And froze. Two dark eyes stared at her from below. Someone was huddled up in the closet. It was Ion Battler.
“I don’t want to hear a thing,” Siobhan snorted. Inwardly, she was completely calm; no matter why the child was here, she would have to come to terms with it somehow.
“But, Dr. Norman…”
She raised her forefinger. “Nothing,” she repeated. “Is that nothing?”
“No, no,” the boy stammered, as he peeled himself out of the closet.
“Ninu is waiting in the second cabin on the right. Down the hall, left around the corner. Off you go.” She pointed to the open bulkhead.
“Ninu is here!”
“Of course. You already knew that.”
“But…”
“And off! Chop!” Siobhan repeated emphatically. The boy obeyed and disappeared from view.
“Good thing I’m not upset,” the Argon said through gritted teeth and continued her measurements on the jump unit. It didn’t really surprise her that the boy had managed to smuggle himself on board. In the past two tazuras he had crept around the shipyard almost unrestricted, and no one had paid much attention to him. Also, Ion making his sister think that he was mad at her and therefore hadn’t appeared at the sendoff had been pure calculation! As little as Siobhan wanted to do with the boy, she couldn’t help but acknowledge his above-average intelligence. In the context of a teenager, she reigned in her thoughts. Of course, Ion hadn’t acted very smart, since after all it wasn’t entirely safe to stay in here during operation. The amounts of energy that were released were enormous. At this close distance to the converters, the distorted space-time effects could cause all sorts of harmful effects on organisms. For example, polarizing fields could form, which could made the membranes of human cells more permeable, or even worse, damage the genetic material. Ion would have to undergo an intensive medical examination after his return.
After her measurements left no abnormal findings to evaluate, she went back to Ninu’s cabin. Ion Battler, sat in one of the armchairs with a drained face. Ninu had obviously really read him the riot act. The Goner began to apologize for her half-brother, but Siobhan waved it aside. “We’ll place him before the Tribunal of the United Court of Justice when we got back,” she threatened jokingly. “Before the Eleventh Chamber, like in the days of Kyo t’Nnt!” Ion looked up at her in horror. “We’ll jump in a few mizuras,” Siobhan said, and left the cabin.
In the cockpit, Zakk Folkna greeted them with the pleasant news information that the jump drive was working flawlessly from his perspective and did not need to be readjusted. “But look out the window,” he concluded.
Siobhan stepped over to the center console and propped herself up with one hand between two controls panels on the ceiling where it taped toward the bow. What she saw initially confused her. A throng of gigantic spaceships at a great distance? No, something was wrong with the dimensions! None of the swirling ships seemed larger than a four-person glider. Were these spacecraft in the immediate vicinity?
“Just came out of nowhere a few mizuras ago.”
“From where, please?” Siobhan asked.
Borman shrugged his shoulders. “From nowhere. They came from no specific direction. They were just there. They can jump.”
“How can you be so calm?”
Borman shrugged again, but said nothing.
Siobhan instructed the computer to document everything as precisely as possible. They had unexpectedly come across a new, space-traveling lifeform, and later on they would have to return—but the mission came first. “Maneuver us carefully away from them,” Siobhan instructed Borman. “we want to try the jump sequence again. Computer.” She provided the onboard computer with all necessary information.
As the AP Providence finally set into the alien mini spaceships followed her like a flock of migratory birds. Something flashed.
“They’re shooting at us!” Seldon seemed more surprised than scared. “But with toothpicks. That doesn’t even have the energy level of a comm laser.”
“Continue,” Siobhan ordered. “If we can ignore it, we’ll ignore it.”
In front of the cockpit window and the external camera it flashed more and more frequently. After a short time, the defense shield started automatically.
“Oops,” said Command Borman. “That was automatic. The frequency of the shots is increasing rapidly and the shield is being hit from all sides at the same time. Jahn, I don’t think these are weapons. They’re data lasers.”
Seldon made an indecisive face. “Well, I don’t know. It seems to me that bombarding someone with data from all sides is a bit ineffective as a form of communication.”
Siobhan, now back in front of her console, frowned. The time until the field generators were recharged had already more than doubled and was continuing to increase. Siobhan was uncomfortably reminded with the disaster in sector Black Hole Sun. “We have to shake these things, otherwise the jump drive won’t activate before doomsday.”
“I’m already trying,” Borman called.
Mizuras passed; all at once, the large swarm of small spacecrafts stopped their bombardment. Without a pause, a siren activated. “Collision alarm,” the computer shouted, flashing it on all displays. “Evasive maneuvers!”
Through the cockpit window, the crew looked at something like a jagged, black wall that restricted the view of the stars. On all sides of this massive wall, huge mechanical claws like the legs of a spider or the tentacles of an octopus opened, ready to ensnare the AP Providence. According to the display, the obstacle was barely a hundred lengths away. Borman strained at the control rods without any success.
“Collision in two sezuras.”
Borman tugged at the controls as though she had nothing more to lose. Screaming engines drowned out the shrill collision alarm, the crew ducked low in their seats in anticipation of the impact. Only a few feet in front of the AP Providence’s bow, a massive, insect-like body of black steel crystal arose. “It… isn’t coming closer!” Borman shouted in surprise. “It’s holding its distance!”
“Then rotate the Providence around them with the gyroscopes,” Zakk Folkna recommended with a shout to overcome all the noise.
“I tried. They’re not functioning anymore.”
“According to the operational data,” Folkna screamed, who hastily pulled up the live data on his terminal, “they’re working perfectly.”
“But they’re showing almost no reaction,” the pilot asserted. “I know, that’s impossible.” A gyroscope, in principle, consisted of nothing but rotating masses of momentum. It served to support the attitude control system of smaller spacecraft—it was unimaginable that the underlying, basic physics didn’t work!
“Damn it, computer, turn off the alarm, I’m going crazy!” Seldon demanded. The onboard computer obeyed, and as the shrill tone fell silent, the panic of the cockpit crew subsided, at least partly if not completely.
The two pilots checked one data panel after the other. The facts were clear: the AP Providence stumbled through space in free fall, the gyroscopes spun wildly without effect. An unknown insect ship the size of a carrier had gathered just lengths in front of the bow and matched its movements to the few lumbering maneuvers the test ship could carry out. The generators continuously pumped energy into the shields and inertial compensators, the jump unit would only be fully operational again in a quazura. Dozens of small spaceships swarmed behind the AP Providence and poked them with laser bolts that came ever more often without actually weakening the shields.
Siobhan and Zakk Folkna left their seats at almost the same time; Folkna was trembling more and more. Siobhan stepped behind the pilots and looked up at the jagged side of the alien ship, which merged with the dark of space overhead. Innumerable bulges, indentations, and other structures divided the large spacecraft’s outer hull into different sections. The most impressive and threatening, however, were the long, curved tentacles whose insides shimmered purple.
“It’s big,”
Major Seldon commented dryly.
“And has tentacles,” Commander Borman added no less dryly.
“What are we going to do?” Zakk asked with grinding molars. The situation was much more severe than the scientist wanted the others to know.
Siobhan answered. “We wait until the jump unit is green and try our luck.”
“They are influencing our gyroscopes. They’ll really manipulate the jump drive,” Borman countered. “We should let our weapons speak.”
“Weapons? What weapons, Ditta?” Seldon cried. “Maybe the asteroid laser? No, thank you!”
Ditta Bormon pursed her lips. “Right. I forgot.”
“Major, maybe we should talk to them first, before we shoot at them,” Siobhan gave pause. After all, up to now they hadn’t done any harm. Anyway, not really. Opening fire on a newly discovered alien species—even with an asteroid laser—couldn’t be any kind of solution. She cleared her throat. “I do not believe they can manipulate the behavior of the jump unit. The gyroscopes simply don’t work because we’re in a highly polarized tractor beam.
Chapter 39
By no means am I averse to an old-fashioned romance! If the man makes himself at home on board a very old-fashioned battleship for that reason!
Melissa Banks,
ArgoNet ::CelebView, 46/545 Edition
The two Teladi drifted backward on the Water of Wishes, the claws of their feet intertwined in a most chaste manner so that they were not pulled away from each other by the current. They looked up at the dark evening sky, just as Nopileos once did on Nif-Nakh. But the wafting veil of the Ianmus Zura’s aurora was more beautiful than anything on the jungle planet. As she listened to Jolandalas’s words, a small voice in the back of her head thought Hatrak! and her hearts became heavy. But she was soon listening to the artist’s voice again, who drew an exciting picture of life and creativity on Ianamus Zura with words that had never been heard before but were well understood.
Never in his about twenty-sun-long life had Jolandalas left the planet. Nopileos was somewhat shocked, because the artist had to really be the only person she knew who had never stepped foot on a spaceship before. For Jolandalas, however, it seemed to be the most natural thing in the world. He didn’t immediately notice that Nopileos was no longer following his words with her full concentration. “…and so the transparency of the soul is a color beyond the eyes—Nopileos?”
“Tsh?”
“Are you listening to any of this?”
“You’ve never been in space, Jolandalas?”
“No. Never.”
While the waves quietly babbled on the nearby shore and the wind just audibly caught in the reeds, the two lizards drifted in silence for a while. Jolandalas seemed to forget what he had wanted to do.
“Is that bad?” the artist inquired, when the silence became too oppressive.
Nopileos was searching for the right words. “No. But it’s hard to understand. All the beauty of the universe, should I have that advantage over you, out of all Teladi?”
“All the beautify of Ianamus Zura, do I have that advantage over you?” Jolandalas countered. He was slightly offended by Nopileos’s words, even though he knew that she was right in a certain sense.
“I want to found a non-profit organization on Ianamus Zura,” Nopileos blurted out, who felt that any answers to the artist’s last comment would push him in a direction he wouldn’t enjoy. Jolandalas suddenly unhooked his claws and dived elegantly under Nopileos. On the other side he broke through the surface again, intentionally spraying drops of water. Under the light of the stars and the aurora, Nopileos could see that the artist’s scaly fin had fully risen.
“A what?” Jolandalas exclaimed cheerily. “Salamander pie!”
“An organization that doesn’t generate any profit,” Nopileos said, offended.
“But—to do what?”
“Tsh! I…” Nopileos broke off, confused. Yes—to do what? Egg salad! She made herself sink under the water. The ground was hardly three lengths deep, she dived down grabbed a claw of sand, and paddled back up. “I’ll think about that later!” she called loudly. Yes, she hadn’t thought about what her organization would deal with, but she would still do it! With a well-placed throw, she hurled the wet sand in her claws at the stomach armor of the artist. Jolandalas hissed in mock indignation and instantly transformed himself into a hurricane of whirling arms and legs that rushed towards Nopileos like a water spout. Nopileos and Jolandalas tussled with each other like hatchlings, hunting each other through the Water of Wishes, pelting themselves with small pebbles, seven-footed crabs, and muddy claws.
“You are afraid of the beauty of the universe!” Nopileos teased and immediately vanished underwater.
“And you’re running away from your own courage!” Jolandalas countered.
“At the moment, I’m swimming!”
“You call that swimming?”
“Yes, what do you call it? Hopping?”
“Paddling! I call it paddling. You Teladi in your planetary community have forgotten how to appreciate the element!”
“Tshhhh!” Nopileos took a run-up and shot almost vertically out of the water, half turned in the air and loudly splashed back down on the surface of like a porpoise. “For that we have gained a new element!”
“That we certainly never lost,” Jolandalas replied.
“So?” Nopileos looked appraisingly at the artist from a distance of a few lengths. A small brook of water ran dry between her eyelashes and pearled down the right side of her muzzle.
“Look, Nopileos, we Teladi live two hundred and fifty suns or more. I’ve only just seen twenty suns. How old are you? Your eyes are yellow, your scales in the third triad. Eleven? Twelve?”
“Hai,” Nopileos admitted. Then remembering that Jolandalas wasn’t proficient in trading language, she repeated the word in Old Teladi.
“There’s a time for everything and a place for everything. The two of us, you and I, have the fortune of being in the right place at the right time.” With these words, the artist headed for the shore, from which they’d ended up quite far in during their romp. Nopileos followed him after a few sezuras.
“I want to tell you something, Nopileos.” Jolandalas strode up the slope, softly splashing, until he reached the small promontory where his hovercraft stood. One or two hundred lengths away, another hovering vehicle landed on a small island, its exterior lights glimmering against the horizon: the Water of Wishes was also a popular night destination. “If you would like to help your friend, then tell her not to explain the logic and urgency of the mission to the Conductor. Instead, she should summarize the beauty and perfection of her plan in an aesthetic and ethical sense. If only she is convincing enough, hearts, minds, and help will fly to her.”
Nopileos had to think about that first. She ran her tongue over her nostrils and for long moments stared over at the tiny island where the other hovercraft had landed. The lights had faded to a hull glow, and as she listened attentively to the wind, incomprehensible words that were muffled by the wind seemed to waft over. “Now you Zurans are just as I’ve always wanted all Teladi back home in the Community of Planets to be, and yet you puzzle me deeply.”
Jolandalas sniffed. “Will you show me your planetary community? Loud Teladi, all women! I might like that.”
“Profit,” Nopileos said with a pinch of sarcasm in her voice. Jolandalas looked at her questioningly. “I think I’m beginning to understand what the immigration officer said before he gave us the landing permit.”
“What did he say?”
“He said as many Teladi came from the Community were also leaving again. I understand that now because I understand my people. In a certain way.”
“And would you like to leave Ianamus Zura again, oh Nopileos?”
She took her time with the answer; there was too much to explain, even though she now knew which path she must walk. Nothing was easy, there were no simple answers. But she didn’t want to make it any harder tha
n it already was. “No,” she said finally. Jolandalas gave a barely audible hiss.
Chapter 40
There is a simple reason why the builders of these artifacts just didn’t set up any jumpgates in our solar system:
The stars are not meant for us.
René Farnham,
Star Tales: Memoirs
“Siobhan, may I take a look at the radio signals we’re receiving?” Out of impulse, she had allowed the boy to address her by her first name; why, she didn’t exactly know, herself. Presumably because she didn’t value it anyway if someone called her by her title and last name, because both should only belong to her distant past.
She nodded. “If it can’t be avoided, Ion. Major Seldon, is there anything new?”
The pilot hadn’t checked the incessantly incoming radio signals since the appearance of the large ship. He did now and made a startled face. In the meantime, the onboard computer had managed to decrypt some of the signals. “Several of the transmitters are sending imaging data. We need a large video field, computer.”
A projection that stretched over the entire length of the console between pilot and copilot opened up.
“Kha'ak!” Ion Battler cried out, “they’re Kha'ak!”
There was no recognizable bottom or top, no back or front. Like a swarm of bees, countless ugly creatures teamed over and around each other. Their barely half-length, stocky bodies carried brown armor and dark green, shimmering, slightly transparent wings. To move, they braced themselves with their wings and used bulky stubs at the back of their stocky bodies. Each of the creatures had two curved gripping arms, which terminated in thin, multi-fingered claws. Some of the creatures had five, eight, or even ten fingers, others only two or three. Without a neck, the oval head grew out of the trunk, and the large, multi-faceted, compound eyes all looked dull and threatening. The short, curved beak that sprung from the head instead of a mouth was strongly reminiscent of that of a tropical bird.
Nopileos: A novel from the X-Universe: (X4: Foundations Edition 2018) (X Series) Page 33
