Trial by Fire: Chapter Thirteen

Adrift off Barnard’s Star 2 C

“Trevor.”

    White lights. Modular bulkheads. His limbs heavy with exhaustion and the dense materials comprising an emergency suit. And everywhere, the dissolving image of Opal’s face, like a shadow dispelled by a sudden ray of light, or a faint aroma dispersed by a breeze. Trevor swam up out of his dream, felt the door against his back, checked it: still closed.

    Caine’s voice was back in his helmet. “Are you awake?”

    “I–uh, yeah, yes.” And dreaming of the woman you’ve been sleeping with. The guilt sent a throb into his head.

    “There’s movement in life support.”

    “What kind of movement?” Trevor asked warily.

    “About an hour ago, some motion started in the Arat Kur’s limbs and front claws. Just a minute ago, it scooted under the filtration intakes and the osmotic scrubbers.”

    “How are his zero-gee skills?”

    “Pretty fair. Better than mine. His respiration seems to have resumed a normal rate.”

    Well, the Arat Kur was either recovering from his catatonic withdrawal or readying himself for an orgy of sabotage and destruction. Trevor thumbed the handgun’s safety to the off position. “Do I go in?”

    “Not yet. I’ll relay live feed to your HUD.”

    A black and white image flickered on about two inches above and away from Trevor’s left eye. The creature seemed to be simply surveying its surroundings. It was moving slowly through the maze of life-support equipment, occasionally stopping to study a component here, a readout there.

    It completed its tour directly in front of the sealed door. It approached the door, inspected it thoroughly and then sat/laid down directly in front of it. Trevor activated the laser aimpoint on the handgun, commented, “I’m ready for him.”

    Caine did not answer immediately. “I don’t think he intends any threat. In fact, I think–”

    Over the carrier tone in the communication system, Trevor heard a series of atonal whistles, clicks, and buzzes. “What was that? Are we losing communications?”

    “No, we’re gaining communications. That was the Arat Kur.”

    “Singing for its supper?”

    “Maybe, maybe not. I–” More whines, clacks and fluttering whistles. “I’d say he’s interested in making contact, now.”

    “Probably wants to know where the plumbing is.”

    “Yeah, well I really don’t care what he wants to talk about. I just care that he wants to talk.”

    Trevor heard a change in the comm channel’s carrier tone; Caine’s voice was now in stereo, half coming from Trevor’s collar communicator, the other half emerging muffled and muted from the intercom behind the door into life support. “Hello. Can you understand this language?”

    A wild mélange of whistles, squeals, and grunts answered.

    Trevor sighed. “Does that mean ‘yes’ or ‘no’?”

    “Damned if I know.”

    “Sounds like a dolphin playing a bagpipe filled with rocks.”

    More squawking, but slower and repetitive. The Arat scuttled forward and pushed its nose against the door. Trevor heard–and felt–the thump behind him. He raised his handgun. “I have the door covered.”

    “He’s not trying to escape.”

    “Oh? Then what’s he doing? Trying to scratch his back against the door jamb?”

    “No, but it’s not ramming the door. It’s simply approaching it, bumping it, and then backing off again. No running starts, no attempts to pry it open. It just wants out.”

    “What a surprise.”

    There was no answer.

    “Caine?”

    Another moment of silence, and then Caine’s voice answered–but not over the radio. He reappeared in the corridor, heading for the door Trevor was covering with the ten-millimeter. “I’m going in. Cover me.”

    “What? Wait a–”

    Caine pressed the control stud on the wall; the door slid back. Just fucking great. Trevor brought up the gun quickly. The Arat Kur scuttled backwards about a meter and then stopped. Caine stretched out his empty hands. The Arat Kur’s front claws scissored the air once: a nervous, twitchy motion.

    “It could be preparing to attack,” muttered Trevor.

    “It could be the Arat Kur equivalent of wringing its hands,” Caine muttered back. He took a floating step into the room.

    The Arat Kur retreated about the same distance, then edged back toward Caine.

    “Seems friendly,” said Caine.

    “Or hungry.”

    The Arat Kur “sat” down and launched into a long series of repetitive squawks, wheezings, and whispers.

    Trevor listened. “What do you figure it’s saying?”

    “Probably trying to do the same thing I did. Keep repeating basic phrases again and again, hoping that we’ll hear something we recognize.”

    “And when he realizes that’s pointless? Then what?”

    The alien stopped cacophonizing abruptly. Trevor tightened his grip on the handgun. The Arat Kur’s front claw began rising slowly, carefully. It stopped when it was pointing at the open door. Then the arm bent until the claw was pointing at the Arat Kur. Then back out the door.

    “He’s asking to leave the room,” murmured Caine. “Politely.”

    “Right. So he can kill us. Politely.”

    “No, I don’t think that’s what he has in mind. We’ve got to take a chance and let him out.”

    Madness, complete madness. But Trevor pushed against the deck with his left toe and drifted slowly to the right, leaving the doorway unobstructed.

    The alien went through its pointing sequence again: the door, itself, the door. Caine pointed at the Arat Kur and out the door, ending with an exaggerated nod. The alien rose up, its claws outstretched. With a single coordinated kick from all four rear legs, it launched forward.

    And out the door. Caine somersaulted and swam after it. Trevor did his best to match their pace, but, still unable to use his left arm, lost sight of Caine as he entered the inter-deck access tube.

    “Caine, slow down. I can’t keep up. I can’t help you if that little bastard turns on you.”

    Caine either didn’t hear or didn’t care. “He’s heading back for his first prison.”

    “What the hell for?”

    “Damned if I know. Just keep following me.” A pause, then. “Turn around. Return to the upper deck.” Which meant that Trevor had to back himself up the inter-deck access tube; there wasn’t enough room to turn around.

    “Go back? What the hell for?”

    “To make room for our guest.”

    At the bottom of the tube, Trevor saw motion. The Arat Kur had reentered the tube, carrying a bulky load. He was starting to swim up. Straight toward Trevor.

    As Trevor reverse-pushed awkwardly up the tube, the Arat Kur seemed to take notice of him and slow down. There was almost a sense of patient waiting. If the alien had had thumbs, Trevor would have expected to see the Arat Kur twiddling them.

    Once the way was clear, the Arat Kur shot up and out the tube, giving Trevor a better look at the bundle it had retrieved from its first prison: its spacesuit. Caine came sidewinding up after the alien.

    “Grab your helmet. I think we’re going EVA.”

    “Caine, with our current whole body dose, this is probably the last time we’re going to be able to take a stroll around the neighborhood.”

    “I know it, but what choice do we really have?”

    Trevor sighed. “I’ll suit up.” He did, and just in time. A few seconds after establishing a seal, the alien led them into the airlock. It pointed to the outer door, itself, each of them, and then back at the outer door. Caine cycled the airlock and opened the door.

    Obviously, the alien had not been unconscious during its trip over to the command module. It swam outside and directly toward the boarding tether. After securing itself to the line with its own suit lanyard, it began towing itself back over to its wrecked ship.

    Caine’s skill and Trevor’s condition had both improved enough that they made a fast transit and a good jump down to the wreck. The Arat Kur, its front legs waving in something that looked very much like glad excitation, lead them inside the wreck and directly to the door surrounded by scorch marks. It grasped the door “knob,” moored itself by grasping a handle protruding from the wall, and tugged. Then it stopped and looked at the two humans. Still looking at them, it mimicked the tug again.

    Caine took hold of another handle. “I think we’re supposed to lend a hand here.”

    “Or a claw.”

    “Just pull.”

    After a few coordinated heaves, the door opened a crack, allowing the humans to finish the job with their pry bars. As soon as the way was clear, the Arat Kur darted in, almost disappearing into a dense thicket of burnt circuitry and warped cables. Trevor peered–and aimed–over Caine’s shoulder to watch the alien’s speedy rerouting work. Caine nodded toward the ruined rainforest of wiring. “What do you think? His engineering section?”

    Trevor nodded. “Probably had multiple short-outs when the ship was hit. Just like the cutter did. It’s also why he couldn’t use his engines or restart his power plant: he couldn’t get in to reroute the command circuitry or power supplies.”

    Apparently finished, the Arat Kur turned, dove back into the corridor and motioned toward the bridge. Once the humans had followed him into that new location, the alien pointed at what they had conjectured was the main computer, itself, and then the computer again. Trevor and Caine exchanged resigned looks, and then nodded at the Arat Kur in unison.

    The alien slid into its acceleration couch, powered up the computer and began manipulating a set of touch screens with extraordinary speed. The deck began to vibrate faintly. A moment later, large metal panels sealed off the shattered cockpit blister and the tumbling star field beyond. A gentle hiss indicated that the chamber was repressurizing.

    A few more taps on the touchscreen and the bridge lit up, ringing the humans in holographic displays and dynamically reconfigurable control panels. About half of them were dark or malfunctioning, but that did not seem to impede the Arat Kur. Trevor felt a new vibration through the soles of his feet and simultaneously watched half of the orange lights on the control panels change to green. Evidently, the power plant was online. A moment later, he felt a sideways tug: thrust. The Arat Kur was starting to correct the wreck’s tumble.

    Whether it was a matter of fine piloting or extraordinarily powerful computing technology, the alien successfully stabilized and mated the wreckage of his ship with the Auxiliary Command module in less than ten minutes. Then he pointed to a hologram of the space near The Pearl. He zoomed in. At the extreme edge of the field of view was a red mote. He pointed at the mote and then swept his arm in a wide circle, indicating the craft they were in. Caine did the same and nodded.

    The Arat Kur seemed to be pleased, emitting a number of trilling whistles and bobbing up and down slightly.

    Caine, smiling at the Arat Kur, said sideways to Trevor, “Well, so far, so good.”

    “Sure. Marvelous. And now that we’re all such good friends, I’m sure we’ll want to launch straight into a major cross-cultural dialog.”

    At that moment, another carrier tone intruded on their private line and a new voice cut in. “Yes, I believe such a discussion would be beneficial to us all.”

    Trevor and Caine turned to look at the alien, who had finished working with the computer. Noting that he had their attention once again, the Arat Kur bobbed up and down once. Muffled by the creature’s suit, the whistles and trills resumed. As they did, the new voice spoke again over their radios.

    “My apologies for omitting an introduction. I am Darzhee Kut.”

    What the Arat Kur said next was even more improbable than his first calm interjection.

    “I wish to apologize for meeting under these circumstances. I thank you for showing me trust despite the–unexpected attack which brought me here. Your deeds sound a high and noble melody for your race.”

    Caine took a deep breath and answered. “Darzhee Kut, we must apologize also. We had no way of discerning that your personal intentions might be peaceful, after our first and unfortunate encounter in this room. And of course, you had no reason to think otherwise of us. We are most happy to meet you–and through you, come to finally learn something of your race.”

    “These harmonize with my own feelings, but before we may do so, we must ensure our survival.”

    “What do you have in mind?”

    “The weapons-fire from the ship to which your module was originally attached sheared away all my sensors and disabled my communication equipment. I would have pulsed my engines to attract attention but, being unable to enter the engineering relay room, I was unable to effect repairs to those systems. Therefore, may I inquire: do you have an intact communication system? For if you do, we could use it to summon a rescue.”

    Trevor shook his head. “Not so fast. You’re expecting us to surrender to you? Even though we’ve got the gun?”

    “I expect no such thing. Surrenders, and the accepting of them, are actions undertaken by what you call ‘soldiers,’ are they not?”

    Caine leaned forward. “Darzhee Kut, do you mean to imply that you are not a member of your species’ military forces?”

    “Not as you would mean it. Moreover, the word military does not completely harmonize with any of ours.”

    Caine frowned. “This is an unusual concept for us. Before we agree to communications with your fleet, it would help for us to understand a little more about you and your species. Specifically, do you mean to say that you have no ‘military’ forces?”

    Darzhee Kut buzzed lightly. “This is not quite correctly said. We have military forces when we require them, but we have no caste which specializes in conflict, particularly not in physical combat. When the nest is compelled to defend itself, we all aid it according to our best abilities and the nest’s greatest needs.”

    “So your race never fought wars?”

    “Long ago. But they were too destructive, and so we ceased.”

    These were hardly the kind of attackers Trevor had expected. “What made your wars so destructive: the weapons? Nuclear warheads? Gas?”

    “No,” said Caine, nodding, “the bodies.”

    Darzhee warbled a bit before he answered. “You have sung our sad refrain without having heard it before: this is well. Indeed, the bodies. With no way to dispose of them quickly enough, disease and carrion-creatures became a worse scourge than the war itself.”

    “So what did you do to stop further wars?”

    “Does one need to forbid one’s own suicide? We did not need to ‘do’ anything but see what was before our eyes: to wage war upon others was, ultimately, to kill oneself and one’s nest.”

    “With all due respect, then why did you make war upon us?”

    Darzhee Kut made a sound like a falling trill. “Ah. This is a far more complicated matter. But I would say this: let your own history be your answer. Your behavior toward each other told us something of how we must conceive of behaving toward you.”

    Caine frowned. “But we do not always make war–unlike the Hkh’Rkh who seem to be your allies.”

    “And this was the great atonality in the chorus of this generation. Some of us sang the triumphs of your species’ dreams of lasting peace. Others boomed the dirge of your many wars.”

    “And the dirge was the tune your race chose to focus upon?”

    “Let us rather say that it drowned out the more hopeful song that I and others sang.” His front claws gestured at the walls and beyond. “And here we are, trapped in a growing crescendo that brushes aside all other melodies, tones, sounds. Such is war, it seems to me. Too much of even one’s own sounds, when made in time to war-drums, becomes chaos. It afflicts us with a temporary version of the perpetual sun-time that–it is said–afflicts your species.”

    “‘Sun-time’?”

    Darzhee Kut seemed to relax, raised one claw in a gesture that looked partly like the invitation of a raconteur, partly like the still, upraised finger of a didact. “To understand sun-time you must understand my race. Specifically, its reproductory habits.”

    Trevor felt himself wince.

    If Darzhee Kut noticed, he gave no external indication of it. “We are creatures of the earth, the rock, of close chambers that embrace us, of tunnels that caress our bellies and backs. But when the song of our birth-triad fills our hearts and quickens our blood to that point where we must sing as one in all ways, we suddenly long for a sensation which, the rest of the time, terrifies us.”

    “You return to the surface, to see the sun.”

    “Your voice sings true. It is just so. The rays of heat, the great brightness, the open vault above: so expansive is our passion, that, at this one time, the wide world above the rock harmonizes with what is most immediate and true in us. And so this is where we mate.”

    Trevor leaned back. “And that–that ‘state of mind’ is a bad thing?” Not that I want to hear more about your orgasmic nature-walks.

    “It is not bad, but it is necessarily brief.”

    Caine was nodding again. “Because it’s also dangerous. You’re vulnerable on the surface, and what brings you there is an altered state of mind which compromises your self-control.”

    Darzhee Kut was still for a moment. “You hear the harmonies of the Arat Kur far in advance, Spokesperson Riordan. It was our great misfortune that we did not share them with you at the Convocation.”

    Trevor glanced over at Caine, who clearly had not made the connection yet, and pointed at the Arat Kur. “I’ve heard your name before. You were, were–”

    Darzhee Kut’s sensors declined lightly. “I was to be the Speaker-to-Nestless for the Arat Kur Wholenest at the Convocation. It was so announced on the first day. But Zirsoo was thought more–capable.”

    Caine’s eyes narrowed. “By whom?”

    “By both Zirsoo Kh’n and First Delegate Hu’urs Khraam.”

    “And let me guess. They were both great singers of the dirge that is humanity.”

    “Among its very loudest and most accomplished soloists. So now you begin to see.”

    “Possibly. It sounds as though there was much division among the Arat Kur regarding how best to interact with humanity.”

    “Yes. Among those who knew enough.”

    “And what knowledge was withheld from those who did not ‘know enough’?”

    “Some of the answer to that question is composed of notes which I may not sing. And that imposition of silence made me question how effective I could be as the Speaker to your race.”

    Trevor frowned. “So you’re not a soldier at all. You’re a–a diplomat.”

    “This might be the best word for it. I would suggest ‘official liaison,’ for I have no power to propose or conclude agreements with other species or states. That is the role of a Delegate.”

    Caine put out an entreating hand. “Then please forgive us for holding you prisoner. It was a consequence of our ignorance of your language, and your ways. Allow us to extend to you the courtesies and privileges of a diplomatic attaché. However, we must impose certain limits upon these, since our governments are currently at war.”

    Again, the scrunch-bow of the Arat Kur. “I graciously accept, and extend the same to you. And because of this, may I further suggest that we signal my fleet directly, so that they may extend a more suitable and complete measure of hospitality to you?”

    Trevor frowned. “You mean, take us prisoners.”

    “Mr. Corcoran, I see no uniform, so I presume that, as was true at the Convocation, you are either off-duty or discharged from military service?”

    “Well–yes.”

    “Then your last status so far as I am concerned is as the military expert of your species’ diplomatic delegation to the Convocation. Therefore, it would be incorrect and illegal to hold you prisoner. You, too, are entitled to diplomatic status.”

    Well, this Darzhee Kut may be an overgrown cockroach–but he’s a damn mannerly one. Trevor looked at Caine. “What do you think?”

    “I think making a contact which just might allow us to curtail bloodshed is a whole hell of a lot better than simultaneously dying of rads, asphyxiation, thirst, and starvation.”

    “Okay. And Darzhee Kut, I want to apologize for what happened regarding your craft,” Trevor said.

    “It was war. Sadly, that is explanation enough.”

    “It’s a little worse than that. We are concerned that you saw our diplomatic transponder code and thought it safe to approach.”

    “This is so. But tell me, was this incorrect signal a mistake, or a ruse?”

    “A mistake.”

    “Then you shall not be held accountable for it. We need discuss it no further. Shall we summon my rock-siblings?”

    Caine nodded, handed him his collarcom. “With this, you can control our communications array with verbal commands. Tell me when you are ready to send your message.”

    Darzhee Kut accepted the delicate silver device in two careful claws, turned away to begin composing a message.

    “Darzhee Kut,” Caine asked, “may I interrupt?”

    “Certainly.”

    “Will we be traveling with your fleet?”

    “Yes.”

    “So can you tell us where we are going next?”

    “I can.” He turned. “We are going home.”

    “To Sigma Draconis.”

    “My apologies: I was not clear. We are not going to my home. We are going to yours.” His eyes seemed to lower, almost as if he were embarrassed. “We are going to Earth.”