Gale Force, page 5
I peeked into the spacious dual-purpose laundry room/bath combo. The shower, toilet, and sink lined up against one wall. An all-in-one washer-dryer unit sat in the front right corner, leaving plenty of space for Lucy’s stuff.
I entered my bedroom. Lucy was coming out of the bathroom. Whoever had delivered her to the apartment had placed her pet sanitation pad and food and water in the master bath. He or she obviously liked cats—not like my ex across the hall. I picked Lucy up and hugged her. “How are you doing, Lucy girl? I’m sorry about Axel! Just try to ignore him. Easier said than done, I know.”
I set her on the bed, but she jumped off and followed me into the bath, leaping onto the toilet lid to wait while I showered. Following the divorce, I’d immersed myself even deeper into my work and developed a habit of bathing in the evening to enable me to get a jump start on the day.
After donning my nightgown and cleaning my teeth, I moved Lucy’s stuff to the laundry room, showed her where it was, then carried her back into my bedroom, leaving the door open a crack so she could get in and out.
After programming my handheld to wake me with a flute concerto, I crawled into bed. I expected to toss and turn, my mind awhirl, but I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Chapter Six
Axel
I could hear the lilting strands of a flute concerto playing when I awakened. I consulted my internal chronometer and discovered it was morning. I’d tossed and turned all night, ruminating over the fight with Gayle, wondering how I would get through the next year. At some point, we’d have to reach a truce, be civil, and keep matters professional. Perhaps today would offer a fresh start. The two big bombs—that I’d been assigned as her bodyguard and we’d be sharing an apartment—had already been dropped. There should be no more surprises for either of us.
She’s just a job. I’ve dealt with difficult clients before. Treat her like any other client.
Just a job. I repeated the mantra as I rolled out of bed. I pulled yesterday’s pants on over my shorts before tromping down the hall to the bathroom—whereupon I stepped into a bowl of something wet and squishy and sent it flying.
“What the hell?” I flipped on the light.
Cat food. Fishy cat food.
I glowered at the mess, the water fountain, and the pet sanitation pad. Those hadn’t been there last night! Why were they in my bathroom? I rinsed my foot off in the shower and then cleaned up the mess, my mood getting darker by the moment. After using the toilet, I left the bath. Flute music still wafted from Gayle’s room. The dulcet tones did not improve my mood. I glowered at the closed door and stomped to the kitchen.
I set a cup of coffee to brew and then checked the cupboards. No breakfast food. Three entries remained in the freezer—coq au vin, trout almondine, and eggplant parmigiana—none of which appealed for breakfast. I’ll grab a bite from the cantina before we leave for the dunes. Geo-Tech’s small employee cafeteria offered some quick meals.
In the hall, a baleful Lucifer swished her tail; I returned the glare and then realized I’d locked her out. Probably the she-demon needed to go potty. “You want in? You can use your sanitation pad before I take a shower.” I cracked the bathroom door and went to retrieve clean clothes.
Gayle was still playing the flute. I frowned. It was seven forty-five. Hadn’t she said she wished to leave around eight? I lifted my hand to knock then let it fall to my side. Not my problem. My job, my only job, was to ensure her safety. Her job, her appointments were her business.
After a quick shower, dressed and ready to go, I checked the security status of the vidcom system in the living room while I waited. I found no spyware or malware, and the system’s firewall was strong, so I deemed it safe for run-of-the-mill business. I turned to find Lucifer sitting on the ottoman portion of the coffee table. Eight twenty now. “What is she doing in there?” I asked the cat.
The demon blinked but offered no suggestions.
I strode to Gayle’s room. I knocked on the door. “Gayle!”
She continued to play. I knocked harder. “Gayle! What time are we supposed to catch the RTC?” I shouted.
She didn’t miss a note.
I pushed open the door.
The bedroom was empty. On the desk, a comm device played a flute concerto.
“Son of a bitch!”
* * * *
Gayle
Heading for the main gate, the Rugged Terrain Craft rolled through the streets of Città, following the same route—only in reverse—that I’d taken yesterday when I’d arrived at Geo-Tech. My perspective and understanding had changed so much, it was hard to believe only a day had passed.
What hadn’t changed was the amount of sand on the streets. At least an inch coated the roadways—about the same as yesterday despite the many roaming sweeper bots.
Signs, the lettering faded, warned passengers to keep their hovercraft in wheels-to-ground mode to avoid kicking up sand. Drive mode equals cleaner air, the signs said.
I questioned how much “clean” air mattered when no one ventured outdoors. I’d seen not a single soul on foot. I assumed most colonists used the tunnels or sky bridges, but if anyone was on the latter, I couldn’t see because of the cloudy glass. Or perhaps people were late risers on Sajave.
If the buildings had been painted, the pigment had long since been worn away to the gray-white, smooth-as-marble cement composite substrate. The lack of foot traffic and color created an aura of abandonment. Città only needed tumbleweeds to complete the ghost-town effect. I had yet to see any kind of vegetation, alive or dead. No baskets of colorful flowers hung above windows. No trees lined the sidewalk. The unoccupied “park” I’d passed had had playground equipment and benches but no greenery. Or kids, for that matter.
As I approached the city exit, the RTC was scanned, and the gates opened to white rolling hills stretching as far as my eye could see. The vehicle exited, the gates closed, hover mode kicked in, and the RTC lifted off the ground.
I wondered if Axel had awakened yet. I’d set my alarm for the wee hours and programmed a comm device to play the flute concerto I’d recorded yesterday evening so he’d think I was still in my room. Then I crept out of the apartment and rushed to Geo-Tech where I picked up the RTC Kaylee had scheduled for me.
Axel would be furious, but, as we weren’t getting along, what difference did it make if I ditched him this one time? He’d admitted there wasn’t any danger yet, so I didn’t need his protection. I hated trying to function when the simplest conversation was stilted, and my stomach knotted with tension.
This would be my first contact with a potentially intelligent alien life-form, and I didn’t want Axel to spoil it with his glowering presence. What if the alien had empathetic capabilities and it picked up on Axel’s animosity? That wouldn’t make a good first impression.
Better to pay the piper later than risk my ex interfering in my work.
Unfamiliar with Sajave, I’d asked Kaylee for pointers on the best place to go.
“Once you leave the city, it’s all open space,” she’d said. “But avoid the programmed flight path between Città and Stadt. Go out far enough so you won’t be buzzed by hovercraft, and they won’t blow sand at you.”
“Five miles?” I’d asked.
“Um…make it ten. Wear your filter mask and goggles in case the wind kicks up. You don’t want to get caught in a dust devil. If you see one coming, get inside the RTC quick.”
The RTC hummed over the dunes. Its windows looked new, so I had a clear, unobstructed view. The contrast between land and sky couldn’t have been more stark. Under a bright-blue sky lay a desert of rolling white-white hills. Behind me, Città walls quickly faded from view, suggesting more dust hovered in the air than appeared at first glance. On a clear day, the human eye could see for about three miles over land on Earth, hampered only by the planet’s curvature. I’d only put about half the distance between me and Città when the city was no longer visible, suggesting a good deal of particulate matter hung in the air.
Kaylee had been right about the flight path. Multiple RTCs zipped between Città and the cities in the east. The traffic probably contributed to the dust in the air.
I focused on the dunes flowing out to the horizon; I could totally understand how people had wrongly assumed Sajave was just desert. However, Breeze’s test results had made it clear it was so much more. My stomach fluttered with the stirring of excitement. I couldn’t wait to walk among the dunes!
Her experiments had proven the sand met most of the hallmarks of being alive: order, sensitivity to environmental stimuli, reproduction, respiration, movement, use of energy, and homeostasis.
She’d gotten the first hint the sand might not be weathered mineral when it responded to external stimuli. In a serendipitous mistake, a lab tech had placed a tray of sand in cold storage. Upon retrieval in the morning, the sand had clumped together in one corner, “as if the grains had huddled together for warmth,” Breeze had jotted in her personal notes, adding, “Further study will be undertaken to determine if it is reacting to environmental stimuli.”
Further experiments proved the sand reacted to heat and cold, light and darkness. Grains would swell, contract, and shiver. Electron microscope images revealed individual grains had an organized internal structure, thus meeting the life criterion of order. Then she discovered its plant-like metabolism converted sunlight to energy, demonstrating a form of respiration. By counting individual grains, Breeze had discovered the sand was producing more sand, and that the new individual grains started out very tiny and then grew. It reproduced.
But how many organisms were there? A stand of aspens appeared to be a forest of individual trees but was, in fact, one organism. Was each grain a living creature or a cell or tissue of a larger whole? Sometimes, the grains reacted like individuals, but other times, the sand acted as a unit. Studying the internal cellular structure had yielded more mysteries than clues. Breeze had reported the internal structures were different than anything she’d seen but added the caveat her field of study was astrogeology, not micro or astrobiology.
When she realized wind wasn’t blowing the sand into the settlements, but that sand moved there on its own, she began to question why. “Is it like kudzu, naturally quick-spreading and invasive, or could it be moving into settlements for a reason? Intention suggests intelligence.”
And then there was this notation: “The sand appears to recognize me. Extreme-slow-motion sensors detected individual grains vibrate when I approach.”
So, it was alive. But was it intelligent? Behaviorists generally considered self-awareness, communication, logic and reasoning, learning, and problem-solving to be indicators of intelligence. But those weren’t the sole factors, nor did the absence of one or more automatically rule out intelligence. Furthermore, all factors had been designated by humans from our self-centered perspective.
The one characteristic setting humans apart from other animals wasn’t intelligence; it was arrogance, the adherence to self-importance. “Scientific” reasoning went thusly: humans are intelligent, therefore, to be intelligent, a being must possess the same traits that we do.
How much hubris did it take to assume we were the smartest beings in the universe? What if the sand was more intelligent than us?
Throughout my career, I’d tried to keep an open mind and remain cognizant of my Earth-centric prejudices. Why did an intelligent being—or any life-form, for that matter—have to be in solid form? Why couldn’t it be a liquid…or a gas? Or…sand?
Explorations of the galaxy had introduced humans to wondrous and strange forms of life, but none were as mind-boggling as the sand. Still in infancy as a discipline, astrobiology derived the bulk of its knowledge base from the study of Earthlings. Humans, animals, fish, birds, insects, bacteria, plants, fungi—they all came from Terra, and thus, were all Earthlings. Hence, I would be forging new ground. I had to safeguard against making assumptions based on what I “knew” to be true.
More than ten minutes had passed since I’d seen another RTC. Surrounded by nothing but sand, I suddenly realized how isolated I was. It felt like I was the only person on the entire planet. With no distinguishing landmarks, without a GPS, it would be easy to become disoriented and get lost. Nobody knew my location. What if the RTC malfunctioned? Maybe I had been a tad hasty in ditching Axel.
Too late now. May as well proceed and hope all goes well.
I set down in a depression between two huge dunes. Heeding Kaylee’s warning, I slipped on a filter mask and goggles. After the dust settled, I opened the hatch, leaped out, and sank to my knees in sand. Interesting. I took a few shuffling steps. It feels more like walking in powdery snow than beach sand.
Well, duh. It’s not sand.
Did the alien feel my weight? Did it feel pain as I slogged through it? Or did I just register as a sensation? Are you there, alien? It’s me, Gayle.
I stood there, buried to my knees, and took it all in. The dunes were taller than they appeared from the air. I scooped up a handful of sand, letting it flow through my fingers, appreciating its unique texture. I thought again of Axel and how pissed he was going to be.
Can’t worry about that now. I couldn’t allow regrets to distract me from my field observation. I left him behind so I could focus. Ruminating over his possible reaction defeated the whole purpose of coming alone.
Brushing off my hands, I decided to hike to the top of the dune for a better view. In the valley between dunes, I couldn’t see anything other than what lay in front of me. But first things first. I removed my filter mask and sniffed.
No detectable smell. Didn’t mean there wasn’t one—perhaps a bloodhound could smell the sand—but if the alien exuded an odor, I couldn’t tell, which led me to wonder about waste removal. Breeze had determined the samples she’d collected contained sand, no excrement. Thank goodness. I glanced at my buried feet. Perhaps the sand released gas? Like farts? I snickered.
I put my mask on and trudged up the dune. Reaching the peak, I stared out at another dune indistinguishable from the one I stood on. Without any landmarks or color variation, Sajave’s topography looked the same, striking but monotonous. If I wandered too far from the RTC, I might not be able to find it again.
Warnings about dust devils rang in my ears. I couldn’t outrun a tornado. Better stick close to the vehicle. At least for today.
I slogged down the hill and set up my test station thirty feet from the hovercraft. I erected and activated the atmosphere analyzer to measure the particulates in the air. Next, I inserted a seismic probe into the sand and switched on an electronic video camera capable of capturing extreme slow movement. With a pang of conscience, I collected a half dozen control samples. How would we like it if an alien invader came to Earth and gathered a control sample of humans?
I popped the language disk into the player, but I didn’t turn it on. I needed to get some vid as a baseline first to determine what was normal before I shook things up. I plopped cross-legged in the sand to wait while the camera rolled.
My mind drifted from the surreal experience of sitting on an alien life-form to Axel. I recalled his justifiable outrage when I’d implied he’d been a deadbeat. I tried to explain I hadn’t meant it, but maybe I had, just a little. Maybe I had been a little disdainful of his “throwaway” jobs. Hadn’t I tried to nudge him into more professional occupations? Figure out what you want to do and do it, I’d snapped when he quit yet another job.
And then he did. Be careful what you wish for, you may get it.
This assignment notwithstanding, being a cyborg was dangerous. Protective bodily enhancements didn’t render a man invincible. Greater defenses often made a man a bigger target.
Cupping my hands, I scooped up some sand. “I never wanted to be that wife who had no idea where her husband was for months at a time and then got the knock on the door,” I said aloud. “I was afraid I’d lose him. Walking away was easier than living in fear.”
Individual grains of sand sparkled under the sunlight.
Everything living eventually died, but why risk the time you did have? Why draw danger to you?
The sand trickled through my fingers. “I’d divorced him, so I could always believe he was alive and well.” Like the experiment with Schrödinger's cat, if I couldn’t see Axel to know if he was dead or alive, in my mind, he could always be alive and well. I didn’t have to worry that one day he might die.
But with the crossing of our paths, I’d gotten a peek inside the box. He was still alive, more robust and vital than ever.
“I shouldn’t have tried to stifle his dream. That was wrong. Whenever he’d mention C-Force, I’d change the subject or distract him. We were young and horny, and sex provided a great distraction.” I paused. “That might be too much information. You and I just met,” I joked.
I ran my hand over the surface of the sand. It seemed softer, the particles not quite as sharp as they had been on the patio. Different sand? Or did it change according to its environment or stimuli? I squinted at the grains clinging to my skin. I tugged the goggles up to my forehead to try to see better, but my middle-aged eyes couldn’t focus. I lowered the goggles. Note to self: bring reading glasses the next time.
“I urged him to find his passion, yet I couldn’t accept that C-Force was his passion.”
Axel wasn’t here—and he still distracted me with memories of a life shared and the lonely years apart. I’d dated, had a few boyfriends, but no man had ever aroused my emotions to the crescendo that he had. If I was the orchestra, Axel had been the conductor. Together we’d made incredible music.
