Resurrection (13 page)

Nate sighed, twisting in his ropes. “Several factors. They would want to verify that the technology works, of course. That would come first. Then they would want to know that it will give them something others don’t have. If several countries are interested, that would increase the value, just as it would in any bargaining—a little water, please!” The words seemed ripped out of him. His throat was burning. He swallowed convulsively.

“No, not yet.”

Nate shut his eyes as a wave of nausea and pain washed over him. He would try to tell this man whatever he could. Anything to be untied and have a glass of water. “Of course, you should be careful,” he explained. “If you reveal what your technology is, there’s always the chance that they will be able to duplicate it on their own.”

“That won’t be a problem in this case,” the Mechanic said. “Even if they know this technology exists, it would take several centuries to approximate it—if ever.”

Nate’s heart sank. He should have been intrigued by this revelation, but all he could think was that he was in far over his head. This man was an unknown quantity. Possibly not even from Earth. Could that be? Could he be alien? A day ago, an hour ago, Nate would have scoffed at such a suggestion, but now? The translator at his jaw, the skin, the injection—all things Nate had never encountered before. And here he was, caught in this man’s web.

He pushed this from his mind. All that mattered was their present conversation. He must make himself useful to this man and then maybe he would get something to drink. “Will you tell me what this technology is specifically?” he asked. “Why it’s so valuable? Perhaps I can help you strategize.”

The Mechanic was filling the syringe again. “I will tell you soon,” he replied, leaning forward with the needle.

Nate began to struggle. “What is that? Please don’t!”

“Jean-Claude!” the Mechanic called. Jean-Claude moved forward and used his big arms to hold Nate in place. Somewhere in his mind, Jean-Claude perhaps felt the horror of what he was doing. He was making another slave for the Mechanic. But he was caught in the wonderful grip of his antidote, and he would not let such thoughts bother him.

“No!” Nate yelled as the needle pierced his throat. He tried to kick the Mechanic, but his legs weren’t working properly now. The pain was great, and it was becoming greater. He felt the energy draining from his muscles, and a terrible craving invaded him.

Adaiz-Ari bent over the stream and brought up a handful of water. He could see the reflection of his face, copper-colored skin, and reddish hair. He had cut off his two long queues, and now all his hair was cropped close to the scalp. He doused his head, then dipped and doused again. He ran wet hands over his face and stood up.

His chest was bare, and he wore loose trousers that tied at his waist. On his feet were simple sandals with foam and rubber soles. This was the typical outfit of a Lucien civilian. Nearby was the loose, hooded robe he wore over his clothes. His body was beginning to recover from the deprivations of the ship.

They were taking a brief rest in a small depression between two low hills. There were sparse trees here and grazing antelope that fed on the short grass. In the trees were dozens of small monkeys that chattered incessantly to each other.

Enon-Amet was also kneeling at the stream. His silver hands lifted the water and poured it over the top of his head. Then his head and neck twisted in a quick motion, allowing the water to spill evenly in all directions. The movement reminded Adaiz of a bird, and he envied Enon for its fluidity.

Enon stretched his long arms, then stood up from the water, reveling in the sun on his bare chest. His skin was regaining some of its silver reflectiveness and was beginning to fill out over the articulated sheaf of bone that extended from his waist to his shoulders and made him, like all Lucien, difficult to wound. This sheaf was crowned by a high collar bone that protruded upward several inches in a distinctive wide ring. A Lucien could lay his head down along one shoulder within the protection of this collar.

Enon had also been wearing a full-body hooded robe since landing on Earth, to cover his alien shape from human eyes. At the moment, however, they were concealed in the depression where they stood, and it was safe to be robeless for a little while. They had, in fact, encountered no humans yet.

“Here,” Adaiz said to his brother, holding out a canteen of water that he had treated to make potable. The canteen had a nozzle to fit the Lucien mouth.

Enon took the canteen and drank several gulps of it. “So good,” he sighed. “I had almost forgotten what a difference freshness makes.”

“This rivals the freshest water on Galea,” Adaiz said, “or perhaps it is simply my human taste buds.”

“No, it is wonderful.”

They spoke Avani to each other, but Adaiz had prepared for this part of their mission by learning English, the most widely used of Earth languages. He had become fluent while still on the ship, during the months when they were orbiting Saturn, watching Pruit’s ship as it orbited Jupiter. How easy human languages were for him after speaking a language designed for other mouths! His Lucien brother had learned some rudimentary phrases in English, but Enon found the speech quite difficult.

A monkey screeched nearby, his voice rising above the general cacophony of his cohorts. Adaiz and Enon turned to watch the creature’s incoherent diatribe as he swung about the tree. Enon flexed his antlers in the Lucien equivalent of a smile. There was wildlife in fascinating abundance here.

Lucien had little truck with animals in the current incarnation of their society. There were only a few tame species that lived as pets, and of course, fish in their growth tanks. It had not always been so. In the ancient times, when the Lucien still lived on their home planet Rheat, there had been oceans and forests and wildlife, and a Lucien population reaching into the billions.

Then had come the Plague, the ancient war with the Kinley. Though the Lucien had rained bombs down upon those Kinley humans, and had admittedly been the first to strike, the humans had not retaliated in kind. Instead, they had devised a biological weapon against which the Lucien had no defense. They had released a plague upon Rheat, and it had, within a matter of weeks, killed every man, woman, and child upon the planet. None had survived. Only the few Lucien living in their asteroid colonies had escaped death, and the Kinley had ever afterward been known as Plaguers.

But Adaiz would not dwell on thoughts of those times. His mission was here and now and, when successful, would prevent such devastation from ever recurring.

“Elder Brother, shall we have an Opening?” Adaiz asked.

“Yes,” Enon replied, cocking his head to one side in agreement. “It will be good to relax our minds that they may better absorb this environment.”

The two of them sat down facing each other, their legs crossed in front of them.

They began with three deep breaths. Though Adaiz was the younger brother, he had passed Enon in understanding and application of the Katalla-Oman, the book of self-knowledge, and Enon now respectfully deferred to him in matters of meditation. As they began their breathing, Enon was following Adaiz’s lead. When they expelled their third breath, they allowed their eyes to float closed.

“First is awareness of body,” Adaiz said softly.

They relaxed themselves by feeling every muscle. Slowly, as Adaiz became aware his muscles, they released their hidden energy and became neutral. He could sense his organs and his skin; he could feel his whole body.

“I am aware of it,” Enon whispered, echoing Adaiz’s own mind.

“Very good. Second is awareness of environment,” Adaiz intoned quietly.

Adaiz let his awareness travel beyond his skin, beyond his body. He perceived the grass beneath him and felt a slight breeze on his forehead. Being in open air on a planet was an awe-inspiring experience. The blue of the sky seemed to go on forever, and the horizon appeared to him impossibly far away.

Adaiz reached out for Enon’s mind. When he touched it, instead of peaceful relaxation, he could feel the thoughts churning in his brother’s head.

“Older Brother,” Adaiz said softly, “your mind is loud.”

“Yes,” Enon whispered, “you are right. It is difficult today, in this new place.”

“For me also. Shall we try again?”

“Yes.”

Adaiz started the ritual over, and this time, as he expanded his awareness, he felt his mind floating through the past hours of their journey. They had landed on Earth the night before, hiding their small shuttle ship in the lush cloud forest to the north. They had been working their way south ever since, out of the forest and into gentle hills at the edge of wide grasslands. Adaiz found himself both dreading and longing for his first encounter with the native humans, though he could not understand this emotion. After all, he was Lucien, and there was no reason to believe he would feel anything special for the foreign creatures who made this world their home.

Adaiz caught himself. His own mind was becoming loud. He dissolved these contemplations and concentrated, instead, on perception of the world around him. His body sat on grass, his face was brushed by a breeze, there were scents of water and animals and vegetation in the air. Slowly, he knew these things, he felt these things, he became these things.

Ten minutes later, when they surfaced and became aware of their bodies again, Adaiz felt powerful and relaxed. His mind was his to control.

In predawn of the following day, they came up over a long, low rise and saw, nestled in a clearing between bushes and trees, the object of their search. Enon, whose eyesight was somewhat better than Adaiz’s, spotted it first. The sky was still dark. Only the east was yet light, but when Adaiz squinted his eyes, he could see the Plaguer pod, a dark-brown shape that was too regular in this wild land.

The two of them worked their way toward the landing site as the sky grew lighter. In half an hour they were approaching the pod across its clearing. From this proximity, Adaiz saw that it had been a very hard landing, indeed.

The pod appeared to have skidded before settling. There were several long grooves where it had torn away vegetation. The bottom, spherical half of the ship had dug itself three feet into the soil. The top, cylindrical half pointed out from the ship at an awkward angle.

They signaled to each other, and each of them pulled his hood up over his head and checked to ensure his weapons were ready. Adaiz approached first. As he neared, he was hit by the smell of the ship. It was a sickly chemical burning, which he guessed must be coming from the propulsion system. Even three days after landing, the odor was acrid and strong.

He reached the pod and glanced around it. He could see no one. He touched the outer skin of the sphere and felt that it was tough and slightly warm, almost…alive. The Lucien were aware that the Plaguers’ technology was heavily based in biology. It seemed biology extended even to the outer layer of their ships. Near the upper cylinder, where there had clearly been an explosion, the skin was scarred and scabbed like real skin would be, and in many places he could see that it had attempted to regrow.

He located the hatchway, which stood ajar, and gestured to Enon that he was going to look inside. Enon tilted his head in assent.

Adaiz peered into the pod. The controls had all gone dead. The interior was hot, too hot for human comfort. There was no one in the sphere. He pulled himself in and glanced up into the cylinder, where the air was even warmer. It too was empty. He quickly dropped back down and out, already sweating.

He found the human occupant of the pod outside, lying close up against the craft, in the shadow of the cylinder, which hung above the man’s body at a thirty-degree angle from the ground. In this early light, it was almost impossible to make him out. All Adaiz could tell was that the figure was human.

“Come,” Adaiz said quietly to his brother.

Enon joined him, and together, they peered down at the crumpled shape.

“Is it alive?” his brother asked.

“I don’t know,” Adaiz said. He removed his robe and got down on hands and knees in his trousers. He crawled up to the man, feeling the heat radiating from the cylidner. The man’s back was to him, with his stomach hugging the skin of the pod. He was not moving. He appeared badly wounded and was tangled in a suit of red clothing. Adaiz pulled gently on the man’s undershirt and rolled him onto his back.

Something was odd about his shape, but the man still lay in shadows and was difficult to see. He seemed fairly small.

“He’s breathing,” Adaiz said softly. The man’s chest was moving, but shallowly. He put a hand to his neck and felt a faint pulse. The skin was cold and moist, as though he’d been through a fever and his body was now running at a subnormal temperature.

The red fullsuit was over the man’s legs and half tucked under his body. Adaiz took hold of it and pulled the man out of the shadow and into the blue light of dawn.

He could see him clearly then. And in a surprised flash of understanding, Adaiz realized that it was not a man at all. It was a woman. The knowledge was shocking somehow. It was a girl. Not him, but her. She.

“It’s a woman,” Adaiz said slowly.

“Interesting. I’ve never seen one.”

“Neither have I.”

Indeed, she was the first human woman Adaiz had ever seen in person. The few humans who had been bred by the Lucien were all male, for the male gender was slightly less prone to infection and disease, and the Lucien had not wished to breed both sexes. He had seen pictures of women in books of anatomy, but never in the flesh. Looking at Pruit, Adaiz noticed immediately the differences in her appearance, differences he had not imagined from looking at mere pictures. Her coloring was just like his, but her build was slighter, more curved, more delicate.

His eyes moved to her hands and legs. Her ankles were in the suit, but above the suit line her legs had blisters and dark singes of black. Her hands were also purple with burns. One of her ankles looked broken.

“Omani’s Heart,” he breathed, “that was a rough landing.”

Enon studied her with him, but his eyes could not as easily discern the magnitude of her wounds. “Do you think she will heal?” he asked.

Adaiz knelt and studied the red suit. Its surface was very tough and finely woven. It was thick and quite heavy, and he could feel unknown mechanisms within it.

“I’m not well enough trained in human physiology to answer that,” he said. “But I think her suit is intended to repair her. I’ll try to attach it to her properly.”

“Mark her first.”

Adaiz tilted his head in agreement. Marking her was needed, for they wished to follow this woman, if she recovered, and find the technology she sought. He withdrew a small marker from his pack and gently eased Pruit onto her side. He pulled up her shirt and ran a hand along her spine. It was different, he noticed, from his own. The arch was more pronounced, and her waist curved down into it. Her lines were nicer than his, he thought.

He placed the marker tab against her mid-back and jiggled it. He felt the tiny metal mole within the tab release and slide under her skin. Then he studied her back. The marker made a tiny additional bump along one of her vertebrae, almost unnoticeable.

“I’d prefer two for safety,” he said.

“It seems sensible,” Enon replied.

Adaiz marked her again, lower on her back. His placing of the second mole was better. Only his knowledge that it was there allowed him to see its location.

“While you tend to her, I want to examine the pod,” Enon said. Adaiz could tell the girl was of little interest to his brother.

“All right,” he replied.

Enon moved off, leaving Adaiz alone with her. He rolled her onto her back again and sat looking at her for several moments. Her face was covered with bruises, but despite them, he was intrigued by her features. They were gentler and narrower than his own and, he thought, more pleasing to the eye.

He found that he wanted very much to touch her, to let his hands run over her body. Even now, he felt himself reaching for her. It was something about the difference between her and him. The difference made him long to bridge the gap and be close to her.

He stopped himself and studied these feelings. They were urges of his own body, he quickly realized.
Is this what humans feel?
he wondered. He did not like the sensation of being at the mercy of his flesh.

He brought his attention back to the work at hand. She was hurt and would die without his help. He busied himself untangling the red suit and pulling it up flat beneath her. His chest came into contact with hers as he did so, and he was surprised by the electric sensation this produced in his own body. He looked down at her breasts beneath her shirt. In his studies of human anatomy, he had wondered many times about breasts. They seemed unwieldy features, but now that he saw them up close, he realized how well they complemented the female form. Gently, he lifted up her shirt and looked at them more closely. They were each about the size of a fruit that could fit neatly into his cupped hand. Her copper skin was lighter beneath her shirt, and her breasts were light tan. The nipples were much darker, a reddish brown. They were beautiful somehow.