Damocles, page 11
Wagner squinted up at an orb that hovered just out of his reach. “They have a lot of broadcast on this planet, don’t they? Maybe somebody else is trying to get in on the show. That would explain why the authorities are so nervous about it. Second rule of an unknown situation is to control information.”
“What’s the first rule?” Jefferson asked.
Prader snorted. “Don’t get killed.”
Meg saw Loul watching her, watching her crewmates, leaning in trying to hear their words. He also kept an eye out on the hovering orbs. “Let me see what Loul wants us to do.” He heard his name. Meg kept her hand low, close to her body, and pointed up at the orb.
“Yes? Okay?” She didn’t know what else to do, so she slipped a finger to the light screen and pushed the question mark button repeatedly. Loul watched her, grinding his teeth, and she could see he wanted to tell her something but didn’t yet have the words. He tilted his body as the orb swooped down closer, and Meg could see him trying to put himself between it and the light screen. Jefferson was right—these were cameras or spy objects of some sort.
Loul ground his teeth a moment longer, pointedly not looking at the orb. When Meg pulled the screen down closer to the ground, bending over Loul’s shoulder and effectively blocking any overhead view, the orb spun and swooped and Loul smiled. If Loul didn’t want those things to see the screen, she’d do all she could to keep it from happening. That it felt like a secret pinkie swear between grade-school kids just made it that much nicer.
“Okay?” Meg asked again.
He flicked his gaze to where the orb hovered and then spoke in a low tone. “Yes. No.”
Prader’s voice hissed through the coms. “That’s helpful.”
“It is helpful,” Meg said. “It means it’s not good but it’s not too bad. If those are cameras, I think it means the military here has got an uncomfortable situation on their hands. Someone else has found out we’re here, someone they probably wanted to keep this a secret from. Maybe another government? Maybe the population as a whole? It’s what we would do.”
“Which begs the question,” Wagner said, “what are they going to do about it now?”
They didn’t need to wait long for an answer. The trio in charge at the barricade reemerged from the huddle they’d slipped into once the orbs had appeared. From behind the barricade, a team of men unpacked a squat metal box, pulling out an equally squat metal dish, like a small satellite dish. All around them, people shouted gruff words, and down the line of the barricade the sound of machinery stuttered to silence. When all the machinery was quiet, Meg couldn’t help but notice just how loud the human-made thrumming sound really was. At first it registered on several notes, like cocktail party chatter. As the machinery went silent, however, the sounds came together, an audible harmony that was nearly palpable.
“What is that?” Cho asked. Meg didn’t know if he meant the machine or the sound. Before she could venture a guess, a piercing squeal emanated from the squat metal dish, a sound pulse loud enough to be felt like a wind. Before she could react, Loul yanked her arm hard, sending her sprawling toward him, the crash of her body not moving him an inch. He held her tight enough against him that she knew she would have bruises on her back, but that wasn’t what took her breath away. Seconds after the dish’s loud squawk, the hovering orbs stilled and their sails collapsed. As one they crashed to the ground.
EIGHT
LOUL
* * *
Blacking out the news cameras had done nothing to stop the tide of reporters on the site. He knew the orbs had captured perfect visuals of the Urfers and might even have captured the sounds of their voices. Images of the ship parked right there on the Roana Temple would shoot around the web, and for just a second he wondered if Po and Hark had seen him there in the middle of the action. If his face had been captured on video, even for half a frame, he knew Po would see it, doubtless scanning frame by frame over each second of video to find the truth.
The generals had conferred with him about the press conference, making it clear he would not be a part of it. Their main concerns, understandably, were to keep the population at large from panicking. That’s what always happened in the movies. Aliens landed. People died. Terror burned through the streets. He’d even recommended measures against such events in his report—that bunkers be stocked in the lowest tunnels, crucial personnel prepared for evacuation, and international communication set up for a team resistance effort. It seemed so strange now, all that work, all those eventualities he’d spent months considering. And the administration had believed him. They’d probably implemented a lot of his plans.
But this? He had never anticipated this. The immediacy of it, the…well, there was no other word for it, the intimacy of it. The generals had their press conference and the archivists had broadcast it within the barrier. Images of the Urfers were posted to the web and reporters were given carefully constructed answers to their raging questions. Details were kept to an absolute minimum due in large part to the fact that details were at a premium. Even with the language building, even with the bond he could feel between him and Meg as surely as he could feel the ground beneath his feet, they still had surprisingly few hard facts about the Urfers.
The stasis events drove the frontline team to distraction. The engineers who had been trying to communicate with the palest and smallest Urfer had huffed and stomped and thrown down their equipment when the two aliens did not reemerge from their shelter. The Urfers stayed hidden away for nearly a shift and a half before climbing back out. Loul had urged Meg to follow him to that side of the field to help convince the engineers to remain calm. When two engineers had decided to approach the shelter, Meg and the leader had stood in front of them blocking the way.
It was Cho and the Effans who managed to smooth things over. Cho had invited the scientists to see the shelter he had climbed into earlier. They had both squatted down, peering into the low dome, and Cho had climbed in between them. Several moments later, the women returned to their portable lab and began writing out a long list of notes.
“They call it ‘leep’ or something like that.” Effan Two didn’t look up from where her knuckles furiously pounded in the input box. “I can barely hear him but it seems like a necessary biological function to them. Like dropping but it looks like they have to be on the ground.”
“Do you think the domes have an effect?” Effan One rechecked the data her partner entered. “I didn’t pick up any trace minerals or chemical interactions. It didn’t seem like the dome emits any type of chemical or pheromone.”
Loul, with Meg peering over his shoulder, listened in. “What do they do once they get inside the shelters?”
Effan One shrugged. “All he did was lie there, eyes closed. Maybe they extract something from the soil beneath them, some sort of nutrient.”
“Holy crap,” her partner laughed, “maybe we were right about them needing to land on this site. Wouldn’t that be a hammer to the head?”
Loul watched them work, fascinated and happy that they were making connections with Cho. The more people able to communicate, the faster communication would develop. If the Effans could explain this “leep” thing to the engineers, maybe they would cool down and work with the two reemerged Urfers to gain some real technological headway. The Urfers were clearly scientifically advanced, and the chance to learn from their knowledge could change the history of Didet forever.
He occupied himself with these and similar lofty thoughts until he realized Meg had grown very quiet. She watched the Effans working at their lab with eyes that were only half opened. The white surrounding the remarkable brown circle had grown redder by the moments, and once Loul had thought she was going to tell him something, snapping him to attention, only to watch her open her mouth impossibly wide showing every single one of her white teeth. She squeezed her eyes shut as her mouth kept opening and opening and he could hear a sound as breath rushed from her mouth.
He jabbed the question mark button but she only blinked at him. “Okay?” He asked.
“Yes.” She pressed the tips of her fingers into the skin over her eyes and then blinked hard several times. The leader called out something behind her and she bobbed her head. Putting a hand on his shoulder, she smiled. “Meg dropping.”
“What?” He asked even though he knew she couldn’t understand him. “No.”
“Yes.” She turned away from him and headed toward the shelter where Cho also squatted. Loul followed her.
“No, Meg. Are you going to drop like those other two? For a shift? Two shifts?” He felt stupid. He knew she didn’t know what he was saying and he could tell nothing he did get through would stop her, but the thought of her disappearing from his sight, even for just a shift, made him want to stomp his foot and throw a tantrum. It terrified him.
Cho crawled into the tent and Meg folded her long legs down to follow him. Loul dropped into a deep crouch, hearing the Effans hurrying up behind him. The realization must have hit them too. Meg and Cho were their only links to the world of the Urfers. The other three crew members remained aloof, less adept or maybe less inclined to communicate. It might only be a shift or two but Loul and the Effans burned with need to interact with these beings. How could they just interrupt the encounter like this?
Meg disappeared within the dome, the filmy flap falling into place behind her. Loul couldn’t help himself. He grabbed the film and pulled it back. In the milky light filtering through the dome, he saw Cho unfold himself on his back on a dark, puffy pad. When he saw Loul’s intrusion, he made a low sound to Meg, who turned and smiled at Loul. Sitting on the ground beside Cho’s supine body, she pulled out the light screen.
“Meg dropping,” she said and pointed to the screen. Her finger hovered over the yes button. “Yes.” She pressed the button several times, much as she had pressed the question mark button earlier. Another voice came from the speaker patch, lower but not Dideto. Cho’s probably, amplified in the recording. “Leep.” That’s what the Effans had said Cho had called it, although he thought he could hear more sound in the word, more like fleep or gleep.
Loul pressed the question mark button several times.
Meg smiled and touched his hand. “Meg is okay. Meg dropping. Yes.” And with that, she lay back on the ground beside Cho, dragging up a thin sheet of fabric to cover their bodies. Cho had one of his long arms draped over his face, covering his eyes, and Loul could tell he and Meg were speaking softly to each other. Whatever they said made Meg smile, her breath coming out in short puffs that moved the fabric over her body. Loul and the Effans waited, watching, but within minutes both Urfers grew unnaturally still, the only movement the rising and falling of their thin chests beneath the fabric.
MEG
* * *
“Landing on a planet of people who don’t sleep—proof there is no God.” Cho groaned, throwing his arm over his eyes. Meg laughed and settled in beside him.
“Looks like we may have an audience while we sleep.”
“Nothing creepy about that.”
She pulled the blanket up over them both. Every inch of her wanted to roll onto her side, throw her leg over Cho, and fall asleep, but she knew the Dideto were puzzled by sleep. She didn’t need to complicate information. Of course, if Loul and the other two watched them the entire time, who knew what they would see? Cho snored, and she knew she talked in her sleep, to say nothing of the ordinary shifting and thrashing through dream sequences. There was nothing to be done about it now, however. They’d been awake for nearly twenty-four hours. They all needed at least five hours of sleep to continue to function. Prader and Jefferson had gone first. As captain, Wagner volunteered to go last. All Meg knew for sure was that she had to sleep right now, and despite the hard ground, she felt herself drifting off.
“What the hell is that noise?” Cho blew out a loud breath, pulling her out of sleep. “Are they talking? Humming? What is it?”
It took her a minute to understand what he meant. Then she heard the low throat sounds of Loul and the Effans where they sat perched at the door of the dome. “It’s their sound. It’s like a vocal body language, I think.”
“Can they tone it down?”
“I doubt it. Think of it as white noise, like the sound of cicadas.” She murmured a happy sound as he rolled onto his side and pulled her toward him. She rolled too, pressing her back into his chest, relaxing under the weight of his arm on her waist.
“I hate cicadas.”
“Grumpy.” She yawned, settling in. “I like the sound. I like these people.”
Cho’s only response was a soft breath against the back of her neck.
When the alarm went off on Cho’s armband, Meg lay on her stomach, the small pillow damp beneath her cheek. Cho sprawled off the pad, the sound making him jump.
“Oh my God.” His voice was thick with sleep. “What did we sleep? Five minutes?”
Meg rolled over and stretched long, feeling her body complain at the movement. Before her eyes were fully focused, the flaps to the dome opened and three Dideto faces appeared. She covered her face with her hands to smother a giggle as Cho sighed.
“You know, I used to have a dog that did that every morning. Just stand there and breathe on me until I woke up.” He sat up and raked his hands through his rumpled hair. “I didn’t keep that dog long.”
“Yeah.” Meg pulled herself up too, smiling at Loul. “You didn’t land on your dog’s planet. Their world, their ways. Their smiling faces everywhere we go.”
Cho sighed as the Effans started talking to him, his name the only word he could understand. “Well I’m going first and then you can let your boy there follow you into the port-toilet. That should make for some interesting syntax building.”
“You’re the bioscience officer.”
“I’m also bigger, faster, and meaner than you.”
“Yeah?” She shook her hair out from the loosened ponytail. “But I have breasts.”
He shot her a side eye, trying not to smile. “Cheater.”
“Yep.” She kissed him on the cheek before crawling toward the door. “Breasts always win. Remember that.”
Loul was already talking to her as she climbed from the dome, squinting in hot sunlight. She nodded at him and let him follow her as far as to the door of the small port-toilet dome. When he made motions to follow her, she put her hands on his chest. “No.”
“Dropping? Meg dropping?”
“Meg is okay.” She nodded again, trying not to giggle at the accidental toilet humor. She put her hands on his chest and could feel the powerful muscles beneath her hands. If he forced himself, she wouldn’t be able to stop him. Not that there was anything to hide really. It was just that there were so many things they needed to learn to say to each other. Explaining why she was pulling down her pants and squatting over a bowl of genetically modified algae and underneath a solar panel was not how she wanted to start her day. Besides, Cho was the bioscience officer. That would be a fun part of his information sharing.
Cho waited outside the door for his turn, Loul and the Effans talking over each other. She had to laugh at the still-grumpy expression on his face. “You know, you’re going to have to turn your translation com on today. There’s no avoiding it.”
He scowled as he passed by. “Science in the morning is never a good thing. If it’s even morning. Tell Wagner to get some sleep. And tell Chatty Cathy and company that we’re going to talk about food when I get out.”
“I’ll get your kit.”
Meg held out her arms wide, gesturing to Loul and the Effans to move away from the dome and back to the center of the field. She grabbed Cho’s small biokit from outside their shelter and needed only to nod at Wagner to give him the signal to take his much-needed sleep. Prader and a cluster of Dideto in green suits were crouched by one of the landing boosters of the Damocles sub, the sounds of metallic clanging and shouting bursting out now and again. Jefferson worked alone, scanning through his light screen, still gathering geological data from his probes that had come back online.
Meg settled Loul and the Effans in a semicircle, motioning for them to be still while she got some food and water. She’d need Cho to help her explain what they needed nutrient-wise and to analyze whatever the Dideto ate to see if their food was compatible with Earther biology. Grabbing a couple of protein blocks and a bag of water, she settled across from her Dideto friends. Cho joined them a moment later.
“I suppose it’s too much to ask,” he said, crossing his legs beneath him, “to hope that coffee is a required nutrient on this planet.”
Meg took a deep drink of water. “Why? Do you think they have trouble staying awake?”
Cho finally laughed, the restorative effects of even their brief sleep brightening up this mood. He took the water from Meg, toasted the wide-eyed and fidgeting Effans, and drank.
“Good morning, ladies. Let’s get started, shall we?” He activated his translation com.
The days sped by, Cho warning them to set their alarms. Although the levels of daylight shifted as the various suns rose and fell, true nightfall never came and their bodies adjusted with some difficulty. Eating, sleeping, and even bathroom breaks had to be scheduled to keep their bodies working smoothly. There were only five Earthers on the planet and a never-ending stream of new teams of Dideto to work with. The Dideto didn’t sleep in the sense that the Earthers did, their regularly spaced dropping sessions adequate to refresh them. Meg laughed and teased Cho when she saw that he had become as obsessed with understanding the dropping as the Effans were with examining his sleep.
The food and water discussions made headway at a pretty decent pace. Fortunately the Dideto also required water, although not as much as the Earthers, and Cho had little trouble explaining to the Effans that the crew would need a large vat of water on hand. Cho set up a solar-powered purification system, at which Jefferson had smirked: “Do you think we’ll have enough daylight to run it?”
