Dark Beneath the Moon (25 page)
I shrugged. “Good question. This station, I’d guess. Maybe they don’t know our word for it.”
“They seem to have a reasonable handle on the language,” Yuskeya said. “It’s older, more formal Esper, but clear enough.”
“I’d like to take them up on that offer to look around,” Viss said, getting up from his skimchair. “Captain?”
I held up a hand. “We’re not all getting off the
Tane Ikai
at once. Viss, you and Yuskeya come with me. Hirin, you have the chair. Everyone sit tight, and monitor us on the suit mics and cameras.”
Hirin opened his mouth as if he’d protest, but then closed it and merely nodded.
Someone else, however, did have something to say. Gerazan Soto stood to stiff attention and said formally, “Commander Blue, I’d like permission to ask you something.”
If Yuskeya was surprised, her voice didn’t show it. “Go ahead, Lieutenant.”
He kept his eyes trained directly on Yuskeya when he spoke. “With all due respect to Captain Paixon, we’re now in contact with a previously unknown alien species. Shouldn’t the Protectorate assume control and follow protocols for this situation?”
In my peripheral vision I saw Rei shoot him a look that was—less than friendly. Viss muttered something I didn’t catch. Angry words sparked on my own tongue, but I bit down on them. I’d let Yuskeya handle this. She seemed to take a moment to consider his words.
“Lieutenant Soto, you’re quite right,” she said finally.
Shock stole anything I might have said in that second. Someone made a gasp of surprise. Fortunately, Yuskeya continued without pausing.
“Or you would be, if we were still in Nearspace. However, we’re not, and so I don’t believe the Protectorate has any jurisdiction to override Captain Paixon’s command. I am assigned to her crew, under her, and I’m not about to usurp her authority. You, however, are still under
my
command. Does that answer your question?”
His gaze didn’t waver. “Yes, Commander. Thank you.”
Rei let out a little huff of what sounded like annoyance. Hirin raised his eyebrows at me but didn’t say anything. I merely said, “Now that that’s cleared up, let’s go.”
The three of us headed for the rear airlock. Viss and Yuskeya hadn’t said anything to each other, but I thought I could trust them to do their jobs.
Yuskeya paused when we passed the weapons locker. “Weapons?”
I hesitated. “I don’t know. It’s one of those, ‘if they wanted us dead we’d already be breathing vacuum’ scenarios. They had their chance to take us out—probably more than one while we were puttering around the station. And we’re still here. I don’t want to insult them.”
“I’d rather insult them than be unprepared,” Viss said.
“
Okej
, we’ll compromise. You two take weapons, and I’ll go unarmed. That should cover our bases.”
They pulled plasma rifles from the locker, giving each a quick, efficient check before we hurried on to the airlock.
“Helmets?” Viss asked when we reached the outer door.
“As a precaution,” I said with a nod. “Let’s be sure these folks know what the ‘survival requirements’ of our species are before we try to breathe the air out there.”
So we fastened on our helmets, ran through one more EVA check with each other, and pushed the button to open the airlock. When it cycled through with us inside, I nodded to Viss, and he opened the other door to let us out.
We stood for a long moment in the hatchway, staring out at the inside of the station.
“
Sankta merde
!” Viss breathed, his voice low over the interior helmet speaker.
I don’t know what I had expected—judging from the gelatinous exterior of the station, something equally surreal, I suppose. Instead, it bore a striking resemblance to docking bays all over Nearspace. Solid floors and walls, cables and wires snaking in unfathomable coils, miscellaneous equipment and tools pushed off to the sides out of the way.
The only strange element was that it was entirely black. Everything was black—some shade between charcoal and ebony. Some surfaces were matte and some reflective; various textures caught the light as we moved, finally, out of the hatchway of the ship. But the colour scheme had ostensibly been devised by someone of little imagination or colour perception. Light shone from the ceiling to illuminate the bay, long glowing strips running the length of the room. The light wasn’t hot, like the high pressure sodium lights on the
Tane Ikai
; it had a more muted feel, like phosphorescence.
Yuskeya had her datamed out, taking readings. “They got that part right, at any rate. Seventy-nine percent nitrogen, twenty percent oxygen, one percent a mix of other little goodies, none of which will harm us. Pressure’s right, too, one kilogram per square centimeter, and the gravity feels pretty much like home. I’d say it’s safe to take off the helmets.”
So we did, while we walked a little way from the ship in order to turn and look back at her. There wasn’t much to see. Only the rear wall of the hull was visible, the rest of the ship still enveloped in the black, jelly-like substance that made up the exterior of the station. I imagined it letting go of the ship with a sucking noise and oozing into the shape of one of those long spikes. I wasn’t sure I trusted any material that acted that way.
Viss strode to the nearest wall and touched it with a tentative, gloved finger. “More solid than it appears,” he observed. He inspected his glove as if he expected some of the material to have rubbed off on it, but he held it up so we could see that none had. He pressed a palm flat against it. “There’s the slightest give. I feel like if I pushed hard enough, my hand would go inside.”
“How about you don’t press that hard,” Yuskeya suggested in a terse voice, not taking her eyes off her datamed screen.
Before Viss could answer her, the “representative” appeared. I say “appeared” advisedly—it was only a hologram or something akin to that, and it sprang into existence a mere foot or so from Yuskeya. She’d been intent on her readings and stumbled sideways, tripping on one of the cables. Viss automatically put out a hand to steady her.
“Thanks,” she whispered without looking at him.
He nodded gravely, even though she couldn’t see him, and said nothing.
“Are your crew and vessel unharmed?” the hologram alien asked politely, in unexpectedly intelligible Esper.
I couldn’t answer right away. If the hologram offered an accurate representation of the species that had created this station and the spidery ships, they were intriguing. They reminded me of crows.
I shouldn’t say that, I suppose, because it gives the wrong impression. The hologram stood at least five feet tall, so size did not enter into it. It was the long, beak-like mouth—the only accurate way to describe it was as a beak, although it was paler than a crow’s usually dark one. Then there was the sleek head covered in what resembled black feathers. The small, round, dark eyes, constraining a rampant brightness as it regarded us.
A long, camel-coloured robe with a rolled collar that wrapped around its throat also concealed the rest of the body. My imagination, rightly or wrongly, supplied furled wings and splayed, birdlike feet beneath. The creature must have hands, but somehow I couldn’t envision them. There was no apparent way to discern gender.
“We’re fine, thank you,” I finally breathed.
“You may speak my name as Fha,” the hologram said. “And how are you called?”
“Captain Luta Paixon,” I said. “These are my crewmates, Commander Blue and Engineer Feron. How can you—why can we understand you so well?”
“We have not yet had many dealings with the inhabitants of the linked systems you call Nearspace,” it said, “and those we have had were a long time past. But we still retain a database of language. We welcome you here, although the circumstances are unfortunate.”
Not many dealings?
I thought, but didn’t say. I nodded. “We apologize for entering this system without invitation or warning. We were stranded—”
The holographic crow nodded. “Our vessel had advised us of your proximity to the wormhole. We apologize for the delay in communicating with you when you arrived in this system. There was some debate over whether contact would be in your best interests or not.”
“Well, you’ve certainly made contact now,” Viss muttered.
“Yes, the incursion of the
I glanced at Viss and Yuskeya, who both shrugged minutely. “I’m sorry, I didn’t understand what you said. The what?”
It cocked its head at me in a very birdlike manner. “You call them
Chron
, I believe.”
I thought fast. “We’re anxious to know anything you can tell us about that species. They attacked Nearspace a long time ago—”
“We know,” it said, beak bobbing. “We stopped them.”
The calm statement almost stopped my breathing. I heard Viss or Yuskeya—possibly both of them—gasp behind me. These aliens were responsible for the abrupt end of the Chron War so many years ago?
“Then,” I finally stammered, “I suppose I should thank you. By all accounts, we were losing that war when the Chron disappeared.”
“You are most welcome,” the crow-like being said. “If it would be of interest to you, I can make available to you our database of information on that species.”
“That would be wonderful,” I told the alien, thinking of Cerevare’s face when she found out about the offer.
“I should explain,” the alien said, “that it is merely the restrictions of biology which prevent me from speaking with you in person. Our atmospheric requirements are too different to permit a physical conversation. I will convert the data into a form usable by you and have it delivered to your ship.”
“Can you help us return to Nearspace?” I hadn’t meant to ask it so bluntly, but all other considerations aside, it was the one thing I had to know as quickly as possible.
It hesitated. “I hope so. The circumstances are . . . unsettled at the moment. Would it be agreeable for you to remain here for a period of time?”
“There are other, urgent matters I would like to discuss with you,” I said, thinking of the dark-shrouded
Stillwell.
“And reasons why we must return to Nearspace as soon as possible. We can stay for only a short time.”
The alien nodded. “I will gather the data, and we will assess the situation. May I appear in this form in your vessel if need be?”
“Certainly.”
“Then I will return soon. As you say,
gis la revido
, Captain.” It inclined its head, and I had an instant to realize that it did not have glossy feathers, but a gelatinous-looking skin, almost like that of the station. And then the hologram was gone.
Viss, Yuskeya, and I regarded one another. “Suddenly I don’t feel so much like exploring,” Viss said.
I nodded. “Let’s see what the others make of this.” I knew they’d been able to see and hear over the suit cams and mics, but no-one on the bridge had said a word over the comm.
So we left the long, black bay and headed for the bridge of the
Tane Ikai
, and when I walked into it a few minutes later I thought that it had never been so comfortingly familiar.
“
SO, CAPTAIN, DO
we trust these crows? And how the hell do they know Esper?” Rei seemed her irrepressible self when we entered the bridge, although I noticed that Gerazan wasn’t sitting next to her as he usually did. He’d taken the chair at the auxiliary engineering console.
So Rei had the same first impression of their appearance. “I’m inclined to trust them for now, but let’s not call them ‘crows’. I don’t want to offend them.”
“How about ‘Corvids’?” asked Viss. “The genus is
Corvus
and there are numerous species, but generally the crows and their cousins—ravens, jackdaws—they’re known as Corvids.”
The things that man knew. Always surprising me.
“Corvids it is, then, for now,” I said. “Unless and until they correct us or tell us what they call themselves. As to how they know Esper . . . I hope that’s one of the things they’ll explain to us later.” I paused, then continued. “But yes, I think I do trust them. It was only a hologram, I know, but I didn’t get any kind of bad feeling from it. And if they really did stop the Chron—”
“We have only their word for that,” Hirin reminded me. “For any of it, really.”
“I know but—Viss, Yuskeya? You were out there. What do you think?”
Their replies were forestalled by the quiet eruption through one of the starwise walls of a thin black tentacle. It deposited a datachip on the nearest board and disappeared through the hull wall, making only the slightest sucking noise. It left no trace or indication of its passing.
“Whoa,” Baden said.
Nobody else said a word.
“I suppose,” I said finally, “this is the datachip our hologram host, Fha, offered to share with us. About the Chron.” I walked over and picked it up. It replicated a regular datachip, although the surface held an odd sheen, as if it was wet, but it wasn’t. “Cerevare, I guess this is for you.”