The Terran Representative (6 page)

Mars loomed large in the view screens of the shuttle. It didn’t seem quite real that I was coming back to the Sol System. Since being abducted by the Vantagax I hadn’t seriously thought I’d be coming back any time soon. I’d requested to go to Earth, but Baron had, with what I assumed was a gentle tone, denied my request. There wasn’t time.

“We’ve located the most recent excursion to be somewhere on Mars,” said Chare, the new member of our team. “We’re meeting a recon team on the surface.”

I’d found out on the
Omanix
that Chare was a male of Baron’s people; the P’you. He was half the size of Baron. Compared to her Chare looked like a child even though Wards told me Chare was ten years older. She also said it was an insult to assume Baron was a male because of her size. Their height and girth was a matter of pride amongst P’you women.

I shook my head and said “On the planet?”

Chare gave me a quizzical look. He cocked his head to the side a little. “Why did you think we took the shuttle?” he said.

My face turned red. I hadn’t really thought about it. The excitement of being back in the Sol System had overwhelmed my thought process and common sense. I cleared my throat and tried to calm my racing heart.

“How is on the planet possible?” said Wards.

Chare shrugged. Even though Mars had a thin atmosphere the shuttle jumped and bucked enough to make me glad to be harnessed into my seat. We watched the view screen in silence as the skeletal remains of Nova Komenco came into focus.

Red sand dunes piled up against the outer dome. Long forgotten machinery glittered in the sun. A gaping hole allowed unfiltered sunlight and radiation through the top of the dome. The sides were peppered with smaller holes and a multitude of cracks. Some of the taller buildings had toppled over, their debris littered throughout the streets. How the entire system of structures hadn’t collapsed into a pile of rubble was beyond me.

I let out a small sigh as the shuttle landed. There hadn’t been anyone on Mars that I’d been close to, but I had visited the planet. My family had come every couple of years when I was a child. Looking at the ruins felt like a childhood memory tarnished. The gravity of what had happened here started to weigh down on me, and it was difficult to not think about all of the misery that had visited this place.

The shuttle’s side door slid open and the three of us jumped out. Seven small figures stood outside an airlock in the dome. An emergency exit signed hung over it. Despite myself I gave a small laugh at its pointlessness.

The seven figures waved as one: The Hive. “Hello,” they said in unison.

Wards stepped forward. Since the death of Dell she’d been promoted. “Hello.”

The Hive turned to me. Their antennae pointed in my direction. “You’re a Terran,” they said.

I licked my lips, my mouth gone dry, and said, “Yes.”

“I’ve met your kind before,” The Hive said. “You’re…” They paused. Each one’s antennae made rapid movements, pointing in one direction then another as if sending messages between each member. “You’re not like the others.”

“The colonists on SpaciEm?” I said.

“Yes and no,” said The Hive. They turned as one and began heading into the ruins. Each one fanned out instead of the group walking in a single file or in a tight grouping. They moved as individuals, hopping over pieces of rubble or skirting chunks of structure, yet remained within a couple arms’ length of another. Their antennae continued to angle and point in different directions as they moved.

The three of us followed behind. Wards, with a gentle push, put me in the lead. She motioned for me to continue speaking.

“I appreciate your compatriot letting me know about what you found on SpaciEm,” said The Hive.

“We found your other members,” I said. “They were sacrificed on Nasee Four.”

The Hive moved through the emergency exit in a single file. They didn’t jostle or hesitate; they fell straight into line with practiced precision as they passed through the doorway.

“Yes,” said The Hive. “That is expected. Before I lost contact with…” They paused talking.

I reached forward and put my hand on the shoulder of the member in front of me and gave it a small squeeze meant to comfort. All seven reacted the same way in unison: reach up and pat my hand except the front six had nothing to pat.

“I’m not upset, but I appreciate the sentiment,” they said. “It’s difficult to verbally explain myself to someone not of me.”

We came out of the emergency exit tunnel and spilled into one of Nova Komenco’s streets. The Hive fanned out once more and continued in a specific direction without hesitation.

“I was called to SpaciEm,” said The Hive.

They glanced back and smirked at me. Before they had said anything my next question was going to be about why they were on the desert planet. I got the idea that they enjoyed playing with someone who wasn’t familiar with their psychic ability.

“The colonists contacted you?” I said.

“No,” said The Hive. Their mandibles clacked and antennae were going wild. “I don’t know how to describe it beyond something tapped me on the shoulder and gestured for me.”

“Something reached out to you?” said Chare.

“Yes,” said The Hive. “It reached across vast distances to find me and beckon.”

We walked in silence. I didn’t know what to say to keep the conversation flowing, so I looked at the ruins around me trying to pick out something I recognized. Everything was a shell of its former self though. The radiation had faded the colors and the windblown sand had pocked marked every smooth surface. Any organic matter had died as soon as the dome broke open and the atmosphere sucked out. The bones of the city didn’t have the fortune to be overgrown with lush foliage.

“Where are we going?” said Wards. She sounded impatient. It was the type of tone that would have been accompanied by a tapping finger if she sat at a desk.

“Not much farther,” said The Hive. They pointed to a small building. Its roof hadn’t caved in, but the windows were all broken. They’d probably been destroyed, like everything else, when the atmosphere left. It was difficult to imagine looters had thrown rocks through them.

We ducked through the front door. The inside had a fine layer of dust on it. I was amazed how intact everything was. The Hive stopped and spread into a V-pattern. Wards, Chare and I crowded behind. The ten of us were nearly on top of each other.

“There,” said The Hive. They pointed at the floor about halfway across the room.

Footsteps, leading to and from a blank wall, disturbed the dust.

The Hive pointed towards the wall and said, “That is where I found the most recent heavy particles.”

Wards pushed past us and walked over to the wall. She ran her fingers over it and leaned in so close that her helmet almost touched the wall. With a grunt she drew her arm back and punched through the wall. It offered no resistance. She ended up shoulder deep in the material.

Chare let out a small chuckle that sounded like heavy machinery rumbling. Wards glared at him and pulled her arm out, shaking the bits of material that stuck to her exosuit. The Hive didn’t appear to be phased and continued to stand in their V-formation although their antennae were all pointed at the wall. My mouth hung open. I didn’t know why she’d smashed through the wall.

“Just wanted to check something,” Wards said. She dusted her hands off and took a step back. “There’s no machinery in the wall.”

“So it’s a wall?” I said still not quite getting why she hadn’t scanned the wall. The first thing that came to mind was frustration. I could understand that happening.

She nodded and tapped her visor while looking at the wall. “Everywhere else we’ve detected dimensional heavy particles have been outside a planet’s gravity well,” Wards said.

“Indicating a ship entering and leaving,” said Chare.

“Correct,” said Wards. She motioned to the wall. “This is like a doorway.”

“Indicating a person entering and leaving?” I ventured.

Wards nodded. “I thought that when we were told the most recent activity was on the planet it would be somewhere away from a city like a ship landing on the surface.”

“That’d make sense,” said Chare. “You could have a large ship show up close to ground, destroy a city and leave through another dimensional rip without having to deal with the well.”

“It’d be almost untraceable if you didn’t know specifically what to look for,” said Wards. “But this,” she said, motioning at the wall again. “This makes no sense. Why send people through?”

“To escape,” said The Hive.

We turned to look at them. “How do you know?” I said.

“When I was beckoned it was to help find someone,” they said. “Before I lost pieces of myself I was shown a small group of Terrans who had arrived on Mars. At the time I didn’t recognize this place, but previous to their escape they’d been on SpaciEm. I was there to figure out who contacted me.”

“Were they the group on Nasee Four?” said Wards.

“I don’t know who those ones were,” said The Hive, “but I was overwhelmed at SpaciEm. Whoever beckoned me laid a trap. That’s why I lost myself. My connection was cut.”

Chare shrugged. Even though he was half the size of Baron his bulk still overwhelmed the rest of us in the small room. “Doesn’t really matter why or where they escaped. We’re here to figure out the half-life of these particles and compare them to rest. Try to figure out a timeline, some kind of pattern,” he said.

Wards nodded and said, “Right. We don’t have time to speculate on deserters.”

“But what if they could help us?” I said as Wards began taking samples of the wall. “What if they could explain the reasoning behind what is going on?”

“Doesn’t matter,” said Wards. She kneeled down and took a bit of dust from one of the footprints. “With minimal resources we’re already trying to chase down one group. We don’t have the time to chase down another. If nothing else pans out maybe we go after them.”

I looked to Chare. He stared at Wards and didn’t look at me. I wasn’t going to get much help from him.

“I can help,” said The Hive.

“You’d go searching for them?” I said. They’d know what they looked like. The Hive had a psychic ability. Maybe there was some kind of connection forged when they were shown them.

“No,” they said. “I can help with the reasoning of what is happening.”

Wards stood and said, “How?”

“While I was being summoned there were quick flashes of something else,” said The Hive. They turned to face me. “I saw cryo-chambers with sleeping humans.”

My heart jumped and lodged in my throat. I tried to keep calm and not appear too eager but my whole body tingled with the possibilities. Wards probably wouldn’t have held it against me, and The Hive didn’t really seem to have much in the way of emotions, but who knows what Chare would have done. “There are others on Earth?” I said trying to keep my voice level.

The Hive shook their heads. “No.”

My heart sank as fast as it leapt.

“We found them on Arterzen,” said The Hive. “Five cryo-tubes all filled. All alive.”

I couldn’t place if I’d heard that name before.

“That wasn’t one of the colonial settling targets,” said Wards. I nodded my thanks for the information.

“They were placed there sometime after the Terran colonial fleet left their system,” said The Hive. “We detected trace amounts of the dimensional heavy particle. They were there for a while.”

“What’d they say?” I said. Despite my attempts at self-control my words came out in a tumble, stumbling over one another as they left my mouth.

“Nothing,” said The Hive. They said it with a definitive matter of factness. “They’re still in the cryo-chambers.”

“Why?”

“Taking them out would kill them, and we’ve tried to speak with them,” they said. “Their brain patterns are different.” The Hive gestured to me. “Different from yours and different from the other Terrans. We can’t seem to break through while they’re asleep.”

“So what good are they?” said Chare. “If we can’t speak with them it seems kind of useless to keep them around.”

“We can’t speak with them,” said The Hive, “but another Terran could.” They gestured towards me. “The chambers have hookups in which another Terran can speak with those who are sleeping without removing the inhabitants from stasis.”

“And I could use it?” I said. I’d never dealt with stasis before I was put in a cryo-chamber. My knowledge on the subject outside my specific situation was limited to gossip about people who wanted to stay young.

The Hive nodded in unison. “Yes. We can take you to our facility.”

I looked to Wards. She shrugged and said, “Sounds like a plan. I’m not going to know anything about these particles until we get them back to a lab.”

My desire to do some sightseeing in the Sol System had evaporated. “Well,” I said, clapping my hands together and turning to leave the small building. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

I took a deep breath and looked at the five cryo-chambers in front of me. Their design was different from the one that I had slept in. Through a small viewing portal one could see inside to the occupants, who looked to be in peaceful slumber, but if you watched them long enough they never moved. There were no mouth smacks or twitching nose or fluttering of eyelids. If you were unaware you’d think they were dead.

“Why can’t we wake them?” I said.

“The chambers they’re in aren’t designed for keeping someone in cryo for extended periods of time,” said The Hive. “The chamber, in order to keep them alive, has been systematically shutting down all non-vital bodily functions. If they were to be taken out they’d die almost at once. The chambers are the only thing keeping them alive.”

I looked down at The Hive member. It wasn’t one that had been on Mars, but it spoke of the actions we’d taken on the planet as if it’d been there. I had to keep reminding myself that the individual hadn’t been with me but the mind had.

“So their brains are alive?” I said. The Hive nodded. “And only I can speak with them?”

The Hive nodded again and motioned for me to sit in a chair next to one of the cryo-chambers. After I settled into the chair another member put a small skullcap on my head. I looked over my shoulder and saw bundles of wires leading from the cap to the chambers.

“Why do I have to do it?” I said. The skullcap and the wires worried me. I wasn’t altogether sure my brain wouldn’t be fried because of some kind of miscalculation.

“I’ve checked all the circuits,” said The Hive. “If it doesn’t work your mind will still be intact.”

“But you still haven’t explained –“

“The cryo-chambers have what is best described as a translator, so that one can speak with the chamber inhabitants,” said The Hive member behind me. It fiddled with something on its computer board. “The translator wouldn’t work for me. It couldn’t figure out my brain makeup.”

The skullcap started to feel warm on my scalp. My head started to tingle. My brain, as best as I could describe, felt like it received a massage. “Why didn’t you try it with someone else then?” I said.

“I didn’t want to reach out to just anyone,” said The Hive. “I was weighing my options, but you showed up, so I decided you’d be the best fit.”

“So it could have worked with -” I started to say, but the room tilted hard to the left then everyone in it melted away. I gripped my chair’s armrests as tight as I could but they disappeared along with the room as well.

The world went black then faded back into view with a soft, white glow. I continued to sit in a chair, but the place I sat in had no depth. There were no walls or ceiling or floor. It continued on as far as I could see. There was no texture. It just was.

“Hello?” I said. My voice came out weak and wavery. I repeated my question a bit louder. Wherever I was the atmosphere seemed to suck up noise.

Five people appeared in front of me: three men and two women of varying ethnicities. I recognized them as the sleeping colonists. They sat in their own chairs and looked to be dressed in the same clothes they wore in the cyro-chamber: a jumpsuit. All five sat with their backs straight, hands folded in their lap and feet flat on the floor.

“Hello,” said one of the women. She had black hair bunched together in ponytail. “Have you come to wake us?”

“Uh,” I stammered for a bit. “No.”

“Then we are to remain,” said one of the men. His mustache bristled and moved like a walrus when he spoke.

“No,” I said. “Well, yes. I can’t wake you because if you were to be taken out of the cryo-chamber you’d die.” I hoped they didn’t have any in depth questions because I’d have no answer.

“Oh,” said the other woman.

“Why are you in the cryo-chambers?” I said.

“Admiral Kaur left us behind,” said the woman with the ponytail. “At a designated time we were to awaken and begin an independent search.”

“A search for what?” I said.

“A prison,” said one of the men. His voice was deep and he drew his words out.

“What prison? I thought Kaur was going to colonize out of system worlds,” I said.

“We were,” said the other woman. “But to do so we needed to keep Kaur’s end of the bargain.”

“Admiral Kaur had struck a deal with an entity that would help us travel faster than the speed of light,” said walrus mustache. “It contacted her during the testing phase. If it allowed us free passage through its domain we had to help it find one of its compatriots imprisoned in our dimension.”

I rubbed my temples. They sounded nuts. So far they weren’t anything like the other colonists, but they were still nuts.

“So why didn’t it just find its friend?” I said.

“It needed a connection to our dimension,” said the deep voiced man. “It said that it couldn’t search without something to allow it into our dimension. Its compatriot had been ripped from their realm into ours. By sending items into its dimension, Kaur allowed it to speak with her.”

“She then became its vessel,” said the woman with the ponytail. “Through her it directed our search.”

“So what about Augustine?” I said. “Do you know what happened on Masirah?” My voice started to rise. “You weren’t searching. There was wholesale slaughter going on.”

The five looked from one to another then back to me. The woman with the ponytail said, “Executions needed to happen. There were those who were mutinous, who wanted to go back on our deal.”

My mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water. “Executions for mutiny?” I said. “That wasn’t executions. That was sacrifice. How do you explain that abominable bone structure?” I screamed. The thought of it made me want to cross this space and throttle all of them. If that didn’t work I’d wake up and throttle them in their chambers.

“At Augustine we left a marker for future colonists,” said the man with the mustache. “Kaur believed that when we returned we’d take it down. Until we did so the additional colonists would come to Masirah and help us look for the imprisoned one.”

“Our debt must be repaid,” said the woman with the ponytail.

My hands balled into fists. My teeth ground together. If I’d known how I would have left them right then and there.

“Something went wrong,” said the final man. His voice was quiet and timid. It sounded like he was hesitant to speak. The other four shot him dirty looks but said nothing.

“What went wrong?” I said.

“Admiral Kaur,” said the man. “She went wrong. She lost her mind.” He gestured to the other four. “And we went along with it.”

I sensed the animosity between the four and the final man. He kept his head down and didn’t look at them. He took a big breath, started to speak then shook his head.

“Do you know about the sacrifices?” I said.

He squeezed his eyes closed and scrunched up his face. Tears started to form at the corners of his eyes.

“What about the symbols?” I said. I tried to keep my voice, calm, even, like I was trying to coax a confession out of a child. “I saw colonists with them carved into their skin.”

“It was Kaur,” said the man. His voice registered barely above a whisper. “At first we traveled to possible colonial sites, but whenever we were out of our dimension there was always something in the back of your mind.” The man sucked in a breath and continued speaking with a quavering voice. “It gnawed at you. Its words, those symbols, would always be wavering at the edge of your vision, like whispered words you just couldn’t make out.”

“He talks nonsense,” said the man with the mustache. “He’s delusional.”

“He attacked a fellow colonist,” said the woman with the ponytail.

He patted his chest. “She attacked me,” said the man. His words were cut with sobs. “People started speaking in a language we couldn’t understand. They started carving those symbols into themselves. They became violent. Some of us petitioned Kaur to stop on the next possible colonial site. Make that our home.”

“Mutiny,” said the deep voiced man. He pointed at the other man, but faced me. “This is why we had to have the executions. They wanted us to renege on our obligations.”

“And Kaur executed people?” I said, blocking out the other four and focusing on the lone man confessing.

“Yes,” said the man. “She drew it out.” He bit his lip hard enough that if it was in the real world I was sure it’d start bleeding. “She made a spectacle of it. She said it was demanded of her.”

“Why did Kaur leave you behind then?” I said.

The man with the mustache sat up straighter and puffed out his chest. “We were to be a separate search party. At a designated time we were to be awoken.”

I shook my head. “That doesn’t make any sense. Why not just drop you off? Why put you in a cryo-chamber?”

“I was to be a sacrifice,” said the confessing man. He wrapped his arms around himself. “Rather than searching for new races we were to be awoken when a new space faring race found us. When that happened I would be sacrificed. It would pinpoint where the other four were. The new race would then be brought into the fold.” Snot ran down his face and tears rolled off his cheeks.

“You were to be sacrificed because you were part of the ‘mutiny’?” I said.

He nodded.

“Why destroy the Sol System though?” I said. “Why not take them in?”

“We did,” said the man. He spoke in halting tones, stopping mid-sentence at times to wipe his nose or clear his eyes. “Those who didn’t join us were destroyed. Kaur laid waste to the system in order to quash any hopes of returning. There would be nothing to return to.”

“Good thing no one found you,” I said, sneering to the other four. Their faces didn’t hide the hostility they harbored. “Are all the potential colony sites possible prisons?”

The man nodded and said, “Kaur knew about them ahead of time. The entity labeled them for her. It was never about humanity colonizing other star systems.”

I looked at the five of them. If I wasn’t afraid that Kaur could somehow find them I would have recommended pulling the plug. Put the confessing man out of his misery and punish the other four. It wouldn’t be fair if they got out of the chambers alive.

“I want to leave,” I said. The Hive hadn’t told me how to get out of here. Most likely they didn’t know, but the world started to fade. The last thing I saw was the four colonists’ glares.

The Hive’s facility faded back into view. Wards and Chare stood at my feet. A member of The Hive removed the skull cap. My jaw felt tight, and I had a headache.

“They’re going to the colonial sites,” I said. “Kaur’s looking from some imprisoned entity.”

“We know,” said Wards. She nodded to a speaker hanging above my head. “We heard everything you heard.”

I tried to push myself out of the chair, but my arms felt weak and jelly-like. Chare grabbed my hand and hefted me into a standing position. My legs wobbled, but I held myself upright.

“Be careful,” said The Hive. “You expended a lot of energy.”

My stomach grumbled. A big meal didn’t sound like the worst thing in the world right now.

“So,” I said, “looks like we need to decide where to head next.”