The Face of Earth (11 page)

“We just arrived,” Tresar interrupted, “and haven’t done anything. There’s no need to lock your weapons on us.”

Nanot belatedly realized that the other man on his screen was the famous scientist Tresar Convy. “Ah, so this is where you’ve been. Our spies were surprised and pleased to find you’d finally left your house. Pleased, that is, until they discovered that you had taken everything with you.”

Nanot looked back to Flavoi, who still cradled Karina in his arms. “I see you brought a woman. Still the same old Flavoi.” He chuckled as his eyes raked over Karina’s body, demurely clad in a tasteful jumpsuit she had found in the closet. “Although this one isn’t up to your usual standards. But she has potential.” He laughed raucously.

Karina didn’t understand what the man on the screen was saying, but she understood his tone well enough. She flipped him off and glared at him, hoping that giving the birdie was as offensive in his culture as it was in hers. She was rewarded when Nanot turned blue and sputtered, “The three of you will leave now! You’re lucky we arrived here before you touched anything, or you’d get more than just a warning! You have two minutes to leave!” Nanot’s face disappeared as the screen winked out for a second, to be replaced by the view of the science ship.

Flavoi let go of Karina and exchanged seats with Tresar. He set the controls and looked at his friend. “Ready when you are.”

“Go.” Tresar said.

Karina gasped as the ship moved out of orbit and away from Earth. She grabbed hold of Tresar’s arm at the sudden acceleration, not because she physically felt the movement, but because she expected to feel it. The stars flew past on the viewscreen as their speed increased. Karina’s stomach flipped as her eyes told her that her body should be feeling more than the gentle vibration of the ship’s deck beneath her feet.

Flavoi grinned at Tresar. “We just arrived here,” he mimicked, “and haven’t done anything.” He laughed. “I didn’t know you were such a good liar.” He turned to Karina. “And you. Insulting a man that way is the worst thing you could do. That insult is reserved among women for women. To do that to a man is to emasculate him.” He laughed again.

Karina smiled, unsure of what he said, but sure of the congratulating tone. She relaxed, letting go of Tresar’s arm. She felt safe here.

Tresar looked at Karina thoughtfully. “It’s a good thing she looks Yalsan. Otherwise my lie wouldn’t have worked. It’s about time I taught her the language. We won’t learn anything if we can’t communicate.” Tresar stood up. “We have a lot of time before we reach Yalsa. You take care of the ship, and I’ll take care of our student.” Tresar gestured for Karina to follow him.

“Food?” she asked hopefully.

Tresar laughed. “I think she’ll be an apt pupil.” Flavoi nodded his head in agreement and chuckled as the other two left the bridge.

Tresar led Karina to the refectory and sat her at one of the tables. She waited patiently as he went to get her some food. He brought a full tray, not knowing how much she’d need to eat. He had brought enough for himself as well, and they sat and ate in companionable silence.

Tresar couldn’t deny how attractive he found Karina. He wondered if they were biologically compatible. She looked up at him as she felt his stare, and her blue eyes mesmerized him. He cleared his throat nervously and glanced away. Karina chuckled, and he looked back at her wryly. At that, she laughed outright. He grinned at her, feeling foolish for feeling embarrassed. He pointed to one of his eyes.

“Eye,” he said.

Karina stopped eating, interested. “Eye,” Karina mimicked, and pointed to one of her own.

“Good,” Tresar said, impressed with her level of intelligence.

“Good?” she questioned, confused by the word.

“Yes,” he said, nodding.

“Yes,” she repeated, nodding back.

“Nose,” he said, touching the tip of his finger to the tip of his nose.

Karina became impatient with the slowness of the lesson. “Eye,” she said, touching his face near his eye. “Nose,” she said, touching his nose with her fingertip. She touched his lips and raised a questioning eyebrow. His lips tingled with her touch and he lost his voice for a moment. She repeated the sequence, faster this time, impatience in her voice. “Eye. Nose.”

“Mouth,” he said, finding his voice.

“Mouth,” she repeated. “Eye. Nose. Mouth,” she said, touching each part of his face. She lifted his hair with her fingers.

“Hair,” he croaked nervously. This was the most he had been touched by a woman in a very long time.

“Eye, nose, mouth, hair.” Karina punctuated each word by touching each part as she spoke it. Then she moved on to another body part.

“Hand,” Tresar said, as Karina lifted up his hand.

“Hand,” Karina repeated, and then repeated the whole sequence again, beginning with his eye. Tresar wondered how in-depth Karina was going to go into this anatomy lesson, and how he was going to survive it without making a fool of himself.

“Finger,” he squeaked, as she held up his finger.

“Finger. Eye, nose, mouth, hair, hand, finger.”

Karina was amused by how nervous she was making Tresar, but she didn’t have time to worry about the social niceties. She had to learn the alien language as quickly as possible, since it was necessary to her survival. And the first step was to build a vocabulary.

“Arm,” Tresar’s voice cracked, and Karina hid a smile.

“Arm. Eye, nose, mouth, hair, hand, finger, arm.” Karina matched word with part, making Tresar squirm. She sat back and resumed eating to give him time to recover. He seemed grateful for the break, and gulped down a glass of water. Karina decided to continue the anatomy lesson later, to give Tresar time to steel himself against her touch. She pointed to the table.

“Table,” he told her, relieved that they had moved on to inanimate objects.

“Table,” Karina repeated, with a sly smile.

CHAPTER 8

Nanot ordered his crew to scan the alien planet for any anomalous readings. After several hours of searching, they discovered some faint life readings coming from the edge of a large frozen landmass north of the equator. He informed Lantor Mannon, the lead expedition scientist.

“Is there anywhere near there you can set down, Captain Niella?” Lantor asked.

“The ruins are full of debris. The best I can do is to set down on that ice plateau above them. We can take a skiff down from there.” Nanot looked forward to leaving the ship to explore. As captain of a large vessel, he rarely had the opportunity to enjoy speeding over the ground in an open skiff. He preferred the maneuverability and sensation of movement that a skiff provided over the stability and reliability of a starship.

“Very well, Captain. Take us down.” Lantor stood behind the pilot, hand on the back of her chair, waiting for the captain to repeat his order. It irked him that the crew never responded to his orders without Nanot’s say so.

“Take us down slowly, Mayla.” Nanot told the pilot.

“Yes, Captain.” Mayla steered the large ship down carefully.

As they approached the plateau, Nanot could see that it was an enormous glacier. He squinted his eyes at the disturbed snow on the section of the glacier where he had determined would be the best place to land. Its pattern of disturbance seemed vaguely familiar. He sucked in his breath as he suddenly realized why. “Lantor!”

Lantor had been viewing the steady stream of readings on the science console, but he looked up at the note of alarm in Nanot’s voice. “What is it?” he asked.

Nanot pointed at the disturbed snow on the glacier. “That pattern can only be formed by a starship landing there. Tresar was on the planet!”

Lantor narrowed his eyes at the viewscreen. “Set us down, Captain. We’ll see if Tresar has taken any artifacts from this site.”

They landed and headed to the cargo bay where they kept the skiffs. The two assistant scientists, Trenor Solvy and Halen Walor, were already there, suiting up to exit the ship. Nanot and Lantor joined them, and once everyone was ready, they boarded the skiff and entered the air lock. When they opened the outer door, a stiff, cold wind greeted them, blasting against the skiff’s windscreen.

Nanot guided the skiff out of the cargo bay and steered it down the glacier. He headed in the direction of the life readings, skimming over the debris-clogged streets. They soon arrived at a large metal building torn in numerous places. The jagged metal bled rust at the edges. Nanot surmised that at some point after the catastrophe that killed this planet, oxygen levels must have remained high enough to cause oxidation. He wondered how long the inhabitants had been able to survive. He lowered the skiff to the ground up against the building wall. It barely fit in the small clear space.

Lantor exited the skiff and climbed through a tear in the wall. The thick dust on the floor showed footprints clearly. He frowned with irritation, knowing that Tresar and Flavoi had been here first. He and the rest of the men followed the trail through a door and down a dark spiraling hallway. They entered a room filled with cryogenic pods. The disturbed dust in this room showed that Tresar and Flavoi had been to every one of the pods. Lantor removed a scanning device from his pocket and began checking each pod. Trenor looked over the control console and Halen inspected the hoses that radiated out from the console to the pods.

Lantor looked into the nearest pod. The dust had been wiped away already, by Tresar or Flavoi, and he could see the occupant of the pod clearly. He called Nanot over. “Look at this. He looks just like us.”

“I see that. What do you want to do with him?”

“I want to revive him and ask him what happened here,” Lantor replied.

Nanot looked around the room at the pods and their intertwined connections. He didn’t see a way to separate any of them from each other or this room. He looked back to Lantor. “Okay. How do you propose to do that?”

“Go back to the ship and get an isolation capsule from the med bay.” Lantor scanned the alien as he spoke. “Also, bring a cyrellian tonic with you. Waking him won’t do any good unless we cure him as well. The disease isn’t advanced, but we should cure it as soon as possible to avoid problems later.”

Nanot eyed Lantor’s back disrespectfully. Who did he think he was, ordering the captain around? He hated the job of chauffeuring the scientists everywhere, and now he was a lackey for them as well? “Wouldn’t that job be better suited for one of your assistants?” he asked.

Lantor didn’t even look up from his inspection of the pod as he answered. “I need them to finish examining the system so we’ll know how to revive the alien by the time you get back.”

“Right,” Nanot said, holding his irritation in check. He left the building to carry out Lantor’s orders.

Lantor continued scanning the pods. He made his way around the room, stopping when he came to an alcove in the back. There was an imprint of clean flooring where something large had sat. He scanned the area, but couldn’t determine what it might have been. The two other scientists joined him, having finished their analysis of the cryonic system, and Trenor knelt down and ran his finger along a newly formed groove in the metal floor.

“Something heavy was moved from here recently,” he said.

Lantor nodded. “Tresar took something.” He paused, thinking. “We’ll worry about that later. What do you have to report about the cryonic system in this room?”

“It’s still functional, and integrated completely into this room. The aliens can be revived, but only here. We can’t remove any of the pods without compromising the system.”

“Very well. Go outside and wait for Captain Niella to return with the isolation capsule, and help him bring it down here.”

Lantor went back to the first pod he had inspected. He examined it thoroughly to determine how to proceed with the defrostation sequence. He couldn’t read the alien language, but there was something oddly familiar about the design. He moved to the console and inspected that. The nagging sense of familiarity increased as he ran his hands over the controls. The captain and the two assistant scientists reentered the room, carrying the isolation capsule with them. The scientists went to set it up around the first pod. Nanot had thought to bring an extra suit for the alien, should his reanimation prove successful. He joined Lantor at the console.

“Figure it out yet?” he asked.

“You’re familiar with Bitowan technology, correct?” Lantor asked Nanot.

Nanot was puzzled by the question. “Yes. The military captured several Bitowan ships during the wars.”

“Ignore the alien writing and look at these controls from a Bitowan perspective.”

Nanot inspected the console. It looked almost exactly like the cryonic technology they had found on an abandoned Bitowan deep space ship. He looked back up at Lantor, shocked. “How could that be? The Bitowans don’t share their technology, and this species doesn’t appear to have ever left their system.”

Lantor shrugged. “I don’t know. Let’s wake up one of the aliens. Maybe he can tell us. Can you figure out how to work these controls?”

“If it’s consistent with Bitowan cryonic technology, then yes, I can.” Nanot cracked his knuckles and got to work preparing for the defrostation sequence. He was secretly pleased that he knew more about the cryonic system than the scientists.

Lantor nodded and moved over to the now enclosed isolation capsule. Trenor was inside with the pod while Halen checked the seals on the outside. Satisfied that they were intact, he turned a dial on the capsule to release some oxygen into its atmosphere. He turned another dial to heat the air inside. Trenor removed his helmet and nodded to Lantor. Lantor turned to Nanot, who waited at the console.

“Begin,” he said.

Nanot worked the controls as if he were in the cryonic room on a Bitowan ship. The sequence began, and the pod lit up as it processed the commands from the console. Lantor and Halen crowded around the isolation capsule, peering in and trying to get a good look at the defrostation sequence.

The lid cracked opened with a pop, and Nanot heard it echo around the room. He left the console and moved to the other side of the isolation capsule to get a better view. The pod’s lid slowly opened to reveal a middle-aged man. He began to breathe. His color improved as the sequence continued.

Nanot jumped at the sound of a creak from behind him. The sound came from the lid of another pod opening. A third pod next to it opened as well. “Lantor!” he shouted, “Something’s wrong with the sequence! There are two other pods opening! Those men will die in this frigid atmosphere!”

Lantor looked up and saw the two men in the pods breathing in the nitrogen rich air. “Don’t worry, Captain. They won’t freeze to death. They’ll die of asphyxiation first.”

Nanot turned to Lantor. “Don’t you care?”

“Sure, but there’s nothing we can do now. We can’t stop the sequence, and so we can’t close the lids.” He pointed at the men, who were no longer breathing. “See? A few short breaths and it’s over. They probably never even noticed.” Lantor turned his attention back to the events occurring in the isolation capsule without a second thought for the two men who had just died.

Nanot stared in wonder at Lantor. It was strange to him not to be bothered when you were the cause of someone else’s death. He himself had killed many people. You had to, in war. But every death left another scar on his conscience. He began to wonder if scientists had consciences. The other scientists had given only a perfunctory glance at the two dead men before returning their attention back to the first pod. Nanot looked at the faces of the dead aliens. They didn’t look much different from when they were cryogenically frozen, but Nanot knew they were empty shells now. They may not have noticed their own deaths, but Nanot knew that this wasn’t what they had in mind for their future. It seemed a waste of effort to preserve your life for so many years only to have it end before you were even aware of your revival. He stared at the men a moment longer before turning back to the alien who would survive.

The man inside the pod was awake now. He sat up slowly and with great effort. He looked at the men surrounding him and began to speak gibberish. “What year is it?” He looked at the isolation capsule and the men in space suits outside it. “What happened here?” He looked around the room, noticing the collapsed ceiling. “Are we at war?” He regained the use of his body and began climbing out of the pod. Trenor helped him, and then held the cyrellian tonic up to his mouth for him to drink. The man drank it without question, and then let Trenor help him get into the suit they had brought for him. Trenor fastened their helmets and then helped Halen disassemble the isolation capsule. The alien continued spouting gibberish until he saw the other two opened pods. He let out a cry and ran over to them, checking the dead men for pulses.

“Can you understand a word he’s saying?” Nanot asked Lantor.

Lantor shook his head. “Not one.”

“Then how are we supposed to get information out of him?”

Lantor looked disappointed. “For now, we don’t. We’ll have to learn his language or teach him ours. It’ll be awhile before we discover what happened here.”

The alien closed the lid on each pod and made a strange sign across his chest as he did so. He walked around the room, checking the other pods. He paused at the last pod on the right, briefly touching the lid and smiling at the occupant. He walked back to his rescuers. “I don’t know if you worked the controls wrong or if there was a malfunction at the computer console.” He paused, staring at the faces of the dead men. “I mourn my friends,” he continued, “but I’m glad I survived. Thank you for waking me.” He looked at the Yalsans, awaiting a reply.

Lantor stepped forward with open arms, palms up, the universal sign for nonaggression. The alien looked at him oddly. Lantor spoke. “You and I don’t share the same language, friend. You’ll just have to trust that we won’t harm you.”

The alien looked surprised to hear words that he couldn’t understand, but it was obvious to him that these people meant him no harm. “Well,” he said, as he looked at the destruction around him, “I don’t see that I have any other choice but to go with you.” He gestured to the exit, making motions that he would go with them.