The Fifth Civilization: A Novel (2 page)

A slap returned Roan’s attention to the confrontation. The
punks were now batting the being’s plumage as he tried to protect his face with
the drooping, feathery appendages that served as his arms.

“Please!” the Nyden squeaked, hopelessly blocking the teen’s
harassment. Renowned as peaceful creatures, the Nydens were thus considered the
weakest of the Four Civilizations, the ones easiest to conquer or attack. If
confronted by an aggressor, most Nydens passively absorbed their abuse, or used
words in lieu of violence. Roan couldn’t see how their species could survive into
the next millennium.

“Gonna take my paycheck, you pigeon? You scavenger?”
 
The Alpha Punk smacked the Nyden across
on the left cheek. “You’ve got your own goddamn world for that. This one’s for
humans
. Understand? We got by just fine
before you fuckers.”
 
The hooligan
gave him another blow on the right side of the face, and the toady on the left
shoved the Nyden’s head. Like a possum playing dead, the alien curled into a
fetal position on the seat, his bulb flickering a brilliant teal.

Through the glass doors linking the cars, Roan noticed a
security guard making his way to the altercation. Someone had evidently alerted
the transit police. But the officer would be too late to be effective. The view
outside abruptly changed from an Earthscape to the crowded interior of Grand
Central as the train pulled into its last stop. A cheerful voice on the
intercom then asked everyone to disembark in an orderly fashion. The train
crawled to a complete halt, and seconds later the doors chimed open.

“Go back to your own planet, you bastard!” Alpha Punk said,
and kicked the bench. The Nyden was still curled up, motionless. All three kids
quickly got off and joined the teeming masses in the terminal. Maybe the
authorities would go looking for them, and maybe they wouldn’t. Roan and Masao
rose and joined the passengers filing off the train.

“Hell of a New Year for that poor stupid pigeon,” Masao
muttered as he passed the cowering alien.

Roan’s face betrayed neither agreement nor disagreement. It
was something that was out of his hands, something that didn’t concern a man
with enough anxieties of his own. Soon, the incident both men had witnessed was
forgotten in a massive sensory deluge. Kiosks of smokesticks and sugar-coated
pops lined the area immediately adjacent to the platforms, waiting to snare
hungry travelers. They lured Masao in, but not Roan: he was far too excited to
see Kel again.

For the first time in months, he’d be laying eyes on the
woman he planned to marry.

Kel Streb wasn’t in the arrivals lounge. But an electronic
billboard showed her usual ship, the
Colobus
,
docked at Entrepot Row C, and Roan thought he might find her there. Through a
maze of elevators and stairways, Roan wound his way to a hallway pungent with
the rough smells of sawdust and packing chemicals.

Stacks of crates sat on steel pallets that covered the floor
of Row C. Hoverlifts buzzed around the pallets with geometric precision,
scooping up their assigned loads and running them off to the docks. To a novice
observer, the haphazard arrangement of so many goods might seem chaotic, but
Roan knew the cargo always got where it needed to go.
 
After all, the Company didn’t earn its
trillions by
sitting around and
contemplating the origins of life, but by turning freight hauling into a
science. If Roan’s memory served, the percentage of lost cargo was so low as to
approach zero.

Roan closed his eyes and listened for the sound of Kel’s
voice above the whir of drills and the hum of the lifts. Kel was somewhere
among all these boxes, this way station of trade, this boarding home of
commodities. She would often survey the cargo before it was loaded into the
ship’s hold, to implant in her mind some physical meaning to her long voyages
across space. But as excited as Roan was to see Kel, he knew that the fact she
was in the Entrepot wasn’t exactly good: it usually meant she was leaving soon.

“Give me five more minutes,” Roan heard, ever so faintly. He
opened his eyes. Followed the sound of her voice.

He spotted Kel sitting on a crate. Chin resting on her fist,
legs crossed in front of her, lost in thought as she stared at a vintage
wood-framed painting propped up against a crate. As Roan got closer, he saw the
painting was of a bright ball of yellow flame, very much like a star, only with
a black-shadowed, vaguely human form in the center. Roan stopped alongside her
crate and leaned down to Kel’s ear.

“You know, they say you shouldn’t stare directly at the
sun.”

Kel turned her head to him, slowly. She knew he’d been
creeping up on her.

“Well then,” she said, “I guess I’ll look upon something
dimmer.”

Authoritative in the red cap and overalls of a Company
captain, Kel usually projected a serious air about herself, even when joking.
She kept her body close together, as if to protect it from harm, and allowed
nothing unruly to appear on her physical body. Her hair was still short and did
not dip below the nape of the neck, and beneath the overalls Roan saw muscles
honed from a daily regimen of pull-ups and stretching.

Kel Streb had the bearing of someone you didn’t want on your
bad side. And Roan would know; he’d been on it a few times.

Speaking of which.

“So anyway, hello Kel.”

“Hello, Nick.”

“I was hoping you’d be in the Arrivals lounge. You know, the
place with all the other men and women excited to see each other after months
apart.”

Kel took her chin off her hand and stared up at Roan. “You think
I was longing, huh? I can’t deny that I’m touched, Roan. You come five hundred
light years back to your home planet and the first person you want to see is
me.”

“Happy New Year, Kel.”

“Oh really? Did you get me a present?”

Roan put his arms out wide, proudly displaying his whole
body to her.

“Interesting,” Kel said. His arms still outstretched, Roan
waited for an embrace. But she continued to sit there on the waiting room
bench, every limb in her body perfectly still. He studied her strong, toned
arms, the athletic body that he had taken to the limits of flexibility. She was
known to move deliberately. Observe without speaking. Let you do the talking
just so she could see what you sputtered.

And sputter Roan did. “So…as you can guess, I’m happy to see
you.”

“I’m flattered, Roan. Really. But the last time I saw you,
you hardly gave me the time of day. Momo Koda was the hot new trend back then.
What was it about Momo again? Was it her eyepatch?” She smirked. “Come on,
don’t tell me that you’re attracted to women with a little disability.”

Roan shook his head. “Momo Koda was a long time ago. I don’t
even know if she’s still in the solar system. But there’s only one person I’d
spend the New Year with.” Roan gestured to the crate. “May I?”

“Please, Captain.”

If she wasn’t going to stand up, Roan reasoned, he might as
well sit down. He took the spot right next to her, wondering what valuable item
was inside this crate they were using as a bench. Kel stared back at him, her
chin going back to resting on her fist. She was waiting for him to say more and
frankly it made him a little uncomfortable, so he looked out at the bright
painting leaning against the crate.

“That’s a fun old thing,” Roan said. “Haven’t seen one of
those since…oh, probably when I was a kid. Nothing three-dimensional about it.”

“It’s an oil painting.” She turned to look at it, too.

“Who’s the artist? Mozart?”

“Mozart wasn’t a painter.”

“Whoever it was, they made the thing pretty dramatic. Almost
like a big, bright star. Only I can’t figure out if that’s a person inside the
sun or not.” He slid his arm a little behind her back, but either she didn’t
notice or she didn’t care.

“It’s called
Light and
Colour
,” Kel said. “By a guy named Turner. It’s almost seven hundred years
old, and someone on Orion just bought it.” Now she turned back to Roan, leaning
forward. Away from his arm. She clasped her hands and brought them in front of
her. “It was too beautiful to pack up right away, so I had them wait until the
last moment. I wish I could look at it during the voyage but, you know, Company
rules.”

Uh-oh.

“The voyage?”

“Yes, Nick.”

“Don’t tell me you’re going to Orion.”

“Yes, Nick. A two-month voyage. Leaves tomorrow…or rather I
should say
today
. Not bad for a deep
run, but it’s still out in the sticks. If I’m lucky, maybe I can swing past the
Helix Nebula and give the crew a beautiful vista.”

Roan shook his head. This wasn’t how he was expecting this
to go at all. He inched ever so slightly away from Kel and shot his eyes to the
floor. “I didn’t know,” he mumbled.

Kel leaned in closer. “How could you, Roan? I didn’t know
until a few days ago, either. But the Company needs people who can leave at a
moment’s notice, who can take long-haul flights and not get fatigued or snap.
That’s the way our employer
works
,
Roan. God knows I need the money.”

Roan’s eyes lit up. “Wait a minute now. You can’t be leaving
right
away. There’s a good place in
Shiba I’ve never taken you. No one knows about it so I swear it won’t be
crowded for New Year’s. I’ll buy you a drink for the new pentury.”

“The
pentury
!
God…I can’t, Nick. Not tonight. Not for a long time. I need sleep, and my crew
needs sleep. Until they can trust computers to ship valuable merch across star
systems, the Company’s gonna want humans on their ships. That’s the way it is.
I can’t change it.”

A hoverlift whirred past, something round held in its
talons. He tried to focus on his surroundings, but then he realized his
environment hummed with things heading to other star systems. Things
leaving
. “Well,” he tried, but couldn’t
think of anything. He could tell his voice showed disappointment, and he could
tell Kel knew because she smiled a big smile. Smiles were her way of saying:
brace yourself.

“Kaito’s is having ladies’ night,” he tried. “I saw it
advertised in the arrivals lounge.”

Not his best effort, and he knew it. Kel shook her head and
stood up. She looked so magnificent, so tall, so authoritative. The qualities
that drew her to him. That made him want to pop the question. They’d been back
and forth for so many years, but dammit Kel was a woman with willpower, and he
wanted to be with her for the rest of his life.

“Roan, let me give you the diagnosis.” Kel put her hands on
her hips, cocked her head to the side. “We’re the problem. We’re irreversible.
You know what that means. It means we got the space sickness. Means we have to
be out there every year, traveling to some god-awful who-knows-where colony,
because otherwise we get restless. That’s why we let ourselves get promoted.
Not because we wanted to be held down somewhere. But because we wanted to be
free.”

Roan stood up too. He balled his hands into fists. “What if
I thought I was going to put all that behind me? Stay on Earth for a long time,
maybe a few years. Settle down.”

Kel laughed. “You, settle down? You need adventure.”

“The two of us could be an adventure…”

“Stop.” Roan felt a chill climb down his body. Kel stopped
smiling for a brief second, but only a second. “It’s a big galaxy. I can’t sit
still knowing it’s out there. You can’t either—you just might not realize
it.” She turned to go. Walked a few feet, then stopped.

“Happy New Year, Roan,” Kel said over her shoulder. Roan
didn’t respond.

 
She was off
again, weaving her way down the hallway. Roan watched her back, her confident
steps, but his mind was elsewhere. The kisses on the beach. The shots on the
moon. The fumbling, never-successful lovemaking in zero-g. There wasn’t much
more that could be said.

It took only moments for Kel to disappear behind a multitude
of pallets. Roan tried to absorb the ambient sounds of the cargo bay, but his
train of thought was interrupted by a workman in overalls pulling up next to
him in a hoverlift. Without a word, the workman lifted the painting, frame and
all, and slid it into a rectangular storage box. The box sealed with a chirp,
and then the hurried worker set it on his machine and hopped into the driver’s
seat. He threw Roan a small salute as the cart darted away.

In the span of a few seconds,
Light and Colour
had disappeared from Roan’s sight.

The smell was surely the worst thing about Earth.

Grinek didn’t know if it came from the seafood the residents
called
salmon
or
squid
, or from the collective odor of all the Earthmen in Tokyo. It
was repulsive to his nostrils whatever its source. He regretted cracking the
skimmer’s window for air and quickly shut it. Though it wasn’t his first time
on the planet, he found Earth as bewildering and offensive as ever.

He needed only to glance around his immediate area for
examples. Why, for instance, would they build mile-high glass buildings that
reflected too much sunlight? Why, with all the buses, skytrains, and skimmers
darting around, were Tokyo’s streets still choked with humans? And just how
could they function with the smell lingering in the air at all times? Grinek
decided they must not smell it. The Kotaran snout was useful for hunting the
enemy, but not for living among them.

Beside Grinek, his subordinate Talmar shifted in his seat.
Grinek noticed the young agent’s tail wiggling in an attempt to get comfortable
in this unpleasant Earth vehicle.

“Patience,” Grinek said, slowly and solidly.

“Yes, Commander,” Talmar responded, his tail relaxing and
falling to the floor.

Their skimmer sat idle outside Shinjuku Park, one of the few
green spaces left in the city.
 
The
twisted branches of trees could be seen just a few meters away, lining lakes
traversed by bridges. Glass and steel had conquered so much territory in Tokyo
that it was a marvel this natural haven was left alone. But Grinek supposed it
was a monument to victory over nature.
 
After all, Tokyo was once the capital of a great empire, and now
considered itself one of the cultural centers of Earth. For the city to want a
reminder of the planet’s wild past would fit with its character.

And the past of Earth was very much on Grinek’s mind.

Just two blocks ahead was the Mizutani Astrophysics
Laboratory, a triangular glass building on the city’s western edge. Somewhere
inside that skyscraper was their target. A landing by shuttlecraft on the
Mizutani was considered but ruled out, as this mission required as much stealth
as possible. And stealth was going to be a difficult achievement on Earth.

Kotarans, much to their pride, stood out on whatever world
they put their boots on. Their fat snouts, pointed ears, flat feet, and the
long tail that ran between their legs made them instantly recognizable. Walking
around Earth, the two would arouse suspicion at best and violence at worst, so
Grinek had stipulated that he and Talmar would wear the hooded robes of local
monks if they ever had to walk outside. This disguise was not foolproof. Though
both beings were only two meters tall and thus shorter than the average
Kotaran, they did not speak English or Japanese or any Earth language very
well. They would still be conspicuous under the robes, but Grinek believed the
monk garb might allow them some protection from those not looking too closely.

Grinek used his nail to scroll through his datapad and
remind himself of their target’s appearance. A file picture of the man came up
on screen, snapped during his time on Kotara: a dark-skinned male with thin,
curly grey hair on his cranium and around his mouth. Such a repulsive
appearance. Even more vulgar was the smile he displayed in the picture.

He was Aaron Vertulfo. His capture was essential.

“Commander, this is tiring,” said Talmar, gritting his fangs
as he gazed out the window. “We should just enter the laboratory and find the
target.”

In his head, Grinek cursed. Talmar had a reputation for
being a wild character, used to fast pace and excitement. Grinek remembered that
Talmar’s record indicated he grew up near the high city of Vek, notable for
producing many members of the Imperial court. Clearly, Talmar spent too much
time enjoying the comforts of urban life instead of the hazards of the field.
In fact, the only reason he was on this assignment was his familiarity with
Earth.

“The Mizutani Lab is very secure. We would not succeed,”
Grinek said.

“It would not be hard to find the target, Commander. This
Earthman does not look at all like the local population. He would stand out
like a flame in the night.”

“We stay here until I decide otherwise.” Talmar seemed to
accept this, but obviously did not like it. Grinek clucked in disapproval and
turned his attention to their equipment.

After buying the skimmer from a disreputable Earthman seller
the day before, the two Kotarans outfitted it with surveillance equipment.
They’d installed a facial recognition camera on the front of the vehicle,
disguising it as a headlight system, and it was now aimed at the boxy entrance
to the Mizutani Lab. Their sources said Vertulfo used the front doors every
day—if Vertulfo or an associate showed his face coming out of them, the
device would recognize his curves and wrinkles and sound an alert. Then the
Kotarans could follow and apprehend him. Though the method was crude, they
lacked any other options. Vertulfo had hidden himself very well. He’d erased
vital personal information about himself from both public and private
databases. In the forty-eight hours the Kotarans had been on Earth, they’d been
able to find the man’s com number but not his address.

“You don’t suppose a law enforcement official will question
us?” Talmar asked. “On Kotara, an idle vehicle signals loitering.”

“This is not Kotara,” Grinek grumbled, impatient at Talmar’s
ignorance. “We are in a legal area for what the Earthmen call ‘parking.’ ”

“When I was on this planet, I rarely left the embassy.”

Grinek clucked again. Normally an External Commander of
Intelligence did not go on such missions, but this one was of the utmost
importance. Grinek had been in charge with investigating the background of this
scientist Vertulfo, as he did with many prominent foreigners who visited
Kotara. Vertulfo was an astrophysicist, dealing with celestial bodies and the
like, but while on Kotara he also made inquiries at biological institutions.
Grinek was very intrigued by the information Vertulfo kept requesting. A few
late-night “interviews” with Kotaran associates of the Earthman revealed that
the scientist had possibly stumbled upon a truly astonishing discovery.

Grinek petitioned the Ruling Council and the upper echelons
of the intelligence service, and eventually they authorized the current
mission. It was deemed
Segen Kresha Voo.
Ultra-Secret. Once the Council had learned all the details, Grinek was
dumbfounded that they had even held a debate on the matter. Truly, it was the
most important assignment in Kotaran history. There were the usual suspicions
within the service—was Grinek going to Earth to defect, or trying to gain
prestige for a power grab?—and a political officer of unusual cunning was
posted on his vessel, to keep Grinek in line.

But Grinek had no such aspirations. This mission guaranteed
a legacy of glory. Not just for Grinek, but for all Kotarans.

A sharp beep came from the facial recognition device. Grinek
and Talmar immediately turned to the screen on the dashboard. Highlighted
around a sea of local faces was a blue-feathered Nyden, his features enhanced
by the automatic zoom. The alien walked northeast along Chuo-Dori Avenue, and
unusually, his bulbous head was uncovered.

Talmar relayed the information on the being. “His name is…I
believe it is pronounced something like
Vy
Selkek
. He is a xenobiologist. Listed here as an assistant of Vertulfo.”

Grinek knew of this Nyden. Selkek was considered the most
trusted confidant and aide of the Earthman scientist, and his appearance
leaving the Lab was puzzling. Talmar reached forward to start the vehicle, no
doubt intending to pursue the target, but Grinek halted him with his hand.

“Hold, Talmar. I don’t trust this situation.”

“Do you think it’s a diversion, Commander?”

“Possibly. The Nyden could be leaving his office or going
for a morning meal. We have no idea. As the saying goes, ‘you don’t go chasing
a wild
marocha
if its mate is waiting
in the woods.’ ”
 
He would smile if
it were not so rude, so instead he grimaced at how pleasurable his intelligence
was.

“So we wait?”

“Yes.”
 
Grinek
pressed a button to override the alert, which returned the machine to its
default scanning position. Faces hurried by the screen, mostly the short and
compact features of the local Japanese, all unassumingly beginning their
mornings. Grinek focused his eyes on the door of the lab, determined to spot
the dark-skinned Vertulfo before the computer even recognized his face.

He could wait all day.