crowd chanting in unison.

  Trixie wanted to slip a couple of spare cylinders into the backpack, but the thought of metal clanking on metal scared her. She picked up the welding torch along with one of the cylinders, tucking it under her arm. Moving slowly and deliberately, she opened the valve on the closest cylinder to her and left the rest where they lay. Silently, she tiptoed over toward the tunnel as the thinkers reveled in their torture. They must have had some success in breaking into Berry's mind, she thought, as the phosphorescence glowing from beneath their shells rippled with color and excitement, lighting up in a variety of patterns sweeping throughout the chamber.

  Trixie had seen Berry do this twice before. She knew how to light the pilot flame. Trixie tripped the ignition switch, flicked open the safety catch, and gently squeezed the trigger. Even without an acetylene cylinder attached, a flare of blue flame erupted from the tip of the torch. Its soft glow went unnoticed, as did the hiss and crackle in the air. With her eyes still locked on the thinkers, Trixie reached down, holding the flame just inches from one of the roots. The thin fog hanging low against the ground caught fire.

  Flames spread rapidly, curling over the roots as they raced throughout the chamber, spreading out in a circle. But they were soft, muted, barely the glow of a candle burning in the dark.

  The thinkers turned, seeing the flames racing out in a broad front. They chattered with their legs.

  Workers arced up around Trixie in response, climbing over each other to form into branches reaching up to surround her. She'd seen this before in the narrow tunnel.

  Trixie lashed out, swinging the cylinder with one hand and striking at the column of workers. They flexed, absorbing the blow, and swung back in place. The tiny creatures were forming a prison around her. Within seconds, she would be trapped.

  The glowing flame whipped out through the chamber like a ripple in a pond, reaching the first of the cylinders and the pool of liquid acetylene flooding a root ball beside it. Flames burst into the air, curling up toward the ceiling.

  With temperatures in excess of three thousand degrees being reached within the fiery pool, the cylinder ruptured, exploding, releasing a fireball that enveloped most of the chamber.

  The air compressed in front of Trixie, knocking her and the workers over as the radiant heat scorched her skin. Trixie fell, falling into the tunnel where gravity realigned and she found herself having moved onto a different plane. It seemed like she was now sitting beside a fiery pit, with flames curling in the low gravity, licking at the roots framing the chamber and setting them alight.

  Workers scattered, fleeing from her, their connection with the thinkers severed. In the chamber, several more explosions erupted as cylinders ruptured. The oxygen-rich environment fed the flames. Trixie could hear the crackle and pop of shells bursting open in the heat.

  She staggered away from the opening and further down the darkened tunnel, moving away from the searing temperatures in the chamber.

  Trixie watched as the flames behind her pasted the vast, twisting tube in front of her in flickering bursts of yellow, orange and red. Her hands trembled. She dropped the cylinder. Flicking the ignition switch, she cut the pilot flame on the welding torch and let it slip from her fingers.

  Falling to her knees, she sobbed. The hair on her arms had singed. Her eyebrows were burnt. The tiny hairs on her eyelashes had curled. The smell of smoke and death hung around her.

  Workers streamed past her in a futile attempt to contain the fire raging in the chamber beyond.

  Trixie cried.

  Tears streamed down her cheek. Her shoulders shook as she sobbed.

  Berry was dead. She'd killed him.

  There was no other way, she told herself, but that was no comfort.

  She hated what she'd done. Sitting there, she knew she should have been pushing on through the maze of tunnels, weaving her way back to the Swift . It was wrong to collapse here in self-pity. The autopilot would take her home. How did she know that? Trixie remembered the autopilot, but she wasn't sure how. Then it dawned on her, the thoughts flooding her mind were a mixture of her memories and his. Somehow, she still remembered things he’d seen, thoughts he’d had. She shared his desire to escape, to warn the Rift Valley , to protect the crew. Yet those thoughts were cold. Although they were in the depths of her mind, they felt alien, as strange and foreign as the roots entwined around her.

  She couldn't run. As much as she knew Berry would have wanted her to, she couldn't. It didn't feel right. The reality of what had happened stunned her. Trixie was in shock. Her arms felt numb. There didn't seem to be any purpose anymore, not now Berry was dead. How bittersweet her escape had been. She could run, but to where? To the Rift Valley ? The only conscious thoughts she had of that spaceship were his. And what awaited her there? The only man she'd ever known was dead. Nothing would ever change that.

  A dark shadow loomed over her, blocking out the glowing fires beyond. Trixie looked up. Through her tears, so large in the low gravity, she saw the distorted outline of a thinker crouching over her. She should run, escape, try to get away. But it was all too much. Why postpone the inevitable? Why fight? There was nothing left to fight for.

  Trixie sat there defeated, looking up at the imposing alien.

  The thinker staggered forward, its multitude of legs stumbling as it crossed the roots. S
moke rose from its back, drifting in the breeze. A cluster of long, spindly arms stretched down either side of its shell. They waved back and forth in changing patterns and combinations, as though their symmetry was a reflection of its thoughts within. The creature seemed to be looking right through her. Trixie didn't care. She wasn't afraid. There was nothing to be afraid of. She was already as one dead. There was nothing more to lose. She stood, facing the creature defiant.

  “Why?” she yelled. “Why would you do this?”

  The huge beast swayed in front of her. Its cold, impersonal eyes as black as coal. Its silence intimidating.

  “Was it worth it? Is any of this worth it? We live. We die. And for what? For this?”

  Rage swelled up inside her. She grabbed the cylinder.

  The thinker reached out with its tiny arms, trying to touch her. Trixie lashed out, swinging the cylinder around and bringing it down like a baseball bat on the side of the animal. She struggled to hold the cylinder with both hands, determined to transmit as much force as possible with each blow, each time crying out, “Why?”

  The thinker fell on its back, its smoldering shell-casing lying across the roots. The alien made no attempt to defend itself. Trixie pounded it, using the butt of the cylinder and driving hard at the creatures eyes, hoping its brain was somewhere behind them.

  “Why? Damn you. Why?”

  Dark body fluids ran from the open wound and crushed eye stalks of the thinker, but it never fought back. Slowly, Trixie's thumping softened. Black fluids stained her hands and clothes. She tossed the cylinder to one side, looking at the pathetic creature lying there. Was it mercy it craved? Was it absolution? Was it understanding? Why should it expect any, when it had shown none? And she realized these were her thoughts, her feelings, projected onto this alien creature that seemed to have no recognition of any such concepts.

  She couldn't kill it.

  Looking at her black stained hands, she felt pity. Killing this creature wouldn't bring Berry back. Nothing ever would. She touched the creature's arms, running her soft fingertips over its hard exoskeleton. What had it seen in its life? What would be lost with its death? Did these alien creatures have any concept of individual consciousness? Did they realize the pathetic waste of death? A feeling of tragedy and loss overwhelmed her. Life should not be so, she decided. Life should be lived above death, it should not perpetuate the misery that all creatures endure given time. And yet, neither she nor Berry had brought this fight. These dark creatures had.