Sidespace (6 page)

He tried to focus on it, to direct his consciousness toward the drifting, troubled song wafting through the air.

With each breath of a planet, his perception gradually separated from the being he now knew as All.

Blinking, disoriented. His body felt unfamiliar. Tight and confining.
Tiny.

He forced air into his lungs. “Wow.”

Alex’s faceplate dropped to his. “Goddammit, Caleb. You scared me.”

The ivy unwound from his hand, leaving a feeling of
absence
behind. Ground pressed into his back; had he been standing before?

Alex hovered above him, and he reached for her. “Sorry. I’m fine.”

Such a thin word, it couldn’t begin to reveal what he was.

He reluctantly let loose of the last vestiges of All’s consciousness. “How long was I…gone?”

Her nose scrunched up, a clear sign of tumultuous emotions battling it out in her head. “Thirty, forty seconds. You just collapsed to the ground. I was about to tear that vine off of you, damn the consequences.”

“No need.” He sat up and reached for the helmet control.

Her hand leapt to his arm to stop him. “What are you doing?”

He collapsed the helmet and lifted the breather mask off, then drew in a long breath of air.

Scents of eucalyptus and honeysuckle. Warm, with a suggestion of moisture. Spores of pollination, here and there.

Maybe not quite every vestige. “It’s safe to breathe.”

“No, the samples were too high in nitrogen.”

“All’s made the air in this area safe for us.”

She eased down to a sitting position beside him. “ ‘All?’ ”

“The planet’s life form. It’s not a hive mind—or at least it doesn’t think of itself that way. It’s a single entity.”

“So you…talked to it.” Her voice bled incredulity.

“More like it talked to me. Or let me inside, or…I don’t know if I can explain it.” Even now his head was drowning in sensory overload. What had he seen? They weren’t words or images—they were experiences. For reasons he could not fathom, the life form had chosen to immerse him in itself. Lasting only seconds, the sojourn had seemed endless.

“Go ahead, take your helmet and breather mask off.”

She complied, taking small, hesitant breaths at first. “Hmm. It smells like….”

“Honeysuckle. Also an undercurrent of eucalyptus and…thyme, I think.”

A corner of her mouth twitched. “Yes.” She leaned back to rest on her hands, then winced and sat up, cradling her right arm against her chest.

He reached for her in concern—

Of course.

He leapt to his feet and offered her a hand. “Take your glove off—no, you’ll need to take your whole suit off.”

“What? Why should I take off my suit? I’m not sure I want to commune with the local. My head hurts enough as it is.”

Because of the infection. It would do that.
“Trust me.”

“You know I do.” She swallowed heavily and stood. “Taking off the suit.”

While she discarded her outer layer, leaving her in a sports tank and leggings, he ran a palm along the trunk of the nearest tree. It gave and flexed in answer to his contact. Familiar and
welcoming
.

“What now?”

He turned back to her, and his chest seized up in cold terror at what he saw.

Streaks of angry, swollen crimson extended out from the medwrap covering her forearm to climb up her upper arm like trespassing snakes. Two of the streaks had made it to the curve of her neck, sending tendrils disappearing into her hairline. In the path they created purplish-black blood bruises followed. “Jesus, Alex….”

“What?” She looked down and jerked as if stung. “Fuck. Fuck, fuck,
fuck.
”

Her gaze met his as he closed the distance between them. “Okay, you’ve convinced me—we need to go home. Caleb, I’m officially scared. I—”

“It’s going to be all right. I promise. Come with me.”

Confusion and fear darkened her expression, but she didn’t protest as he led her to the creek. He urged her to her knees, crouched beside her, and tried to coax her into a reclined position.

“I don’t understand. We need to go back and—”

“Shhh.
Trust
me.”

She watched him with panic-filled eyes as he unwound the medwrap and tossed it aside. The injury beneath it nearly sent him into the same panic she was fighting, but he willed himself calm.

This was going to work.

He carefully moved her arm away from her body and submerged it in the water.

“Ahhh!” Her body convulsed in a spasm of pain, but he held her arm firmly until the spasm subsided. She sucked in air through gritted teeth. “Not…finding this…funny.”

He glanced up at her wearing a smirk—a forced one, but she needed the reassurance—then quickly refocused on her submerged arm. The water fizzed and hissed around the wound, obscuring his view of it as the water took on a brownish tint.

Alex exhaled audibly, and the tension in her body relaxed slightly. Her lips curled upward. “Not so bad now.”

“Good. Let’s—” He jumped at movement behind him. He looked back to see a vine from one of the nearby trees snaking over his shoulder. It advanced beyond him to where Alex’s arm met the water and nudged at it.

Her eyes were wide and uncertain as he lifted her arm out of the water. The glimpse he caught of the wound suggested the swelling had receded and much of the pus had been washed away, but before he could discern anything else the ivy completely enveloped her arm, wrapping it in a cocoon.

She fidgeted as a raspy giggle escaped her throat. “Tickles.”

He placed a hand on her chest. “Don’t pull away.”

“I’m
not
….” Her boots
tap-tapped
against his thigh in redirected energy, and they both stared in fascination as the leaves undulated along her arm in a slow, pulsing rhythm.

Almost two minutes had passed when the vine finally unfurled and retreated—to expose smooth, unbroken and unmarred skin.

“Oh my…I can’t believe….” She ran her other hand over the skin which minutes earlier had been torn and inflamed. “What did it
do
to me?”

He scooted up to recline on one elbow beside her, flooded with relief. “Kind of self-evident, isn’t it? It healed you.” He studied her face, her demeanor. “Do you feel healed?”

She chewed on her lower lip and shrugged, but he saw his relief mirrored in her eyes and tugging at the corners of her mouth. “I think I do.” She tentatively flexed her arm. “It doesn’t hurt anymore. Feels tingly. Like the nerves are being stimulated or something. But it’s not a bad tingly.”

With a wild cackle she collapsed onto her back, all the fear and trepidation washing away in a surge of euphoria. “So in the space of two days I’ve been poisoned by an alien and healed by an alien.” Realization dawned in her expression. “Was it because they’re the same? Is that why it worked?”

“More or less. I think both planets support the same type of intelligence, they simply evolved in different ways. When I was, we were…interacting, it said, or conveyed, the concept that it ‘never died.’ Instead it ‘replaced, renewed, replenished.’ And it occurred to me—if it was biologically similar to the one that hurt you and it was capable of replenishing itself, perhaps it could do the same for you—for the alien poison inside you.”

“Well.” She sat up, purpose and energy again animating her movements. “I’ll take it. I’ll definitely, unequivocally take it. Since they—it—doesn’t mind our company, shall we explore some more?”

He huffed a laugh, marveling at her resiliency, then stood to follow her up the bank.

But not before he paused to place a palm on the tree he had interacted with and offer a
‘thank you
.’

He swore he heard a pleased murmur in response.

Alex could be accused of acting giddy as they boarded the
Siyane
. Hell, he could be accused of a little giddiness himself.

An overdose of happiness at her wound being healed—at her escaping a life-threatening infection—contributed a great deal to his elation, to be sure. More than that, however, he found his encounter with the planet’s consciousness had left him with an uncommon…lightness of being.

The alien mind emanated a peace, a quiet joy, such as he’d never experienced in his own life. Even in his happiest moments, of which there had been many these last months, his mind continued to spin its persistent calculations and machinations, always on the lookout for danger on the horizon. But right now the event had him on such an emotional high, he could no longer fathom darkness.

“You are my hero.” Alex threw her arms around his neck once they reached the main cabin, grinning in as much elation as he felt.

He lifted her up in the air and spun her twice before setting her down. “I do try. You’re really okay?”

“Valkyrie, am I okay?”

‘You appear to be more than ‘okay.’ Not only have all traces of infection or unfamiliar microorganisms vanished from your body, the ministrations of the resident life form repaired minor degradations in your blood vessels and several organs, as well as healed the muscular damage from your crash landing in engineering.’

“Fantastic….” Her voice was a sweet whisper on his lips.

Damn she tasted good, smelt good…like spiced cider warmed over an open campfire on an autumn night. His senses had been hyper-charged, and every touch, every perception seemed magnified a thousand-fold. He felt the beat of her pulse in the caress of her lips upon his skin. The scrape of the fingernail of her left index finger across the nape of his neck. The flutter of her lashes as she blinked and banished Valkyrie into the walls of the ship. The fractional rise in her body temperature in response to his hands on her.

‘Do you want to investigate other regions of the planet now?’

He scooped Alex up in his arms and headed for the stairs. “Later, Valkyrie.”

“What was it like?”

Floating on a serotonin high, amplified by his general state of delight with the universe and all it held, Caleb idly twirled a lock of her hair around his forefinger. “Hmm?”

She folded her hands on his stomach and propped her chin on them. “Mind-melding with a planet-sized intelligence—what was it
like
?”

“Oh, that. It was…” he searched for how he might possibly put the encounter into words “…the obvious comparison would be to a full-sensory
illusoire
, but it doesn’t begin to compare. This being experiences life through every cell of flora on the planet—every root and leaf, every centimeter of bark, every stamen and petal—and it does so all at once. I perceived it as if I were doing the same, though I’m at a loss for how to describe it. We simply don’t have the language for this mode of consciousness.”

“So it was wonderful, then.”

“Yes. It was wonderful.” Her body relaxed against his, but her lips quirked about in independent agitation.

“What?”

“I was just pondering why it chose you and not me.”

He laughed and tugged her up his chest, closer. “You’re jealous!”

“Maybe a little….”

“Why? You already have more than one consciousness in your head.”

“It’s not the same. Valkyrie and I are separate, distinct personalities.”

He brushed wayward strands of hair out of her eyes. “I hope so.”

That earned a downward turn of the corners of her mouth and a hint of wariness in her tone. “What does that mean?”

“It means I like Valkyrie just fine, but I fell in love with you.”

She stared at him for a beat then dropped her cheek to his chest. “Do you think she’s changing me?” Her voice was barely audible. Theoretically Valkyrie could hear her, but although he’d made a dig about it the day before, the truth was the Artificial had thus far given them complete privacy whenever it was appropriate.

He stroked her hair softly, smiling at the dampness along her hairline, at how the locks remained sweat-soaked from desire and the passion it had evoked. He wanted to be honest with her, but his feelings on the matter were still evolving and, frankly, something of a mess. But he had married her with full knowledge that she came with a few idiosyncrasies, only one of which was an AI sharing space in her head.