Approaching Oblivion (Jezebel's Ladder Book 4) (22 page)

“My
God, she has phenomenal muscle control,” Yvette said from the other side.

Yuki
covered the screen and blushed. Sojiro laughed and tried to move her hand out
of the way to see. “I want to see how she stretches this tease to ten minutes.”

Grabbing
the pad to her chest, Yuki said, “It’s private.” Her left index finger tapped a
rhythm on the back of the case.

Park
said, “The first performance I saw was a charity event for my sister’s
hospital. I went to four of her performances in all. I filmed the last one when
I heard she was quitting the circus.” His gaze settled on his wife. “She
captivated me even then.”

Wide
mouthed, Mercy shouted, “That’s
Yuki
? I knew she was an acrobat, but
wow. I thought she wore clothes.”

“The
act inspired me to study aeronautics,” Park continued.

“And
her treasure house of anatomical wonders,” Lou quipped, making fun of Toby’s
earlier comment.

“I
think I’ll put this pad in a safe place,” Yuki said, standing.

Park
put an arm on hers. “I can delete this if it offends you. I don’t need the
movie when I have the real thing.”

“Then
why show it?” Yuki asked, the tremor in her hand calming.

“To
prove how long I have wanted this day, and how seeing your performance led me
to this place . . . to you.”

As
the bride and groom left early, Lou muttered, “I bet I know what name he shouts
tonight.”

Weeks passed with the
same reports from each project: no progress with shimmer armor, the satellite
showed a few potential base camps, and the rover began a long stretch of lush
jungle. The morning Mercy’s countdown badge read, ‘T minus three days,’ Zeiss
ordered an all-hands meeting in the storage room.

Trapped
in her floating wheelchair, Mercy waited impatiently for everyone to arrive.
The room was always roasting with this many people. Toby rocked on the first
bench, grinning like a fool. Yuki paced, checking her hair in a small,
hand-held mirror. Zeiss’ uniform had been pressed, and Red sat next to him
watching something on her computer pad.

Walking
into the room, Yvette took one look and blurted, “You’ve seen a live
aborigine.”

Everyone
started asking questions at once. Sojiro activated the video camera. Zeiss
stood and ordered, “Quiet!” People obeyed but remained standing. “I wanted to
wait for everyone to arrive, but I’ll broadcast over the net so Nadia can see
this, too. I’m going to let the technician on duty report her findings—Specialist Park.”

At
first Yuki didn’t seem to know who he was referring to. Then, she approached
the podium and flashed a dazzling, news-anchor smile. “Early this morning, I
reviewed the video feeds from
Cerberus
for the last half L day. If
you’ll all be seated, I’ll put everything I’ve gathered on the screen.” Her
delivery sounded like she’d been running. When they turned, she displayed a
view of the omnipresent river. “Dr. Baatjies has identified the short plants in
the background as a bamboo analogue. The rover was investigating a hot springs when movement in this area triggered its attention.” The camera zoomed on a
black dot in the distance. Blurry, the short film showed a dark-furred humanoid
waddling on bowed rear legs. It stretched up to grab a leafy branch. As it
ambled, the long arms occasionally brushed the ground. After flicking at
something in the air over its head with the branch, it chewed the end like a
celery stalk. Then the alien disappeared into the tall vegetation. “Ten seconds
was all we captured, but I’ve retasked the satellite to sweep this area in
another six hours. Until then, the rover is hiding from sight—the hand must not
be seen. A human operator must monitor the audio and visual feeds at all times
from now on. We’ve rigged
Cerberus
for self-destruct at the push of our
button or if something picks it up.

“We
digitally enhanced the image the best we could and invited Dr. Baatjies to
share his observations.”

As
the ten-second clip played again in slow motion, Toby said, “This is what they
look like with their skin on. Heh. Even if this is a lazy specimen, gait
analysis predicts that a human can outrun one of these creatures, but they
out-mass us almost two to one. Females reach 110 kilograms, and males can be
135. Not all of that is fat. The branch he snapped off to swat at flies is
about three centimeters thick, which says his arms and jaws are more powerful
than ours.” The head had brown fur all over, and the wide face sported a narrow
mane around the cheeks and chin. The ears on the side were rounded and flicked
in irritation at the insects. When the mouth opened, the formidable fangs made
Yvette gasp. The eyes on either size of the wide nose were slitted cat style
and masked by darker circles of fur like a raccoon. “Though it
can
eat
plants, the ability of the eyes and ears to triangulate distance, as well as
the dentition, indicate a carnivore.”

When
Toby froze the best full-face picture, Mercy cooed, “I love pandas! They’re so
cute.”

Herk
glanced at the picture again to make sure they were looking at the same alien.
“This is a predator.”

Jumping
on the bandwagon, Toby asserted, “He’s right.
This isn’t
My Little
Pony
planet. These guys could chew your freaking hand off at the wrist.”

Lou held out his hands. “Easy.
Opinions are fine as long as we express them in a civilized manner. Some of us
have excess hormones right now, and I wouldn’t want any of you gents getting
hurt.”

“It’s a pity we didn’t name the
planet after Quan be—” Mercy halted mid-word.

“Mercy?” Lou called. She was
panting from the pain, and Lou wrapped his arm around her tightly.

Auckland dashed to Mercy’s side. “Contractions,
real ones.”

Lou said, “Yeah, even I could tell.”

“I’m sorry, what were we talking
about?” Mercy asked a moment later, blinking in confusion. The pain had
transported her elsewhere, making her see dizzying starscapes.

Pale, Yvette bent over double with
sympathy pains.

“You just whispered that it was a
pity we didn’t name the planet after Quan,” Lou repeated. “Why?”

“Because then we could name the
aborigines quandas,” Mercy joked. “We could still go with the Hell theme and rename
the world Pandemonium.”

Lou laughed until tears formed.

With a weaker linkage to the
Collective Unconscious, Toby didn’t wince in pain like the others. “Nurse, I’ll
push the patient’s chair to sick bay. You prep the operating room while the
doctor scrubs.”

****

Lou
held baby Stu in his arms, glowing with happiness. “I can see him. He’s made of
little blue clouds, but whatever I touch looks solid. Lord, he’s got long hair.
Are you sure Johnny’s not the father?” He joked, referring to the shaggy cook.

Still
groggy from the C-section, and too sore to sit up without help from the cushion
behind her, Mercy said, “The hair is blond and curly, and he can melt a girl’s
heart with a bat of his long eyelashes.”

“Well
then, tell me all about him.”

“He’s
gazing at you with pale, blue eyes now, and he’s as plump as a cherub. His birthday
is January twentieth.”

Yvette
and Toby watched the couple coo over their newborn. The nurse basked in the
family moment, while the nanobiologist felt compelled to correct a
misconception. “The hair will likely darken as he ages. Likewise, the eye color
may be a simple lack of melanin. The iris should darken with exposure to UV
light and stabilize within the next six months.”

“He’s
perfect,” the nurse said. “You two make gorgeous children.”

A
few moments after hugging Dad and rooting unsuccessfully at his nipple, Stu
screwed up his face and bleated like a goat. Mercy held out her arms. “Give him
back. He’s hungry.”

“How
can you tell?”

Laughing
lightly, Yvette said, “You’ll learn. Give the woman her bonding time. She’s
earned it. Out with you too, Toby.”

“Why?”
Toby began. However, when Mercy whipped up her muumuu to expose her right side
from thigh to breast, he turned away. “Bye.”

On
their way out, Lou said, “Thank you, Tobias Baatjies. You can help me hand out
the beers.”

Once
the men were gone, Yvette helped position the baby and gave breastfeeding
instructions.

Mercy
chatted while Stu fed. “It must be coming out chocolate the way he’s going to
town.”

“Colostrum
is thicker and more nutritious than mature milk,” Yvette explained.

Mercy
said, “I itch all over from that anesthesia.”

“That’s
actually a normal reaction.”

“We
made it. No more medicine!”

“Well
. . . you have about six weeks before the scar heals completely. You’ll feel it
every time you cough, sneeze, or laugh. Don’t even think about showering the
first time without help. After this, we’ll do some deep breathing exercises for
your lungs and stroll around a bit.”

“I’ve
missed walking,” Mercy complained.

“Yes.
When we go out to see the others, you’ll stay in the chair until I remove the
sutures in a few days. Any other side effects other than the gas?” asked the
nurse.

Mercy
furrowed her brow. “I had some hallucinations when the pain hit me.”

“Such
as?”

“Sort
of like when Lou held my hand in the stasis chamber after Yuki brought the
saucer to help me.”

“On
the mountaintop?” Yvette asked cautiously.

“Yeah,
and again when the contractions started.”

“Sometimes
extreme pain can accentuate your talents, especially when you’re in contact
with your bond-mate. I suppose the child could be an amplifier also if it
inherited your senses. What exactly did you see?”

“Picture
Van Gogh’s painting of
Starry Night
. I could see swirls deep beneath, almost
as if—”

“Stop,”
said Snowflake’s voice. “We would speak to Mother Mercy alone.”

Yvette
said, “I can’t leave her alone with the child in case she has another seizure.”

“Take
Brother Stewart with you, Yvette-friend.”

“When
he’s done feeding,” the nurse chided.

“Zeiss-spouse-of-Index
has commanded cooperation in this.” Red was the Index, the person with the original
instructions on how to reach
Sanctuary
. The Magi viewed her as the human
in charge of the test.

Yvette
said, “You can’t order a baby around, no matter who are.”

“Then
he feeds with no talking.”

During
this argument, Mercy thought furiously. Clearly, she was about to reveal
something about the hand of the Magi. The hallucination about a zero-gravity
zone inside the mountain might not have been so crazy after all. She normally
couldn’t sense that deep. The artificial null-g zone stood out like burn holes
in the upholstery. Following this line of reasoning, the great hollow chamber
must be another control room of sorts. Since humans weren’t involved, the invisible
robots had to gain entrance somehow. Anyone interested would have to search the
mountain for entry tunnels. How could she communicate this to Yvette? As her
firstborn fed, she hummed “The Bear Went over the Mountain to See What He Could
See.”

Unfortunately,
Yvette didn’t seem to pick up on the slim clue. Too soon, Stu finished and
drifted off to sleep. Her friend carried the child away saying, “I’ll show him
off to everyone. They’re all dying to see. Call if you need help with the
bully.”

When
Mercy was alone in sick bay, Snowflake said, “You can’t tell anyone what you
saw, not until the test is over. We can’t let you leave the habitat, either.
You might tell someone out there.”

That
meant she would have to heal the old-fashioned way. “What do I get in return
for being your mute hostage?” Mercy said, the pain in her side making the
comment sharper than she intended.

“Nothing
but the chance to stay unfrozen.”

“If
you freeze me, then you kill an innocent child. Stu has no other way to feed.”

“We
would be willing to freeze Brother Stewart as well.”

“Not
without violating the agreement,” she accused. “Stu did nothing wrong. I’m not
convinced some of my symptoms aren’t the result of being in the freezer too
long.”

“I
don’t like it when you are in stasis, Mother Mercy. I have no one to talk to.”

“The
crew plans to use the bulk-freeze capability fairly often to monitor the
aborigines on Labyrinth. The crop techniques that Toby wishes to teach them
could take years to implement and refine.”

“Someone
needs to shepherd your own crops so that the crew can eat and breathe. That
person could be you. Then we could both be happy.”

“I
might be willing to volunteer for this. I suppose I can’t ask for anything in
return . . . directly, but there is a tradition in my land where an older
sibling gives the younger a gift to indicate he’s willing to share their mother
in peace.” This was stretching a little, but Mercy had given a Thomas the Tank
Engine set to her younger sister, Mary. Although Mom had lobbied for a doll,
Mercy liked the wooden track better.

“What
sort of gift?”

“Well,
we can’t complete our test until we can hide ourselves from the aborigines,”
Mercy hinted.

“The
pages we have—”

“Let
me finish. We can make the armor work, but not your crazy power supply. That’s
new technology. Right?”

“Yes,
but giving you that secret would exceed our limit of twenty-seven pages for you.”

“Good.
We’re getting somewhere new. We don’t have to use your power sources; rather,
we only need to determine what inputs the armor is expecting. This is what we
refer to as a black box.”

“The
armor is white.”

“Black
is a metaphor for not being able to see inside a piece of technology. Yuki
writes code for us black-box style. She has no idea what the larger picture
is.”

“The
hand is hidden.”

“Yes.
I know you use crystals in your design. We don’t have any of our own, and
neither can we make them to my knowledge. We just need to know what the armor
expects.”

“Your
power is called electricity. We use something similar, called
mahdra
.
Your old crystal-radio sets were powered this way. Each shaped crystal has its
own unique
mahdra
rating. The charges can then be combined in series or
parallel like your circuits, which are ironically silicon.”