Fluency (12 page)

“Great.” He hopped up on the platform and stretched out on the surface. There was plenty of room for Jane and probably three other people. He draped the fabric of the robe over his privates, placed the slivers of plastic over his eyes, and said, “I’m ready.”

Soon he sensed she was lying beside him. She said, “
Paratiso
,” and there was a quiet whirring sound as the screen above them lowered. He lifted his hand, rapping his knuckles against it gently. It was hovering maybe a centimeter above his nose.

The glass warmed. Despite the eye protection, even with his eyes closed, he could see a faint magenta glow around the edges of his peripheral vision. He wondered how long this treatment would take, but he didn’t feel like asking her any questions, so he stayed silent and spread the palm of his burned hand evenly over the glass.

“Alan?”

He sighed. “What?”

“You don’t need to be embarrassed. It’s a normal physiological response.” She sounded crisp, rehearsed.

“I know that. We don’t need to talk about this.” This was why he never hung out with any individual girl for very long. He didn’t like being drug through a bunch of emotional crap.

That didn’t deter her. She continued, sounding less assured as she went on, “I know you saw the IUD. I just…I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. I’m flattered. I am. But I’m not interested in casual sex. You…I just thought you should know that.”

An IUD? Huh. He’d thought that was some kind of birth co
ntrol, when he’d seen it. Her embarrassment seemed to confirm that. He wondered briefly if that had been her idea or NASA’s. Then he realized that wasn’t really the important part of what she was saying to him.

He needed to say something to her that struck some kind of balance between reassuring her and not shutting any doors. The minutes stretched out. What would sound like he was interested in having a real relationship with her, without sounding creepy after what just happened?

His voice came out a little harsher, a little more defensive, than he wanted. “You’re reading way too much into this. I don’t know anything about your female gadgets. I never made any assumptions about you. I don’t see you that way, Jane.”

“Oh—I didn’t—I mean—you
….”

He softened his tone. “Jane, you’re a beautiful gi—” he caught himself, just in time, “—woman.” He let out a breath from between tense lips. “Look, nothing I say right now is going to sound right. You know that, don’t you? Can we just drop it, please?”

She snorted softly.

“You’ve got enough to worry about. You don’t need to be thinking about
….”

“I don’t want to think about that either,” she said quietly.

“I wouldn’t either if some alien was mind-fucking me.” He immediately regretted saying it. He was all riled up. He didn’t know what he was saying anymore. He slid his left hand across the glass until he made contact with her…arm. Probably just her arm. He tapped it hesitantly with his fingertips, hoping she’d realize it was an apology.

“But he is doing it to you. I think he’s doing it to all of us.” She spoke softly, barely above a whisper, and her hand latched onto his suddenly, her grip almost painful.

He swallowed hard and squeezed back. “No, I’d know.”

“Would you? How could he know everything that’s going on? How could he know the trouble you and Walsh were in?”

“There must be sensors, cameras—”

“I thought so too, at first. But, he knew that when we went back into the capsule, I never said a word about what had happened to me to any of you.”

A cold, uneasy feeling settled in his stomach. “Oh. Shit.”

“Yeah.”

He squeezed her hand again. “Well, so far he seems like a good guy. He’s helping us, right? He helped you to get to us…in time.”

He should probably tell her that it really had been barely in time—that he’d forgotten where he was and what he was doing a couple of times. He’d forgotten to share the air. He’d almost let go. But how could he tell her that—that seeing her face in that moment
had been such a relief, that he owed her his life, that he’d do anything for her? He didn’t know how to say that.

They went silent for a while. He let his hand go limp, but it r
emained in contact with hers. He wasn’t sure what that meant to her. The light spectrum had changed at some point, he realized, was less intense, more red. He wanted to ask her to tell him everything, every detail that had happened to her from the first, but Walsh would eventually get to that and she shouldn’t have to repeat everything three times. “Well, it’s pretty effed up, but it’s far better than what I expected to happen when we opened the hatch.”

“What was that?”

“I was pretty sure there was going to be something really grotesque that was going to eat us. I thought they might play with us for a while, maybe, before they started tearing us limb from limb.”

“You really thought that?”

“Yep.”

“Then why did you want to go so bad?”

“Lifelong dream. Only opportunity and whatnot.”

Her hand twitched. He imagined she was probably shaking her head, maybe even chuckling silently. “You must watch a lot of scary movies.”

“Used to. Haven’t seen a good flick in probably four or five years. Working too much. What was the last movie you saw?”

There was still laughter in her voice. “Hm. Can’t
remember. Probably some chick flick with my girlfriend, Sam. I didn’t get out much.”

“You weren’t dating?”

“Since my divorce? No. I haven’t dated since high school.”

He hesitated, but he really wanted to know. “Why did you split up?”

“He’s a lawyer. You probably knew that.” She paused.

Maybe it was too personal. He shouldn’t have asked.

But she continued, her voice sounding more melancholy. “One day I just realized he and I didn’t envision the same future anymore. I began to feel like the time he spent with me was just another form of work. It felt like he was tallying in his head how many hours he was going to bill me for and I couldn’t live like that anymore.”

“He’s an ass.”

“He was involved with someone else within weeks. It had been over between us long before I came to that conclusion. I was holding him back.”

“Jane—that’s not true. He was being an idiot. You deserve be
tter.”

“We were kids when we got together. You can’t know
who you’re going to turn into when you’re seventeen. No, you—you’ve got the right idea. Perpetual bachelorhood. You get the best of all of it.”

“Hardly.”

“Oh, come on. Your place is a man-cave. You’re quite a player. It must be fun.”

He froze, clenching her hand involuntarily. “What? Who told you that?”

“Gene and Lisle when they came to visit from JPL.”

Those bastards!
He’d warned them to stay away from her. He sputtered uncontrollably, “They weren’t there for a social call. They were there consulting, and I never left them alone with you!”
Crap.
Now he’d said too much. She had a way of bringing that out in him.

She chuckled, out loud this time. “No. You didn’t. They joined me for lunch once when you were in an engineering meeting that they weren’t required to attend. It was a very enlightening meal.”

He had a new reason to make it through the mission alive. He had to get back to Earth so he could wring their geeky necks.

“They—they’re not the most reliable witnesses,” he said sou
rly.

Her voice was teasing again. It sounded delicious. “I could see that. They think you’re a god.”

“They do not. They both have girlfriends. Lisle is probably married by now. They don’t know anything. They don’t know what it’s really like.”

“What’s it really like, Alan?” Her voice had turned husky. She was slowly stroking his middle finger with her thumb. His chest felt tight and his skin tingled—and not from the light. Why would she do that?
Dammit.
She was the queen of mixed messages. How could such a simple touch turn his brain to jelly? He could barely think.

“It’s
…I was thinking about getting a dog, but I work too much.” What was this, some kind of confessional?

“Why not just settle down?”

He pulled on his arm a little and changed the position of his hand so she’d have to stop it. “I don’t know how to….”

“Settle down? Just pick one and stick around for a while.”

“That wasn’t the problem. The problem was that I didn’t know—I didn’t know where to find the right one to do that with.”

“Oh. That’s not an easy one.”

“No. I should have tried harder, I guess. It was too easy to just keep going the way I was going.”

“Maybe when we get back, it’ll be easier.”

“That’s the plan.” He clutched her hand almost convulsively, hoping to transmit the message, hoping she was receiving it, interpreting it correctly.

She made a strange sound like a yelp and her hand yanked from his grasp.

“Jane? You ok?”

“Something’s wrong. I think
….”

“What?”

“I have to go. I’ll be back soon.”

“Jane, wait—tell me what’s going on first!”

She didn’t answer. He pulled on her arm, but she’d gone limp. “Jane?” He felt blindly for her shoulder, grazing—oh, crap—that was definitely a breast. “Sorry, Jane. Jane?” He pushed on her shoulder, but she wasn’t responding. “Jane!”

His voice was drowned out by a blaring klaxon. He jerked, banging his forehead on the glass above them. He let out a string of curses. One of the
eye pieces fell off and he realized that the lights had shut off and the screen was rising into the ceiling.

He sat up. The door opened and Ajaya peeked into the room.

“What the fuck’s going on?” he demanded.

Ajaya looked bewildered. She shouted, “I’ve no idea. The lighting changed and then this alarm started.”

He could see what she meant. The room beyond was cast in a reddish glow, making it seem darker, more sinister. He turned to look at Jane. She was slack-jawed.

“She’s out again. I don’t like this,” he bellowed.

10

Jane relaxed her concentration and held back, before speaking. She’d expected to arrive in the casita but instead found herself in a cool place, obscured in shadow. She gradually became aware of limbs moving languidly in hushed, placid darkness.

Just as she registered this, Ei’Brai’s voice rumbled in her head, startling her. “Dr. Jane Holloway, you seek my companionship. I am honored by your presence, gratified.”

“How did I—”

“The mental connection—Anipraxia. It grows stronger. A portion of your consciousness and mine are converging on a single plane, a frequency, if you like. You learn quickly, navigate intuitively. This is auspicious.”

“I was drawn here. I didn’t
….”

“Not so. You possess an inquisitive nature. You perceived a need and responded. You arrived here of your own volition.”

She paused. He was right.
Oh, God, that’s disconcerting.
“What…was that? I felt something.”

“You sensed a minor hull breach. It has been contained. You are quite secure in your present location. There is no need for your
attention to the matter. The squillae have been reordered, are containing the breach.”

She would have to trust him on that point. She searched her mind for a translation of the unfamiliar word he’d just spoken. She frowned. The first word that came to mind couldn’t be right. “Shrimp?”

A low, booming sound resonated in her mind and she smiled hesitantly. He…was he laughing?

Information poured into her consciousness. She couldn’t di
scern if it was from the download he’d given her, as she made the mental connection with the unfamiliar word, or if it flowed directly from Ei’Brai. The boundary between her own mind and his seemed indistinct. Data streamed between them, she realized uneasily.

The veil of darkness lifted. A single, sedentary slug filled her vision. This was somewhere in the cargo
hold. She could see it—not as she’d seen them from inside the room that morning—but, oddly, as though she were the wall itself that the slug was clinging to. Ei’Brai focused her viewpoint along a trajectory, zooming in ever closer on masses of swarming minute robots, working in concert. First, she became aware of one group forming a single microscopic layer between the slug and the void.

As each nanite was destroyed by the alkaline slime, another was already taking its place like soldiers on a front line, holding in the atmosphere and allowing the other machines to work unimpe
ded. Her point of view swung wide, to see others working to reconstruct the hull, micron by micron, protected from harm by the first group as they worked to effect repair. Ei’Brai commanded their movements. When the breach was detected, he removed them from other tasks, redirecting them to resolve the problem.

As she watched, some of the squillae emitted high-pitched sounds and the slug, disturbed, moved away, allowing them to work more efficiently. A thought occurred to her—why not co
mmand the squillae to attack the slugs directly and remove the problem outright, rather than repairing the damage they constantly wrought?

Ei’Brai answered, “Under Sectilius law, squillae are confined to inorganic repair except under rare, tightly controlled circu
mstances. Technology serves life. It does not destroy it. These lessons are rooted in the very foundations of Sectilius culture and law, without deviation, under threat of penalty of strictest nature. The slug population must be dealt with, but the squillae will not perform that duty.”

Jane acknowledged this insight into Sectilius culture, still ca
ptivated by the movements of the minute machines.

“They’re sacrificing themselves to keep us safe,” Jane ma
rveled.

“They are machines. Living beings do not make such sacrifices so readily.”

She pulled her attention away from the squillae at work, sobered by the thoughts his comment evoked. “Sometimes they do.”

“You contemplate your progenitor.”

“My father, yes.”

“A rarity among your kind,” he said swiftly, as if he
knew
.

She felt anger quickening and quashed it down. She did not want him to speak of her father that way—casually, dismissively,
but she had to remember her training. “What do you know of my kind? Why are you here?”

“You have many questions.”

She was about to reply, to make demands, when she felt something cool flow over her in the darkness, like an eddy in a pool, sending her spinning. She was suddenly buoyant, lax, and free. She felt herself bob and lift to maintain her position. She’d lost her bearings. “What’s happening?”

“Observe.”

Lights flashed in the darkness—indistinct blobs, darting in the distance, sparking in cycles of magenta and cobalt. Then, she realized—she was seeing through someone else’s eyes.

“My age-mates,” Ei’Brai hummed. “Conveying danger in our most primitive form.
Too weak, too small yet to communicate properly. We scattered, but it did not impede our capture.”

She felt some kind of primordial panic, a pulsing squeeze, and frantic motion. She’d lost track of up and down and only knew the instinctive need to flee in random flails to evade whatever was in pursuit. She began to tire. Was she safe?

Her age-mates winked their fear.

She paused, confused, watching as they drew closer in an u
nnatural clutch, equidistantly spaced in orderly rows and columns. She inhaled with a great, fearful whoosh, preparing to take flight once again, when white light blinded her and she drifted, limp, uncaring, unknowing.

The world went dark again and Ei’Brai’s voice buzzed gently. “I had never known confinement in my short existence. It was an affront. But, like you, I learned much, and quickly.”

The light came on. Too bright. Jane wanted to squint, but her eyes couldn’t do that. Instead, she darted back, trying without success to find some way to shield her sensitive eyes, and came up painfully against hard glass. Somehow she knew that this was like the day before and the one before that. She felt intense, primal loneliness, longing for home, freedom, and age-mates.

A creature came to look at her through the glass. It calmly watched her scrabble and dart, fruitlessly looking for refuge from the painful, artificial sun. It took up residence, like it always did, draping its angular body over the single structure in the
blindingly-unnatural, white place.

It waited, like always.
For what? What did it want from her? Again and again, day after day, it turned the soothing darkness into a searing blaze and waited. There was no end to the repetition of it.

Stupid, stupid being.

She hated it, hated its shrouded body, its way of moving, a
lways upright, always in a single plane. She especially hated its steady gaze, interrupted periodically by the fleshy folds of skin covering over its tiny eyes.

Finally, she shouted at it—a single, negative bleat of rage. To her surprise, the creature rose. It moved out of her view for the first time and her world plunged into blessed, soothing darkness once again.

She timidly moved forward to peer through the glass. The creature slowly came back and faced her, inches away, but for the partition between them. The fleshy lips parted and she could see stony structures there.

She sensed its pleasure. She felt it, too. It was wonderful. She wanted more.

“That was the beginning,” Ei’Brai murmured.

“That is
…a man,” Jane said incredulously. He could never blend in on Earth, yet he was startlingly familiar. He was tall, incredibly slight, with sharp, spare features. His proportions were distorted, every bone longer, thinner.

“Sectilius.”

The man faded into black as they spoke.

“The people of this ship.”

“Yes. A brilliant, prolific race with complex genetic variety. One of few borne of a rare planet-moon combination, both habitable.”

Jane wrinkled her brow. “The Divided.”

“Yes. The moon-race, adapted to the gravity of the low-mass moon, displays this phenotype. The planetary race’s phenotype is far different. A world far larger than Terra gives rise to a shorter, denser form.”

Images and snippets of data illustrating his point flashed through her mind. She was astonished at the diversity of body types that evolved after the peaceful civilizations on both worlds, having communicated for centuries via radio waves, finally deve
loped the technology to routinely traverse the distance and interbreed.

“This man, he was teaching you—”

“To communicate with his kind before I’d learned to properly communicate with my own, yes. A great gift.”

“The Sectilius speak to each other this way?”

“Only rarely. Masters of Anipraxia commit to many years of study. That was one such master—a high priest who devoted his lifespan to unlocking us, preparing us for service. My kind communicate over vast distances, over the span of my home world, effortlessly. I perceive your concerns, but you need not worry, Dr. Jane Holloway. You could not discern another’s thoughts without my assistance.”

He could sense that? Her worry, her fear that he was changing her into something that she didn’t want to be?

“You were taken,” Jane said. “Are you here against your will? Were you a slave?”

“I was taken, yes. Not as a slave.
As an exalted guest. Had I evaded capture, inevitably I would have become a savage—a carnivore, consumed only with scrapping for food, grappling for a place within the hierarchy of my kind, struggling to maintain that position for a brief life expectancy. I would not trade my place for that feral existence. Not even now.”

“But why did they do this to you?”

“Do you not take sentient creatures into service on your world? To perform tasks that exceed your own capabilities?”

She wasn’t sure she fully understood what he was asking. She thought she knew what he meant, but cringed, uncomfortable with the answer she came up with. She felt like a
school girl, put on the spot by a brilliant teacher that she was eager to please, struggling to think of a clever reply, but coming up short.

“The beast
who pulls the cart? The dog who keeps watch over the flock? The cow, whose sole purpose is to manufacture surrogate mother’s milk? Are they not utilized for a purpose, to fill a need?”

She agreed immediately, chagrinned that humans did not co
nsider the animals he mentioned to be sentient. There seemed to be multiple layers of reality that humans were too self-involved to fully realize. It was mortifying. What else were they missing?

“As do I. I am the Gubernaviti.” His voice rang with a smug note of narcissism.

“The governing navigator,” she said hesitantly. “They need you to fly the ship.”

“Just so.”

“They can’t do it without you?”

“Possibly. It is done, but rarely. No other race can perform to the same standard that the Kubodera have set.”

“Kubodera?”

She sensed a physical swelling within him, growing as he spoke, literally puffing with pride. “The princes of the stars. We are harvested from a secluded world by a devout priesthood, t
utored and enhanced, groomed from infancy to take our place at the heart of every ship-community. We are capable of multi-tasking at a level no hominid can match, interface easily with binary processors, and are capable of calculating with nearly the same efficiency and accuracy, should such systems fail. We are capable of making longer, more accurate jumps than any hominid species. Eons ago we proved ourselves to be far superior navigators to any other sentient species.”

She felt awkward. What was she supposed to say to that? Did he expect some form of obsequience?
Perhaps not, because he went on.

“For this we are adopted, embraced, and revered. In service and in leisure we extend Anipraxia to your kind. It is a great honor to be allowed to join Anipraxia with a Kubodera, to allow my mind to touch yours for our mutual benefit. The mating of minds goes far beyond any connection you have ever known, Dr. Jane Holloway. You sense this.”

She did. She couldn’t help but feel humbled, even as some aspect of her mind railed against his hubris.

And there was more. This encounter with Ei’Brai was very di
fferent. It was more than mere conversation. She was becoming more aware of his personality, getting glimpses of his world-view.

She sensed in him an emptiness that he wanted her to fill. There was no need to speak of it, because it was somehow glarin
gly obvious, pervasive in his every thought. She felt small and vulnerable in the face of it. What kind of commitment had she stumbled into? What did all of this mean?

“Allow me to demonstrate the wonder of it, Dr. Jane Ho
lloway.” His voice was somber, hushed. Could he perceive every fleeting thought? She felt a small measure of shame that she might be hurting him with her reluctance, with her fear.

The darkness burst into life. Stars. Unfathomable numbers of stars in gorgeous, nebulous heaps and clumps flooded the darkness with pricks of light. It was incredibly, undeniably vast.