Cold Eyes (First Contact), page 31
“Not years? Not your years? Our revolutions?”
“Your revolutions.”
“You’re so young,” she says, letting go of him and drifting back over the water. “On our world, you would still be in a nursery.”
“On my world, I wouldn’t even be able to walk. I’d be years away from talking.”
“How?” she asks. “How is this possible?”
“I was grown in-vitro.”
“In glass,” she says.
“Yes.”
“We’ve done something like this,” she says, “but we never thought about using it for spaceflight.”
“It’s a question of resources,” Dali says. “Cloning mid-flight keeps the mass needed as low as possible. It reduces the need for life support, food, and energy, things like that. On a journey that spans generations, we only ever needed the last generation to make it here.”
“That makes sense.”
Dali is impressed she knew terms like in-vitro as, even on Earth, it’s an obscure concept.
“So you studied all this stuff?” he asks. “I mean us, our ways, our culture, our world?”
“I’m fluent in five of your languages—English, Chinese, German, Russian and French. I’ve written several research papers on the interpretation of Earth’s history and your desire for exploration. I’m currently—”
From the rocks near the front of the cave, a fire bolt explodes, ripping through the still air. The flash of yellow is like the glare of Earth’s sun reflecting off a mirror. Dali feels a wave of heat wash over him. He moves on instinct. The blast has already sailed past him, but he reacts, wanting to seek cover from a danger that has come and gone in a fraction of a second. Blue blood sprays out across the cave walls.
“Rose,” he yells.
Pebbles shift with the sand beneath his boots as he scrambles over to her.
Rose lies strewn on the rocks. Blood seeps from her torn flotation bladder. Her dark eyes stare blindly at the rocky ceiling. Her arms twitch. The blast skimmed the top of her head, leaving a dark scorch mark on her pale flesh.
“I—I—I,” she stutters. Flashes of black roll across her body and along her arms. Her wing fins twitch, trying to take flight, but they rely on her weight being supported by the torn gas bladder.
Prowlers climb around the walls, moving toward the back of the cave. Their slim, pale bodies hug the rocks.
Dali grabs the gun from the pouch on Rose’s tunic. Rather than being set at a right angle, the grip leads almost directly into the barrel. If there’s a safety, it’s not obvious. Dali extends his hand, pointing it at the advancing troops. He squeezes and a super-heated plasma bolt shoots into the distance, striking the cave wall. The rock there glows red hot.
Prowlers continue to creep forward, alternating their advance. If Dali points at one cave wall, they clamber over the other. More of them approach from beneath the sea. Their distinct head-bumps rise from the water before hiding behind boulders.
“Stay back,” he yells. If they understand the colors and shapes rolling over the translation device on his chest, they ignore his warning. He fires several more shots, but his aim is lousy. There’s a slight recoil. Without understanding how to aim one of these guns, he’s firing wide and high. Molten rock drips from the walls, but no one fires back at him.
A hand reaches for his leg, touching at his suit.
“Please,” Rose says. “Don’t.”
“I’m not going to let you die,” he says as the prowlers close to within ten feet, hiding behind boulders scattered throughout the cave. They’re bold, daring him to take a shot, stepping out from behind the rocks and darting into the shadows. If he fires one way, they rush him from the other.
A boat circles out beyond the cave, kicking up waves, waiting to come and get him.
Dali does the only thing he can. He turns the gun on himself. Emotions well up within him, choking him. He feels lost, helpless. His fingers shake. He’s got to do something. He can’t accept being taken hostage again.
He points the gun at the side of his helmet, yelling, “I’m warning you. Get back!”
Already, he can see prowlers creeping out of sight beyond the peripheral vision allowed by his helmet. They’re out-flanking him. If they rush him, they could pull his arm away. He switches, holding the gun in front of his chest. He’s got the barrel directly beneath the rim of his helmet, pointing up at the faceplate. Dali doesn’t need a headshot to die, just a slight crack in the glass. If the integrity of his helmet fails, he’ll be choked to death in seconds by the inrush of pressure from the alien atmosphere. He’s determined not to become a puppet of yet another warring faction on Bee.
“I will not be your goddamn idol,” he says. “Get back! Get away from us. I swear. I’ll do it. All you’ll have is a corpse.”
The prowlers step back, not far but enough to suggest they’re taking his threat seriously.
“I’m a dead man anyway,” he says. “Don’t you get it? I die down here! Regardless of what happens in your goddamn war. Come any closer, and I’ll die today.”
The boat enters the cave. Its motor is off. It drifts forward on its own wash, coming in toward the sandy shore. A prowler steps up on the bow. His height. He’s smaller than the others—the runt of the litter. There’s a scar on his shoulder. Dali recognizes him immediately.
“Bob?”
The hull of the boat nudges the sand, coming to rest a few feet away. Dali still has the gun in front of his chest, but his resolve is gone. His hand rests in his lap. The heat from the barrel scorches his white suit material, but he’s beyond caring.
Bob drops down onto the beach, using the wing-flaps between his arms to slow his descent. His bare feet sink into the sand. Dark shades run over his skin, forming a fountain of shapes that tumble down his arms.
“It’s me, spaceman.”
“What are you doing?” Dali asks, backing up on the rocks next to Rose. He shields her, keeping his bulky spacesuit between Bob and her. “I won’t let you take us. I won’t be the prophet of your religion.”
“No religion, spaceman. Reason.”
“What?”
“You were right. It’s reason we need. Please, put the gun down.”
Dali is conflicted. He wants to believe Bob, but he can’t. He raises the gun, looking at it, unsure what he should do next. Bob’s also holding a gun, but it’s hanging limp from one of the four arms dangling by his side. He drops his gun. It clatters on the rocks. Bob kicks it to one side.
“Trust, spaceman. Trust.”
Dali rests his gun on the rocky beach. With Rose lying there dying, he’s got nothing left.
“What is she to you?” Bob asks.
“A friend.”
“A friend? She is the enemy.”
“You’ve got this all wrong,” Dali says. “She understands reason.”
“Come,” Bob replies, reaching out a hand to help him up.
“Not without her. You’ve got to help her.”
Stripes ripple over Bob’s body, but they’re not picked up by the translation unit. They echo out across the other prowlers onshore. Those on the walls fall back, climbing out of the cave. Two more prowlers drop down from the boat behind Bob. They’re carrying a stretcher and what looks like a medical pack. They attend to Rose, lifting her onto the flat board.
“You’ve got to care for her—to heal her,” Dali says.
“It will be as you say, spaceman,” Bob replies, still holding his hand out before him. Dali takes Bob’s hand. Sand shifts beneath Bob’s feet as he pulls Dali up. “Come, we have much to talk about.”
“Where are we going?”
Bob rests his arm on Dali’s shoulder, saying, “To the Empire State, my friend.”
Dali’s eyes go wide.
“What?”
The Empire State Building
Rose is lowered to the deck of the boat on the stretcher. A medic cares for her, inserting the alien equivalent of an IV into her arm. He tends to the bleeding with what looks like spray-on-skin, only this is spray-on-veins-and-arteries. She must be on painkillers as she’s subdued during the boat ride. After a few minutes, her flotation bladder partially inflates, which he takes as a good sign.
“I’m okay,” she says as Dali drops down on a seat beside her. His bulky backpack has him barely on the seat, with just the edge of his ass cheeks resting on the foam. It means he has to support his weight with his legs rather than relax, but the mechanical frame helps take up the load.
“Sure you are,” he says, squeezing her hand and smiling.
The craft races over the water at high speed, accelerating as it skips across the waves like a flat stone tossed from a beach. Behind them, the fight continues. Explosions rise from the trees. Part of the temple collapses, with the roof caving in, bringing down the marble columns. Dust plumes billow into the air. Vapor trails reveal the path of missiles. Aircraft from either side engage each other. Countermeasures are deployed. Flares, chaff and decoys add to the confusion. The haze of war clouds the air. No one seems to be concerned by a small boat going the other way.
Out from the coast, the wind has dropped. The sea is as smooth as glass. There’s a gentle swell, but it only varies by a couple of feet over hundreds of yards, allowing them to power on in comfort. The hull of the boat taps against the water each time it comes down.
Bob walks back and sits beside him. He has the luxury of being able to sit properly. As Dali is perched precariously on the edge of his seat, his vision is limited. He has to twist to turn and see Bob as he speaks.
“She helped you?”
“She did,” Dali says. “She was honest. She cared.”
“And she gave you this?” he asks, lifting the translation device and looking at how it’s held in place on his suit by scruffy Velcro straps.
“Yes.”
Bob and Rose exchange a flurry of shapes. Triangles glide over their skin, transforming into rows of dots and arrows, rectangles and hollow circles. Swirls form, cascading and curling in on each other, wrapping around their arms in an intricate dance of light and dark. It’s as though a bunch of ornate, native Hawaiian tattoos have been brought to life. All Dali hears is the hiss of static.
“Hey, no talking behind my back,” he says, hoping that idiom communicates. Given the way he’s balanced on the seat, Bob could take him literally.
“It’s not rude,” Rose says.
“Your language is simple,” Bob says. “It’s straight. Flat. There’s only one dimension. Too many things must be put in a row. One must follow another. It is not so for us.”
“Our language is like your moving pictures,” Rose says. “We can say much at once.”
With that, they continue exchanging glyphs and symbols. There’s a beauty to the symmetry. Wave after wave of detailed patterns roll by.
“I’m convinced,” Bob says.
“By what?” Dali asks, curious about what could have been said that would overcome the possibility of elaborate lies being cast.
Rose says, “I gave him a detailed record of our encounter.”
“Including details that seemed insignificant but weren’t,” Bob says. “Details that convince me she means you no harm.”
“Like what?”
Bob leans close and taps the lower corner of Dali’s visor. His finger aligns with the now red blinking light indicating their discussion is being recorded.
“This changes in wavelength, but only when your spacecraft is overhead, does it not?”
“Ah,” Dali says, not sure how much information he should give away. “Yes.”
“She didn’t know. They didn’t know. You had them all fooled. They thought you were isolated, but you weren’t.”
“How do you know?” Dali asks, intrigued Bob has picked up on this.
“Her imaging. She showed me every detail she observed, regardless of whether she understood it or not. Very clever, spaceman. You were talking to your crew in secret.”
“Not talking,” he says. “Replaying past interactions.”
“This is interesting,” Bob says.
“How does your language work?” Dali asks, pointing back at them. He feels uncomfortable giving away too much about human technology, even if it is antiquated by their standards. He’s shifting the topic onto something he wants clarified.
Bob leans back, pointing at Dali’s helmet. “I suspect our communication works much like yours. You may speak with acoustic waves, but your suit captures so much more. Does it not record images, sounds, temperature, pressure, radiation flux and magnetic fields?”
“It records information, yes,” Dali says, unsure what sensors are built into his exploration suit. “When the Magellan is in contact, that data is compressed and sent to them for analysis.”
Bob turns to Rose, shimmering with geometric shapes and speaking at the same time. “It seems we misjudged them.”
“It does,” Rose says. “They use technology to compensate for their physical limitations.”
“And this interaction?” Bob asks.
“It’s being recorded,” Dali says.
“Wonderful,” Rose says. “So they can see me? They can hear me?”
“They will,” Dali says. “Next time I connect.”
“Hello,” Rose says, mimicking the way he’s greeted her in the past. She waves to someone reviewing the recording at some point in the future. Rose says, “We’ve used such devices, but only for archiving research. Such machines are rare for most of us because of how we share imprints.”
Bob gets to his feet, patting Dali on his shoulder. “Well done, spaceman.”
The boat slows as it turns in toward the shore. Marshlands extend for miles. Their boat enters a broad delta stretching along the coast. The muddy ocean is replaced with crystal clear water as they follow a river inland. Trees hang over the shoreline. Fish are visible, swimming against the current. Smooth stones form shoals along the bank, marking how the river weaves back and forth, leading down to the sea. Ahead, a glacier descends from the mountains. It’s broad, spanning easily ten miles. The chaos of cold ice forms a stark backdrop to the lush coastal region.
The boat emerges into a vast lake fed by the glacier. Icebergs dot the calm waters. Their jagged slopes catch the rays of the alien sun, making them appear blood-red. Chunks of ice fall away from the bigger bergs, splashing into the lake.
The boat hugs the shoreline, never straying more than a dozen yards from the trees, keeping to the shadows.
Dali is mesmerized by the beauty of the alien landscape around him.
Large schools of fish dart away as the boat approaches. They ruffle the surface of the water as if ready to jump. Perhaps they’re spooked, expecting some predator approaching from beneath. The water is so clear they’d easily see an ambush, and yet they’re nervous. For them, instinct overrides reason.
Birds fly in flocks, but instead of adopting a V-shaped formation, they’re single file. The line they follow, though, curls with thermals rising out over the land. It’s as though the birds are following an invisible escalator in the sky.
The boat pulls in under a grove of trees, gently nudging the bank. One of the prowlers ties the boat to a trunk. That there’s no dock, no buildings, and only a barely trodden path doesn’t inspire confidence in Dali.
“Come,” Bob says, dropping down from the boat with his arms wide and his wings extended. For Dali, it’s not quite as easy. He sits on the side of the boat with his boots dangling. He tries to position himself so his life-support backpack won’t catch on the edge of the boat as he drops to the grass. For him, it’s a case of shifting forward with his gloved hands and then twisting sideways at the last moment. He falls and his boots sink into the soft mud.
“And Rose?” he asks.
Bob doesn’t respond to him. Shapes flicker over his skin. Two other prowlers carry her forward on the stretcher, handing her off to soldiers onshore. Most of the prowlers Dali has seen have been dressed like Bob and Rose, with a light tunic draped over their torsos. These soldiers, though, look almost mechanical. Armor covers their bodies. It’s thin, with joints to allow for movement, but they could well be robots for all Dali can tell. Perhaps they are.
“More walking,” Bob says. “You like walking.”
“Oh, I loooove walking,” Dali says, wondering if sarcasm is universally understood. He falls in behind Bob. Even with his power-frame, it’s exhausting trying to keep up. Bob sends several of his crew on ahead. They bound along the track with the agility of gazelles. In seconds, they’ve disappeared into the forest. Dali tries not to look at his boots, but it’s all he can do to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Besides, the occasional root sprawling across the path could trip him.
They walk up a hill overlooking the lake. Occasionally, Bob pauses, giving Dali time to catch up. Dali sneaks a peek through the trees at the mountains, the glacier and the lake. If it weren’t for the red tinge, this could be somewhere in Canada, or perhaps Alaska.
After a few hours, they trudge into a windswept clearing. Bob keeps them in the shade of the trees, leading them around to a camouflage tent on the far side. It’s only as they get close that Dali realizes there are various types of aircraft hidden beneath nets and foliage.
“Is this it?” Dali asks with sweat beading on his forehead despite his in-suit air conditioning and cooling system. “The Empire State?”
“Patience, spaceman.”
Uniforms are another universal trait. It seems the desire to whitewash the chaos and brutality of war with clean lines and sharp dress is shared across star systems. The soldiers’ arms are bare, allowing them to communicate, but their tunics are starched, for lack of a better term. They have carefully designed pleats and folds that look out of place compared to the camouflage hiding their aircraft.
Soldiers move with a sense of purpose throughout the camp, but the sight of a short, squat, squishy-faced alien hidden inside a bulky white spacesuit trudging through their base gets some notice. Several of them pause for a look before being prodded by others to keep at their work. The silence is unnerving. Although the prowlers are talking to each other with ripples of color, it seems they’re too far away for his translation device to kick in. They continue on in silence, surrounded by flickering stripes running along their arms.
