Fluency (7 page)

“Dr. Jane Holloway, there is an urgent matter to which you must attend. This is no time to indulge in delusional fantasies.”

She stood, wary. This bizarre interaction had a way of disarming her. She was forgetting how precarious their situation was, forgetting her normal caution, forgetting all the questions she needed to ask. “What?”

“I cannot protect them from peril. I have attempted contai
nment and exclusion, but the controls are not responding as they should. The nature of the infestation disrupts the applicable neural-electric pathways. I am fixed, immutable. You are the only possible liaison. The others are not open to me. I cannot influence them. You and you alone must act.” The voice resonated with a note of hysteria.

Jane tensed, suddenly filled with dread. “What are you talking about?”

“I presumed that your personage would accompany any exploratory efforts. I could guide you, dissuade you, if necessary. However, at present, there are four individuals occupying two discrete chambers and two of these are perilously close to endangering their very existences. I do not wish for their extinguishment.” He sounded haughty, self-righteous.

Her hand reflexively clutched the back of a chair. “Exti
nguishment? Are you saying the other astronauts are in mortal danger?”

“Dr. Jane Holloway, I expect you to forestall the impending disaster.”

“How? Tell me how. Tell me what to do. What’s the danger?”

“Standby. Sending data now.”

Jane staggered. The buzz inside her head magnified exponentially. Awareness converged inward with a new, unnerving acuity. She could feel the vibration on a heretofore unknown scale—the progress of each tiny bee, making connections, individual neurons firing far faster than they could possibly be meant to. She felt detached from herself, blandly observing, as the space between her ears expanded to accept….

She gasped. Three-dimensional maps of the interior of the Ta
rget, replete with what appeared to be itemized lists of each sector’s function and contents, swamped her conscious mind. She fell to her hands and knees and struggled to comprehend the deluge. “Oh, God,” she choked out.

“If you wish, I would be gratified to debate the existence of deitous life forms, but perhaps we should attend to the matter at hand? It would have been preferable to defer a bit longer before imprinting the command and control engram set. However, in this moment, it is expedient. Are you ready to commence?”

“No! Just…stop!” She writhed on the rough, dusty floor of the casita, her hands clutching her head. Tiny, blazing bees zoomed within, making connections, overwriting, leaving searing trails in their wake as they rendered data. “Make the bees stop! Please—it’s too much!”

“Dr. Jane Holloway, you are overcome. I will assist.”

She felt a lifting, a lightening, a shedding of pain. She opened her eyes to darkness, but felt no fear at the change, only simple curiosity. She felt embraced, warm and welcome. It was wonderful, but also worrisome. “What did you do to me?”

“I merely separated the cognitive layers. You are still there, and there, but also here. I dare not shield you for long. It could create cognitive dissonance. I have no idea how your species will react to such interventions.”

She felt like she was wandering farther and farther from reality. “Where is here?”

“With me.”

“Where are you? Physically?”

“I am here.”

This individual was not the straightforward type. If it weren’t such a dire situation, she’d laugh out loud. “What is this form of communication? How are we doing this?”

“I have tapped into a dormant area of your brain. Stimulating this area activates previously unexpressed genetic material, which, in turn, triggers ongoing structural refinements that facilitate this method of communication. In short, at my expert intervention, you are experiencing accelerated evolutionary changes.”

She heard the words. She understood their meaning. She could not fathom them.

He continued without stopping, “It is a curiosity. You are co
nceptually aware of individuals on your world with this ability, yet it seems your culture resolutely denies the possibility of its existence. Blind-sight like this is a blight on the progress of your world. A failure of science, if not of imagination. Yet, on the whole, the six of you are educated in the standard methods of scientific inquiry. Your species is vexing, Dr. Jane Holloway.”

She swallowed. “You’re communicating with the others this way, too?”

“No. That is not possible.”

“Why not?”

“I can skim the other’s thoughts and memories, learn from them, in a limited fashion, but I cannot communicate with them. Perhaps, in time, it may be possible. They are not fluent in Mensententia. This prohibits communication.”

She struggled to follow his train of thought. “Mensententia?”

“The common language.”

“What? Look, you have to explain yourself. I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

“I would advise a patient attitude, Dr. Jane Holloway. I am not an educator. I have not received the instruction required.”

Jane took a deep breath to still her mounting frustration,
then continued, “Please, tell me what you know of Mensententia.”

“I will be brief. The download is nearly complete. You must r
eturn. The common language was latent within you, a component of genetic memory, given to you by the Cunabula.”

“Genetic memory?”

The voice made a sound like a sigh and went on, “Unmasked by most species during the epoch of pubescent change, it marks readiness to enter into discourse with those outside one’s own kind. Your conversion was nearly spontaneous—quite unique and likely a product of your extensive linguistic experience. When I observed this awakening, I intensified my attempts at communication, leading ultimately to success. I must say, the Sectilius were intensely disappointed to learn that Mensententia was suppressed on your world, to discover that you had not been good stewards there, that your world was in such a state of disarray and on the verge of environmental collapse—”

Cunabula? Sectilius?
She felt dizzy from the influx of information. “Wait,” Jane interrupted. “You’re saying that the symbols are…and we’re communicating now, in Mensententia?”

“It is time, Dr. Jane Holloway. You will awaken with compr
ehension of this vessel fully integrated, and must act immediately. It shall be quite clear to you what must be done. We cannot yet converse while you are conscious, but if you listen, you will hear my communiqués. I will offer assistance wherever possible. Go now.”

“Wait! Tell me your name!”

“I am the Gubernaviti. Ei’Brai.”

“Aiyee-Brai?” She repeated it automatically, to be certain she’d heard every nuance of the name and would remember and pr
onounce it correctly, but there was no answer. Only agonizing pain.

6

Bergen stepped in first, triggering the lights to come on. A puff of air greeted him. It was another huge storage room. This one was filled with floor-to-ceiling, cylindrical storage tanks—all the same color as everything else in the ship.

“Somehow, I expected the interior of an alien spaceship to be a little more exciting,” Walsh commented.

“Yeah.” Bergen glanced at Walsh as they walked down the undulating aisle, getting a feel for just how far back it went. The aisles weren’t in conventionally-structured, straight lines. “What do you think about what Jane said?”

“I’ll wait to hear what Varma says on the subject.” Walsh’s tone let him know that was the end of that discussion. “Any idea what’s in these tanks?”

Bergen yawned, then shrugged. “Same kinda stuff we’ve got in our tanks, probably. Water, compressed gases, fuel of some kind. It takes a helluva lot of gas to fill a ship of this size with air. I’m sure Jane’ll figure it all out. She’s fucking amazing.” He shrugged again and suppressed the urge to giggle with a frown.

He glanced at Walsh to see if he’d noticed his expression or the comment about Jane. He hadn’t. He was busy studying what a
ppeared to be a valve on one of the tanks. He’d taken off his pack and harness and was bent over in an exaggerated, comical pose. He needed a really big magnifying glass to complete the picture. Bergen snorted at the idea.

“Speaking of air—it’s really blowing around in here, don’cha think?” Walsh swayed a little bit and grinned. That was weird. Walsh never smiled. “Feels good after ten months of stale air crammed in that damn teapot.”

Bergen spontaneously whooped with laughter. “I know, right? It’s like the ventilation system’s gone haywire.”

Walsh clapped him on the shoulder, an uncharacteristically friendly gesture, dragging his pack and emergency breathing equipment behind him. “We’ll tell the little green guys to fix it, if we ever find ‘em.”

“Yep. No, no. Jane’ll tell ‘em.”

Walsh nodded solemnly. He was acting like he was drunk. That didn’t seem normal. “Right. What was that about, yesterday, do you think?”

Bergen shook his head, trying to clear it. Things were a little fuzzy. “I just asked you that and you said you’re gonna wait to hear what Ajaya says.”

“Right. I said that. You’re a total ass, you know that Berg?”

He gave Walsh a playful shove and Walsh went reeling across the room, laughing his ass off.

“Hey, hey, hey—careful! I think Gibbs bruised a couple of ribs yesterday when he fell on me.” Walsh staggered to his feet and
seemed confused, feeling around his torso with both hands. “That’s funny—they don’t really hurt much anymore.”

Bergen approached Walsh slowly. “Did you tell Ajaya about that?”

Walsh heaved an exaggerated sigh. “It’s nothing. Holloway was more important at the time.” He looked around. They’d wandered down a narrow aisle between the tanks after he’d shoved Walsh. “A door,” Walsh commented blandly. “Let’s open it up and see what’s next door. More of the same, I bet. Lots and lots of the same stuff. Gibbs was right—this is a really weird color. Why would they want every damn thing in this place the same color? Have we seen any other colors since we got here?” Walsh tapped the door control, strode through, and stood there blankly staring into the dark. That was strange. The lights had always come on automatically before, whenever they entered a new room. It gave him a feeling like maybe they weren’t supposed to be there.

Walsh made a funny face, smacking his lips like a stretchy-faced comedian. “My lips are numb.” Walsh’s voice had taken on a deeper timbre.

Something was wrong.

Bergen turned around to look for some kind of motion sensor and recoiled. “Oh, fuck.” His own voice came out sounding strange and deep, but they had bigger problems than that. He grabbed Walsh by the back of his flight suit and turned him around. “Look.”

“Holy mother of God,” Walsh said slowly. His voice sounded low, demonic. “What the hell?”

The only light came through the doorway from the other room. The wall around the door, as far as they could see, was studded with some kind of animal ranging in size from a cucumber to a large dog. In the dim light against the dark wall, it was hard to tell what color they were—maybe grey, maybe purple. They had a wet look to them, iridescent, slimy, and they were moving. Some of the bigger ones moved alarmingly fast. Even so, they didn’t seem te
rribly threatening. Bergen decided to keep his distance nonetheless.

“Big-ass slugs,” Bergen replied in a leaden bass, shaking his head and smiling with disbelief.

He and Walsh exchanged disconcerted expressions. Walsh giggled for a moment, but it sounded low-pitched and distorted. He stifled himself and looked disturbed. “Ok. Let’s go back.”

“Commander Walsh, this is Providence. Come in. Over.” Both men jumped as Ajaya’s voice blared over the radio.

Walsh drew himself up. “This is Walsh. Varma, report. Over.”

“Jane is unconscious again. I cannot wake her. Over.”

“What happened? Over.”

“She started drifting and I realized she was unconscious. Her vitals are normal. Your voice sounds unusual, Commander. Are you all right? Over.”

Walsh was squeezing his eyes closed, concentrating on listening. Why was it so hard to think? Bergen felt like he was falling asleep on his feet, numb and disconnected. They needed to get out of there.

He grabbed Walsh’s arm and headed for the door. Walsh star
ted, as though waking up, but then followed obediently. Bergen lost track of any thought except getting back to the door and through it.

There was a loud, piercing sound and both men stopped in their tracks. It took Bergen almost a minute to recognize the sound. It was Walsh’s oxygen monitor. As soon as he made the connection, his own started alarming as well. The numbers were fluctuating wildly up and down the scale. No wonder he was feeling so ligh
theaded.

He slid the pack from his shoulder and then the compressed-air gear. He fumbled with the valve, but his fingers weren’t working properly. They felt like blocks of wood and weren’t cooperating with his brain.

Bergen looked over at Walsh, expecting to see him doing the same thing. He wasn’t. He was watching the slugs. Bergen could see why. They were moving around a lot faster now. The alarm must be disturbing them.

Walsh seemed to be mesmerized by them. He was walking slowly toward a large one, his hand outstretched. Dammit—he was walking in the opposite direction of the door. Bergen shook his head vigorously to clear it and bounded after Walsh, pulling him back. “Don’t be a goddamn Redshirt, Walsh!” Walsh didn’t reply.

Their oxygen monitors were still alarming, which helped Bergen to remember what he was doing. He went back to fumbling with the compressed air. His hand closed over the valve, finally, and he pulled the mask toward his face. Then, the lights went out.

Walsh stumbled back into him and they both went down in the dark. It wasn’t a soft landing; they both went flailing and cursing. Bergen dropped both his pack and the canister. He scrabbled around for it.

Walsh was grasping at him, alternating between speaking incoherently and laughing maniacally. Bergen fought down panic and froze in place for a moment, concentrating. His thoughts were disjointed…the deep voice. There was something…yesterday….

Why couldn’t he think?

“Commander? Walsh? Bergen? Report. Over.” Ajaya’s voice again and still the monitors beeped.

Walsh’s grasping movements slowed and he went limp, a dead weight, collapsed against Bergen’s side. He was asphyxiating or something. Bergen knew he was next unless he could find that canister. He shoved Walsh’s inert body to the floor and redoubled his efforts, blindly feeling all around them, searching for the cani
ster, the pack, anything.

Walsh. Walsh has a canister too.

Bergen scrambled, adrenaline pumping, to turn Walsh over.
Dammit!
Walsh must have taken the harness off at some point; it wasn’t on his back.

Bergen slumped. He and Walsh were going to die there, in the dark, on an alien spaceship—surrounded by ginormous, freaky, alien space-slugs.

He closed his eyes, giving in to the sleepiness. It was hard to sleep, though, with all the beeping. Someone should really turn that off.

His dozing was interrupted by the sound of Jane’s voice and he roused himself half-heartedly to hear her. Her voice sounded u
rgent. “Walsh, Bergen—this is Jane. Can you hear me?”

“Jane?”
Oh. She’s on the radio.
He grabbed at it, his fingers thick and unresponsive. The little red light came on. He could talk now. “Jane? S’Berg.”

“Dr. Bergen? Are you
…ok?”

He struggled to keep his eyes open. “Lost it.
Both of ‘em. S’dark, Jane.”

“What—what’s happened? What did you lose?”

“Dunno. Air, I think. So sleepy, Jane.”

Beeping.
Lots of beeping.

“Alan, listen to me. Stay awake. You—it—I think it’s a gas. The room you’re in is flooded with some kind of gas. You need to get out of that room!”

Well, he’d thought of that already. “Can’t. Can’t see a damn thing. Can’t see the slugs.” His voice sounded slurred. Was he drunk? How had that happened?

“Ok. Right. That’s the problem, isn’t it?”

“Yup.”

Jane went quiet then.

The alarm still beeped, shrill in his ear. He started to nod off again.

“Alan? There are very tall storage tanks with access ladders nearby, right? Climb one of them. There’ll be less of the gas, if you can get higher. I’m coming to help you, but you have to do some work too.”

What was that beeping sound?

“Jane? What’s going on?”
Compton’s voice. Now they were talking.

Bergen tuned them out and clung to what she’d just said.
A gas. Huh.
He pulled himself upright and stooped down to grab Walsh’s arm. He stuck out his other arm, searching for one of the tanks, and took a step, clumsily dragging Walsh along.

There were going to be slugs on it.
Icky, squishy slugs.

He staggered, dragging Walsh behind him. Something rattled, skittered across the floor nearby. What was that? It seemed i
mportant. He concentrated on the angle the sound had made and dropped to his hands and knees and felt around. Finally, his fingers brushed against something hard and cold and then closed around it.

Air. Oh, holy fuck, it was the air.

It seemed to take forever to get his fingers to close over the mask and bring it to his face, while he braced the tank against his chest and turned the valve with his other hand. He concentrated on inhaling deeply. After just a few moments, a comprehensible picture began to form.

Xenon gas. He’d detected unusual amounts of it in the air the day before. The storage tanks must contain xenon and apparently there was a leak. It was an odorless, tasteless gas. Who knew what the concentration was in there? They were lucky they hadn’t suff
ocated.

The deep voice, the bizarre behavior, the disconnected thoughts.
The effects of xenon were similar to nitrous oxide—laughing gas. He had to share the air with Walsh and he had to get them out of there. But the room was enormous and he had no way of knowing where another door would be.

Bergen took off the mask and pressed it to Walsh’s face, sli
pping the band around Walsh’s head. He put his hand on Walsh’s chest. It seemed like it was rising and falling.

Bergen held his breath as long as he could, then breathed sha
llowly as he systematically searched again for the other canister, or either pack. He was already starting to feel woozy when he located one of the packs. He groped around inside until his hand closed over the shaft of a flashlight. He turned it on and passed the light over Walsh, who was coming around.

“Take deep breaths, Walsh!” he yelled. Then he started chuc
kling. What was so funny, again?
Oh, yeah.
The oxygen monitors were still going off, which helped him remember.

Walsh sat up.

“It’s xenon gas!” Bergen shouted and then giggled helplessly as he waved the light around, looking for the other canister. He couldn’t see it.

Walsh stood up. Good idea. Xenon was the heaviest, non-radioactive gaseous element. They needed to get farther from the floor. Bergen stood up too and swayed, blinking owlishly at Walsh.

“Where’s the other canister?” Walsh demanded, taking off the mask and holding it over Bergen’s face. Bergen took deep breaths, quickly purging the dense gas.

“I don’t know.” He shined the light around them carefully, but the second canister was nowhere to be seen. All it did was illum
inate the number of slugs in the immediate area, which was far too many for Bergen’s comfort.

They weren’t just on the walls. They were covering the sides of the tanks all around them. In fact, one of the largest ones was cu
rrently covering the door controls that led back into the other room. That’s why the light had gone out. Their escape route had just been violated by a turgid, purple blob.