The Scythian Crisis, page 13
part #3 of Space Colony One Series
“Did you come by yourself?” Florian asked.
Cariad explained that Kes was with her too, and that he wasn’t far away, trying to talk to the fila over the comm.
“Huh, I wish him luck with that,” said Florian.
“You tried already?”
“Of course. There isn’t much else to do around here. The fetuses are all fine and without Cassie or Giesen here I don’t have anyone to talk to, so I thought I’d try speaking to our thready friends. But I couldn’t get much more than gibberish out of them. It’s very hard and tiring trying to communicate. And they don’t seem to have any idea of the range of human hearing. They either speak deafeningly loud or too quiet. I didn’t have much success.”
“Well, Kes is pretty determined,” said Cariad. “Maybe he’ll be able to make sense of what they say. So the babies are okay?”
“I know you too well,” said Florian. “You want to see them, right?”
“You bet,” Cariad replied. “But I’ll have to clean up first.”
Florian helped Cariad stand up, and after she’d washed all the dirt off her legs and put on sterile scrubs, they went together to the Gestation Room. Before they entered it, however, Florian said, “I should warn you, they look a little odd at first, but Cassie and I checked every single one thoroughly after the crash and afterward according to the protocol, and they’re all entirely healthy and developing normally.”
The door slid open. Cariad sucked in a breath. She knew she should have anticipated the sight of all the gestation sacs hanging at an angle yet it still made her heart freeze.
“They’re all fine, Cariad,” said Florian, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Honestly.”
A sac jiggled and then swayed gently.
“They’re moving already?” asked Cariad, her fear melting away. If there was one sign of a healthy baby, it was movement.
“They are,” Florian replied. “Quite a few of them anyway. There’s always a mixture of bouncers and sleepers, as you know.”
“I do know,” Cariad remarked. “I believed Cassie when she said they were okay but it’s another thing to actually see them.” She turned to Florian. “Right. It’s time for you to go. Garwin’s waiting for you outside. He’ll take you back to the settlement.”
“What?” Florian said. “Already? I’m not comfortable leaving you here by yourself. I thought I would wait a day or two until you’d settled in.”
“I’m not by myself,” said Cariad. “Kes is here too, remember? You’re going. Now. No arguments. Cassie needs you and you’ve done more than your fair share of caring for the next generation. You need a break. I’ll stay here for the next few weeks. Then, if you feel like it, come back for a day or so. Maybe we can work out a shift rota or train up some people at the settlement.”
Florian’s lips twisted as he considered Cariad’s proposal. “All right. I do miss Cassie a lot and I want to make sure she’s all right.”
“Cassie is fine,” Cariad replied, “except for the fact that she misses you too. So go be a prospective father for a while.”
“You’re a star, Cariad,” Florian said, giving her a hug. “I promise I’ll be back in a couple of weeks.”
“Good. Go on then, “Cariad said. “Off you go. See you later.”
Florian didn’t need telling again. He almost skipped out of the Gestation Room.
Although Cariad trusted Florian and Cassie entirely, she nevertheless began to thoroughly check each developing fetus herself. She made a visual examination as well as checking the gestation system readings.
Cariad was in the middle of assessing the forty-third baby when a voice startled her. It took her a moment to come out of her deep concentration and realize that Kes was comming her from outside the Gestation Room.
“Sorry,” he said when she emerged to speak with him. “I didn’t mean to disturb you. But I thought I’d better let you know that I’m going down to the lower levels of the ship. I’m not sure how long I’ll be gone.”
“You’re going farther down? Why?” Cariad asked.
Kes’ pale skin flushed with excitement as he replied, “I’ve made some progress with speaking to the fila. They’ve asked me to ‘come to the water.’ I guess that means they want to see me face to face. Or face to tentacle, I mean.”
“‘Come to the water?’” Cariad echoed. “That doesn’t sound very safe, Kes. You know what happens to people who approach them, right? Unless you’re planning on spending a few weeks underwater in solitary confinement, I wouldn’t risk it.”
“I honestly doubt there’s any danger,” said Kes. “Not now that the fila know we’re intelligent, the same as them. And I heard that Giesen and your techs saw the fila in the water too. If the creatures had wanted to abduct yet another human they could have done it then.”
“Fair point,” Cariad conceded. “I’m still not comfortable with the idea though. I wish you wouldn’t do this.”
“Cariad, I’m a xenobiologist. This kind of thing is in my job description.”
“Okay, I hear you. But I think I’ll come with you. Just in case.”
Chapter Eighteen
Someone had discovered a roadmaker a kilometer or so away from the settlement and Garwin had been able to get it running again. The machine seemed capable of using the tsunami mud to create roadways as easily as it had formerly converted dirt and stones. Yet, as Leader, Ethan was having second thoughts about putting the roadmaker back to work.
A road leading to or from anywhere in the colony would be a clear indication to their enemy about where the humans were to be found. Though at some point the colonists would have to continue settling Concordia, it would be unwise to continue as normal in the current crisis. Their focus had to be on defense, at least until the window of the aliens’ immediate return to complete their job of annihilating the colony had passed.
Ethan’s basic plan was for everyone to return underground. The old bunkers had protected the colonists from the aliens’ bombardment and though they were now useless due to the tsunami, the principle remained the same: a few meters of soil and rock between the colonists and the surface would be their best protection.
But where should they go? They could not remain in the old site any longer. It would be the first place the aliens would look. Yet they also couldn’t travel very far. Transporting the materials and people to a distant site would take too long, and they didn’t know what other problems or predators they might have to contend with. Ethan had sent out scouts to search the surrounding landscape for an appropriate place to construct a settlement—somewhere everyone could hide and live, perhaps for many years.
One of the tasks Ethan had set himself while he waited for the reports to come back was to speak to Cariad and attempt to re-establish friendly relations, but he’d discovered she’d left to go to the Nova Fortuna. She would be gone for a while, the doctor at the clinic had said.
Stymied in that direction, Ethan decided to do the other thing he had in mind. He’d sensed the mood of the colonists settling lower and lower as the days passed. He was worried that the incident with the young man in the shuttle field was only one symptom of a wider sickness.
He set off along a makeshift path and stopped at the first shelter he came to. It was a simple tent made from a rug, similar to Cherry’s. Lacking any door or other way of announcing his presence, Ethan coughed loudly. An oldish woman poked out her head.
“Ethan,” she said. “Nice to see you. Or should I call you Leader?”
“Call me whatever you like,” he replied. “Though I prefer Ethan.”
“Ethan it is. What can I do for you, Ethan?”
“I’m just checking to see how you’re doing. Is there anything you don’t have that you need?”
“Oh,” the woman said. She called a name over her shoulder and a man’s head joined hers at their shelter entrance.
“He’s asking what we need,” the woman repeated to the man, who was presumably her husband or boyfriend.
“I can’t think of anything off the top of my head,” the man said. “Can you?” he asked his wife.
“I can’t. That’s why I’m asking you.”
“If you’d asked me a few days ago,” said the man, “I would have begged you on my knees for something else to eat other than those darned ration bars. But since the food from the ship arrived we’ve been able to vary our diet a little. So things aren’t too bad.”
“Or maybe you have some ideas for the new settlement?” Ethan asked.
The man and woman shared a look.
“Look, I appreciate what you’re trying to do,” the man said to Ethan, “but we all know those aliens are going to be back sooner or later to finish us off. The Mistral put up a fight on our behalf last time and did a good job, but it’s only one ship. Somewhere nearby is a planet full of aliens who don’t want us here. When they come back, there won’t be much we can do to stop them. We might as well enjoy what little time we have left. I don’t want to spend my last days building somewhere new just so it can be destroyed like this settlement was. Thank you for asking, young man. We really do appreciate it. But we don’t have any suggestions, sorry.”
The two settlers withdrew into their tent.
Ethan straightened up. He hoped the couple’s feelings didn’t represent the majority, but he feared that was the case. He felt like following them inside their shelter and explaining to them about the plan to build the weapon on the Nova Fortuna. He wanted to instill some hope in the phlegmatic couple. Yet he couldn’t deny that even Strongquist had said the best outcome they could hope for was to annoy their attackers enough that they decided destroying the colony wasn’t worth their time .
If most of the colonists had already given up, Ethan had a worse problem on his hands than the building of a new, protected settlement. If the settlers thought they were already done for, how hard would they work to save their own lives? How would they survive a second attack? He couldn’t help them if they weren’t prepared to help themselves.
Hoping that the couple’s outlook wasn’t as common as he thought, Ethan crossed the path and walked down it a short distance toward a conglomeration of salvaged boards that comprised another shelter. He was about to tap on a board to alert the inhabitants that he would like to speak with them when he spotted Garwin approaching. Ethan hadn’t seen him all day and wondered where he’d been. When he asked him he discovered that Garwin had been the person who had flown Cariad to the Nova Fortuna.
“Yeah,” Garwin said, “it’s nice to see a couple in love despite everything that’s going on. I guess it must have been hard on Cariad those two years she spent waiting for her boyfriend to be revived.”
“What?!” Ethan realized he’d overreacted to Garwin’s comment, but it was too late.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Garwin said. “I knew you and Cariad were friends but I didn’t know you were anything more than that. If I had I wouldn’t have said anything.”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Ethan, his guts in knots. “We aren’t that close. I was only surprised. So who’s the lucky guy?”
“A xenobiologist,” Garwin replied. “I forget his name. Red haired and freckled. You must have seen him around. He’s gone out to the ship to talk with the threads.”
Ethan recognized who Garwin meant from his description, though he also didn’t know the man’s name. The Woken man had helped defend the Guardians after they reappeared. Apart from that, Ethan didn’t know anything about him. But it was a safe guess that he and Cariad knew each other well from the days they’d worked on the Nova Fortuna project. Maybe they’d been a couple then.
“Yeah,” Ethan replied. “I think I know who you mean. So he and Cariad are together now?”
“Well, it looked like that to me as I flew them to the ship. Maybe I was reading too much into it. I could be wrong.” Garwin’s expression was sympathetic, which Ethan took to mean that he was being kind in his choice of words. But if Cariad had found someone else Ethan decided he would have to live with it. He didn’t blame her for choosing to be with another man after his outburst the last time they’d been together. He also had plenty to keep himself occupied anyway.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “It isn’t a big deal. I wanted to talk to you about something else anyway. How would you describe the general feeling around here? I was talking to a couple just now who sounded like they’d given up. Would you say that’s the attitude of the majority?”
Garwin was someone who understood people well. If anyone could gauge the level of the morale in the settlement, it was him.
“I haven’t spoken to many people,” Garwin replied. “I tend to keep to myself these days. But, yeah, I would say that’s a typical attitude. Isn’t it only natural? I mean, all the things we do day by day keep us busy and take our minds off things, but there really isn’t much hope, is there? We don’t stand a chance. We’re only going through the motions, right?”
“No,” Ethan said, suddenly galvanized in response to the older man’s pessimism. “That isn’t right. As long as we’re still alive there’s hope, Garwin. What happened to our dreams of making Concordia a home where Gens could be in control of their lives? Who knows what might happen in the future? The aliens might never return, or something we can’t even guess at might happen. The situation seemed hopeless in the First Night Attack. We couldn’t stop the sluglimpets from climbing the fence and we couldn’t get away from them. But then the Guardians arrived and saved us.”
“Yes, but the Guardians are here now,” Garwin countered. “We can’t expect another rescue mission from Earth. And even the Guardians with all their advanced tech can’t save us from an alien onslaught. We’ll put up a fight, sure. But I think we all know what the outcome will be.”
Ethan looked the older man in the eyes. The light that had once been in them seemed to have gone out. Was it because of what had happened with Twyla? Or was it only due to the colony’s dire situation? Ethan wasn’t sure, but he did know that he wouldn’t be able to rely on Garwin’s support when it came to rallying the colonists to fight for their lives.
“You’re wrong,” Ethan said. “I was speaking to Strongquist not so long ago. The Guardians have a plan to construct a weapon on the Nova Fortuna, powered by her remaining engines. They say they can build it before the aliens return.”
“That’s something, I guess,” Garwin said, though he didn’t sound convinced.
“It is something,” said Ethan. “And I’m sure we’ll think of plenty more things we can do to protect the colony.”
Garwin slapped him on the back. “If anyone can, it’s you, Ethan. Good luck.” He stepped around Ethan and left him.
Ethan watched his old acquaintance’s retreating back. If Garwin, who had once been a rock-like support for the colony, had given up, it was going to be even harder than Ethan had imagined to raise morale. He needed to gather the few who maintained a positive outlook around him. One such person was Cariad but she had her hands full looking after the babies on the colony ship, even if things between them weren’t difficult and awkward. Ethan couldn’t think of anyone else to turn to except Cherry.
Or had she given up too? Ethan couldn’t believe that. He went to find her.
Chapter Nineteen
The fila had restored the lighting all through the lower section of the ship that led to the crash impact area, Cariad discovered as she accompanied Kes on his way to visit the creatures. From the reproduction facilities through to the residential area, where about a quarter of the Gens had slept and spent their leisure time, the ship’s lighting operated as it had throughout the Nova Fortuna’s long journey to Concordia.
The lights didn’t make the place any less eerie, however. After most of the Gens had departed the ship to live planetside, the quadrant had seemed excessively quiet and empty, but now it was unrecognizable. As well as the new, strange angle of the sector, anything that hadn’t been secured before the aliens’ attack had been flung from its usual position. It looked like a tornado had swept through the place. Everything was also sopping wet, which meant that the area Cariad and Kes were passing through had recently been underwater.
“Why do you think the fila are raising the ship?” Cariad asked her companion as they stepped carefully along the sodden floor of a corridor. A cabin door had been left open and bedding, cushions, and personal items were strewn about, creating an obstacle course.
“I’m not sure,” Kes replied. “I haven’t asked about that yet. It’s difficult to talk with them so I’ve tried to keep everything very simple. But if I had to guess I’d say that they understand we need to be in air to survive and so they’re trying to help us.”
“You don’t think they plan on moving the ship somewhere?” asked Cariad. “Like farther out to sea?” An unwelcome vision popped into her head. She saw gigantic fila arms pushing the Nova Fortuna through the ocean like a gigantic child’s toy. She daren’t think what the effects on those inside the ship might be if her vision came true.
“I hadn’t thought of that possibility,” Kes said, looking a little worried. “I suppose they could pump out the water and seal the base where it shattered. That could make the ship buoyant and maneuverable. Maybe that could be what they’re planning to do, but I assume it’s something more benevolent.”
“Benevolent? You know what they did to Ethan, right? And they kept that farmer and his daughter captive for weeks.”
“As I heard it,” Kes replied, “if they hadn’t cut off his leg Ethan would have died. He had an infected foot.”
“But he wouldn’t have had an infection if the fila hadn’t been holding him in an underwater cell,” countered Cariad. “They might have saved his life but he was only at risk of dying because they’d captured him.”
“I’m not sure that’s true,” said Kes. “His foot might have become infected before they captured him. I admit I don’t know the details though. My point is, the fila recognized that their subject was severely sick and they figured out what to do to cure him. That’s pretty smart.”
