Abductees

by Alan Brickett

  Docking claws were built, three long arms above and below a central living and reception area. Like the fingers of a hand, able to move both up and down, each claw could dock several starships on each floor. The humans were even now descending from the top of one of the docking claws.

  It was all neat and allowed the Domums to rapidly proceed with their strip-mining activities.

  Well into the sixth decade of use, the giant circle had expanded to connect over one hundred and eighty thousand miles of open space, together with the bolt-on factories, space-based labs, and experimentation areas.

  There were also the various housing requirements and, of course, the entertainment areas that had sprung up to support the many thousands of inhabitants in their day-to-day labors.

  What had once been a neat circle was now twisted and curved through space. Domum engineering allowed the magnetic rails to shift and flow with extensions and additional spikes out to other chunks of valuable rock.

  The command center still floated in the middle of the space-built structures, but it now looked like the center of a web of magnetic carriage lines that extended to over two miles in length to support the various technologies and docking bays required by industry expansion.

  After a human century, most of the available mining had wholly removed the highest value from the surrounding rock, and another magnetic carriage track ran around other large though now less valuable chunks of planets, one made for two whole carriageways tracking their way through the vast tract of space.

  The central command structure had been upgraded with another five miles of length and the second sphere of carriage connections onto that. From both spheres, there extended other cylindrical structures the Domums had used to house maintenance bays and docking areas for factory ships.

  The whole structure resembled a technological flower, with the carriageways serving as the wide-reaching roots and the many antennae on the saucer area serving as petals.

  Being an enterprising species and wise to the ways of the galaxy, the Domums then opened up the area for anyone to come and try their luck. Since most of the value was now gone, they moved their predominant manufacturing to other systems and invited any beings willing to try their skills a chance to strike it big.

  A whole new era of change came about.

  Members of every species in the galaxy came to the Puzzle Box to try their hand at mining or to live there and try their hand at supporting the mining and industrial activities. The Domums rented out space from factories and accommodation that they had built and then leased out space and connections to the magnetic carriageways for anyone willing to pay the price.

  So, the Puzzle Box grew, organically sprouting new complexes of factories or residential buildings, entertainment areas, and trading ports.

  The design and construction differed by species, and the Puzzle Box began to get its name: it was a hodgepodge of different styles and sizes all linked together in one sprawling complex between floating rock debris among the stars.

  The sight that greeted Marc through the transparent sides of the lift was full of movement, light metal and spinning graphics that locked on to anything of interest and highlighted little graphics in his display. He had to shake his head and think about banishing all the extra information to really be able to take in the scene.

  In the foreground, there were the moving lights of shuttles, tugs, and robotic maintenance ships flying about in space. Among that image were the lights from the various structures spaced along the distant carriageways.

  From this view, Marc could see the giant hoops connected by what seemed like spindly wires hung about to form technological tunnels through space as if they had been dug through the ground.

  Each carriageway sprouted the kinds of structures that supported the inhabitants, like habitation domes floating in space or built onto the rock. There were various capsules and spherical modular buildings for more private homes and larger ones for factories and refineries.

  He could see the nearest ones, but there must have been dozens further out that were just lights added to the star filled background.

  From the descending lift, he couldn’t see the command center, but his display had marked the area out in space for whenever he looked in that direction. All he could see were larger lights against the backdrop of stars and massive rock formations that floated out there.

  But then, it’s only about twelve miles long and not that big. If this station covers as much space as this information says it does, then I’d never see it this far away. What is the distance anyway? Oh.

  The information popped up as an indicator next to the point marked out for him.

  I see, over forty thousand miles away. Definitely won’t see it with the naked eye. This place is sprawling among these asteroids. They must have moved them closer together though, the debris would have been spread over the entire orbit of the planets, or where the planets would have been.

  The information memories in his head provided a lot that he just let go past his conscious mind, how the Domums moved the most substantial chunks of rock closer with slow-burning rockets and the setup of the various industries and zero-gravity structures.

  Hang on a minute. That’s a damn good question, Marc realized as the lift settled to a halt.

  Out loud, he asked, “How come we aren’t just floating about in zero gravity?”

  Izzix turned its head around on its neck again to look at Marc. “Are you a species that relies on centrifugal gravity generated by rotation?”

  Everyone was now looking at Marc, so he replied, “Uh, yeah. Our technology was either to have our astronauts float about or give them a giant wheel turning on a central axis for some artificial gravity.”

  “How peculiar. The vessel you arrived in did not have such a design so you must all be welcoming the polarized neutrino-based artificial gravity provided by the station. The Domum theory is that any species that derives the basics of faster-than-light travel would also have the basic mechanisms of artificial gravity from angled neutrino spin dynamics.”

  Izzix was still looking at Marc when the lift doors opened onto a metal floor with a railing that extended out on either side of the lift. It was very unsettling for Marc how the Dadarian just scuttled out of the elevator while still speaking to him and not looking at where it was going.

  “Your faster-than-light systems must be quite exotic, or you do not have the power available for artificial gravity. Either way, welcome to the concourse of Enone Hub. I’m afraid that I have other duties to attend to so I will need to make this brief, but you seem like capable entities, and I expect you will adapt quickly.”

  The five humans followed after Izzix and stepped up to the balcony at its gesture. From there, they found themselves looking out over a widely spaced corridor that ran to the left and right from where the elevator came down.

  There was all manner of other aliens walking, roaming, sliding, or scuttling about below them in what seemed to be several marked-out stands like some kind of medieval tents inside the metal walls of the space station.

  The humans were distracted from a sudden amount of information bubbling up inside their heads as Izzix continued what it was saying.

  “Enone Hub is the central outer hub of the magnetic carriageway circuit. Above us are the docking rings from where we have just arrived.”

  Marc looked up to see the roof was also transparent.

  Above them were several hundred feet of a curved arm and arcs of the space station situated at different levels along with it. On each arc were rounded docking ports, many with ships of all manner of shapes and sizes.

  “Erg.” He quickly looked away as a thunderous pain swamped his brain with more information.

  Izzix had moved over to a rounded-off rectangle of metal jutting out of the floor off to one side. “You may interface with any of these terminals situated around the station. They serve as nodes, maps, and information stations. Should you require any assistance, you may also lin
k with a node to communicate with the correct authorities depending on the nature of your predicament.”

  “Uh, oh really? Let’s try that, then.” Marc looked at the terminal, and his display popped up some options, as he expected.

  With a bit of shaky control, he selected one icon to interface and found that the node prompted him with a link and something like an electronic IP address to stay connected with various other options for the station itself.

  Marc was quite eager to share what he had found.

  He connected to the private channel and babbled. “Uh, hey, guys, link up with that node, it has a great connection and lots of information about this place. The app even showed me a Google icon briefly, interfacing at a human level. It searched and found keywords for everything, like that this concourse is one of five levels connected to the Enone Hub as a public market.”

  “Yeah, that’s great, Marc. But have you seen all the aliens down here?” Connor was standing by the railing and looking down the two-story height at the stalls below.

  “Try not to look at everything all at once. The information in our brains comes slower if you don’t look at new things that you haven’t processed yet.”

  Lekiso was standing to Marc’s left and looking at the wall. Marc found it interesting that Ormond was doing the same thing but standing just a bit behind her and with a pained expression.

  She must have followed her military training to assess the space and looked everywhere at once. But why did Ormond look around so much? Marc thought to himself.

  Meriam was standing by Izzix, much closer than Marc would have been comfortable doing, and looking up through the ceiling. “Excuse me, Izzix, but could you point out where our ship is docked?” she asked.

  At that, the other four looked over at the Dadarian, who inclined his head politely and responded by pointing a giant claw up and saying, “It is up there on the very top docking arch. There are other vessels in the way, though, and your ship has a darkened outer coating on the hull, rendering it difficult to see. But perhaps you will recognize it.”

  “Oh yes, thank you.”

  Meriam must have had the same outline appear in her display as Marc did when he tried to find the ship. A violet outline shaped like a sphere drew itself distinctly around a section of space above various other spacecraft, it rotated and linked a network of lines to illustrate the size and perfect roundness of the vessel.

  Interestingly, no additional information appeared, though.

  “Ah, well, well. I must now take my leave of you, humans. Have a pleasant stay.” With that, Izzix scuttled off around the lift to some stairs and went down them with rapid clicks of chitin on metal.

  With the Dadarian gone, they were left looking uncertainly at each other.

  After a short, uncomfortable silence, Ormond turned to Lekiso and asked, “So, boss, what do we do now?”

  Lekiso frowned at his tone, but she squared her shoulders and stood up straighter. “Our first priority is still information. We don’t know what we are doing here or why, so we need to find out where we are and see if there is anything that could give us a hint.”

  “But how is exploring this alien place going to help us figure out how this happened to us?” Meriam looked over the floor below them with an expression of uncertainty.

  “Listen, luv, whatever has been done to us, or whatever decided to bring us here, must have a reason. That reason must have something to do with where we are.” Ormond stepped up and put a hand on Meriam’s shoulder.

  Marc was surprised to see the genuine sympathy from the rough man.

  “If we just wait around, we may find events catching up with us, but that may be too late. If we want to be able to take back control of our lives, we need to get ahead of this, whatever it is.” Lekiso seemed a bit troubled by Ormond’s gesture of kindness but otherwise still looked determined.

  “I’ve never been much good at being idle anyway,” Connor said. He was standing behind Lekiso and giving a firm look over at the other pair.

  Oh dear, Marc thought. I see the team-ups are forming already. I wonder if this is some elaborate kind of reality TV show. See who turns on who in a stressful situation?

  “Uh, guys. I uh, I tend to agree that we should explore a bit. And I want to go through some more of the information on this station’s network, see what I can learn.” Marc wasn’t surprised when the other four all turned to look at him as if they had forgotten he was there.

  Typical extroverts, he mused.

  Meriam took a deep breath and pulled herself together. “Okay, so where do we start? Down there?”

  Lekiso stepped over to look down on the concourse. “Marc, does the station information say anything about this area?”

  “Uh, oh yeah. It does.” Marc quickly scanned the information his display pulled up for him.

  “Like I said earlier, this is a market. It goes down for five more levels on this half of the Enone Hub. The other half of each level is accommodation, and the twenty levels below that are for other accommodation as well. The transport system between the hubs connects on levels one, three, five, ten, and fifteen through a vertical hall. I’m not sure how that works yet.”

  “Thank you, Marc. So, it’s either good luck or planned that we are in a communal area where there is a lot of conversation and opportunity to mingle without being too noticeable,” Lekiso said while still looking out over the floor below them.

  It stretched along the curving transparent wall for over four hundred feet from the balcony they were on.

  “But this doesn’t seem like a market to me.”

  What appeared to be rooms on the inside of the structure had doors that opened onto the outer walkway. Laid out along the outside of the curve, right by the transparent wall, were blankets and crude metal stalls like a flea market. The scene was one of a constructed refugee camp on the inside and a rough collection of rooms packed with people.

  Among all of it, there were the alien beings themselves, colors, shapes, and sizes as diverse as the variety of tens and bed blankets available. All five of the humans had by now learned to avoid looking at any single being too closely so that the information didn’t blind them with headaches.

  So they couldn’t name every entity down there.

  Which was probably a good thing since there must have been over a dozen examples of different humanoids alone.

  “What is at the bottom of the hub, Marc?” Lekiso asked.

  “Uh, according to the station network, it’s more of the three arms docking ports but for much larger ships. The bottom section has some ‘arms’ that extend out for primary cargo handling.”

  “Okay, let’s split up. I’ll go with Connor and Marc and head up this way.” Lekiso pointed at the visible curve of the station floor.

  “Meriam, you take Ormond and follow down the other way. See if you can get into the apartment areas, I want to see if we can spot anything inside there. I want to see if those rooms are as crowded as these. Then we meet up around the other side. Marc, keep our communication channel open. However that works with juiced up WhatsApp. See if you can track the five of us and keep us in contact. Any trouble communicating, and you let us know, any of you.”

  “Sure thing, boss,” Ormond answered for Meriam.

  “Um, I can track us. We should all be able to, but I’ll keep an eye on it and just follow Connor.”

  Marc was already starting to fill his display with information and multiple outlined operating functions like the tracking display, which left very little space to see past, even though the display could be cleared immediately by focusing past it with his eyes.

  I love this thing, Marc almost said out loud.

  He really was enjoying the interface’s capabilities and couldn’t wait to explore more of it.

  “Yeah, I should be easy to spot in a crowd.” Connor held his arms out a bit to show off his large frame, the light tone of a joke in his voice to show he wasn’t bragging.

  “Hey, mates, on t
hat note. Were you all in such good shape before we left? I mean, I really can’t see Marc being a triathlete.” Ormond pointed at the small man, and everyone looked at him.

  “Hey!” Marc was embarrassed but couldn’t help but look down at himself.

  “Uh, wow, when did I get abs?”

  Meriam ran her hands down her own six-pack.

  “I was always in good shape, but I tried to keep a feminine figure, not that of an Olympic gymnast. And I also don’t feel any of the pain from my feet and knees. I’ve used them both hard in dancing and sustained a lot of wear, but that’s all gone.”

  “Well, I was in a hospital bed for the last three months from serious injuries that are now gone, and I was atrophying, you know, weak muscles from no activity. But look at me now.”

  Connor was right. He looked like a Mister Universe contestant, all bulky muscle and hard, corded tendons in the skintight singlesuit.

  “Uh, so what are we? Still ourselves? In new bodies? In some kind of hallucination?” Marc asked out loud, distracted by the feeling of vitality inside.

  “Avoid guesses. We need facts.” Lekiso’s words were harsher than she intended, so she softened a bit before speaking again.

  “Sorry. It’s all confusing and could be worrying. Stay focused and on the mission. Go and explore, and we’ll see what we can find to fill in the gaps. None of this is right, not just for us, but for all of these aliens, people. Something is going on here.”

  “Right you are, boss.” Ormond gave a gentlemanly gesture for Meriam to join him, and the two started down the stairs.

  “Uh, I’m glad we have you, Lekiso. Makes me feel better.” Marc couldn’t help the niggling worry that crept into his voice.

  Lekiso smiled back at him.

  “Don’t worry, bud. We’ll look out for each other.” Connor clapped Marc on the shoulder, which made him stagger a bit.

  Then Marc followed them down the stairs, thinking to himself about how scary this whole situation really was.

  * *

  My people would have a severe problem with all these aliens. They hate illegal immigrants from across the borders in Africa, but these are actual aliens.