The Visitor (22 page)

“
You don’t have to do that, aunty...”
 

“
No, nobody’s making me. I just want to spend the night with you two.”
 

“
So you saw the video?”
 

“
Yes.”
 

“
Did you see how much he loved her?”
 

“
Yes. That's why I'm here with you. I left my phone with your mother so she can look as your video too. I think it's going to...”
 

She was interrupted by the arrival of Akkal who has gripping the cage’s bars with four hands to yell:

“
She's alive! Akkaliza, she's alive! Your Sneaky’s bov is alive! They resuscitated her!”
 

T = 35,172.

The Visitor was only five meters from Adventure.

Kkarms, the shuttle captain, was looking at Kkagaryne through the viewports with envy and jealousy. Imbued with the feeling that the moment was historic, he would have given everything to change places with him. Kkagaryne, responsible for bringing the Visitor back into the cargo bay, was performing a spacewalk. His suit was attached at the back to the end of the shuttle arm and he was maneuvering himself using a control box strapped to his lower left forearm. Toggling it with care, he was slowly approaching the mysterious craft, under the eyes of Kkarms and the ground team. Aware that now he had only to stretch an arm to touch the thing that had come from elsewhere, he was inhabited by exalted feelings.

With a slightly cursor movement, he advanced still a little bit more to be able to grasp the extraterumastrial machine. Both cameras, located above his visor, allowed a part of the ground team and Kkarms to see what he was watching in stereo.

“This is
Kkagaryne. Okay! I'm there,” he said. “At first glance, it seems to me that I can start by touching the edge of the antenna dish. That part seems sufficiently rigid to withstand a slight pull without deformation. There are rectangular plates on the back... What’s that?... Mystery!
”

“This is
Ekklamisa. Kkagaryne, look in the direction of each three masts, if you please.”
 

Kkagaryne did so. Behind the dish, which was almost three meters in diameter, three masts protruded radially, all at one hundred twenty degrees from one another. One was very thin, a simple cylinder no thicker than a finger and some four meters long. The other two were shorter and a little bigger.

Kkagaryne began by showing the smaller one, lingering on the small device it held at its end.

“This is Ekklamisa. This one seems very fragile. Kkagaryne, please show us the other two.”

Kkagaryne turned to one of them without comment. At first glance, they were identical and were carrying the same devices. The latter were ten times larger than the device located at the end of the longest and thinnest mast.

“
This is Ekklamisa. Kkagaryne, show us the other one.”
 

Kkagaryne complied. Just in front of him, the edge of the parabolic antenna fascinated him. Once more, he tried to imagine the creatures that had made this machine. Were they umanoids?... Or had they ten arms?... Or the flexible stalks like octopuses?... He rethought of the extraterumastrial representations in the comic books of his adolescence that, making him dream, participated to guide the choice of his profession today. Thus, he said to himself, one should never lose his childhood dreams...

“T
his is Ekklamisa, Kkagaryne, you’re still alive?”
 

The astronaut was startled out of his musings:

“
This is Kkagaryne, go ahead.”
 

“
This is Ekklamisa. I’m asking you if you could with extreme caution stroke the edge of the parabola with your fingertips. You are allowed to apply a maximum pressure of only one nanogram!”
 

Of course, nanogram was just in jest However, it gave a measure for the appropriate precautions to be taken to handle this fascinating object from so far away.

“
This is Kkagaryne. Understood. I’ll do it.”
 

Everyone saw his hand approaching the antenna slowly. Floating inside the cockpit, Kkarms followed the event, alternately through the viewport and on his screen.

“
Lucky guy!” he whispered in their private channel.
 

When his finger was no more than half a centimeter away from the Visitor, Kkagaryne felt his heart beat faster and his throat knot. His years of study and training were justified. A slight pressure at his fingertip made known to him that he had touched the thing. Of course, strictly speaking, it wasn't really a physical contact; the thickness of his glove still separating him from it. However, subjectively, it was so awesome!

“
This is the medic. Kkagaryne, permission granted to breathe. In fact, it’s our recommendation.”
 

Kkagaryne brutally came out of his apnea just as his lungs were screaming their need for oxygen. He didn’t know for how long he forgot to ventilate them, but, for half a second, he was annoyed to feel monitored this way by the medical team who were watching what his combination sensors had spied. He ignored them and said:

“
This is Kkagaryne. I touched it.”
 

“
This is Ekklamisa, Kkagaryne, your impressions?”
 

“
This is Kkagaryne. It looks solid enough to be grasped by the clamp.”
 

“
This is Ekklamisa. Kkagaryne, permission granted to grasp it. Take as much time as you need.”
 

“
This is Kkagaryne. Understood, I’ll proceed to the grasping.”
 

Kkagaryne prepared himself to perform the gesture that he had repeatedly rehearsed in the pool. He slowly approached the open clamp, and closed it onto the edge of the dish. Its low torque and soft plastic lining pincers were designed to cause the least damage possible. To limit risks as much as possible, it was decided not bring the Visitor down to Teruma. It was more prudent to study it, at least initially, in weightless conditions. Chances were that some elements could be damaged by gravity. The gravity field in which this machine was designed was unknown. It could be from a very small world. Or, it could have been assembled in orbit even. Kkagaryne’s mission was to transfer the thing into the shuttle cargo bay that would be then pressurized to facilitate its study.

“
This is Kkagaryne. The Visitor has been grasped. There’s nothing more to do but bring it home.”
 

“
This is Ekklamisa. Kkagaryne, permission granted to proceed. As agreed, a centimeter per second. No more!”
 

Kkagaryne confirmed her statement and agreed. Adventure’s arm began to contract, bringing the Visitor into the cargo bay at a speed of 60 centimeters per minute.

*

Early morning, in an Animal Comfort veterinary clinic room.

“
Yes, we confirm that we managed to restart her heart,”said Ikkillu.
 

“
When will she regain consciousness?” asked Akkaliza.
 

“
I don't know... in a quarter of an hour, half an hour... maybe a little more.”
 

The bov was on a treatment table. She was lying on her back. Her four limbs were secured with straps holding them away forming an X. A muzzle hid her mouth.

“
Does she risk suffering?”
 

Ikkillu’s crest movement could be translated as marking uncertainty and slight surprise to its lack of significance:

“
Maybe... We don't know much about what bovs can feel. They must be very tolerant of pain, I think... But hey…”
 

“
Please, can you do what you can to minimize any risk of suffering”
 

Ikkillu turned her gaze to Akkal. He made her understand that he agreed with his daughter.

“
I'll get what it takes to give her an injection,” said the head veterinarian.
 

She left the room. Kklibab, the young surgeon who was there and who was watching Akkal the way one looked at a rich eccentric ready to spend a fortune to save the life of an animal that others eat, made a slightly embarrassed smile with his crest and said:

“
We were able to extract two buckshot balls from its neck, but...”
 

“
But what?” asked Akkaliza.
 

“
But, I can’t hide the fact that the animal won't be able to frolic right away. Other than that, it also had a few small injuries to its mouth; we’ve sutured them.”
 

“
Thank you,” said Akkaliza. “She must have hurt herself when falling.”
 

She held out her four arms towards the straps and added:

“
Is it really necessary to tie her up like that?”
 

“
They’re per safety rules. We want to avoid scratches and bites.”
 

“
I understand! But can't you loosen the straps a little? She's almost quartered, there!”
 

“
That’s true,” said Akkal in support.
 

The surgeon ogled the bandage on Akkaliza’s left lower arm:

“
I hope that it’s not this one that did that to you!”
 

“
No!” she answered, indignant. “It was an accident that has nothing to do with her.”
 

Her father lowered his crest.

Kklibab slightly loosened the straps. There was a silence after which curiosity prompted him to ask:

“
Is it tame?”
 

"No," replied Akkaliza. “She was free and a bov in love!”

In love?
marveled to himself the surgeon, reading a corroboration of this information in the expression of the father.
What are we going to hear next!
He insisted despite himself by giving him an interrogative look.
 

“
I’m not the best person to explain something that I came to understand only a few hours ago,” confessed Akkal accented with sincere emotion which made him vibrate his beak.
 

Proof that one can be totally crazy and rich,
concluded Kklibab.

Ikkillu walked back in. She held a cardboard box where she retrieved a syringe and set the dose to inject by turning a dial. After pocketing the empty box, she approached the treatment table on which the reanimated bov was resting. Using cotton wool soaked with an antiseptic, she disinfected an area on the arm and made the injection.

“
Oh! She’s waking up,” she said.
 

*

A throbbing pain extracted Mahisa from unconsciousness. She saw a white surface. Fairly quickly, she became aware that she was lying on her back and that this white surface was above her. On all sides of her field of vision, it was white also. That was the top of the four walls of the room she was in, but she couldn't know. She wanted to turn her head to find out what was surrounding her, but at her extreme surprise, she couldn't. Not that her head was held still by some device making it prisoner, but simply because her will to move it remained without effect.

She associated this frightening inability to pain radiating from her neck, but little by little it became less painful. Her mind began to drift into a kind of plush softness. She thought of Etos. Memories of him started to return to her. One that saw him locked up behind standing branches, very smooth and very hard. One of his arms passing between these funny things to hug her with passion and tenderness. The one of hearing him beg for her to go quickly to hide. Then she also remembered the terrible lightning from the thing that bangs and kills.

Again, she wanted to look around her, but her head still refused to turn. As everyone would have done in her place, she tried rotating her body, but it remained inert. No matter what she wished to move, no matter the will power she put into it, no part of her moved or nor even quivered. To aggravate the already critical situation, she only just noticed that she was in
the middle of lightning slayer screeches. She heard them all around her.
 

*

“
She's scared,” said Akkaliza. “She's terrified. Still... Oh! It's horrible! It's horrible!”
 

“
What is it?” inquired Akkal, alert to the slightest annoyance of his daughter.
 

Ikkillu and the surgeon were looking at her.

“
She’s paralysed,” she cried. “That's for sure! See her eyes as they express terror and yet she doesn’t make the smallest movement! If she had the use of her body, she would pull on the straps to try to escape.”
 

*

Adventure’s arm continued to reduce the distance between the Visitor and the cargo bay, but its movement had been slowed down. The machine that had come from the mysterious far reaches of space was approaching at five millimeters per second. Kkagaryne reduced this speed further, going to three millimeters per second. He knew that they were counting on him. The slightest shock against a shuttle part could cause damage. The words '
The Visitor hasn’t travelled millions of years to get slaughtered by us!'
repeated endlessly by Ekklamisa echoed in his mind as if they were the only ones he had heard during his lifetime. Every  ground crew eye could see, from the multiple points of view offered by the cameras attached all over the shuttle, how things were going. At last, the Visitor arrived just above the cargo bay. All that was left to do was to get it inside. Unlocking the magnetic mechanism that glued him to Adventure’s arm, Kkagaryne began to float in space secured to the shuttle only by the safety line. He passed behind the parabola, and looking for the best point of view to manoeuver, he went closer to the body of the interstellar traveler. And there!...! …

First, he believed that the importance of his mission had made him lose his mind. Then, he thought he was the victim of a grotesque joke, but this assumption disappeared immediately, because no one else but him had the opportunity to intervene here and now. The only remaining explanation was a hallucination; if it weren’t for his helmet, he would have rubbed his eyes. Maybe this object that had been made by...? ... was able to interact with his brain or his retinas.